On 1 Jul, 03:09, ogro...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Padraigh ProAmerica) wrote:
> The fidelity of the various writings in the Bible is intriguing.
>
> One of the most im****tant finds in the Dead Sea Scrolls was a scroll
> with the entire text ovf Isaiah. DEspite being around 2,000 years old,
> once the translation was completed (it took several years), researchers
> were amazed to find a 99%+ fidelity eith the current version. Most of
> the diferences were minor vaiations in spelling; a few word
> transpositions, and slight changes in word meanings. The core of the
> message was unaltered over 2,000 years and many, many copyings.
In general ancient texts are transmitted fine to us. But of course
this would not show that they are divinely inspired or indeed contain
correct content. It is merely the obscurantism of some atheists who
ignorantly suppose that they can demonstrate that God did not inspire
a book if a printer makes a typo in a copy of it, to which you
respond.
> The earliest Gospel writings are fragments from Matthew and John, both
> from late in the 1st Century. Both fragments are identical to curent
> versions of these books.
Actually these fragments are not generally dated so early as this
(Carsten Peter Thiede thought different, but reputable paleographers
such as T.C.Skeat have not generally agreed). The earliest fragment
is P52, ca. 125-150 AD, a fragment of John.
Papyri often display a text inferior to that preserved in medieval
manuscripts, as they are often private copies.
You might find the following link interesting, which I have just
compiled. It's an overview of the manuscripts on which we base many
of the Greek classics.
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/greek_classics.htm
> Those who did the copying were under strict supervision; any deviation
> from the original text was a punishable offense.
Certainly in scriptoria there were controls, but it wasn't always so.
Scribes could be ignorant or careless sometimes.
But there is no question that the New Testament is our best preserved
ancient Greek *literary* text. If we don't have the NT, if the
supposed 'errors' in transmission are so severe that we cannot
sensibly say that we have the inspired text, then we most certainly
don't have all the Greek classics. A text doesn't have to be perfect
photocopies to be inspired (as the ancients certainly knew, who lived
in the ms. era). After all, translations are inspired, and not even a
single word of a translation is the same as the original. But that's
not a barrier to God.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
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