Perham1, I didn't see your initial request for my definition. Sorry. I am no expert but the reliability test comes consists of several parts. Here is a nonconclusive list: Textual Transmission (copy quality), Internal consistency, External literary evidence (church Father writings other ancient histories), Archaeology, Analysis of differing accounts (if they exist), Determining if eyewitnesses wrote the text or the eyewitness accounts were used, and Date of earliest manuscript from date of authorship I am sure there are other things that textual critics look at but that is a good overview. And we absolutely have the data to determine if the NT was accurately copied or not. There are thousands of manuscripts available written from 2nd Century to the time of the printing press was invented to analyze. There is a mountain of data to go through. If there is a weakness to the reliability of the NT it is not the amount of data available. A bad book would actually be "Misquoting Jesus". Bart Ehrman was a well respected textual critic. His latest book surprised many of the people he worked with previously. From what I read, a lot of the surprise was how low the quality of the scholarship was he presents in Misquoting Jesus. In my limited reading on his claims in the book, there was an obvious mistake he makes. So I don't think Misquoting Jesus is that reliable of a book on textual criticism. I would suggest reading something by Bruce Metzger.
And we absolutely have the data to determine if the NT was accurately copied or not. I don't think that is true at all. Once again, I find your approach being much more of a "devotional" perspective than an objective, critical one. You want to believe it is so, therefore, you believe that it is so.
Here is an article about Misquoting Jesus from one of Ehrman's contemporaries. The author is a fellow textual critic and one time colleague. The Link
From your link: and that only a very small minority of the variants alter the meaning of the text, So there exists "variants"; small when compared to a number exceeding, what was it, over 100,000? You're not really convincing me here. What you've linked shows that there are "variants" that matter. This refutes your claim of the bible being "reliable".
This post started out tame enough but it has deteriorated, not unlike most other WM topics that discuss religion. I’ll add to the deterioration with a question: when trying to discredit (or attacking) the beliefs of Christians, why is it necessary to use words or phrases such as:
You didn't ask but I would never claim that there are not variants. I never said copies were made perfectly. I still find the Bible reliable. Why? Do you know the nature of the variations? There are mis-spellings. Sometimes articles are added or left off. Whole words are added or left off. The most common examples and vast majority are where Jesus is mentioned. Some will say "Jesus", Some will say "Jesus Christ". Some will say "the Lord Jesus". Some variants have plurals where there are singulars in others. None of the variations make any difference in meaning or can't be clearly identified as obvious mistakes. Copy variations don't amount to anything significant.
^^^ Discussions concerning religion attract my attention, and I usually learn from those discussions. Theu, Coelacanth, Monahorns and others invariably present views that I previously hadn’t considered, or offer historical information that I wasn’t aware of. Same for the non-believers concerning views and information, except that a derogatory tone is all too often expressed. I don’t see the need for it; maybe you and others do.
GT, I understand that and am no way suggesting that the reliability of New Testament transmission means you need to believe it is from God. I am only addressing the widespread misconception that the text itself is somehow in serious doubt. What the text says about life itself is an entirely different matter.
Mona A ways back you asked me about similarities that Christianity shared with other religions or fables, etc. I was thinking about messianic religions, spiritual saviors descending to hell, ascending to the heavens, light bringers, etc. To me, these recurring tropes suggest something other than a recounting of a total truth, including an accurate assessment of the nature and meaning of the events recounted. I don't see any reason to believe any religion is pointing to something more than history wrapped in super-natural fable and allegory. The relative uniqueness of Christ as a narrative figure does not remove him from the family of fables.
Buckhorn, I have read some accounts of Baal and Mithras because both have been used as examples of other gods who are similar to Jesus as a savior or resurrector. I found that there were only the slightest of surface level similarities. Neither one is truly resurrected. There is usually some kind of rebirth not resurrection and it is tied to the seasonal changes. It is also questionable what these gods are saving humanity from. There is no mention of the needs of humanity. Just a proclamation of titles. I see know problem with having other gods that have some similarity to Jesus because the issue of death and the hope of eternal life is a subject mankind has been pondering for a long time. Life is also fraught with danger and pain so rescue from those things is a natural cry of the heart. As mop has already described, Jesus is unique because he is historical. The timeframe of his life can be described by the year, by who was ruling the world at the time, etc. Even those who didn't believe that he was God wrote about him in their histories. Eyewitnesses were claimed to be living during the time of the documents being written. The Jesus accounts were very falsifiable. All that had to be done was show a body. Competing accounts could have been written by those in the know. Pontius Pilate, the Jewish high priests, the soldiers at the tomb, others who listened to his sermons, those who saw him die, family members of the disciples who did not believe could have all come forward to dispell the "fables". But none did.
I found that there were only the slightest of surface level similarities. Neither one is truly resurrected. There is usually some kind of rebirth not resurrection and it is tied to the seasonal changes. This is funny. Methinks thou doth protest too much, and by protest I mean attempt to find distinctions.
