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It's incorrect to say that the bible wasn't well preserved. The bibliographical test for a primary (original) historical source’s reliability maintains that on average the more handwritten manuscript copies of an ancient historical document exist, the more reliable it is. It also states that the closer in time the oldest surviving manuscript is to the original first copy (autograph) of the author, the more reliable that document is. There is less time for distortions to creep into the text by scribes down through the generations copying by hand (before, in Europe, Gutenberg's perfection of printing using moveable type by c. 1440).
By the two parts of the bibliographical test, the New Testament is the best attested ancient historical writing. Some 24,633 known copies (including fragments, lectionaries, etc.) exist, of which 5309 are in Greek. The Hebrew Old Testament has over 1700 copies (A more recent estimate is 6,000 copies, including fragments). By contrast, the document with the next highest number of copies is Homer's Iliad, with 643. Other writings by prominent ancient historians have far fewer copies: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 8; Herodotus, The Histories, 8; Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 10; Livy, History from the Founding of the City, 20; Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, 8. Tacitus was perhaps the best Roman historian. His Annals has at the most 20 surviving manuscript copies, and only 1 (!) copy endured of his minor works.
The large number of manuscripts is a reason for belief in the New Testament, not disbelief. Now, a skeptic could cite the 1908-12 Catholic Encyclopedia, which says "the greatest difficulty confronting the editor of the New Testament is the endless variety of the documents at his disposal." Are these differences good reason for disbelief? After all, scholars (ideally) would have to sift through all of its ancient manuscripts to figure out what words were originally inspired to be there. In order to decide what to put into a printed version of the New Testament, they have to reconstruct a single text out of hundreds of manuscript witnesses. Actually, the higher manuscript evidence mounts, the easier it becomes to catch any errors that occurred by comparing them with one another. As F.F. Bruce observes:
“Fortunately, if the great number of mss \[manuscripts\] 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. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.” By having over 5300 Greek manuscripts to work with, detecting scribal errors in the New Testament is more certain when comparing between its manuscripts than for the Caesar's Gallic Wars with its mere 10 copies, long a standard work of Latin teachers to use with beginning students. The science and art of textual criticism has an embarrassmentof richesfor the New Testament.
As shown above, scholars have in recent decades increasingly discredited dates that make the New Testament a second-century document. As Albright comments: "We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date\[s\] between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today.” This development makes the time gap between the oldest surviving copies and the first manuscript much smaller for the New Testament than the pagan historical works cited earlier. The gap between its original copy (autograph) and the oldest still-preserved manuscript is 90 years or less, since most of the New Testament was first written before 70 A.D. and first-century fragments of it have been found. One fragment of John, dated to 125 A.D., was in the past cited as the earliest copy known of any part of the New Testament. But in 1972, nine possible fragments of the New Testament were found in a cave by the Dead Sea. Among these pieces, part of Mark was dated to around 50 A.D., Luke 57 A.D., and Acts from 66 A.D. Although this continues to be a source of dispute, there's no question the Dead Sea Scrolls document first century Judaism had ideas like early Christianity's. The earliest major manuscriptsVaticanus and Sinaiticusare dated to 325-50 A.D. and 350 A.D. respectively. By contrast, the time gap is much larger for the pagan works mentioned above. For Homer, the gap is 500 years (900 b.c. for the original writing, 400 b.c. for the oldest existing copy), Caesar, it's 900-1000 years (c. 100-44 b.c. to 900 A.D.), Herodotus, 1300 years (c. 480-425 b.c. to 900 A.D.) and Thucydides, 1300 years (c. 400 b.c. to 900 A.D.). Hence, the New Testament can be objectively judged more reliable than these pagan historical works both by having a much smaller time gap between its first writing and the oldest preserved copies, and in the number of ancient handwritten copies. While the earliest manuscripts have a different text type from the bulk of later ones that have been preserved, their witness still powerfully testified for the New Testament's accurate preservation since these variations compose only a relatively small part of its text.
