I think we are talking past one another to some extent, as your comments address the text once accepted as canon, and mine are really limited to that time from Christ’s life to the second or early third centuries when they became standardized into the form generally accepted by the church as inspired scripture.
No… a statement was made with the intenion of discrediting a sound post and that discrediting statement is just plain wrong.
Attmepting to claim fragments of papyri (the apparent early manuscripts you pretend exist that are not in fact manuscripts at all) are different is utterly absurd.
Just to highlight my utter suprise at the comment made, i shall quote another reference concerning the significance of Dead Sea scrolls
“The Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated that the Old Testament was accurately transmitted during this interval. In addition, they provide a wealth of information on the times leading up to, and during, the life of Christ.”
Minor differences in various texts we have is utterly irrelevant to the comment i made.
I said that the differences are barely 1% and of that number, not one changes any bible theology, doctrine, or internal history. All this other fluffin response to thatis nothing more than trying to distract and confuse others with less knowledge who are then easily tricked into thinking the only thing that matters is Christ whilst at tue same time, individuals are also saying only if it aligns with science.
If the o ly thing that truly matters to you is the gospel, then one would jever once hear science even mentioned. The fact is, theres a covertly hidden agenda and to be honest, it intends to manipulate and change biblical writings which do not align with its own theories.the difference here is, i have never once manipulated or twisted any bible writing…how can i when my stuff is cross referenced using mainstream bible concordances not produced by my own relgious denomination?
OK then. Just realize that no “ fragments of papri” exists until the second century.
Interestingly enough, one of the oldest known rolls of papyri dates to about 2900 BC. Its blank of course but hey, the absence of anything on it could mean Moses may very well have seen and or handled it, who knows? Hemaka isnt alive for anyone to ask for more information about the history of his blank roll of papyri.
It survived the flood?
1 Like
I was imprecise. No fragments of the gospels, which was the subject at hand.
To me “match” would mean nothing but accidental scribal errors due to the manual copying process. Once you get into the intentional scribal changes area then they don’t match. BTW, I used to believe the DSS didn’t show any changes from the later texts based on what a preacher, who I trusted, said. Imagine my shock when I found out that wasn’t correct.
Depends on what you define as consistency. For the Great Isaiah scroll which contains, if my memory is correct, 7,000 differences from the Masoretic and the multiple copies of Isaiah in the DSS don’t match each other.
So are the corrections in the DSS correct or are the Masoretic texts correct? Who gets to decide? You appear to be willing to just “hand wave” away the changes.
First, the technical definition of manuscript is any writing of any size, down to the credit card size scraps. The casual definition is a complete manuscript.
Second, if you have a very small scrap the writing can be identified as a given portion of a completed work. That portion can be compared to see what, if any, differences exist. What about this process do you consider absurd?
Saying “accurately transmitted” is a subjective judgement when Mill found more than 30,000 variations in the texts. Many of which are intentional changes by scribes and in some cases the scholars can’t agree on which of two different readings is the original and which is not.
The Isaiah scroll was found in the DSS. How can it be different from the DSS when it is part of the DSS?
As i have already stated in previous posts…the differences do not affect bible theology, doctrine, or history. Your claim there forms part of the Bart Erhman critique which fails to consider that these 1% of textual variations scholars have already been defended comprehensively against Erhmans critique.
The thing is that many of those variations you speak of are found among the different versions of Isaiah scrolls found at Qumran! So within a collection of writings found in the same place, the variations are there! its not as if there is some secret being hidden. I don’t really see what the issue is to be honest. These textual criticism arguments have already been addressed…comprehensively. Its a red herring.
The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) is one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran in 1947. It is the largest (734 cm) and best preserved of all the biblical scrolls, and the only one that is almost complete. The 54 columns contain all 66 chapters of the Hebrew version of the biblical Book of Isaiah. Dating from ca. 125 BCE, it is also one of the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some one thousand years older than the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible known to us before the scrolls’ discovery.
The version of the text is generally in agreement with the Masoretic or traditional version codified in medieval codices, such as the Aleppo Codex, but it contains many variant readings, alternative spellings, scribal errors, and corrections. Unlike most of the biblical scrolls from Qumran, it exhibits a very full orthography (spelling), revealing how Hebrew was pronounced in the Second Temple Period. Around twenty additional copies of the Book of Isaiah were also found at Qumran (one more copy was discovered further south at Wadi Muraba’at), as well as six pesharim (commentaries) based on the book; Isaiah is also frequently quoted in other scrolls (a literary and religious phenomenon also present in New Testament writings). The authoritative and scriptural status of the Book of Isaiah is consistent with the messianic beliefs of the community living at Qumran, since Isaiah is known for his prophecies of judgment and consolation, and his visions of the End of Days and the coming of the Kingdom of God. http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah
It is also important to remember, if a Christian chooses to believe the well known Bart Erhmans critique, that individual is following the views of a now “self confessed non believer”. Erhman is no longer a believer in God…he is basically an atheist. I don’t know why anyone here who is Christian would want to align with such a man on this particular topic just so they can support the notion that naturalism is right and the bible is wrong?
We should also highlight, Bart Erhman is a NEW TESTAMENT critique. He supports the historicity of Christ, however, he also puts forward the claim that the Christian Gospel is fake/false!
The recommendation given to me has always been, read multiple versions of bible translations in order to compare and seek consistency in order to determine the appropriate theology and doctrines. This is following the exact method that was used to preserve the Textus Receptus throughout the ages despite its lack of direct control by an editing authority. That method proved that among all these translations, we do have the original autographs. My understanding is that no single version is the original, but that what we have is a collation of the originals spread across translations. So straw plucking is a bad idea…one should always cross reference.
Finally, the significant thing is, the Great Isaiah scroll closely matches the Masoretic text…which was used as the basis for most modern bible Old Testaments. So i dont see the relevance of the so called textual variance issue here.
It is different from the Masoretic text.
The Great Isaiah scroll is dated to the second century BC which is hundreds of years after Isaiah. While the scroll is close to the MT, the other ancient texts in the DSS can diverge widely. This just shows that before the Masoretics came on the scene texts were considered fluid and were freely changed. And there were hundreds of years in which to make changes.
In addition to Bart “the boogie man” Ehrman there are many Christian scholars who agree. In fact I have been reading a book by Metzger and Ehrman.
We don’t have anything approaching the original autographs. For the NT, the best the scholars can do is establish the texts, to the best of their ability, as they existed in the 2nd century CE. And this entails a lot of supposition and second guessing.