The Bible (a discussion)

@Romeo Fabulini,

Quote:

but even atheists admit it's full of jarring bits

Indeed. God struck dead a chap who touched the Ark of the Covenant and he had reached out to save it falling to the ground when a mule stumbled.

That's real mean imo.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Yet now you say that parts of the Dead Sea scrolls were written on papyri. So how do you account for those papyri surviving, after having attempted to claim that there are no copies of the so-called gospels which survive which are any earlier than the early 4th century, because papyri are perishable?

It's a fact, not an assertion, that some of the dead sea scrolls are on papyrus. They survive the outrage of time, some barely i.e. in bad shape, because they were somewhat protected from sunlight and temperature / humidity variations by being put in sealed jars and hidden in caves.

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@spendius,

God is known to be over-reacting at times.

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@Olivier5,

This is just another example of your muddled thinking and your propensity to argue for argument's sake, and not because you know what you're talking about. From Wikipedia:

Quote:

The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012-2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast. These documents date from ca. 2560-2550 BCE (end of the reign of Khufu).

Papyri surviving from centuries before your boy Jesus was alleged to have been born. That kind of shoots your claim about one set of papyri surviving because of the conditions in the caves where they were found, but which didn't apply to any papyri on which the so-called gospels were written. That's quite apart from the fact that you haven't established that the earliest copies of the so-called gospels were written on papyri, Mr. Scientific Culture.

You don't have a rhetorical leg to stand on, and you're just continuing your obsession for arguing simply for argument's sake. You can do that without my help. See ya 'round, clown.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

Papyri surviving from centuries before your boy Jesus was alleged to have been born. That kind of shoots your claim about one set of papyri surviving because of the conditions in the caves where they were found, but which didn't apply to any papyri on which the so-called gospels were written.

Many fragments survived, see below. But any piece of papyrus that survived through the ages have been in sealed in protective material. Papyrus is perishable.

Quote:

That's quite apart from the fact that you haven't established that the earliest copies of the so-called gospels were written on papyri, Mr. Scientific Culture.

Here you go:

Quote:

List of New Testament papyri

A New Testament papyrus is a copy of a portion of the New Testament made onpapyrus. To date, over one hundred and twenty such papyri are known. In general, they are considered the earliest witnesses to the original text of the New Testament.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

There are fragments dated 250 AD in that list. It seems the medium of choice for early church writers was first papyrus, and that they moved to parchment later.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Even older than 250 AD:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52

he Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St. John's fragment and with an accession reference of Papyrus Rylands Greek 457, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with theRylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38.[1] Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library'sDeansgate building.

Although Rylands 52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonicalNew Testament text,[2] the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The style of the script is Hadrianic,[3] which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely onpaleographic evidence allows a much wider range, potentially extending from before 100 CE past 150 CE.[4]

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See, there you are, muddled as always. You are now contradicting your earlier claim about copies of the so-called gospels not surviving because papyri are perishable. This is a glaring example of why it's not worthwhile to talk to you.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

If, however, you want to think the Bible has the ring of truth about it...go for it.

The truth of The Bible, whatever Romeo thinks it is, is not a truth Apisa can handle. And Apisa, at his age, ought to know better than to think questioning Romeo's truth is the same as questioning the truth of The Bible. That is a cissy's conceit.

In fact it is a compliment to Romeo that Apisa thinks that Romeo has it in his power to discredit The Bible. He just wants it that way very badly. It saves him from confronting the actual truth of the Bible.

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@Setanta,

Previously we were talking of extent copies of entire books/gospels, or at least that's how I interpreted YOUR claim that no version of the gospels exist from before the 4th century. Which is indeed the case with the codex sinaiticus dated 4th century... But digging into it (thanks to your relentless questioning) I "discovered" that many FRAGMENTS have survived, some from as far back as the second century... Which proves my point that the gospels were originally written on perishable papyrus, but WRITTEN, as far back as the mid 2nd century.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

You just don't get it, do you. I said that there were no extant copies of the accepted canon dating any earlier than the 4th century. You immediately said that that's because paper is perishable, which you subsequently amended to papyrus. So i pointed out that you had provided no evidence that the canonical gospels had been written on papyrus. Big sucker that you are, you walked right into it and provided evidence which contradicts your earliest claim. Really, you are so lame you have no business in a debate. That is because you just want to argue, and you just want to be able to claim that you've won. Well, you didn't "win." If you did "win," what would you get?

Bob, what do we have for our winning contestant today?