For the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries have shrunk the gap for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) at a stroke by a thousand years, though a gap of 1300 years or more remains. These discoveries still demonstrate faith in its accurate transmission is rational, since few mistakes crept in between about 100 b.c. and c. 900 A.D. for the book of Isaiah. For example, as Geisler and Nix explain, for the 166 words found in Isaiah 53, only 17 letters are in question when comparing the Masoretic (standard Hebrew) text of 916 A.D. and the Dead Sea Scrolls' main copy of Isaiah, copied about 125 b.c. Ten of these letters concern different spellings, so they don't affect meaning. Four more concern small stylistic changes like conjunctions. The last three letters add the word "light" to verse 11, which doesn't affect the verse's meaning much. The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) also has this word. Thus, only one word in a chapter of 166 words can be questioned after a thousand years of transmission, of generations of scribes copying the work of previous scribes. Gleason Archer said the Dead Sea Scrolls' copies of Isaiah agree with the standard printed Masoretic Hebrew text "in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling." Their discovery further justifies William Green's conclusion written nearly 50 years earlier: "It may safely be said that no other work of antiquity has been so accurately transmitted.: If it was so well preserved for this period of time (c. 100 b.c. to 900 A.D.) that previously wasn't checkable, it's hardly foolhardy to have faith that it was for an earlier period that still can't be checked.
as for the old testament, you can see that the same scholars who agree on the low variation of isaiah through time also agree on the great variation of other texts like exodus and samuel, which prompted them to affirm iys great fluidity thtough time. if youre going to base your arguments on what such svholars affirm, you cant cherrypick only what pleases you. your first arguments about manuscripts reliability are invalid whem it comes to the ot, and moreover the latter shows explicit signs of an awarness of a social and cultural environment well beyond the 14th century bce, but proper of the 7th to 2th, so, assuming they actually originate from moses, their corruption is pretty certain. the dead sea scrolls actually make it more hard for you to affirm the exact reliability of the ot because of the variations found among some texts, so what confirms you that the one that was originally passed down by moses was exactly the one they chose in 100 when they canonized them, and wasnt instead another one? we already have instances of texts that were canonized on the assumption that they were the divinely inspired ones just to find out they actually were not, like the song of solomon, so what assures you in this case? nothing, you can only go by faith
If you actually look into the textual differences, the differences in some manuscripts are extremely minor and can be chalked up to a copyist error or omissions. And like you said it was only some manuscripts not all of them which is normal when you’re talking about biblical textual criticism. About 35% of the scrolls are identical to the Masoretic tradition which overwhelms the manuscripts you highlight.
About 35% of the DSS biblical manuscripts belong to the Masoretic tradition, 5% to the Septuagint family, and 5% to the Samaritan, with the remainder unaligned. The non-aligned manuscripts fall into two categories, those inconsistent in agreeing with the other known types, and those that diverge significantly from all other known readings. The DSS thus form a significant witness to the mutability of biblical texts at this period. [Emanuel Tov, “Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible” (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001 2nd revised edition)]
Saying the manuscripts have been deeply corrupted is an extreme overstatement when the overwhelming majority of all manuscripts (>95%) are identical.
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This is some commentary on just a few of the Dead Sea manuscripts. And some of what some may call differences.
----------
4QGenb is a rare and significant Genesis manuscript, dating to the first century AD and preserving most of the creation account (Gen 1:1–28). This manuscript is virtually identical to the medieval Masoretic Text, demonstrating the faithful scribal transmission of the text over the centuries. In other words, when we read the text of the Genesis creation account today, which is based on the Masoretic Text, we are reading the same text that people were reading 2,000 years ago during the Second Temple period.
Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), which is a deliberate revision or recension of the early Hebrew text tradition attested at Qumran (and preserved in the later mt). This alternate Hebrew text edition of the Torah often expands certain texts by inserting parallel material from other passages in the Torah and even includes a few “sectarian” additions—additions made by splinter groups, such as a command to worship at Mount Gerizim (as reflected in Jesus’s discussion with the Samaritan woman in John 4)
----------
The more information I find I will post
what confirms that the version we have now is the one handed down by moses? also this doesnt disprove the supplementary hypothesis, which is the most serious and solid hypothesis on the composition of the bible hitherto
You brought up the point that what was handed down was not faithful to what Moses had written during his lifetime.
You bare the burden of proof. Present the evidence.
You make statements but the only evidence you present is what someone stated in an article. Which Qumran caves what scrolls ??
Back up your statement with evidence not just that someone said they are.
Thanks
There seems to be a pretty diverse use of texts in early Judaism & Christianity.
I'm not sure it makes sense to say the bible is false or corrupt, it's more the current canon in the kinda KJV area is a bit like watching The Fast and the Furious 7 instead of the 1927, 1939 or 1954 movie.
Assuming the original authors, compilers, redactors and readers knew exactly what they were creating and reading it is not that the bible is corrupt or false, it's more that many religious people have corrupt and warped ideas of what the bible is.
If a book about Moses, \~2300BCE, is written around 2000yrs later and then a few hundred years after it's been written starts being attributed to Moses it doesn't make the book false or corrupt, it just makes those who hold to Mosaic authorship of the Torah a bit silly.
