Greg Boyd on New Testiment Reliablity

[AlP]

Out of interest Reginus, why is the accuracy or inaccuracy of the current copies of the bible versus the original work important to you? I would expect any ancient text that was copied by hand to have changes. What's the big deal?

Exactly my point

So why are you bringing it up on an atheist forum? An atheist isn't likely to overly care that the bible has changed over time. They are likely to think it was wrong when it was originally written. The rate at which changes occurred and the techniques people use to attempt to reconcile them are kind of interesting and I don't mind talking about it at all. But I can't help think there must be some kind underlying point here?

[LoneMateria]

By textual variations, do other languages count as variations? If so, then if the NT is in 100 languages and is made up of 10,000 passages, then there are already 1,000,000 combined variations in passages. Or do you mean NT manuscripts with at least one difference in one or more passages?

No.  By textual variations it just means it compares the words of the bibles (Latin, Greek (the language of our oldest manuscripts) and I think 1 more language starting right before the time of King James.  C'mon now why would they count each language as a variation?  Honestly with variations I don't know the extent to which its considered a variation.  Some of the manuscripts we have are just a passage or a few words so it may very well be a word is considered a variation, but I don't know I would expect more then that.  Also (if memory serves) Ehrman mentions that many of our variations showed that people could spell as well back then as they can now lol.  However lets look at the modern day equivalent ^_^.  In Jerusalem (the city of the Jews) what is the main religion?  Islam!  Just because its meant to be their city it doesn't mean their belief is the only one or even the majority.

If we knew that this part of the book was changed, but 95% of it is true, and we don't have any alternative history books, I would be inclined to believe most of it (not to mention the 9 points of textual critique.) I might take what chapter one was changed from and mentally switch it around with the current chapter one.

Where are you pulling that number?  From an apologist no doubt.  Does an apologist have a steak in this?  Conflict of interest.  Do I have a stake in this ... not really.  Even if somehow 95% of the bible were original it wouldn't be enough evidence to prove miracles have happened in it.  Why don't we have other more reliable historical records?  Oh thats right Christians burned them ... hmm I wonder why.  Also why are you clinging to those 9 points that has been refuted in the other thread?  We have demonstrated why they don't work how can you use that to verify this?  That means you are verifying the authenticity based on a flawed system, your result is flawed.

In summary, the Bible can only be considered changed/unreliable to the extent that it has been changed.

No.  Because you use the word unreliable that has absolutely nothing to do with text being changed.  Remember my Holocaust example?  When you put things that are factually wrong to start with into a book the originals are as unreliable as any permutation of the text.  If the text is changed yes the book is unreliable, its also unreliable if its filled with errors, especially those which contradict scientific understanding like a flat earth.  The bible talks about a flat earth in our oldest records does that mean the earth is flat (4 pillars and 4 corners of the earth [which is strangely why they chose 4 gospels for the NT]).  Impossibilities, magic and miracles show us how unreliable that this book actually is.


DAMNIT AlP I just typed all this out and you beat me to the punch, you suck ass :-D

[Reginus]

So why are you bringing it up on an atheist forum?

Um, because LoneMateria brought it up...

No. By textual variations it just means it compares the words of the bibles (Latin, Greek (the language of our oldest manuscripts) and I think 1 more language starting right before the time of King James. C'mon now why would they count each language as a variation? Honestly with variations I don't know the extent to which its considered a variation. Some of the manuscripts we have are just a passage or a few words so it may very well be a word is considered a variation, but I don't know I would expect more then that. Also (if memory serves) Ehrman mentions that many of our variations showed that people could spell as well back then as they can now . But with no spaces between words and no punctuation thats not surprising. This merits more research on my part, however the variations of the bible isn't something an atheist came up with ;-p.

Ok, I'm still not sure if by variations Ehrman means (1.)combined variations of passages, or (2.)copies with some sort of difference.

1. Imagine there was a passage in the Bible that said, "after sunset, Peter walked home." Say it was translated from Greek to Hebrew (the third language that counts?), and translated back to Greek again. Now for this one little passage, we have all of these variations:
   -Peter walked home after sunset
   -Peter walked home after the sun had set
   -Peter walked home after the sun had gone down
   -Peter walked back home after the sun went down
   -After the sun had set, Peter walked home
   -At the end of the day, Peter walked home

...and many, many more (I'm sure I could come up with 50 if I had time) possible variations with the same exact point. Since there are maybe 15,000 passages in the NT, if you multiply that by 3 languages, you get 45,000 passages. Now to reach 200,000 to 500,000, all we have to do is get 4-10 variations like this per passage.

2. (for if he means variations of the entire NT) Again, lets say that there are 15,000 passages. Now say each of 15,000 copies of the NT has a change in a different passage. Now let's take each one of these 15,000 copies and put in a second change to a different passage. So now we have 15,000 copies of each of the first 15,000 copies, which turns out to be in the millions when we multiply them.

