On the integrity of the New Testament manuscript evidence

Vivificat! News, opinion, commentary, reflections, and prayer from a personal Catholic perspective ^ | 5 September 2009 | TDJ

[Teófilo]

Let’s question the “common-sense” double-standard.

Folks, I was reading this article published today in Time Magazine online, entitled, The Burial Box of Jesus' Brother: A Case Against Fraud, because the controversy has been around for a while and of course, because of the significance of the artifact were the claims to its authenticity be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, the introductory paragraph disappointed me, although I am already used to this case of disappointment coming from the so-called mainstream experts. Check it out:

The world of biblical archaeology was stirred in 2002 by the unveiling of a limestone burial box with the Aramaic inscription Yaakov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). Allegedly dating to an era contemporaneous with Christ, the names were a tantalizing collation of potentially great significance: James was indeed the name of a New Testament personage known as the brother of Jesus, both ostensibly the sons of Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary. If its dates were genuine, the burial box — or ossuary — could well be circumstantial evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, a tenet supported only by gospels and scripture written, at the earliest, a generation after his crucifixion and, of course, by the faith of hundreds of millions through 2,000 years.

What are the unspoken assumptions here? One, that the New Testament is not a reliable source to prove the objective historicity of Jesus of Nazareth and two, that all we have is that meager evidence supplemented by the ultimately insubstantial faith of millions. Hence, the need for external evidence such as this ossuary to substantiate – or not – the story.

Those who cling to these assumptions probably willfully or unwittingly ignore the fact that, if they were to apply the same standard of suspicion and doubt other documents received from antiquity and recognized as recording true history, they would not stand either. The following table illustrates and compares the antiquity and amount of New Testament manuscripts with that of other documents from antiquity commonly accepted as “historical.”  Particular attention is paid to the time elapsed between the historical facts they record to the time they were set in writing (Source: The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict ).

 

AUTHOR		BOOK		DATE WRITTEN		EARLIEST COPIES		TIME GAP IN YEARS		NO. OF COPIES
Homer		The Iliad		800 BC		c. 400 BC		c. 400		643
Herodotus		History		480-425 BC		c. AD 900		c. 1,350		8
Thucydides		History		460-400 BC		c. AD 900		c. 1,300		8
Plato		Complete Works		400 BC		c. AD 900		c. 1,300		7
Demosthenes		Complete Works		300 BC		c. AD 1100		c. 1,400		200
Caesar		Gallic Wars		100-44 BC		c. AD 900		c. 1,000		10
Livy		History of Rome		59BC-AD 17		4th century (partial) mostly 10th century		c. 400-1,000		1 partial 19 copies
Tacitus		Annals		AD 100		c. AD 1100		1,000		20
Pliny the Younger		Natural History		AD 61-113		c. AD 850		c. 750		7
New Testament		27 books and letters		AD 50-100		c. 114 (fragment) c. 200 (books) c. 250 (most of the NT) c. 325 (complete NT)		+50 100 150 225		5,366

You will not see any time soon Time Magazine’s “experts” denying wholesale the historicity of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, et al and begging for some outside artifact substantiating the meager manuscript evidence and the sustained “faith” of some hundreds of classical scholars. To push it further, you won’t find any Time Magazine or for that matter, any reporter for any major publication who would dare explore the literary dependence of the Koran to ancient Syriac Christian lectionaries, it’s just not safe to do so. Nope, they hold a double standard, one for the New Testament, and one from everything else.

Folks, we don’t need the so-called James Ossuary to be “the real thing” in order to have a rational, historical basis for our faith. We already have plenty, thank you very much Mr. Kalman of Time Magazine. We have plenty of reliable literary evidence.

[Teófilo]

Typos. Blunders. Mine.

[Teófilo]

PING!

[Marysecretary]

Well, since Jesus rose from the dead, He don’t need no steenkin’ box.

[Teófilo]

The box supposedly belongs to James, the author of the epistle of the same name.

[Marysecretary]

Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that. Thanks for correcting me.

[ntmxx]

“Muslim apologists often recur to textual or higher critical arguments to trash the integrity of Christian revelation, while denying that the same methods can be, and must be applied to the study of the Koran.”

Excellent premise for a dissertation...continue in good faith.

Now, there is nothing new or holly about the Koran, a low class desert jackal’s “art of war.” There is “no social redeeming value” in either Islam or Koran! Let’s look at what happens when you question the wisdom of a pedophile prophet, serving as god’s representative; Evil is proud!

And I have to once again point out that:

Islam is a military and quasi-political movement that camouflages itself as a religion. However, as with Dictatorships, Fascism and Communism or other such command and control systems, a social tool is used to stealthily control the populace. People are deliberately misled regarding this extremist movement disguised as a religion; which should be banned on its face due to the primary tenets of hate and violation of ubiquitous codified laws applied to any individual/group behavior which declares and promotes violence, advocates unlawful activity among members and conducts business activities in violation of Civil, Human and Constitutional Rights.

[Quix]

INDEED! INDEED! INDEED!

THX

[Mr Rogers]

More info here...shameless ping to a thread I posted a while back.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2316798/posts

[Tax-chick]

There’s a book out about the recent archaological “blockbusters”: the James Ossuary and the “Jesus” tomb. The title is something like “Unholy Business,” and the author is a woman. (Sorry, Saturday night, memory is shot, and I’m not at home where I could check my library history.)

Anyway, the details about the snake-pit of Holy Land archaeology and the business of Israel tourism, especially by Christians, is absolutely fascinating.

[Kevmo]

Josh McDowell says in his book, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” that there were 17,000 manuscripts of the new testament.

[Teófilo]

Actually, he said over 24,970 - on p. 34 of The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, which as I have said, I used to build the table portrayed here. The total on the table is restricted to Greek manuscript uncials alone.

-Theo

[Kevmo]

Why restrict it to Greek uncials? Did you restrict the other texts in a similar fashion?

[Kevmo]

So... is that a biblical historicity ping list? Are you keeping it?

Teófilo; Mr. Rogers; blue-duncan; SunkenCiv; Alamo-girl; betty boop; metmom; Brian S. Fitzgerald ; onedoug ; mdk1960 ; mdk1960 ; blue-duncan; longtermmemmory; Tax-chick; Salvation ; Gamecock; guitarplayer1953 ; XeniaSt; Antoninus ;NYer; Salvation; Nihil Obstat; mileschristi; bornacatholic; rrstar96; Kolokotronis

[Teófilo]

Why restrict it to Greek uncials? Did you restrict the other texts in a similar fashion?

I didn't restrict anything. I copied the table verbatim from Mr. McDowell's book, it was him who focused on this subset. Otherwise, the table would have been too large and unwieldly, I suspect.

-Theo

[onedoug]

Hyam Maccoby, Revolution In Judaea: Jesus And The Jewish Resistance

[Kevmo]

Okay, I understand. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at McDowell’s book. This appears to be the table where he was focusing on the gap in time between the time of the event and the time it was written down — actually the time we have dated copies of what was written down. It’s still a very compelling comparison. Thanks for posting it.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kevmo. Herschel Shanks and his Biblical Archaology Review have been all over this since day one. The hatchet job done on the box, the inscription, and all the professionals involved in the case should be grounds for public execution of the hatchet wielders. But hey, I might be a little hotheaded. ;’)

http://forgery.bib-arch.org/
Real or Fake? Forgery Conference Report (PDF)