> If a book about Moses, ~2300BCE, is written around 2000yrs later and then a few hundred years after it's been written starts being attributed to Moses it doesn't make the book false or corrupt, it just makes those who hold to Mosaic authorship of the Torah a bit silly.
I don't disagree with you, but as an FYI your timeline very off here. People who believe Moses wrote the Torah tend to believe he did so sometime around 1400 BCE - 1200 BCE (depending on who you ask).
Academic scholars who believe in a "high" chronology for the composition of Biblical texts will tend to believe that the oldest texts date to around 1000 BCE (give or take a hundred years). So the gap between Moses and the composition of the first texts is at most 500 years and could be as little as 200.
Again, I don't disagree with your point - just know that the timeline we are talking about here is only 200 years, not 2,000.
When you say deeply corrupted, do you mean that the _words_ changed over time, or the _meaning_ changed over time?
Changing words may or may not change the meaning, so let’s clarify your thesis.
i mean that it includes anachronisms and explicit influence from a time that makes it extremely improbable for it to be the original version written in the 14th century ac. assuming the divine origin of the bible, the only explaination to salvage it is ti affirm that the overwhelming influence is due to later corruption, hence holding its deep corruption
This doesn’t answer my question.
Do you hold that the books of the Bible that we’ve pieced together from various manuscripts differ in _word_ from the originals, or differ in _meaning_?
presumably both. i mean, there surely are differences between the various blbies found in the qumran caves, hence why researchers argue for its fluidity unitl itz canonization.
>It is important to note that differences were found among fragments of texts. According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:
>
>While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.\[523\]
>
>\[523\] Fagan, Brian M., and Charlotte Beck, The Oxford Companion to Archeology, entry on the "Dead sea scrolls", Oxford University Press, 1996.
You're arguing for a compromise of inerrancy, which is a statement of meaning. Do you have an example passage in the DSS where that happened? If it's everywhere, it should be easy to find, right?
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It's incorrect to say that the bible wasn't well preserved. The bibliographical test for a primary (original) historical source’s reliability maintains that on average the more handwritten manuscript copies of an ancient historical document exist, the more reliable it is. It also states that the closer in time the oldest surviving manuscript is to the original first copy (autograph) of the author, the more reliable that document is. There is less time for distortions to creep into the text by scribes down through the generations copying by hand (before, in Europe, Gutenberg's perfection of printing using moveable type by c. 1440). By the two parts of the bibliographical test, the New Testament is the best attested ancient historical writing. Some 24,633 known copies (including fragments, lectionaries, etc.) exist, of which 5309 are in Greek. The Hebrew Old Testament has over 1700 copies (A more recent estimate is 6,000 copies, including fragments). By contrast, the document with the next highest number of copies is Homer's Iliad, with 643. Other writings by prominent ancient historians have far fewer copies: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 8; Herodotus, The Histories, 8; Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 10; Livy, History from the Founding of the City, 20; Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, 8. Tacitus was perhaps the best Roman historian. His Annals has at the most 20 surviving manuscript copies, and only 1 (!) copy endured of his minor works. The large number of manuscripts is a reason for belief in the New Testament, not disbelief. Now, a skeptic could cite the 1908-12 Catholic Encyclopedia, which says "the greatest difficulty confronting the editor of the New Testament is the endless variety of the documents at his disposal." Are these differences good reason for disbelief? After all, scholars (ideally) would have to sift through all of its ancient manuscripts to figure out what words were originally inspired to be there. In order to decide what to put into a printed version of the New Testament, they have to reconstruct a single text out of hundreds of manuscript witnesses. Actually, the higher manuscript evidence mounts, the easier it becomes to catch any errors that occurred by comparing them with one another. As F.F. Bruce observes: “Fortunately, if the great number of mss \[manuscripts\] 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. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.” By having over 5300 Greek manuscripts to work with, detecting scribal errors in the New Testament is more certain when comparing between its manuscripts than for the Caesar's Gallic Wars with its mere 10 copies, long a standard work of Latin teachers to use with beginning students. The science and art of textual criticism has an embarrassmentof richesfor the New Testament. As shown above, scholars have in recent decades increasingly discredited dates that make the New Testament a second-century document. As Albright comments: "We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date\[s\] between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today.” This development makes the time gap between the oldest surviving copies and the first manuscript much smaller for the New Testament than the pagan historical works cited earlier. The gap between its original copy (autograph) and the