Anyway, you get the point. The number of variations "200,000-500,000" is pretty much meaningless in and of its self. The possibilities I presented are very conservative (almost no change at all in essence), and you seem to have a very liberal interpretation (the Bible has gone through so much drastic change that we can have very little idea what it was at first.) In reality, it is probably somewhere in the middle. In any case, I see no conflict between Boyd's 95%-98% estimate and Ehrman's 200,000-500,000 estimate.

Our oldest works contradict each other at times because they were used by two groups with different beliefs. We don't have the book from which they were both written, so we have to do some detective work.

Do the differences between these two groups of works really amount to much, or are the differences minor?

The first gross absurdity is that Jesus was born of a virgin. It's biologically impossible for our species to a-sexually reproduce. How is this fixed, oh it was magic man he knocked up the mother and didn't tell her until she was in trouble. Great magic fixes everything. Well the absurdities are starting to build up in the beginning. Now maybe I can overlook that saying its a myth, then how can I distinguish myth from what happened? You can't, you have to accept what is said then pick and choose what you want to believe.

Why is this an absurdity? You would expect a creator to be able to create a tiny fetus if the creator can create the world. Aren't laws of nature simply compilations of observations (we have the law of gravity because we observe it continually)? In any case, how much does it really matter whether or not the virgin birth was a pagan addition? I think it is non essential to the question of Jesus' divinity?

Lets look at King Arthur for example here ^_^. It is generally thought that King Arthur was a historical person. Does that mean he really pulled the sword from the stone? Did he return Excalibur to the lady of the lake? Did he create the Knights of the Round table? The answer is probably not.

Good counter-example, and quite frankly I would need to do more research on King Arthur before I could compare them.

How accurate is hearsay? When you get your first job you will see how bad it is. You might make a benign comment to someone like Cathy's hair looks bad. Your friend could tell it to someone else and by the time it gets to Cathy it will probably come out like, "Reginus () thinks your ugly and fat, you don't dress well, and smell". That is how accurate hearsay is. Why can't this be the case with Jesus? His books weren't written until 30-60 years after his death.

I haven't read it, but Greg wrote an article on this exact topic which is in my first post.

Also keep in mind one of my favorite sayings, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However with the accuracy of the bible (especially when it comes to miracles) what do we have? Nothing. In the newspaper articles we have from those days we have nothing about Jesus, nothing from the people who hated him, nothing. Why is that?

So how many have the articles have you read so far?

With your earlier post you said that preaching to prostitutes and thieves wasn't strict Judaism. To me that sounded like something you made up so I called you out on it. Your response seems to confirm you were just making stuff up. Strict Judaism by that part of the Misquoting Jesus meant that he strictly followed the laws of the OT. At least that was according to the group of Christians (I think I was referring to the adoptionists but I don't know anymore). Anyway I'm not sure I have to recheck the 613 laws of the OT but I don't think there was a thou shalt not preach to the hooker. He was preaching his message to desperate people (a very distasteful tactic by anyones standards however its still employed by the church today thats why people preach in hospitals when people are at their most vulnerable). How is that divine?

Sorry, my original examples were rather poor. Anyway, he implied that he was the Son of God, which quite frankly doesn't fit with the completely monotheistic Jewish view. He completely disregards the law about not working on the Sabbath when confronted, and goes against many OT teachings (you have been told "an eye for an eye", but I tell you...).

I don't have a book for Judea specifically so I don't know . However lets look at the modern day equivalent ^_^. In Jerusalem (the city of the Jews) what is the main religion? Islam! Just because its meant to be their city it doesn't mean their belief is the only one or even the majority.

Source please? Wikipedia says that Judaism is far more common in Jerusalem than Islam.

No. Because you use the word unreliable that has absolutely nothing to do with text being changed. Remember my Holocaust example? When you put things that are factually wrong to start with into a book the originals are as unreliable as any permutation of the text. If the text is changed yes the book is unreliable, its also unreliable if its filled with errors, especially those which contradict scientific understanding like a flat earth. The bible talks about a flat earth in our oldest records does that mean the earth is flat (4 pillars and 4 corners of the earth [which is strangely why they chose 4 gospels for the NT]). Impossibilities, magic and miracles show us how unreliable that this book actually is.

By unreliable I meant an unreliable indicator of what the original Bible was. As for the flat Earth argument, is that from the Gospels? If not then we shouldn't even discuss it.

Read a few more of the articles if you time and tell me what you think.

[LoneMateria]

Ok, I'm still not sure if by variations Ehrman means (1.)combined variations of passages, or (2.)copies with some sort of difference.

Variation I think just means changes, slips in the pen, intentional alterations or the correcting of "mistakes".  But i'm not positive.  However I see a flaw with your two examples.

