AHEM!.....
Posted on 08/15/2009 10:48:49 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
2. What are the dates of these documents?
The crucifixion of Christ took place, it is generally agreed, about AD 30. According to Luke iii. I, the activity of John the Baptist, which immediately preceded the commencement of our Lord's public ministry, is dated in 'the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar'. Now, Tiberius became emperor in August, AD 14, and according to the method of computation current in Syria, which Luke would have followed, his fifteenth year commenced in September or October, AD a7.1 The fourth Gospel mentions three Passovers after this time; the third Passover from that date would be the Passover of AD 30, at which it is probable on other grounds that the crucifixion took place. At this time, too, we know from other sources that Pilate was Roman governor of Judaea, Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee, and Caiaphas was Jewish high priest.
The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards.
But even with the later dates, the situation' encouraging from the historian's point of view, for the first three Gospels were written at a time when man, were alive who could remember the things that Jesus said and did, and some at least would still be alive when the fourth Gospel was written. If it could be determined that the writers of the Gospels used sources of information belonging to an earlier date, then the situation would be still more encouraging. But a more detailed examination of the Gospels will come in a later chapter...
The dates of the thirteen Pauline Epistles can be fixed partly by internal and partly by external evidence. The day has gone by when the authenticity of these letters could be denied wholesale. There are some writers today who would reject Ephesians; fewer would reject 2 Thessalonians; more would deny that the Pastoral Epistles (I and ~ Timothy and Titus) came in their present form from the hand of Paul.' I accept them all as Pauline, but the remaining eight letters would by themselves be sufficient for our purpose, and it is from these that the main arguments are drawn in our later chapter on 'The Importance of Paul's Evidence'.
Ten of the letters which bear Paul's name belong to the period before the end of his Roman imprisonment.
These ten, in order of writing, may be dated as follows: Galatians, 48; I and 2 Thessalonians, 50; Philippians, 54; I and 2 Corinthians, 54-56; Romans, 57; Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians, c. 60. The Pastoral Epistles, in their diction and historical atmosphere, contain signs of later date than the other Pauline Epistles, but this presents less difficulty to those who believe in a second imprisonment of Paul at Rome about the year 64, which was ended by his execution.' The Pastoral Epistle can then be dated c. 63-64, and the changed state of affairs in the Pauline churches to which they bear witness will have been due in part to the opportunity which Paul's earlier Roman imprisonment afforded to his opponents in these churches.
At any rate, the time elapsing between the evangelic events and the writing of most of the New Testament books was, from the standpoint of historical research, satisfactorily short. For in assessing the trustworthiness of ancient historical writings, one of the most important questions is: How soon after the events took place were they recorded ?
3. What is the evidence for their early existence? |
About the middle of the last century it was confidently asserted by a very influential school of thought that some of the most important books of the New Testament,including the Gospels and the Acts, did not exist before the thirties of the second century AD. This conclusion was the result not so much of historical evidence as of philosophical presuppositions. Even then there was sufficient historical evidence to show how unfounded these theories were, as Lightfoot, Tischendorf, Tregelles and others demonstrated m their writings; but the amount of such evidence available in our own day is so much greater and more conclusive that a firstcentury date for most of the New Testament writings cannot reasonably be denied, no matter what our philosophical presuppositions may be...
There are in existence about 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in whole or in part. The best and most important of these go back to somewhere about AD 350, the two most important being the Codex Vaticanus, the chief treasure of the Vatican Library in Rome, and the wellknown Codex Sinaiticus, which the British Government purchased from the Soviet Government for £100,000 on Christmas Day, 1933, and which is now the chief treasure of the British Museum. Two other important early MSS in this country are the Codex Alexandrinus, also in the British Museum, written in the fifth century, and the Codex Bezae:, in Cambridge University Library, written in the fifth or sixth century, and containing the Gospels and Acts in both Greek and Latin.
Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript attestation if we compare the textual material for other ancient historical works. For Caesar's Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 BC) there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some goo years later than Caesar's day. Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC-AD 17) only thirty five survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books iii-vi, is as old as the fourth century. Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of has two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. The extant MSS of his minor works (Dialogue dc Oratoribus, Agricola, Gcrmania) all descend from a codex of the tenth century The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to c. AD 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 BC). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.