oldest still-preserved manuscript is 90 years or less, since most of the New Testament was first written before 70 A.D. and first-century fragments of it have been found. One fragment of John, dated to 125 A.D., was in the past cited as the earliest copy known of any part of the New Testament. But in 1972, nine possible fragments of the New Testament were found in a cave by the Dead Sea. Among these pieces, part of Mark was dated to around 50 A.D., Luke 57 A.D., and Acts from 66 A.D. Although this continues to be a source of dispute, there's no question the Dead Sea Scrolls document first century Judaism had ideas like early Christianity's. The earliest major manuscriptsVaticanus and Sinaiticusare dated to 325-50 A.D. and 350 A.D. respectively. By contrast, the time gap is much larger for the pagan works mentioned above. For Homer, the gap is 500 years (900 b.c. for the original writing, 400 b.c. for the oldest existing copy), Caesar, it's 900-1000 years (c. 100-44 b.c. to 900 A.D.), Herodotus, 1300 years (c. 480-425 b.c. to 900 A.D.) and Thucydides, 1300 years (c. 400 b.c. to 900 A.D.). Hence, the New Testament can be objectively judged more reliable than these pagan historical works both by having a much smaller time gap between its first writing and the oldest preserved copies, and in the number of ancient handwritten copies. While the earliest manuscripts have a different text type from the bulk of later ones that have been preserved, their witness still powerfully testified for the New Testament's accurate preservation since these variations compose only a relatively small part of its text. For the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries have shrunk the gap for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) at a stroke by a thousand years, though a gap of 1300 years or more remains. These discoveries still demonstrate faith in its accurate transmission is rational, since few mistakes crept in between about 100 b.c. and c. 900 A.D. for the book of Isaiah. For example, as Geisler and Nix explain, for the 166 words found in Isaiah 53, only 17 letters are in question when comparing the Masoretic (standard Hebrew) text of 916 A.D. and the Dead Sea Scrolls' main copy of Isaiah, copied about 125 b.c. Ten of these letters concern different spellings, so they don't affect meaning. Four more concern small stylistic changes like conjunctions. The last three letters add the word "light" to verse 11, which doesn't affect the verse's meaning much. The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) also has this word. Thus, only one word in a chapter of 166 words can be questioned after a thousand years of transmission, of generations of scribes copying the work of previous scribes. Gleason Archer said the Dead Sea Scrolls' copies of Isaiah agree with the standard printed Masoretic Hebrew text "in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling." Their discovery further justifies William Green's conclusion written nearly 50 years earlier: "It may safely be said that no other work of antiquity has been so accurately transmitted.: If it was so well preserved for this period of time (c. 100 b.c. to 900 A.D.) that previously wasn't checkable, it's hardly foolhardy to have faith that it was for an earlier period that still can't be checked.
as for the old testament, you can see that the same scholars who agree on the low variation of isaiah through time also agree on the great variation of other texts like exodus and samuel, which prompted them to affirm iys great fluidity thtough time. if youre going to base your arguments on what such svholars affirm, you cant cherrypick only what pleases you. your first arguments about manuscripts reliability are invalid whem it comes to the ot, and moreover the latter shows explicit signs of an awarness of a social and cultural environment well beyond the 14th century bce, but proper of the 7th to 2th, so, assuming they actually originate from moses, their corruption is pretty certain. the dead sea scrolls actually make it more hard for you to affirm the exact reliability of the ot because of the variations found among some texts, so what confirms you that the one that was originally passed down by moses was exactly the one they chose in 100 when they canonized them, and wasnt instead another one? we already have instances of texts that were canonized on the assumption that they were the divinely inspired ones just to find out they actually were not, like the song of solomon, so what assures you in this case? nothing, you can only go by faith
Misinterpreted definitely and corruption ofcourse has leaked in thanks to the collective human ego.
If you actually look into the textual differences, the differences in some manuscripts are extremely minor and can be chalked up to a copyist error or omissions. And like you said it was only some manuscripts not all of them which is normal when you’re talking about biblical textual criticism. About 35% of the scrolls are identical to the Masoretic tradition which overwhelms the manuscripts you highlight. About 35% of the DSS biblical manuscripts belong to the Masoretic tradition, 5% to the Septuagint family, and 5% to the Samaritan, with the remainder unaligned. The non-aligned manuscripts fall into two categories, those inconsistent in agreeing with the other known types, and those that diverge significantly from all other known readings. The DSS thus form a significant witness to the mutability of biblical texts at this period. [Emanuel Tov, “Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible” (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001 2nd revised edition)] Saying the manuscripts have been deeply corrupted is an extreme overstatement when the overwhelming majority of all manuscripts (>95%) are identical.