1.  It wasn't the goal of (most) scribes to make the bible flow better.  You gotta remember they were copying the bible down by hand, letter to letter, line to line, and thats a lot of work especially with no spaces between words and no syntax and abbreviations for common words that sometimes looked like other words.  They weren't thinking sentence structure they were thinking, "and Jesus said blah blah".  We know scribes made mistakes, the would omit word on accident and would sometimes copy the same line twice.  Sometimes someone would read the scribes the bible and many would sit down and by writing what was said and they would hear a different word and write it down.  Scribes would misspell words.  The thing is that each scribe would make changes in the work no matter how slight and when someone would copy from that work they would copy down the scribes mistakes and make their own and the process goes on and on.

2.  I think this is closer to the right definition however you are doing it on way too big of a scale.  Say we have single bible (The original)  IT was copied 5 times with a few mistakes and a change in each book (different mistakes).  Now each of those books got copied 5 times each with its own set of mistakes and changes, the original changes are copied.  Repeat the process about 50 times.  After 50 generations we can trace the newest book back and see how its changed from the original.  But in the case of our bibles we can't do that.  Our bibles today come from a certain branch of the tree with its own mistakes and alterations.  In order to see if the meaning has changed we need to compare even the smallest changes to other works from other branches of this tree.  When we don't have books from the first 20 generations how do we know that the bible we have has had the original words?  We have to compare them to other bibles each with their own sets of mistakes and have to decipher which is original and which isn't.  The mistakes through hand translation multiply exponentially the more generations it goes through.  If the first bible started out with 20 mistakes then the 2nd ones will have 50 and so on.  If you ever get bored one day and you have some friends over each of you copy a page out of a random book (perhaps on a subject you aren't too familiar with) then make a copy of that copy (dont look at the original) and so on and after you've done that 10 times or so compare yours to theirs and then compare it to the original.    

These variations are indeed important.  One mistake in 140 CE could still be present in our bibles nearly 1900 years later.  

Do the differences between these two groups of works really amount to much, or are the differences minor?

I pointed out earlier about the adoptionists, there were sects of Jewish Christians, Orthodox Christians, and others.  Each of these people used the bible to make and keep their world views which inevitably lead to genocide.  So i'm gonna say the differences were pretty big.  We are spoiled in our society because we can walk into a book store and if there are 4 copies of say Angels and Demons on the shelf, when we pick them up we will know that the words will be the exact same no matter what copy.  That wasn't the case before the printing press.  Each of those copies might say something different and not just in a minor way.  You wouldn't know what you would get until you read it.

Why is this an absurdity? You would expect a creator to be able to create a tiny fetus if the creator can create the world. Aren't laws of nature simply compilations of observations (we have the law of gravity because we observe it continually)? In any case, how much does it really matter whether or not the virgin birth was a pagan addition? I think it is non essential to the question of Jesus' divinity?

Its an absurdity because its physically impossible for human being to reproduce without a partner (Some species of fish and amphibians can do it but not us).  Do you see what you are doing trying to explain this?  You are making up absurdities to explain away absurdities, Magic did it!  And even to get to that statement you have to make assumptions to get there.  You have to assume there is a creator of the world and this creator not only has the ability to make giant rocks but complex fetuses,  you are assuming there is no other means of this,  and you are assuming that this is a good explanation.

The theory of gravity is the sum of what we have observed.  We have no reason to assume that there is any intelligence behind this force because gravity remains steadily calculable.  The heavier the object the stronger the force of gravity acts on it.

Just because you think the virgin birth is non essential others don't.  Either way the life of Jesus starts off with an absurdity which brings the following pages into question.

I haven't read it, but Greg wrote an article on this exact topic which is in my first post.

i'm just going to point out you are trying to use as a defense something you haven't actually looked at.

So how many have the articles have you read so far?

I hope you see the irony in asking me that after your last comment.  I actually read the one on Misquoting Jesus and I started reading one other, and stopped.  I decided after reading 2 paragraphs of crap that the summaries contributed by the other members were just as good ^_^

Sorry, my original examples were rather poor. Anyway, he implied that he was the Son of God, which quite frankly doesn't fit with the completely monotheistic Jewish view. He completely disregards the law about not working on the Sabbath when confronted, and goes against many OT teachings (you have been told "an eye for an eye", but I tell you...).

I'm just saying what they believed.  I know Jesus broke the OT laws in a few places but I was just saying their belief and asking if you know what strict Judaism was.  Why does being the Son of God not fit with monotheism?  Isn't that what most claim Christianity is?

Source please? Wikipedia says that Judaism is far more common in Jerusalem than Islam.

