Featured How can there be A "Correct greek text" Since We have No originals?

Many times when absurdity is paraded as profundity, several points are made to preclude due consideration on any one point. So lets back up and stop and consider the argument for the validity of the longer ending of Mark (Mk 16:9-20).

1. It refers to the original ending but leaves it to us to decipher and infer what is being called the original ending. Is verse 8 the ending, or does this refer to any one of several shorter endings found in various texts?

2. Does this 1600 number count copies of copies to make the assertion seem stronger? It seems there are 9 witnesses that end at verse 8, not two. And many to those with additional verses include shorter endings found in yet other witnesses.

3. Several witnesses have marks indicating that the longer ending is spurious.

Thus it would appear that the longer ending is spurious. This conclusion is based on careful consideration of all of the diverse witnesses but disregards as spurious that argument that if you copy an additional ending enough times it grows in validity. As I said, absurdity.

 

Well, this interesting. Van, with several factual errors in his post, is calling the view of Jon on the longer ending of Mark "absurd," in spite of the fact that Jon has a Th. M. in textual criticism from SEBTS under noted textual critic Dr. Maurice Robinson. So of course this is an insult to both Jon and Dr. Robinson.

 

I believe that. :thumbsup:

 

Lets just say any one can claim "several factual errors" so long as they are not identified.

As far as my analysis of the absurdity of the view, nothing was addressed. Any blowhard can post "taint so".

 

I can easily identify your errors. I'm waiting to see if Jon wants to do so. In the meantime, you should apologize to him. You were insulting to a good man.

So now I'm a blowhard. Why all the insults? What is the purpose of that? Do you really think that's a right thing to do?

And by the way, the problem of Mark's ending has been addressed over and over. (I'll address it if Jon doesn't.) Try these top rank scholars who believe the longer ending belongs: John Burgon, David Alan Black and Maurice Robinson in Perspectives on the Ending of Mark (a recent book that gives all the views), etc. etc. Are these good men blowhards? Absurd? I suggest more humility when you approach such a difficult subject.

 

JOJ, you insulted me, claiming I had insulted others. I said the position was absurd and provided specifics. Any blowhard can post dismissive generalities. Why not address the absurdity of the argument.

Did it say which ending is the original ending? Nope

Did it address the 9 witnesses in support of the original ending being verse 8? Nope

Did it make an argument based on number of copies rather than diversity of sources? Yep.

As I said, an absurd argument.

I certainly could be wrong, but it will take more than someone saying they are right because their pedigree is longer. I am unimpressed with Pharisees wearing robes with long tassels.

 

Proverbs 26:12

 

To THAT I Say....

Oh Me.....and AMEN!!!!!:thumbsup:

Bro.Greg

 

Hi Everyone,

I've been away from the board for a bit.

There are only 2 Greek manuscripts that do not have 16:9-20. At times a 12th century manuscript, 304, has been counted, but that one is a commentary manuscript and thus is no longer counted. Also, I'm told it is defective right at the critical part.

My question here doesn't really address whether or not 16:9-20 is original. Most people say it isn't. And so I'm going with this assumption. Anyway, if it isn't original, this situation is good enough as an example of a place where forces so powerful and comprehensive could literally overtake all existing streams of continuously copied manuscripts everywhere in the world right out from under the noses of the church everywhere. If this could happen here, then what happens when there aren't the 0.01 percent manuscript with the original? We are left with the corrupt manuscripts of the churches that were easily deceived the world over, and took no steps to correct their mindlessly corrupted and interpolated manuscripts.

Yet apologetics seems to want to say that the number of manuscripts of the NT is an argument for their reliability. But the above situation itself is enough to prove that this apologetic argument of number is spurious. Unless there is another explanation to combat the skeptical argument I have put forth (done so for the sake of argument, since I don't hold to its weight, for reasons I will point out later) . . .