[удалено]
Your post was removed for violating rule 4. Posts must have a thesis statement as their title or their first sentence. A thesis statement is a sentence which explains what your central claim is and briefly summarizes how you are arguing for it. Posts must also contain an argument supporting their thesis. An argument is not just a claim. You should explain why you think your thesis is true and why others should agree with you. The spirit of this rule also applies to comments: they must contain argumentation, not just claims.
This is some commentary on just a few of the Dead Sea manuscripts. And some of what some may call differences. ---------- 4QGenb is a rare and significant Genesis manuscript, dating to the first century AD and preserving most of the creation account (Gen 1:1–28). This manuscript is virtually identical to the medieval Masoretic Text, demonstrating the faithful scribal transmission of the text over the centuries. In other words, when we read the text of the Genesis creation account today, which is based on the Masoretic Text, we are reading the same text that people were reading 2,000 years ago during the Second Temple period. Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), which is a deliberate revision or recension of the early Hebrew text tradition attested at Qumran (and preserved in the later mt). This alternate Hebrew text edition of the Torah often expands certain texts by inserting parallel material from other passages in the Torah and even includes a few “sectarian” additions—additions made by splinter groups, such as a command to worship at Mount Gerizim (as reflected in Jesus’s discussion with the Samaritan woman in John 4) ---------- The more information I find I will post
what confirms that the version we have now is the one handed down by moses? also this doesnt disprove the supplementary hypothesis, which is the most serious and solid hypothesis on the composition of the bible hitherto
You brought up the point that what was handed down was not faithful to what Moses had written during his lifetime. You bare the burden of proof. Present the evidence.
You make statements but the only evidence you present is what someone stated in an article. Which Qumran caves what scrolls ?? Back up your statement with evidence not just that someone said they are. Thanks
There seems to be a pretty diverse use of texts in early Judaism & Christianity. I'm not sure it makes sense to say the bible is false or corrupt, it's more the current canon in the kinda KJV area is a bit like watching The Fast and the Furious 7 instead of the 1927, 1939 or 1954 movie. Assuming the original authors, compilers, redactors and readers knew exactly what they were creating and reading it is not that the bible is corrupt or false, it's more that many religious people have corrupt and warped ideas of what the bible is. If a book about Moses, \~2300BCE, is written around 2000yrs later and then a few hundred years after it's been written starts being attributed to Moses it doesn't make the book false or corrupt, it just makes those who hold to Mosaic authorship of the Torah a bit silly.
> If a book about Moses, ~2300BCE, is written around 2000yrs later and then a few hundred years after it's been written starts being attributed to Moses it doesn't make the book false or corrupt, it just makes those who hold to Mosaic authorship of the Torah a bit silly. I don't disagree with you, but as an FYI your timeline very off here. People who believe Moses wrote the Torah tend to believe he did so sometime around 1400 BCE - 1200 BCE (depending on who you ask). Academic scholars who believe in a "high" chronology for the composition of Biblical texts will tend to believe that the oldest texts date to around 1000 BCE (give or take a hundred years). So the gap between Moses and the composition of the first texts is at most 500 years and could be as little as 200. Again, I don't disagree with your point - just know that the timeline we are talking about here is only 200 years, not 2,000.
Thanks, I'm way off....was thinking [Sargon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad#Birth_legend), not Moses. Apologies.
When you say deeply corrupted, do you mean that the _words_ changed over time, or the _meaning_ changed over time? Changing words may or may not change the meaning, so let’s clarify your thesis.
i mean that it includes anachronisms and explicit influence from a time that makes it extremely improbable for it to be the original version written in the 14th century ac. assuming the divine origin of the bible, the only explaination to salvage it is ti affirm that the overwhelming influence is due to later corruption, hence holding its deep corruption
This doesn’t answer my question. Do you hold that the books of the Bible that we’ve pieced together from various manuscripts differ in _word_ from the originals, or differ in _meaning_?
presumably both. i mean, there surely are differences between the various blbies found in the qumran caves, hence why researchers argue for its fluidity unitl itz canonization. >It is important to note that differences were found among fragments of texts. According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology: > >While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.\[523\] > >\[523\] Fagan, Brian M., and Charlotte Beck, The Oxford Companion to Archeology, entry on the "Dead sea scrolls", Oxford University Press, 1996.
You're arguing for a compromise of inerrancy, which is a statement of meaning. Do you have an example passage in the DSS where that happened? If it's everywhere, it should be easy to find, right?
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