Sorry I got that impression from stuff I've seen.  I know that Jews don't run the city and that there is constantly one incident from being a holy war.  Jews aren't allowed into the Dome of the Rock because its holy to Muslims and they will kill people of they find Jews in there (no lie).  They have fragile control over that city.  However like I originally said I have no idea in Judea what the main belief was.  Even so we need to define "main belief".  Wikipedia says 2/3 of Jerusalem is Jewish which is 66%, thats not a strong majority.  For it to be a majority I would expect somewhere in upwards of 75 to 80% or higher.  But lets go back to the word I used time period.  Even if a particular belief was popular in one city it doesn't mean it was popular of that time period.  I'm sure at least one city in the U.S. is mainly Mormon but that doesn't mean Mormonism is the common belief of the US.  

By unreliable I meant an unreliable indicator of what the original Bible was. As for the flat Earth argument, is that from the Gospels? If not then we shouldn't even discuss it.

I mentioned above the copying problems.  I found it in misquoting Jesus and i'll post that ... maybe Monday it just depends.  I'm real busy tomorrow and I might be busy most of the day Sunday, but by monday I should be able to get it up here.

Matthew implies a flat earth 4:8 where the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world.  

[quote="Reginus"
Read a few more of the articles if you time and tell me what you think.[/quote]

Which ones?  From Misquoting Jesus by copying them?  Or from your list in the beginning?

[Reginus]

In response to:

Response 1: Still, the view that the NT has been radically changed doesn't really make sense to me. I understand that the process of copying could have made it possible, but thats far different from saying because the mechanism of copying made it possible for it to be completely altered, it really was completely altered. A few changes to make Jesus seem more divine (before baptism) does not count as a radical change in my opinion, and I don't think it makes the NT as we know it unreliable. There's a lot of debate going on over what just a few verses (percentage wise) should read as. It seems to me like biblical criticism is so precise that if there were these big, accumulating changes, scholars wouldn't be debating over tiny, nearly irrelevant details.  

Res 2: Just curious, whats the biggest change to the NT, or conflict between copies, that we know of?

Res 3: It is only an absurdity if you start out with the assumption that no God exists. It doesn't make sense to say "the fact that the virgin birth could not have happened without supernatural interference proves that it didn't happen."

Res 4: Good point lol) is a pretty good explanation.  

Res 8 (second line): Oh come on now. Does this metaphor really down-grade the Gospels' reliability?

[LoneMateria]

First off Sorry I haven't copied that text for you i've been busy and when i've been home I just havent felt like doing it.  So i'm gonna aim for doing this monday again lol By the way, I'm sure Wikipedia has a very good article on George Washington (although I haven't read it.)
[/quote]

I honestly don't know what you are referring to.

Res 6: Just saying that their belief doesn't prove much since Judaism was the (a?) common religion of the time. I think they could have very well been mixing common culture with Jesus (so that their beliefs were not uniformly based on what Jesus said or did), in the same way that many Americans Christians mix Christianity with nationalism even though these two things are radically contradictory.

First off i'm not exactly sure what point you are trying to make here.  The 2nd part of your statement are you saying because some Christians believe in Nationalism that Christ was a nationalist?  I'm going to need some quotes to figure out what exactly you are referring to.  

As far as the question of "is Christianity monotheistic?" goes, I think the ice-water-steam analogy (from Jesus-actor in Religulous ) is a pretty good explanation.  

I never actually saw Religulous so you will have to fill me in.

Res 8 (second line): Oh come on now. Does this metaphor really down-grade the Gospels' reliability?

Oh so when its something you don't agree with it's metaphor I see.  And when it's something you like its real.  With that type of mentality it will take you a long time to realize how much crap is in the bible.  You are just trying to dismiss my answer since you challenged me to find a passage and i did.

Anyway this week i'm really gonna try to get that copied for you.  Hopefully it will be up monday.

[LoneMateria]

Okay I have a little time now to sum up the section of Misquoting Jesus:

STARTING ON PAGE 57

Complications in knowing the "Original Text"

And so, all kinds of changes were made in manuscripts by the scribes who copied them.  We will be looking at the types of changes in greater depth in a later chapter.  For the moment, it is enough to know that the changes were made, and that they were made widely, especially in the first two hundred years in which the texts were being copied, when most of the copyists were amateurs.  One of the leading questions that textual critics must deal with is how to get back to the original text--the text as the author first wrote it-- given the circumstance that our manuscripts are so full of mistakes.  The problem is exacerbated by the fact that once a mistake was made, it could become firmly embedded in the textual tradition, more firmly embedded, in fact, then the original.

That is to say once a scribe changes a text--whether accidentally or intentionally--then those changes are permanent in his manuscripts (unless, of course, another scribe comes along to correct the mistake).  The next scribe who copies that manuscript copies the mistakes of both his predecessors and adds mistakes of his own, and so on.  The only way mistakes get corrected is when a scribe recognizes that a predecessor has made an error and tries to resolve it.  There is no guarantee, however, that a scribe who tries to correct a mistake corrects it correctly.  That is, by changing what he thinks is an error, he may in fact change it incorrectly, so now there are three forms of the text, the original, the error, and the incorrect attempt to resolve the error.  Mistakes multiply and get repeated; sometimes they get corrected and sometimes thy get compounded.  And so it goes. For centuries.

