Codex Sinaiticus Online

I wasn't addressing your reading comprehension, but your ability to qualifications to assess the dates of manuscripts.

I wasn't aware that the TR crowd is the only one that admits this. In fact, I don't know hardly anyone who denies it.

In dating these manuscripts, there are a number of fairly solid ways in which a general time frame can be established. So it doesn't seem odd in the least if you understand how they come to these conclusions and what weight they are given in text criticism.

 

Because 1611 is not that old. There are Bibles that are older than that, which you reject. Furthermore, "oldest is best" is a general canon dealing with textual transmission, not with translation. So your point is completely misguided anyway, due apparently to your lack of understanding about what the issues are.

Because these are two entirely different topics. Translations do not deal with transcriptional probabilities in hand copying.

See, they are not the same. The words have been changed.

But just so you know, the modern versions say this as well.

 

I have no problem with this statement. However, is the same courtesy extended to Burgon, Scrivener, Hills, Pickering, Ruckman (just kidding :laugh: ), or Sorenson?

I most certainly would be satisfied with any conclusive evidence.

I would at least like to read how they arrived at their conclusion instead of simply reading a blanket statement. Is that asking too much of these scholars?

Which is why such statements are offered, repeated, quoted, and accepted without a second thought. Let me be the first to acknowledge that this happens far too frequently on my side of the debate as well.

 

I don't believe any of us here are qualified in this area. That is why you and I have spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on our personal libraries. Knowledge is not just what you know; knowledge is knowing where to go to find the right information. I have no less than 25 books on the text/version issue, written by authors on both sides of the issue. I have found none that has offered an explanation for the early dating of Aleph and B. I don't deny that that information is out there; I simply have not found it.

I have not personally read a CT author who includes this fact when discussing these two MSS. Is that honest or misleading?

Then it shouldn't be that difficult to explain how the early dating was established. That's all I'm asking for.

I understand what weight they are given. I disagree, of course, but still would like to read how they arrived at their conclusions.

 

Hundreds? Hah! I wish. Actually, my wife wishes :laugh: Thousands is probably even low.

 

No, it's axiomatic. No one assumes we need to argue that we do not know exact dates for manuscripts because no one thinks we know exact dates to begin with. General dates are easier ... based on script, paper type, etc. I think what tends towards "misleading" is questioning that Aleph and B are among the oldest manuscripts that we have because it doesn't fit a particular view someone wants to hold. There are some who make outrageous statements against certain manuscripts simply because they have a priori decided they do not like them. Therefore, they find ways to attack them. I think that is wrong.

 

I think this is a common misunderstanding. Clearly, some of the oldest MSS are not the 'best' (meaning a MSS that exhibits very few variants attributed to scribal error, in completeness, of clarity and condition). Therefore, "oldest and best" are two different categories of MSS. Where the oldest MSS correspond with the best MSS the original text is virtually assured.

 

In my opinion, the dating of these two particular MSS is irrelevant. There are a host of other factors that would cause me to consider them unreliable, even if they were proved to be earlier copies.

I agree. However, to weight a mss based on uncertainty is a very shaky foundation as well. Is it not possible that men give undo weight to some unworthy mss because of a similar priori?

 

I think it is important to note that the canons of textual criticism are general rules or canons. They are not inviolable. We should say that the oldest is most likely to be the accurate, all other things being equal, The shortest is most likely to be accurate all other things being equal, etc.