But how different is the situation of the New Testament in this respect! In addition to the two excellent MSS of the fourth century mentioned above, which are the earliest of some thousands known to us, considerable fragments remain of papyrus copies of books of the New Testament dated from 100 to 200 years earlier still. The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, the existence of which was made public in 1931, consist of portions of eleven papyrus codices, three of which contained most of the New Testament writings. One of these, containing the four Gospels with Acts, belongs to the first half of the third century; another, containing Paul's letters to churches and the Epistle to the Hebrews, was copied at the beginning of the third century; the third, containing Revelation, belongs to the second half of the same century.
A more recent discovery consists of some papyrus fragments dated by papyrological experts not later than AD 150, published in Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and other Early Christian Papyri, by H. I. Bell and T. C. Skeat (1935). These fragments contain what has been thought by some to be portions of a fifth Gospel having strong affinities with the canonical four; but much more probable is the view expressed in The Times Literary Supplement for 25 April 1935, 'that these fragments were written by someone who had the four Gospels before him and knew them well; that they did not profess to be an independent Gospel; but were paraphrases of the stories and other matter in the Gospels designed for explanation and instruction, a manual to teach people the Gospel stories'.
Earlier still is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John xviii. 31-33, 37 f, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, dated on palaeographical grounds around AD 130, showing that the latest of the four Gospels, which was written, according to tradition, at Ephesus between AD 90 and 100, was circulating in Egypt within about forty years of its composition (if, as is most likely, this papyrus originated in Egypt, where it was acquired in 1917). It must be regarded as being, by half a century, the earliest extant fragment of the New Testament.
A more recently discovered papyrus manuscript of the same Gospel, while not so early as the Rylands papyrus, is incomparably better preserved; this is the Papyrus Bodmer II, whose discovery was announced by the Bodmer Library of Geneva in 1956; it was written about AD 200, and contains the first fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John with but one lacuna (of twenty two verses), and considerable portions of the last seven chapters.'...
The study of the kind of attestation found in MSS and quotations in later writer' is connected with the approach known as Textual Criticism.' This is a most important and fascinating branch of study, its object being to determine as exactly as possible from the available evidence the original words of the documents in question. It is easily proved by experiment that it is difficult to copy out a passage of any considerable length without making one or two dips at least. When we have documents like our New Testament writings copied and recopied thousands of times, the scope for copyists' errors is so enormously increased that it is surprising there are no more than there actually are. Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remain' among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice
To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient MSS was second to none:
'The interval then between the data of original. composition and the earliest extant evidence become so small to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scripture have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.'
And realize that just a subtle change in translation from cousin to brother - say, someone not familiar with the custom of interchanging the two - could lead us to or away from the dogma of the eternal virgin! A very subtle change, one that a person familiar with both Greek and Jewish cultures would overlook since they would understand, but 1800 years later the Catholic Church made it inerrant fact.
How do you divorce the message of a book from the words used on the book? If we don’t know what the texts are, then we cannot translate them or learn from them.
We have many translations because no translation is perfect. However, those doing the translating are experts who have devoted their lives to the study of Hebrew and Greek, so they will more likely translate a word correctly than an amateur.
There is nothing subtle about mistranslating brother as cousin. There are outstanding lexicons available, so no one translating would mix it up accidentally. The Catholics don’t change the word in their translations to match their doctrine, but redefine how brother is used to make it broader than we actually see in scripture or pagan texts.
This link discusses the ‘full of grace’ phrase used to support Mary being sinless. Reading it convinces me that translating scripture would be outside my ability, even if I took several years of Greek. I took 2 years of French and 4 of German in school, and can’t speak any of either - languages and I just don’t mesh.
http://www.ichthys.com/mail-Mary-full-of-grace.html
Well, I’m just saying that to expect the words as written to be 100% accurate is a stretch; other historical books from that time have errors, even when they were considered of higher importance back in the first few centuries after Christ.