Still, I'm wondering what the best argument is in defense of this kind of skepticism as to the text of the NT. I will consider the skeptical arguments as to the actual books that "made it in" the canon later. This is the next best skeptical argument, in my opinion. We Christians need good answers for these.

Sincerely,

Jonathan C. Borland

 

Jon is back, and has not directly addressed all of Van's points, so I'll do this one time. It is up to Van whether or not he accepts this correction. I'm hoping he will.

The problem of the Markan ending is never put this way. None of the various positions call the others absurd. So this is Van's first mistake. The book I mentioned previously is an excellent introduction to the problem for budding textual critics (as Van may be ): Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: 4 Views, edited by David Alan Black. Here noted scholars give the 4 possibilities (not just 2), showing that it is a complicated problem, wherein to dismiss the others as "absurd" just doesn't cut it.

This is true as far as it goes, but pretty vague.

As Jon correctly pointed out, there are only two Greek witnesses without an ending, so he is right and Van is wrong. Van is apparently counting ancient translations in his number of 9, but they are considered secondary witnesses in textual criticism.

This is a mistake. There are no such "marks." Maybe Van is talking about scribal notes about the problem, but that is not what he said.

This is a casual dismissal of the geneological method, which was not only used by Westcott and Hort (though with a pre-understanding against the Byzantine text type), but is of value in the Byzantine Priority method. I suggest that Van should study what the geneological method actually is before making this ill-informed statement.

 

John, thank you.

I'm just a layman who comes here to try to learn from people far more knowledgable than myself.

Sure, I have opinions and viewpoints about some matters being discussed. Some of which I'm sure that won't ever change. However, there are others that can change with more study of opposing viewpoints. That's why I'm here! To grow in maturity in God's word.

As a layman, nothing is more frustrating that to see learned persons resorting to using name calling and using terms such as "liar", "stupid", "ignorant", etc. as rebuttal to differing opinions. Instead of bringing me closer to agreement with them, frankly, it drives me towards the opposite stance.

Often, if a pastor does this, I can't help but wonder if he makes such comments while he's in the pulpit. Does he preach about "ignorant" people in his congregation who yet don't grasp or disagree with his sermon.

Thank you for a courteous reply in this thread. It's like a breath of fresh air.

 

I think we're all tempted on the "anonymous Internet" to let people have it with both barrels when we shouldn't. I know I've done so before. But like my signature says, ""Doin' what I can with what I got."

 

Let's see if this is what you are looking for.

I believe the best apologetic argument is people, believers who God has touched and used. I think that to be true in this case too. Perhaps the most neglected discussion in Bibliology is what I call the human preservation of the Bible (based in the NT on the priesthood of the believer). We are over and over commended to give the Word of God all over the world, to "Go ye" or to "Preach the Word." I think that what believers do with the Bible is an apologetic argument against the likes of Bart Ehrman.

Consider. What other book do people spend their lives to translate with no hope of gain, risk their lives to smuggle into Communist and Muslim countries, spend decades in the jungle learning a tribal language to translate the Book for them? Consider the New Tribes missionaries who were kidnapped by rebels in Columbia and killed in 1993 when they only wanted to translate the Bible for the people. Consider John Wycliffe who suffered great persecution just for translating the Bible, and the mission board named after him who sends sacrificial missionaries all over the world to give their lives to translate the Bible. Consider Henry Martyn, who left the woman he loved to go translate the Bible into Persian, dying alone there. Consider lesser known translators like John Batchelor, the translator of the Ainu Bible on my island of Hokkaido, who braved extreme cold and snow. Consider other lesser-knowns, the scholars who labor in the Word to produce our Greek NTs.

Thinking of all of these and so many others who worked so much and sometimes suffered so much to translate and distribute the Bible, I think anyone who thinks the state of the NT manuscripts shows that God is silent in the giving of the Bible is just totally missing the picture!