Sometimes, of course, a scribe may have more then one manuscript at hand, and can correct the mistakes in one manuscript by the correct readings of the other manuscript.  This does, in fact, improve the situation significantly.  On the other hand, it is also possible that a scribe will sometimes correct the correct manuscript in light of the wording of the incorrect one.  The possibilities seem endless.

Given these problems, how can we hope to get back to anything like the original text, the text that an author actually wrote?  It is an enormous problem.  In fact, it is such an enormous problem that a number of textual critics have started to claim that we may as well suspend any discussion of the "original" text, because it is inaccessible to us.  This may be going to far but a concrete example or two taken from the New Testament writings can show the problems

EXAMPLES OF THE PROBLEMS

For the first example, let's take Paul's letter to the Galatians.  Even at the point of the original penning of the letter, we have numerous difficulties to consider, which may well make us sympathetic to those who want to give up on the notion of knowing what the "original" text was.  Galatia was not a single town with a single church; it was a region in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) in which Paul had established churches.  When he writes to the Galatians, is he writing to one of the churches or to all of them?  Presumable, since he doesn't single out any particular town, he means for the letter to go to all of them.  Does that mean that he made multiple copies of the same letter, or that he wanted the one letter to circulate to all the churches of the region?  We don't know.

Suppose he made multiple copies.  How did he do it?  To begin with, it appears that this letter, like others by Paul, was not written by his hand but was dictated to a secretarial scribe.  Evidence for this comes at the end of the letter, where Paul added a postscript in his own handwriting, so that the recipients would know that it was he who was responsible for the letter (a common technique for dictated letters in antiquity): "See with what large letters I am writing you with my own hand" (Gal. G:11).  His handwriting, in other words, was larger and probably less professional in appearance then that of the scribe to whom he had dictated the letter. (here he marks a note for the end of the book which reads:  On only one occasion does one of Paul's secretarial scribes identify himself; this is a man named Tertius, to whom Paul dictated his letter to the Romans. See Rom. 16:22)

Now, if Paul dictated the letter, did he dictate it word for word?  Or did he spell out the basic points and allow the scribe to fill in the rest?  Both methods were commonly used by letter writers in antiquity. (He marks another note here which says: See, esecially, E. Randolph Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul Published 1991 [by a person which characters in his name that i can't type]).  If the scribe filled in the rest, can we be assured that he filled it in exactly as Paul wanted?  If not, do we actually have Paul's words, or are they the words of some unknown scribe?  Bet let's suppose that Paul dictated the letter word for word.  Is it possible that in some places the scribe wrote down the wrong words?  Stranger things have happened.  If so, then the autograph of the letter (i.e., the original) would already have a "mistake" in it, so that all subsequent copies would not be of Paul's words (in the places where his scribe got them wrong).

Suppose, though, that the scribe got all the words 100% correct.  If multiple copies of the letter went out, can we be sure that all the copies were also 100% correct?  It is possible, at least, that even if they were all copied in Paul's presence, a word or two here or there got changed in one of the other copies.  If so, what if only one of the copies served as the copy from which all subsequent copies were made--then in the first century, into the second century and the third century, and so on?  In that case, the oldest copy that provided the basis for all subsequent copies of the letter was not exactly what Paul wrote, or wanted to write.

Once the copy is in circulation--that is, once it arrives at its destination in one of the towns of Galatia--it, of course, gets copied, and mistakes get made.  Sometimes scribes might intentionally change the text, sometimes accidents happen.  These mistake-ridden copies get copied; and the mistake-ridden copies of the of the copies get copied; and so on, down the line.  Somewhere in the midst of all this, the original copy (or each of the original copies) ends up getting lost, or worn out, or destroyed.  At some point, it is no longer possible to compare a copy with the original to make sure it is "correct," even if someone has the bright idea of doing so.

What survives today, then, is not the original copy of the letter, nor one of the first copies that Paul himself has made, nor any of the copies that were produced in any of the towns of Galatia to which the letter was sent, nor any of the copies of those copies.  The first reasonably complete copy we have of Galatians (this manuscript is fragmentary , i.e., it has a number of missing parts) is a papyrus called P46 (since it was the forty-sixth  New Testament papyrus to be cataloged), which dates back to about 200 C.E.