Any book written by men has errors; it’s the muslims that claim a word-for-word direct-from-Allah book, not Christians.
I simply don’t think we need 100% accuracy in the words to still get the message.
Note that I do not believe Mary was an eternal virgin; I believe Jesus had brothers and sisters! However, I’m also not going to say anyone who believes otherwise - especially over something that has support for both positions - will go to Hell, and cannot be a Christian.
Christianity is not about Mary’s status as eternal virgin or mother-of-many...
We don’t have 100% accuracy, we have about 98-99%. There is enough redundancy built in to Scripture so that we could probably lose more like 35-40% and still have the message be clear. Oddly enough, a few years back I was working on data link systems for the military (in test). Redundancy in transmission helped overcome enemy jamming and transmission errors. I sometimes wonder if God didn’t build in the same idea for Scripture!
Suppose all we had were Luke, John, Acts, Romans, Galatians and Revelation - is there any critical doctrine we would miss? Any incentive to godly living we would lack?
If all we had was John & Romans, I suspect we would come very close.
I don’t care if Mary remained a virgin or not. If someone comes up with a scriptural reason for believing she remained a virgin, it wouldn’t bother me in the least.
What interests me more in that debate is WHY some make it important. The simple interpretation of Scripture is that she had other children. The simple explanation isn’t always the correct one, but it is clearly easy to see why someone reading the Bible would assume she gave birth to others.
It seems to me that the perpetual virgin idea came from human philosophy - the idea that the body is dirty, that we can become holy (or at least holier) by denying normal desires of the flesh, etc. It was a commonly held idea by 250 AD, so it seems Christianity, from the beginning, had problems with people watering down the message to gain acceptance.
That is just IMHO. Someone is welcome to believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, I just don’t understand why they do so.
AHEM!.....
Overworn phrase. Actually, "most" bible scholars are of the traditional bent, and are in traditional seminaries, bible institutes, and bible colleges around the world, and are teaching a traditional understanding of the bible.
Most of the time, the phrase "most bible scholars" needs to read "scholars from secular universities or dying mainline seminaries...."
You would then be faced with the same situation as all the translators...You'd have to translate it while you are reading it...
Then there's the problem of which 'original' Greek you are supposed to translate/read...
Exactly! So you end up looking for the deeper meanings within the words, the larger moral/story behind and not get hung up on individual words.
“Then there’s the problem of which ‘original’ Greek you are supposed to translate/read... “
Actually, this is what the book Bruce wrote addresses - that they ARE reliable texts. If you don’t have a reliable text, then you cannot have a reliable translation or reliable doctrine.
The text used by the KJV was certainly fallible, but the texts are so close to the same that a modern translation of the texts put together from a variety of witnesses has zero different doctrine. If I still spoke 1500s English, I’d gladly use the KJV. Since I do not, I use the NKJV (which used the same greek and hebrew text as the KJV) and the ESV & NASB. I have yet to find any doctrinal differences between any of the modern translations and the KJV.
I have to disagree with you...The KJV comes from the Majority Texts which originated from the area Jesus and the Apostles preached and taught in...All other English translations come from the Siniaticus which is the Catholic minority texts out of Egypt...But that's not the topic of this thread so I don't want to get off track...
One conclusion from the article would be that you could use the text the KJV is based on, or one of the modern compilations and have no doctrinal impact. The transmission of the texts, combined with the redundancy in Scripture, means we can use the KJV or NIV and have the same doctrines taught.
I prefer the NASB overall, but usually use the ESV. Interestingly enough, my 11 year old daughter prefers the KJV.
The indirect evidence are writings of Eusebius, Bishop of Cesarea. They show (indirectly) that Matthew 28:19 existed in a doctrinally different version under the same name as the surviving copies.
There are no known extant copies that contain the verses quoted by Eusebius (no less than 17 times), and we simply don't know if this fact is an indication of wanton destruction of all "deviant" copies after the First Ecumenical Council (AD 325) or if none so far have been found.
Nothing mystical or unbelievable about this unless one is trying to create a straw man. Thus, there is evidence that there were variant version of the NT books under the same names as ours.