Here is what I put together once listing people in the Word of God who took responsibility to preserve the Word:


Bible Examples of Human Preservation of the Scriptures

A. God commanded the Jews to bind God's law on their hands and on their foreheads (Ex. 13:9, Deut. 6:8 & 11:8, Prov. 3:3, 6:2, 7:3).
B. Each king of Israel was required to write out his own copy of the Bible. "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites" (Deut. 17:18). Not only was he to have his own copy of the law, he was to live and rule by it (v. 19).
C. Moses cared enough about the Decalogue to make a box of shittim wood in which to preserve it (Deut. 10:3-5).
D. The ark of God was called variously "the ark of the testimony" (Josh. 4:16) and "the ark of the covenant" (Josh. 4:18), obviously referring to the fact that God's Word was to be kept inside it (Deut. 31:26).
E. God commanded the Jews to build an altar and write the law on the stones of it when they crossed the river into the Promised Land. (Deut. 27:1-8) Joshua obeyed God's command and did so (Josh. 8:30-35).
F. The Apostle Paul specifically asked Timothy to bring his personal copy of some of the Old Testament Scriptures. (2 Tim. 4:13).

 

Reply

Thanks for agreeing with me. Lets turn your argument on its head, if you thumb through a modern bible, based on the CT, you will find many small and some large bracketed words, phrases, verses and passages. However if you did a word count, you would find the questionable parts amount to only a small fraction of the total. So if your "number of examples" holds water, it argues against your premise.

Second, if we excised all of the bracketed material, the bible would convey the same message, only better with less corruption from the ever helpful copiests.

As an aside, your listing of witnesses lacking the LEM seems to reject the material presented by both B.Metzger and D. Wallace.

Bottom line, the corruptions existing in the text that have been exposed argues for the purity of the bulk of our text, rather than against it.

 

JOJ keeps diging

It is JOJ that seems unable to accept correction.

I called the argument that was made in this thread (that used the controversy over the LEM as supporting the invalidity of the New Testament) absurd and yes that argument is absurd.

I was providing an "editor" comment to help the writer to provide a tighter presentation.

I counted the number listed by D. Wallace, you can look at them as a footnote for Mark 9 in the NET bible online. And to say I was wrong because I did not identify primary and secondary witnesses is to invent error where none exists.

Again read both Metzger and Wallace, they both refer to scribal marks used to indicate a section was questionable or spurious.

The issue is if we lived in the fourth century, then most witnesses would lack the LEM, but now most have it. It is absurd to argue that increasing the opportunities for corruption improves the text. As I said, absurd.

 

I found this interesting, John. I hope you won't mind that I'm taking a closer look at it here.

Of course, it probably was not God's intention that they literally bound it to themselves. For example, I've never seen a Jew physically put a book of the Scriptures into their mouth, or suggest that they had surgically inscribed words on their internal organs (Exodus 13:9, & Proverbs 7:3, KJV) --

And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD'S law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the LORD brought thee out of Egypt.

Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. ​

What God wanted was for His people to remember and obey His word. Nonetheless, the Jews did preserve a small amount of written Scripture in this manner. [Check your references: "Deut. 11:8" should be 11:18, and Prov. 6:2 doesn't seem right.]

The use of the word "Bible" in your statement tends to sound anachronistic. The Torah is actually all that the kings would have had to copy. God primarily intended that the leadership would learn ("learn to fear the LORD his God", v.19) through this exercise. However, not all kings complied. Nonetheless, a few additional copies of Scripture were preserved due to this requirement. We might wonder though, how accurate were those king's copies?

Actually, God commanded Moses to make the wooden ark (10:1) in which to place the stone tablets. The box may have protected the tablets to some degree. Of course, this is not an example of 'preservation' in the sense of contributing new copies.

We are told the stone tablets were placed in the ark by God's command. The tablets were ceremoniously shut up in the ark, unaccessible for reading or copying. Similar to C above, this is not an example of 'preservation' in the sense of continuing a manuscript tradition.

