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Bibleguys - My Journey These Past Couple of Years (2 Viewers)
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shader
Footballguy
Again...if you had read my post, you'd know that I addressed that very issue, using the exact words " Now we could get into a million of his other writings, and I'm sure (I hope) you haven't abandoned all your faith in God because of a few books that Bart Ehrman wrote. "
So yes, I'm sure your faith collapsed for many different reasons.
But I can't discuss all those battles at once. All we can do is discuss one thing at a time. I was simply, as I said, using ONE of Bart Ehrman's examples. I chose Bart Ehrman specifically because you mentioned him.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
Do I look like I have a "please return me to faith in christianity" stamped on my forehead?
The thought that sunsets are pleasing therefore they must have a creator defies the simplest of logic. Hard to understand why people who otherwise seem to be full of knowledge and well educated just can't understand that. Or, they really do and have to admit it's blind faith.
shader
Footballguy
The other position defies the simplest of logic to many on the other side, which is the point. Smart people on both sides just look at life differently.
Obviously. And specifically sunsets. But that's neither an argument nor an explaination.
CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
Ok, so abiogenesis is the big missing link in a long, long chain of scientific knowledge. There are theories. Science will figure it out some day, I'm sure.
What else ya got?
CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
I can see how the base question of how the universe was created will logically lead us in very different directions. Interesting debate, but not really the focus of this thread at the moment. I did want to hear more about the above part of your response, especially since I don't know nearly as much about biblical history as most of the people posting in this thread.
If the early Christians were so persecuted, how did the story survive?
If they couldn't read or write, how did the story get recorded? I think I know the answer to this one. It went from an oral tradition, to a legend, to eventually being written down by other, more powerful, literate men 50+ years later. Were these men still being persecuted, or had the religion somehow survived and now they could start writing about it without fear of death? And, I'm sure they were very convinced that they had it right. They were men of faith, as you put it. Much like yourself. But, had any of them actually witnessed any of this, or were they just having faith in the oral tradition they they had heard.
Not sure I agree that they had nothing to gain.
Assuming your base belief is that God exists and created the universe, and he communicates with humans to send them messages about what he wants, how do you decide that the early Christian legend is correct and that Muhammad, for example, was full of ####? How did the early Christians know that the people who claimed to have visions (ex. Paul), or people who witnessed miracles, or even Jesus himself weren't all full of ####?
Apparently, Christians believe Paul, Jesus, etc. but don't believe Muhammad. And Muslims believe Muhammad, but not Jesus and Paul. And, Jews don't believe any of them. How can we make sense of all of these extraordinary claims 2,000 years after the fact?
If God spoke to people and sent messengers, and even sent his son, why has he now gone completely silent for the last 2,000 years? If he did send a messenger today, how would we know the messenger wasn't full of ####?
Jayrok
Footballguy
Before you make an argument against Ehrman's views on early manuscripts, I think you should first understand his actual point of view. Ehrman does not believe that the fact that there are tons of manuscripts is a bad thing. He has, in fact, said that it is both good and bad. The 'bad' part not being the number of documents, as you are claiming as his point of view.shader said:
From one of Erhman's blog posts, July 2015: See note.
So right from the start, you have misrepresented what Ehrman actually said about the vast number of NT manuscripts we have.
His 'bad' news deals not with the amount of documents, but rather the fact that of those surviving documents, there are "hardly any that are extremely early." Most of them are from the middle ages, many centuries after the originals.
More good news, according to Ehrman, is that the vast majority of the hundreds or thousands of differences (found in the manuscripts) are "completely and utterly unimportant and significant and don't matter at all." He says that most are simply spelling errors and other scribal errors.
You said that Erhman is making a MASSIVE deal out of the time period from the 1st to 2nd century. But you're setting up a strawman to burn down, an argument that Erhman is not making. Yes, it's possible that a document dating to 60AD could be discovered tomorrow. But it wouldn't blow away any theory that Erhman has. In fact, Erhman would be delighted if such a discovery were to occur. Who wouldn't be? His arguments are based on what we have. He is not an apologist, so he isn't defending anything. As a NT scholar, he'd be thrilled to update any book with relevant information. He actually says: "That doesn’t mean, however, that we should give up all hope of ever discovering what the New Testament authors wrote." (see note). He still hopes to find the originals.
The oldest surviving manuscript is the credit card-sized fragment found in Egypt of the gospel of John; a few verses of John 18. Usually dated to around 125 AD. The first reasonably complete copy of John is from around 200 AD, per Ehrman. He says the first complete manuscripts of the NT started appearing around the mid-fourth century (300 years after the originals).