(Another note is here and its long so i'm going to separate this paragraph into two paragraphs for the sake of readability. : Even the New Testament indicates that the Gospel writers had "sources" for their accounts.  In Luke1:1-4, for example, the author states that "many" predecessors had written an account of the things Jesus said and did, and that after reading them and consulting with "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word," he decided to produce his own account, one which he says is, in contrast to the others, "accurate."  In other words, Luke had both written and oral sources for the events he narrates--he was not himself an observers of Jesus's earthly life.  The same was probably true of the other Gospel writers as well.  On John's sources, see Ehrman, The New Testament, 164-67)

That's approximately 150 years after Paul wrote the letter.  It had been in circulation, being copied sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly, for fifteen decades before any copy was made that has survived down to the present day.  We cannot reconstruct the copy from which P46 was made.  Was it an accurate copy?  If so, how accurate?  It surely had mistakes of some kind, as did the copies from which it was copied, and the copies from which that copy was copied, and so on.

In short, it is very complicated business talking about the "original" text of Galatians.  We don't have it.  The best we can do is get back to an early stage of its transmission, and simply hope that what we reconstruct about the copies made at that stage--based on the copies that happen to survive (in increasing numbers as we move into the Middle Ages)--reasonably reflects what Paul himself actually wrote, or at least what he intended to write when he dictated the letter.

As a second example of the problems, let's take the Gospel of John.  This Gospel is quite different from the other three Gospels of the New Testament, telling a range of stories that differ from theirs and employing a very different style of writing.  Here, in John, the sayings of Jesus are long discourses rather then pithy, direct saying; Jesus never tells a parable, for example, in John, unlike in the other three Gospels.  Moreover, the events narrated in John are often found only in this Gospel: for example, Jesus's conversations with Nicodemus (in Chapter 3) and with the Samaritan woman (Chapter 4) or his miracles of turning water into wine (chapter 2) and raising Lazarus from the dead (chapter 10).  The author's portrayal of Jesus is quite different too; unlike in the other three Gospels, Jesus spends much of his time explaining who he is (the one sent from heaven) and doing "signs" in order to prove that what he says about himself is true.

John no doubt had sources for his account--possibly a source that narrated Jesus's signs, for example, and sources that described his discourses. (Another Note: Later we will see how some manuscripts can be established as "better" than others)He put these sources together into his own flowing narrative of Jesus's life, ministry, death, and resurrections.  It is possible, though, that John actually produced several different versions of his Gospel.  Readers have long noted, for example, that chapter 21 appears to be a later add-on.   The Gospel certainly seems to come to an end in 20:30-31; and the events of chapter 21 seem to be a kind of afterthought, possibly added to fill out the stories of Jesus's resurrection appearances and to explain that when the "beloved disciple" responsible for narrating the traditions in the Gospel had died, this was not unforeseen (cf.21:22-23)

Other passages of the Gospel also do not cohere completely with the rest.  Even the opening verses 1:1-18 which form a kind of prologue to the Gospel, appear to be different from the rest.  This highly celebrated poem speaks of the "Word" of God, who existed with God from the beginning and was himself God, and who "became flesh" in Jesus Christ.  The passage is written in a highly poetic style not found in the rest of the Gospel; moreover, while its central themes are repeated in the rest of the narrative, some of its most important vocabulary is not.  Thus, Jesus is portrayed throughout the narrative as the one who came from above, but never is called the Word elsewhere in the Gospel.  Is it possible that this opening passage came from a different source then the rest of the account, and that it was added as an appropriate beginning by the author after an earlier edition of the book had already been published?

Assume, for a second, just for the sake of argument, that chapter 21 and 1:1-18 were not original components of the Gospel.  What does that do for the textual critic who wants to reconstruct the "original" text?   Which original is being constructed?  All our Greek manuscripts contain the passages in question.  So does the textual critic reconstruct as the original text the from of the Gospel that originally contained them?  But shouldn't we consider the "original" form to be the earlier version, which lacked them?  And if one wants to reconstruct that earlier form, is it fair to stop there, with reconstructing, say, the first edition of John's Gospel?  Why not go even further and try to reconstruct the sources that lie behind the Gospel, such as the signs sources and the discourse sources, or even the oral traditions that lie behind them?

These are questions that plague textual critics, and that have led some to argue that we should abandon any quest for the original text--since we can't even agree on what it might mean to talk about the "original" of, say, Galatians or John.  For my part, however, I continue to think that even if we cannot be 100% certain about what we can attain to, we can at least be certain that all the surviving manuscripts were copied from other manuscripts, which were themselves copied from other manuscripts, and that it is at least possible to get back to the oldest and earlieest stage of the manuscript tradition for each of the books of the New Testament.  All our manuscripts of Galatians, for example, evidently go back to some text that was copied; all out manuscripts of John evidently go back to a version of John that included the prologue and chapter 21.  And so we must rest content knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the "original" text.  The oldest form of the texts is no doubt closely (very close) related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis of our interpretation of his teaching.

There is another section I want to copy but I will do that later.  I want to continue this to the next section.  Hopefully you found this enjoyable, or someone did.