Johnny, it's a BRAND NEW CAR ! ! !

Really . . . you crack me up. You're high-larious.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

Big sucker that you are, you walked right into it and provided evidence which contradicts your earliest claim.

what earlier claim? That papyrus is perishable? There's no contradiction. Only a few fragments survived because the stuff is perishable.

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@Wilso,

Wilso wrote:

Quote:
you can lead a human to knowledge, but you can't make him think

You provide ample evidence of that...

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@Olivier5,

Found one textual difference between the dead sea scolls and the masoretic text of Isaiah:

Isa 53:11, in reference to the servant (considered by christians as a prophecy about Jesus), the MT has: “He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many. For he shall bear their iniquities.”

The Great Isaiah Scroll has: “Out of the travail of his soul he will see light.” (word "light" not in masoretic text)

Quite minor IMO... one word among thousands.... Clearly, the assumption that copists must have got it wrong often, is not supported by facts. Copists could work very accurately...

From the Jewish Virtual Library:

Quote:

The biblical manuscripts include what are probably the earliest copies of these texts to have come down to us. Most of the books of the Bible are represented in the collection. Some books are extant in large number of copies; others are represented only fragmentarily on mere scraps of parchment. The biblical texts display considerable similarity to the standard Masoretic (received) text. This, however, is not always the rule, and many texts diverge from the Masoretic. For example, some of the texts of Samuel from Cave 4 follow the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible translated in the third to second centuries B.C.E. Indeed. Qumran has yielded copies of the Septuagint in Greek.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/deadsea.html

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Quote:

Frank Apisa said: They are not puzzling parts, Romeo...they are contradictions. If, however, you want to think the Bible has the ring of truth about it...go for it.

Just as in most court cases, witness testimony varies because each one is telling how he saw it from his point of view.
But the judge doesn't say "We'll keep all the witnesses who agree with each other and throw out the rest!"
Same with the Bible, nobody has ever said over the centuries "Let's throw out all the jarring bits to make it look good", that's why we can trust the Bible because its come down to us over the centuries unedited.. Smile

1 Reply

Quote:

Walter Hinteler said:@RF- But perhaps you can illuminate my lack of historical knowledge - especially, if are a member of that SS unit

They're very keen on foreign travel to Holland, Belgium, France, North Africa, Russia etc.. Wink

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Quote:

Wilso said: We've seen he [RF] has the correct [SS] mentality.

It was you and your Aussie mates who invaded Oz and took it off the Abos, not me.. Smile

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@farmerman,

Setanta wrote:

More to the point, no copies of the so-called gospels exist which are any earlier than the early 4th century. Three centuries sure is a lot of time to edit the texts.

farmerman wrote:

on point. Several of the historicity guys had taken apart the gospels for archaic terms and relative periods of thise terms and the "long AD" hypothesis seems to hold up .

This certainly is an understandable argument coming from those who may not be disposed to belief.
I would concur, except:
Any God powerful enough to inspire the scriptures would certainly have power sufficient to protect their integrity. Indeed, as has been pointed out by spendi and Olivier, the textual differences between manuscripts in various 'families' are minor. Whatever may be said about the original writings, the copyists were scrupulously accurate.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Indeed. God struck dead a chap who touched the Ark of the Covenant and he had reached out to save it falling to the ground when a mule stumbled.

That's real mean imo.

If you understood God's purpose, you would know 2 things.
Here is #2: There will be a time in the future when Uzzah will be resurrected. (See John 5:28, 29) At that time, I expect he will react much like a boxer recovering from a KO. The intervening years will be as a night's sleep.

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@neologist,

Quote:

Any God powerful enough to inspire the scriptures would certainly have power sufficient to protect their integrity.

A god is not required for that. Faith is all it takes. People who believed that these books were divinely inspired and super-hyper-important for mankind were extra careful when copying them. Doesn't mean that no mistake was ever made of course, just that far less mistakes were made than some of the "facile atheists" around here seem to believe.

I am an atheist but I can understand that, perhaps because unlike many atheists here, I do not have contempt for faith.

1 Reply

@Romeo Fabulini,

I can't see why Apisa takes The Bible, or God, so seriously. He says it is to enable him to have fun but it can't be all that much fun unless it is because he gets a pleasure out of laughing at his fellow man. His own jokes.

He took up being "faithful" to one lady at about 42 which is an age when many men do the same on account of how convenient it is. As Saint Augustine advised.

Maybe it is being undecided whether he's a monkey or not. I can help him there. He is.

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The Bible (a discussion)

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