http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/archives/2007/tacitus-fragment-2-the-anti-roman-movement-of-the-christiani-and-the-nazoreans/ The purpose of this website is to facilitate Muslim responses to the various mendacious polemics and distortions of Islam by the Christian missionaries and their anti-Islamic allies that are being spread over the Internet. Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:56:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/archives/2007/tacitus-fragment-2-the-anti-roman-movement-of-the-christiani-and-the-nazoreans/#comment-31660 rebo Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:17:44 +0000 http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/archives/2007/tacitus-fragment-2-the-anti-roman-movement-of-the-christiani-and-the-nazoreans/#comment-31660 INTERESTING REPLY BY SALLY DAVIS ABOUT EHRMANS BOOK MATT: On pages 169-170 of Bart Ehrman's book, 'Misquoting Jesus' we read the following: "It is interesting to note, however, that in some of our earliest witnesses-including the Alexandrian manuscript Codex Sinaiticus*-there is an addition to the text. 10 After it indicates that "here moved from them," in these manuscripts it states "and he was up into heaven." This is a significant addition because it stresses physicality of Jesus's departure at his ascension (rather than the he was removed"). In part, this is an intriguing variant because same author, Luke, in his second volume, the book of Acts, again narrates Jesus's ascension into heaven, but explicitly states that place "forty days" after the resurrection (Acts 1:111)." A powerful appeal is here made to Codex Sinaiticus as it is one of the 'oldest mss' and therefore considered [rightly or wrongly] as amongst the most reliable. However, Codex Siniaticus does not contain the addition that Ehrman here claims? Comments welcomed * http://www.mostmerciful.com/secrets-of-sinai.htm http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=223 http://www.biblebelievers.com/Hills_KJVD_Chapter5.htm http://www.bible-researcher.com/noninterp.html SALLY: I'm on the last part of the book, and having spent several hours reading it, I'll comment. This man never claims anywhere that the book he has just written is inspired. There are several typos and inaccuracies. I am not a professional at any of this, and am in fact a member of the target audience (rank neophytes in the area of textual criticism), and I spotted a few as I read. Irrelevant. MB The issue has nothing to do with inspiration, as if I were suggesting his book should be error free but rather to do with questioning his attention to detail in matters that to him should be like breathing. Both errors I have demonstrated are basic textual criticism issues that no competent scholar who was careful in their work would make, let alone make and then form and state a position from as he does with the Nomina Sacra example. The point he is making comes through loud and clear. He could have made many more errors than he did and it would still be damning to the sort of biblical inerrancy I grew up with. MB 1. That his point is made is of course disputed by many individuals who consider that point is based on fallacious reasoning, misrepresentation, exaggeration and selective inclusion of material. 2. I have read critical reviews and replies from inerrantists as well as from errantists. Both consider him to have failed in his arguments and provide reasons why. I'm left, near the end, with the question remaining: If we cannot trust the words, if we do not in fact have the actual words, then how do we know what is the "Word" and what is not? MB The answer to your question is to be found in the field in which you are beginning to study, i.e. textual criticism which fortunately doesn't seek to present an agenda as does Ehrman's, 'Misquoting Jesus'. I asked you this, Matt, before all this stuff started, and you cannot answer the question. MB No. Your question was how did I know the inerrant from the errant. That has nothing to do with textual criticism because even if could give us 100% of the original text [rather than the 90+ it does] your question would still remain since you rejected the answered provided to you. SALLY: That's because your "answer" was mumbo jumbo. Whenever you begin to flounder, you revert to lots of big words and nonsense. You say vague things that have no substance. The whole point of textual criticism is determining the "inerrant" from the errant. Were there no issue like that, there would nothing to talk about. I don't think scholars sit around spending their whole lives trying to determine if we have all of exact stuff Homer wrote (assuming there was somebody named Homer and that he actually wrote anything). It's no big huge deal because there is no claim of inspiration from God about Homer, and people don't blow up abortion clinics because Zeus or Hera told them to. SALLY: The reason is that there is no answer. If the Bible is riddled with typos, inaccuracies and mistakes (way more than exist in "Misquoting Jesus"), and nobody is seriously disputing that, then how can we believe that it is God's word? That we have the gist of what the writers were trying to say is without question. But that's not the point. I've endured sermons - long sermons - based on one single word in a single verse. What if that word wasn't there at all? MB As stated Misquoting Jesus deals in exagerration, duplicity and misrepresentation. Textual criticism gives us over 90+ of the text and there is no substantive matter that remains unsolved. Forget Ehrman, focus on textual criticism. SALLY: Why don't you follow your own advice? You're