We also know that they contained doctrinally significant departure from the post-Nicene dogmatic beliefs of the Church. We also know about them not through extant copies but from references made by Church authors. Finally, there is no indication why no such copies survived.
We also know that many codices that have been found dating anywhere from the beginning of the 3rd century onward contained not only NT books but books that were rejected by the Church after the 4th century. These codices were used as reading material in various church, suggesting that books such as the Book of Enoch were considered inspired, as is the case with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to this day, or the Syrian Church which to this day rejects the book of Revelation.
The doctrinal significance of these amalgams of different books cannot be overemphasized. The eastern Orthodox Church to this day never reads from the Book of Revaluation.
So, not only did these codices contain various profane books as part of their "canon," but they also apparently contained NT books with variant and doctrinally significant differences.
The fact that most Churches agreed (in name at least) with most of the NT books, doesn't mean they contained identical or even doctrinally compatible NT books, nor that the rest of their canon was textually or doctrinally compatible.
The best example of this is in the teaching of Origen and +Irenaeus of Lyons, whose canons agreed in the NT list, but not in the additional books. Origen had a myriad of Gnostic texts in his repertoire and that is eventually reflected in his theology.
So, it is not the NT list that solely determined what a particular church taught, but the idiosyncratic collection typical of each church. Nor is there any assurance that mere agreement on NT books by name assured doctrinally compatible copies.
After all, the reason the first Ecumenical Council convened was precisely because of variant teachings within the Church, and the need to harmonize doctrine, and scripture. More than a hundred years later, Coptic and oriental Churches were involved in the first of the major Schisms in Christianity precisely over dogmatic disagreements and spiritual differences.
Various 19th century Protestant scholars were strongly interested in proving that the Bible is an inerrant word of God and has been form the very beginning. But science proves them wrong.
However, they are not interested in critical science even when they admit to fraud such as Comma Johanneum or Pericope Adulterae becaew, get this, thye are reluctant to "alter" the Bible by rmeoving that which they know was added at a latter date and not by an inspired author!
Thus their "science" is a foregone conclusion, which is no science at all. TGhey come up with a ocnclusion and then work backwards to find evidence to support their conclusion. This is like deciding there are pink unicorns on Jupiter and then engaging in seruious research to make sure they are there!
There is nothing smooth or complete or reliable or even error-free about any of the biblical text dating prior to the 4th century. Most of them are missing significant parts of the NT canon, many of them use different text-types, some are highly redacted, "harmonized" and obvious altered, particularly the Codex Alexandrinus, the received text (textus receptus) 14th century copies used later for the KJV version of the Bible.
But Protestant Bible scholars, whether real or Wikipedia types (who porbably write Wiki article so they can use them as reference!) will continue to create biblical straw men and perpetuate their myths.
The Majority Text is a statistical construct that does not correspond exactly to any known manuscript. It is arrived at by comparing all known manuscripts with one another and deriving from them the readings that are more numerous than any others.
This link provides greater detail and clarification between the two.
“But Protestant Bible scholars, whether real or Wikipedia types (who porbably write Wiki article so they can use them as reference!) will continue to create biblical straw men and perpetuate their myths.”
We know the qualifications of FF Bruce & Sir Frederic Kenyon. But kosta50?
I did a search of Eusebius & Matthew 28:19 - it sounds like your problem is with the Trinity.
OK. For scholarship & transparency, I’ll stick with FF Bruce & Sir Frederic Kenyon. FWIW, I thought the Da Vinci code was bogus. I also doubt GWB had prior knowledge of 911. But maybe that is just me.
See here: http://www.torahresource.com/EnglishArticles/Matt28.19TexualCriticism.pdf
“Thirdly, why are the quotes from Eusebius that leave off the tripartite phrase considered of greater weight than other Church Fathers who quote or allude to the text with the phrase? We may note the words of Justin (c. 100–165) in 1 Apol. 61.3:
they then perform the bath in the water, in the name of the Father of the universe and of our Savior Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit.