[Reginus]

I think you are taking far too large of a step. I understand that some changes have been made, but I think it would be wrong to jump to such conclusions about what the very first copies probably said. It seems to me like you are saying "x changes have been made, therefore, for all we know, the first gospels could have said Jesus was a purple rabbit who liked eating carrots". If we have a painting that looks like a vase of flowers, and 95%-98% of it is original (but with thousands of tiny dots of random color), I think we can say with some certainty that in the beginning, the painter painted a vase of flowers.

So changing Jesus from essentially a prophet (like the Muslims believe) to God (like some Christians believe) isn't a big change?  Really?  Is that because of your preconceived notions?  Um.. these people are trying to reconstruct the original gospels word for word.  It turns out when you do it that the words actually matter.

How do the gospels portray Jesus as only a prophet?

It depends on what you define as big.  One of the big ones I can think of off the top of my head is the virgin birth.  The word virgin was similar to young woman and it got changed.  Originally Jesus was supposed to be born of a young woman but it got changed to virgin.  As I mentioned before they changed the NT because of it.  This difference is roughly equal to the difference in our language between "maid" and "maiden".  Both are close in spelling and sound alike but mean two very different things.

The conclusion I come to with this information is that Jesus could have been born from a virgin OR a non virgin. In my mind, this doesn't invalidate the Bible. Besides, was this mistranslation made in the gospels or the OT?

\It is absurd to accept a claim before any evidence is presented.  If I were to give you a book about the Flying Spaghetti Monster would you accept it as true before you read it?  No.  Why is it any different with the bible?  The virgin birth actually discredits the events because we know there is no way for a virgin human being to give birth.  Either the story is wrong or its made up ... or both.  We can use what we currently know about physiology and anatomy to tell you that the claim is wrong.  Since there is no proof for a the claim of any supernatural influence then one must assume the virgin birth story is either wrong, or made up, or both.  Backing up absurdities with superstition and belief is plain silly.  If the story of Muhammad in the Koran said he was born of a virgin which meant he was another son of God would it be believable?

Ok, let's say I pick up a book about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and it says that the FSM created a man out of a meatball. I think to myself "hmmm... can this book be considered reliable? Is there reason to believe that the FSM exists?" If the answer is no, then obviously the meatball becoming man myth is ridiculous. After all, can people really make other people out of meatballs? No. Have we ever seen a meatball become a man? No. However, if the reliability of this book proves satisfactory, and we come to the conclusion that there really is an FSM, then the meatball myth is no longer ridiculous. The first step is identifying the reliability of the book. As for if the Koran said Muhammad was born of a virgin, it honestly would not make it either more or less believable to me.

First off i'm not exactly sure what point you are trying to make here.  The 2nd part of your statement are you saying because some Christians believe in Nationalism that Christ was a nationalist?  I'm going to need some quotes to figure out what exactly you are referring to.

Just saying that the people would have had a motive for changing the gospels (in favor of Jewish beliefs). For the second part I was giving an example of a mix between culture (patriotism) and Jesus, as can be seen here: http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ce_id=353#

If someone came out with a Bible that said that Jesus said "God loves the US more than any other nation," we can point to the patriotic culture and say "hmmm, maybe there was a little mixing between culture and Jesus's words going on there." I think we can do the same with some of the Jewish themes in the Gospels.

I never actually saw Religulous so you will have to fill me in.

In the video, the man says something to the effect of "the father, the son, and the holy spirit are all god in the same way that ice, water, and steam are all H2O"

Oh so when its something you don't agree with it's metaphor I see.  And when it's something you like its real.  With that type of mentality it will take you a long time to realize how much crap is in the bible.  You are just trying to dismiss my answer since you challenged me to find a passage and i did.

Was the notion that Jesus saw a flat Earth the point of the passage, or was it a component used to express the temptation that the Devil tried to get Jesus to give into?

[LoneMateria]

I think you are taking far too large of a step. I understand that some changes have been made, but I think it would be wrong to jump to such conclusions about what the very first copies probably said. It seems to me like you are saying "x changes have been made, therefore, for all we know, the first gospels could have said Jesus was a purple rabbit who liked eating carrots". If we have a painting that looks like a vase of flowers, and 95%-98% of it is original (but with thousands of tiny dots of random color), I think we can say with some certainty that in the beginning, the painter painted a vase of flowers.

What if the dots cover up the face of the person completely?  Again i've been nice about this but seriously can you come up with proof for that 95%-98% number?  Boyd doesn't count since it looks like he made it up.  What do textual critics/non-apologists say?  

How do the gospels portray Jesus as only a prophet?