the one focusing on nitpicking his book. I make no claim about the book one way or another (except that I think it's a super introduction to the subject for fundies who have no idea there is such a thing as questioning the authenticity of the bible), and accept fully that it might have boo-boos in it. I already said that I wished it were more scholarly. Again, I ask you, if there is "no substantive matter that remains unsolved" - how do you know that? You cannot know it. Even if you're right, and somehow we "knew" that we had 90% of the "original text" - that leaves 10%. And maybe that 10% is the most important. Maybe the part that got left out was the part that told us that another prophet was coming, and his name would be Mohammed. How do you know? If anything at all was changed, everything could have been changed. If God "preserves" his message to us, then he preserves the whole damn thing. All or nothing. I fail to see how it can be any other way, and you have never given any answer that made any sense to that. It's not a question of me "rejecting" the answer - it's that your "answer" is gibberish, which you often resort to when you get painted into a corner. This whole thing reminds me a lot of evolution. Here we are, living in a world that quite obviously is old, and surrounded by life that quite obviously evolved over millions of years. Yet, YECs spend their lives trying to find tiny little flaws in the theory of evolution so they can say, "Aha! See. There's a boo-boo. The evolutionists are wrong." We have this ancient document, a cobbled together bunch of legends, myths, stories, and sometimes outright lies, that has been changed and copied and changed and copied over and over again. I say again, it's exactly what you would expect to find from human beings. There is no "mark of God" on it. It's no more inspired than Homer. Yet, you spend inordinate amounts of time finding errors in the writing of biblical critics and then saying, "Aha! See. There's a boo-boo. Ehrman is wrong, therefore God exists." My view is that if God wants to communicate with me, he needs to do a better job of it than this. Doesn't it ever bother you that you've been left sitting in the weird position of searching for answers to questions that should be basic and simple? You are literate. You have access to data beyond the wildest dreams of people even just a few decades ago. If God were really there, and really loved people, and really wanted people to have what was best for them, and all that blather, why did he make it so damn hard? Why did he make it look like he isn't there at all? Everyone can't study this stuff in depth. Some people just get up and go to work every day. They work hard. They don't have the time, energy, education, or access to information that is required to delve into all this. Sometimes they don't live a full life span, so they quite literally do not have time to study all this stuff. Yet God expects them to figure it out? I think your situation is sad, frankly. If you're sincere, you're in a hell of a mess. Are you one of the elect? Or are you damned? Which words in your "errant but true" bible are a message from god himself, and which are not? How can you tell? If you're not sincere, and you just like to argue, it's still sad. SALLY: The problem is that in the whole history of the Bible and biblical textual criticism, we find exactly what we would expect to find in a manuscript written by human beings, hand copied by human beings, no different than any other ancient manuscript. Where is the "evidence" of inspiration? It's not up to us as nonbelievers to disprove inspiration. It's up to you who believe in it to prove that it's inspired. Exactly what do you have to present to us that would tend to support that position? Personally, I wish Ehrman's book were a bit more scholarly, and better proofread, but that's not the point. I'm not out to pass judgment on the man one way or the other. I wish the book had existed ten years ago. It, along with a few other popular books on atheism on the market today, might have shortened my path out of Christianity, and that would have been a good thing. His target audience is American fundamentalist Christianity and he's hit them right between the eyes. Bull's-eye. I know because I was one. This book is great for those in that world who are seeking. It counters the claim spouted from pulpits time and again that the Bible has all these authors and is so seamless and never has had a mistake verified and is therefore inspired, every single word. It's certainly an easy to read introduction to the subject of textual criticism. Are you interested in figuring out the truth or do you just like to pick nits? Sometimes I think it's the latter. MB Figuring out the truth about Ehrman's book involves a lot more than reading it. It involves checking the claims made within it. It involves testing its objective with responses to it. In short it involves adopting as much of a critical examination of his book as any other book. That kind of truth I am interested in. Thanks Matt SALLY: I suspect, frankly, that what you've done is totally the "lot more than reading it." I am a very fast reader, and I could not have read that book in the time you claimed to have read it. You just skimmed it lightly (VERY lightly) and then claimed to have read it, and began to search for criticism. I suppose that you felt that you could do that because you are so brilliant and so well studied and you know so much more than anyone else, and this "beginner" level book is beneath you. That is certainly the attitude that you project. I repeat, where is the evidence of inspiration, Matt? ]]>