Though this is not a quote of the Matthew text, it certainly incorporates the same three names in the context of baptism. However, Ignatius (c. 35–107) clearly quotes our text in his Epistle to the Philadelphians, ix:
For those things which the prophets announced, saying, “Until He come for whom it is reserved, and He shall be the expectation of the Gentiles,” (Gen 49:10) have been fulfilled in the Gospel, [our Lord saying, ] “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matt 28:19) All then are good together, the law, the prophets, the apostles, the whole company [of others] that have believed through them: only if we love one another.
Irenaeus (c. 130–200) likewise quotes Matthew 28:19 with the tripartite phrase in his Against Heresies:
And again, giving to the disciples the power of regeneration into God, He said to them,” Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (section xvii)
Note Tertullian (c. 160–225) as well:
Accordingly, after one of these had been struck off, He commanded the eleven others, on His departure to the Father, to “go and teach all nations, who were to be baptized into the Father, and into the Son, and into the Holy Ghost.” (The Prescription Against Heretics, xx)
We should also reckon with the fact that the Didache contains the tripartite phrase:
1 Now concerning baptism, baptize as follows: after you have reviewed all these things, baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” in running water. 2 But if you have no running water, then baptize in some other water; and if you are not able to baptize in cold water, then do so in warm. 3 But if you have neither, then pour water on the head three times “in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. (Didache 7:1–3)
A number of Didache scholars do not believe it quotes Matthew at this point, but that both the Didache and Matthew rely upon a common tradition.22 Furthermore, while the date of the Didache is debated, most scholars would put it between 90 and 120 CE with some suggesting an even earlier date. It therefore exists as an early witness to the tripartite phrase in connection with baptism, just as we have it in Matthew 28:19.
Given these data, it seems strange that the references to our text by Eusebius, leaving out the tripartite phrase, are given so much attention, especially since Eusebius lived c. 260–340 CE, well after the witness to the text of Matthew 28:19 by the earlier Church Fathers noted above. Even if his Ecclesiastical History relied upon earlier sources, there is nothing directly to substantiate the notion that he had in his possession an early copy of Matthew’s Gospel that left off the tripartite formula. Further, the fact that Eusebius’ style of quoting sources has been characterized as often “inexact” should caution us in giving too much weight to his allusions or quotations of Matthew 28:19.”
The Received Texts also come from the Majority Texts, sometimes called the Byzantine Texts as well as other titles and includes the Maesoretic Texts...
The Majority Text is a statistical construct that does not correspond exactly to any known manuscript. It is arrived at by comparing all known manuscripts with one another and deriving from them the readings that are more numerous than any others.
Been there, done that...As you can see in my previous post, I used the correct term of Majority Text(s)...The Majority Texts are the Received Texts...Most of the extant Majority texts are dated from approx. 600-900 A.D, with some far earlier...
There are over 5000 of these manuscripts in part or full and they all agree with each other 95% of the time...The author of your piece downplayed the fact that these texts are traced back to the area where Jesus walked and people were first called Christians...
Older does not mean better... The manuscripts you refer to as better because some may be a little older originated in Egypt...Most all of 'those' church fathers went to school in Egypt, not Israel...The last book in the Hebrew Bible tells the Jewish people to get out of Egypt and go back to Israel...
The manuscripts you call the best because they are the oldest originated in Egypt; there are no more than 250 witnesses available as opposed to the over 5000 of the Majority Texts and yours disagree with each other in thousands of places...
I've done the homework, looked seriously at both sides and conclude I will stick with the Received Text...
I also think a good reason we have no real original writings (those first written words from the writers) is that God knew the documents would be worshiped as relics and their content missed. Boy, how he knows human nature!
“There are over 5000 of these manuscripts in part or full and they all agree with each other 95% of the time...The author of your piece downplayed the fact that these texts are traced back to the area where Jesus walked and people were first called Christians...”
I don’t think Bruce intended to downplay any text. I’m sure, form other things he wrote, that he would agree that older and better are not synonyms.
I believe his point was that the older texts and the later ones agree in the overwhelming number of instances, so we don’t need to worry about those texts that we don’t have from 250 AD or earlier - because they are likely to be nearly identical to later texts.
I honestly don’t know of any doctrine found in the KJV that isn’t also found in the NIV.
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