A main issue he points out is that when there are an abundance of manuscripts (during the middle ages), the copyists were trained scribes, usually monks in monasteries who copied as sacred duty. They did their best but of course people make mistakes. But those are better than the earlier centuries where the copyists were not trained scribes. He says "we know this because we can examine their copies and evaluate the quality of their handwriting, and can assess how accurately they did their work." (see note).
He says the earlier manuscripts of the NT have far more mistakes and differences in them than the later ones. "The earlier we go in the history of copying these texts, the less skilled and attentive the scribes appear to have been." (see note).
He puts it another way: "if you take two New Testament manuscripts from around the year 1000 and compare them to one another, they are often very much alike in every verse. But if you do the same thing with the fragmentary copies made around the year 200, you find lots and lots of differences—differences both from the manuscripts of the year 1000 and, more disconcertingly, differences from one another. This tells us that the earliest scribes were not as skilled or assiduous as the later ones. And that’s a problem, because all of our surviving manuscripts were copied from earlier manuscripts, and the earliest copies of all were filled with mistakes. If our earliest known copyists made tons of mistakes, how many mistakes were made by their predecessors, who produced the copies that they copied? We have no way of knowing." (see note).
tl;dr version: You misunderstand his point of view. Tons of manuscripts is a good thing. The bad thing is of those tons of documents, most of them are copies from the middle ages by trained scribes. These documents compare great to one another from that time period. Accurate with a few minor mistakes. But those copies are of copies from the previous several centuries where the scribes were not trained and made more mistakes. Copies from around 200 AD differ from each other, and differ from the ones produced a thousand years later. If our earliest known copyists made lots of mistakes, how many mistakes were made by their predecessors, who produced the copies that they copied? That is Erhman's point.
Indeed, if we found a manuscript or good sized fragment from 60 AD, the odds of it being 98% accurate with the manuscripts produced in the middle ages are extremely low.
Note: Source
Politician Spock
Footballguy
It didn't.
The Jerusalem church was a jewish sect that believed Jesus was the messiah (the next anointed king of Israel). As Jews, they honored and practiced the Torah, which not only required one to be in Jerusalem (or go to it now and then), it also required the Jerusalem temple. When Jerusalem was lost in 70 AD, and the temple was destroyed, this left the members of the Jerusalem church without a way to honor and practice the entire Torah. When Judea was lost a few decades later, there was no more country for the messiah to be king over. With no way of honoring and practicing the entire Torah, and no country for their messiah to be king of, the believers were scattered and well... just stopped believing. Pockets of similar beliefs can be found, like they Ebionites, but they eventually died off too. Thus, no the story did not survive.
What survived was what Paul was out teaching the gentiles. The Jerusalem church was happy to have gentiles join their belief, but believers first and foremost were Jewish. The belief was that Jesus was the next anointed King of Israel (the messiah), so it makes no sense for a believer in Jesus to not be Jewish (or as CE puts it, and I agree with, one of the 12 tribes of Israel). There was of course the whole debate as to gentiles and their honoring and practicing the Torah. I agree with CE that the Jerusalem church (led by James) decided new gentile believers could start with a few easy ones first, and would learn how to honor and practice the Torah over time as they hear it read every week. So the Jerusalem church was fine with Paul out recruiting gentiles and establishing churches with a leniency for their honor and practice of the torah. But the Jerusalem church didn't realize Paul was out teaching a different gospel then they were. Not only did his gospel teach that Jesus ended the need to honor and practice the Torah, it also included a lot of pagan concepts (virgin birth, sacrificial death, redeeming of sins, heaven, hell... etc....). Paul claims the gospel Paul taught them came to him from visions of Jesus. He makes this clear in his writings that he did NOT get this gospel from any men. These were concepts many greco/roman cultures were not only already familiar with, they enjoyed. What they didn't enjoy was what the Jewish law required of them. So Paul was telling them what they wanted to hear. That's his nature. That's his method of operation. That's how he got sales done. And then he got called out on it and paid the price for it. But by that time, what he was teaching took on a life of it's own. Once Jerusalem fell, Judea was lost, and the original belief died off, Paul's version of Jesus grew unopposed. The pagan roots of Paul's version continued to keep the story going for another 200+ years the parts of the world dominated by greco/roman culture. But it really didn't become HUGE until Constantine made it the official religion of Rome. With the world's largest empire behind it, there story grew in number and strength, any people or literature that said anything negative about it were killed and destroyed.
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CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
Those last 2 posts are a wealth of information. Thanks, guys.
No wonder you both de-converted, or at least, came to realize the Bible ain't all its cracked up to be.
No wonder you both de-converted, or at least, came to realize the Bible ain't all its cracked up to be.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
Glad I could help.CowboysFromHell said:
I feel like a left a cult.
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