First off I said Muslims see Jesus as a prophet.  Next how would you define Prophet?  Dictionary.com defines it as such

â€"noun
1.   a person who speaks for God or a deity, or by divine inspiration.
2.   (in the Old Testament)
      a.   a person chosen to speak for God and to guide the people of Israel: Moses was the greatest of Old Testament prophets.
      b.   (often initial capital letter) one of the Major or Minor Prophets.
      c.   one of a band of ecstatic visionaries claiming divine inspiration and, according to popular belief, possessing magical powers.
      d.   a person who practices divination.
3.   one of a class of persons in the early church, next in order after the apostles, recognized as inspired to utter special revelations and predictions. 1 Cor. 12:28.
4.   the Prophet, Muhammad, the founder of Islam.
5.   a person regarded as, or claiming to be, an inspired teacher or leader.
6.   a person who foretells or predicts what is to come: a weather prophet; prophets of doom.
7.   a spokesperson of some doctrine, cause, or movement.

Number 1 can be said for Jesus.  Number 2 (if you take the words Old Testament and specific references to Israel) then it too defines Jesus.  Number 3 (if you take out the specific reference to the apostles) it defines Jesus as well.  Number 4 ... well Jesus isn't Muhammad so it doesn't apply to him.  Number 5 easily depicts Jesus.  Number 6 depicts Jesus again.  And number 7 is most definitely Jesus.   So out of all these definitions only 1 doesn't apply.  You interpret this how you want.

The conclusion I come to with this information is that Jesus could have been born from a virgin OR a non virgin. In my mind, this doesn't invalidate the Bible. Besides, was this mistranslation made in the gospels or the OT?

It sure does invalidate some of the bible.  It invalidates one of the big claims for that person.  If Jesus wasn't born a virgin it destroys Catholicism.  Also this is a place where science and the bible clash (and one of the sources for the stigmas attached to sex) since a virgin birth is impossible (unless assisted by modern technology).  The mistranslation (if memory serves) was in the OT.  They changed the NT on purpose to fulfill that prophecy.  

Ok, let's say I pick up a book about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and it says that the FSM created a man out of a meatball. I think to myself "hmmm... can this book be considered reliable?

Ok, let's say I pick up a bible and it says that God created man out of dirt.  I think to myself, "hmmm... can this book be considered reliable?"

Is there reason to believe that the FSM exists?" If the answer is no, then obviously the meatball becoming man myth is ridiculous. After all, can people really make other people out of meatballs? No. Have we ever seen a meatball become a man? No.

Is there a reason to believe that God exists?  If the answer is no, then obviously the dirt becoming man myth is ridiculous.  After all, can people really make people out of dirt?  No.  Have we ever seen dirt become a man?  No.

However, if the reliability of this book proves satisfactory, and we come to the conclusion that there really is an FSM, then the meatball myth is no longer ridiculous. The first step is identifying the reliability of the book. As for if the Koran said Muhammad was born of a virgin, it honestly would not make it either more or less believable to me.

However, if we can prove this book was originally written by its followers and come to the conclusion that there really is a God then the dirt myth is still ridiculous.  The first step is using science and reason and determining the reliability of this book depicting events accurately.  And the reason I don't believe in Muhammad is because I was told he was wrong.

Just saying that the people would have had a motive for changing the gospels (in favor of Jewish beliefs). For the second part I was giving an example of a mix between culture (patriotism) and Jesus, as can be seen here: http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ce_id=353#

If someone came out with a Bible that said that Jesus said "God loves the US more than any other nation," we can point to the patriotic culture and say "hmmm, maybe there was a little mixing between culture and Jesus's words going on there." I think we can do the same with some of the Jewish themes in the Gospels.

What does this have to do with George Washington?  

I'm still lost here.  Which Jewish themes?  That Jesus was a Jew or that Jews are evil?

an says something to the effect of "the father, the son, and the holy spirit are all god in the same way that ice, water, and steam are all H2O"

This seems inverted to me.  Ice, water and steam are all made out of the base element di-hydrogen oxide H2O.  There is no base element for the trinity.  They have 3 separate personalities.  God is a prick who enjoys blood, gore and murder unless his subjects are doing it to each other (thou shalt not kill was meant for Jews telling them not to kill other Jews).  Jesus was kind (most of the time) and made healed people.  And the holy spirit just watches and does nothing.  There is no base element they are just said to be the same thing when they aren't.   What are they all made out of which is the same?

Oh so when its something you don't agree with it's metaphor I see.  And when it's something you like its real.  With that type of mentality it will take you a long time to realize how much crap is in the bible.  You are just trying to dismiss my answer since you challenged me to find a passage and i did.

Was the notion that Jesus saw a flat Earth the point of the passage, or was it a component used to express the temptation that the Devil tried to get Jesus to give into?

Thank you for making my point.

[Renegnicat]

Yup. She's got you there, Reginus.

[LoneMateria]

Yup. She's got you there, Reginus.

she?

[Renegnicat]

WELL HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW Y'ALLS GENDER WHEN U R SO DAM ANDROGYNOUS!?

[LoneMateria]

WELL HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW Y'ALLS GENDER WHEN U R SO DAM ANDROGYNOUS!?

Well I figured the Halo picture would give it away.  Well its really a picture of Caboose from Red Vs Blue but whatever.