Methinks you don't know the difference between rebirth and resurrection. Yes they are similar. But what is described as Baal's resurrection is actually a case of mistaken identity. Baal never died but faked his own death. Mithras continues to be reborn from a rock or egg or tree. His body is not merely resurrected. He is remade by the same process. Jesus was not. That is significantly different. Maybe it is not different enough for you to make them distinct. So be it.
More distinctions without differences. Your criteria and threshold for what is meaningful is, to be frank, pathetically low in certain areas, and impossibly high in others. What it comes to do is little more than confirmation bias on your part: if it fits your religious and theistic belief set they you agree with it; if it does not (as in science and evolution) then you discard it. And as always, nit-pick insubstantial points and declaim that they are important distinctions. This is nothing new, and is an activity actively engage in, and the cause for separation, between catholic vs. protestant and protestant vs. protestant and western catholic vs. eastern catholic.
I find your criticisms of my thinking to apply just as much to your thinking. Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?
I find your criticisms of my thinking to apply just as much to your thinking. Do you want to be the pot or the kettle? Based on your very recent posts I find the quality of your thinking to be very poor. If you still believe in a young earth and creationism, while claiming that you are aware of science, then I'm not surprised by any of your conclusions. You will find a result that is consistent with your religious views, whether or not there is physical/scientific evidence to the contrary. It is interesting, from a sociological perspective, the strength that religion has on people and how it affects their cognitive processes. We see the same thing with fundamentalists in many (all?) religions, especially Muslims. Their holy book says so, so it must be so. Fascinating. We can also see the same self-imposed science ignorance employed during the middle ages when it came to tussles between the church and science. In a way, it is interesting to see that same dynamic being played out here.
Perham1, at least here you don't think. You assume. You assert. You berate. At least I am trying to discuss issues and give some explanation of my views. Buck, you are right. There is no way we can test the Bible more than we can test other ancient documents. It is a historical document all you can look at is its historicity and transmission. It passes those tests rather well. What you want is to go back in time and see the events with your own eyes or see people perform miracles in front of you now. Even in Jesus day people told him that they wouldn't believe what he said unless he did a miracle right then and there. In those circumstances Jesus refused. But he did plenty of miracles in front of people. That gets back to your issue with not being able to adequately test Jesus' claims. Those claims we should be able to agree have at least been recorded accurately. If so, don't you think if the Jewish leaders had good evidence that He wasn't who he said he was they would have written their own documents showing that Jesus had never been seen performing miracles or that they could produce the body? Despite your assertion that the gospels were written way after the fact, data was collected very quickly. You had hundreds and hundreds of eyewitnesses to Jesus miracles and his resurrection. Paul in his letter to Corinth presents that there were hundreds of people alive at that time who could be interviewed about them seeing the resurrected Jesus. The gospels were based on eyewitness accounts, which you say are problematic. However, the gospels were not based on 1 account or even 5. The data was collected from many witnesses. The gospel of Luke attests to the this fact at the beginning. Scholars also believe that the gospels we have today are based in part on even older documents, (meaning written much closer in time to the events). The fact that Matthew wrote a gospel even gives evidence that some who were with Jesus from the beginning were taking notes as they went along. Matthew was one of the 12 and a tax collector. So he was literate. He probably put together his gospel from his personal notes. I know what I wrote is not convincing to you. But I think there is much more evidence out there than you have considered.
Perham1, at least here you don't think. You assume. Yes, I assume. I laid out my assumptions, clearly I thought, above. My assumptions dealt with the scientific ignorance (because that is the issue which I am addressing, whether that ignorance is caused by lack of education or by one's religion) of evangelical/fundamentalists and the role their religion plays in such ignorance. If you think my conclusions berate you, then that is your prerogative. To me there are certain incontestable, although unpleasant to some, facts. The level of science ignorance as caused by one's religion. And science ignorance here is specifically evolution and young earth. There is much confusion here, not the least in attempting to use a holy text as science text.
Methinks you don't know the difference between rebirth and resurrection. As mentioned, a specious distinction, one which is covered in a thread I started (but as yet not on the board) citing Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True" blog.
buckhorn, The fact there there was a man who claimed to be God and then his followers claimed that he was resurrected from the dead I would think would compel the Jewish leaders to compose a document or a case to show how such claims were untrue. Other false messiahs were killed and that ended the movement. Jesus' death didn't end his. I don't know if all the eyewitnesses had their accounts written down. There wasn't an evidence file written up for each person if that is what you are asking. I don't know how that invalidates the eyewitness accounts that were written down. The existence of older documents is a theory which has been proposed by many biblical scholars, christian and nonchristian alike. They point to similarities found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke which point to the existence of some other document written down before. The existence of notes is not something we have artifacts of. There was a common practice to discard older copies once new ones were made. It is most likely that once the finished gospel was completed the notes which produced the gospel were thrown away. They may not agree with your modern sensibilities but that is the practice of the day.