The immediate crossing of Jordan is not the fulfillment of "Deut. 27:-8". To avoid confusion, the 12 stones at Jordan are not said to have had any writing inscribed into them (Joshua 4:8-9) --

And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.
And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day. ​

The fulfilling event does seem to be "Josh. 8:30-35" which actually follows the Hebrew's victory over the city of Ai. These exposed stones may have preserved the words for a while, but one immobile copy does not contribute much to the ongoing preservation effort. It seems to be more for commemorative purposes.

This doesn't seem to be an additional example of preservation, but rather simply transportation of already existing copies.

 

Thanks for taking the time.

When I wrote this I was using a fairly broad definition of human preservation which I did not include here. Maybe I should append it.

I call it preservation when we just memorize Scripture. The application to textual criticism is that we can reproduce almost the entire NT from the church fathers (who often wrote from memory).

Thanks for the corrections. Don't know where I meant with Prov. 6:2.

Point taken about the anachronism. I'm sure you'll agree though that the passage shows a definite command from God for humans to preserve the Scripture. And I'm sure the accuracy depended on which king was writing it out. Which speaks to the state of the mss of the NT also.

Points taken. As I said, I'm using a broad definition of human preservation.

Thanks for the commentary. I'll have to study this out further.

In my thinking it is human preservation in the sense that Paul thought it important to have his own copies of various books, and no doubt often read them and meditated on them. The Bereans are another example of this of course.

Here is my original discussion of what human preservation means. Disclaimer: this study was done about 25 years ago, and is in sad need of revision.

The Forms that Human Preservation of Scripture Take

A. Each believer ought to have his own copy of the Bible, as evidently did the Bereans (Acts 17:11), and ought to learn it and care for it himself, judging every doctrine he is taught by it alone.
B. Translating the Bible is a form of preserving it. Bible translation will be dealt with more fully in the next outline.
C. Textual criticism is the very specialized, though very necessary discipline of studying manuscripts in the original languages to determine as well as possible what the words of the original manuscripts of the Bible. This is a form of preservation, and a few gifted and devout Christians ought to be doing this.
D. Printing the Word of God with a machine as the kings and priests of Israel were to do by hand is a worthy and important form of the preservation of Scripture.

 

Jon said,

You said,

So Jon was specifically referring to the Greek mss, and you intimated that he was mistaken, not understanding the differences (not mentioned in the NET footnote) between primary (Greek) and secondary (ancient translations) witnesses to the text. You were mistaken in that. Jon was right.

 

My brother Jonathan C. Borland I am sure you did some research on this and I am sure you have some sources for your research paper, but I would like to introduce you to a few more if I may. The first is found here http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs...l-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/ and it answers a lot of the questions about the Greek manuscripts and the abundance of them we have.
You wrote in your post "The hyped-up Josh McDowell argument of thousands of Greek manuscripts going back to the 2nd century is therefore completely fallacious, since all of them may only reflect this orthodox-manipulated and -corrupted text, except perhaps in only a relatively few places, which themselves may only be corruptions of the orthodox text and not remnants of the original texts that survived the onslaughts of the orthodox who were powerful enough to overturn completely the Greek manuscript tradition at will." I would argue that one there have been found text that go back to the first century suck as P52, and as recently as of 2011-12 for the gospel of Mark another site you can visit is http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2012/02/wallace-vs-erhman-round-three/ which is about a debate covering the very same thing you are writing about and the debate involves Bart Ehrman who holds the view similar to the one you brought up.

 

Many Thanks...

John, I want to thank you for your humble demeanor in regard to the matter under discussion. I will not comment on it as such due to my unqualified status as a simple layman. I have my opinions about some matters in relation to this subject but I don't consider myself learned enough to contribute anything beyond an emotional-based opinion. I do, however, enjoy watching and reading these discussions in hopes of being able to learn and draw closer to our Lord and His truth. Thank you for displaying grace and the balanced attitude of a Christian gentleman in your contributions here....even when your comments are being corrected or criticized by others. It is appreciated and it definitely makes your comments and opinions worthy of being read and considered. Thank You Brother.:thumbsup:

Bro.Greg