Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!gary From: gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian,net.religion Subject: Biblical Scholarships reply to Dan Boskovich - Objective Evidence... Message-ID: <612@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 14:09:02 EDT Article-I.D.: sphinx.612 Posted: Mon Jun 3 14:09:02 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Jun-85 06:03:17 EDT Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center Lines: 231 Xref: watmath net.religion.christian:755 net.religion:7019 "That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet" said the King, rubbing his hands; "so now let the jury-" "If any one of them can explain it," said Alice (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit afraid of interrupting him), "I'll give him a sixpence. I don't believe there is an atom of meaning in it." The jury wrote down on the slates, "SHE doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it," but none of them attempted to explain the paper. "If there's no meaning in it," said the King "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find one. ---Alice in Wonderland (chapter 12) A few prefatory remarks... 1) What Dan has presented here has alreday been written and published by Josh McDowell in two works - Evidence that demands a Verdict; Further Evidence that Demands a Verdict. I would suggest that if Dan is planning on publishing these postings in any formal way he check out McDowells work before he is accused of plagiarism. 2) What I find interesting about Dans (and/or McDowells) work is that they are post facto attempts to give rational justification to Christian belief. If in fact the sociological model of religion is correct (Berger/Luckman The Social Construction of Reality; Berger The Sacred Canopy: the sociology of religious belief The Doctrine Commission of the Church of England - Believing in the Church: the corporate nature of faith) .... etc .... then I would wonder what these "evidences" and "catalogs of facts" have to do with a social phenomenon if in fact these "evidences" and "catalogs of facts" were NOT present nor NECESSARY to persuade a individual to believe in the first place. What is necessary for Christian belief is the proper social matrix and not the compendium that is presented here. Dans work is alreday too late in the genesis of Christian belief - the social dynamics of the believing community has alreday accomplished the crucial and critical task. Dans (and/or McDowells) work is therefore a work of edification written by believers for believers even though it pretends to objective scholarship. 3) Dans (and/or McDowells) work is certainly NOT within the historical tradition of academic biblical scholarship (if one measures this by such learned societies such as Society of Biblical Literature(SBL) or American Academy of Religion(AAR)) Since Dan has called his posting "OBJECTIVE Evidences.." (and I take this to mean that what he makes reference to in his posting is verifiable to anyone independent of faith comittment, that is, it is pure objective empirical facticity) I would think that he would welcome open discussions with such societies such as SBL or AAR. It is not so much that Dan has misinformation (he has this certainly) but that his work (or McDowells) is carefully formulated to direct the attention AWAY from the really critical questions and these are usually the questions (with the aporias that result) that drive academic biblical scholarship ahead (if you will allow me the use of the myth of progress). From my perspective biblical scholarship as practiced in the academy is indeed antithetical to Christian belief but yet it is very much in continuity with historic Christianity and in this way a/theism may be more "Christian" than what now passes for Orthodoxy. In this way and to the extent that Dan has failed to appropriate this tradition his work here may be cited as "heretical". So, with apology, I offer the following very brief critique of Dans posting. All quotes are from Helmut Koesters History and Literature of Early Christianity (1982) - a standard introductory text on the NT appropriate for 1st year seminary or divinity school students. > Reliability of The New Testament > > It is true that Christianity views the bible as God's revealed word > to mankind. Those who oppose this view object that the biblical > account can not be deemed reliable. It is argued that the accounts > would become distorted during their textual transmission. > > However, it can be shown that the New Testament documents are the most > reliable of all historical documents; and to reject the New Testament > records without rejecting all other historical documents and regarding > them unreliable, would be to act in utter bias and absurdity. > > Manuscript Evidence > > There are more than 5300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament > today. Over 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. > > No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers > and attestation. In comparison, the "Iliad", by Homer, is second with > only 643 manuscripts that still survive. > It is interesting that Dan (and McDowell) here try to turn what is a real problem for NT textual criticism into an asset. The 5000 manuscripts are an embarrassemnt of riches. No two manuscripts agree. The construction of a stemma (a family tree of dependencies) is impossible. Rather, the manuscripts are grouped into families (Alexandarian,Neutral,Caesarean,Byzantine) of manuscripts that show similar readings (ie textual additions/deletions/corruptios or the inclusion/exclusion of dogmatic motifs). Sure, there are many manuscripts of the NT - but that only compounds and make more difficult the task of securing the most authentic reading. The creation of new bodies of scholarship is required to solve these special probelem that cannot be delt with by traditional classical text critical scholarship. > Besides the number of manuscripts, the New Testament differs from all > other writings in its interval of time between the composition of the > book and date of the earliest extant manuscripts. The New Testament > books were written (originals) in the latter part of the first century. > The oldest manuscripts in exsistance are of the fourth century. From > 250 - 300 years later. This is nothing compared to most of the great > classical authors. Examples below: Another VERY severe problem masked by Dan (McDowell) into an asset. Koester writes: "It does not make much difference how many manuscripts written since the the end of the 2nd century have been preserved, since not a single manuscript provides us with a direct insight into the text during the the first 50 - 100 years after the writing of the autograph." "...This intensifies the problem which also exist with respect to the textual criticism of classical authors. Decisive textual corruptions, changes, and revisions of ancient texts usually occur during the period in which the lasting significance of a text or its author is either not yet recognized or still debated." "... There are numerous examples of alterations and corruptions of the autographs of the NT writings during the earliest period of transmission... The edition of the gospel of Mark which was used by Luke and Matthew for example was substantially different from the gospel of Mark we know as transmitted in all texts and manuscripts." > > > Benjamin Warfield, "If we compare the present state of the New Testament > with that of any other ancient writing, we must declare it to be > marvelously correct. > > The New Testament has been transmitted to us with no or next to no > variation; and even the most corrupt form in which it has appeared, > the real text of the sacred writers is competently exact. > If there is NO manuscript evidence earlier than the latter part of the 2nd century for documents written in the 1st century then how could anyone possibly make a statement like this ? > Evidence For The Historical Jesus > > > Cornelius Tacitus reports..... > Pliny, in his letter ..... > Suetonius mentions ........ > Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote ...... > There are several references to Jesus in the Jewish Talmud.... > Lucian of Samosata ... > Thallus, a Gentile writer of A.D. 52, mentions Christ... > A letter from a prisoner named Mara Bar-Serapion ... > The Encyclopedia Britanica... All these quotes address the question as to the reality of the existence of historical Jesus. This is not in question. What is in question is the historical reliability of the picture of Jesus in the gospel narratives. Simply comparing the parallel accounts in the synoptic gospels will show how sayinging of Jesus have been altered, miracles embellished, parables shaped and literary devices introduced in order to serve the various theological interests of the authors. Koester writes: "The quest for the historical kernel of the stories in the Synoptic narrative materials are very difficult. In fact such a quest is doomed to miss the point of such narratives, because these stories are all told in the interests of mission, edification, cult, or theology (especially Christology), and they have no relationship to the question of historical reliable information." With regard to Acts Koester writes: "The incorporation of numerous miracle stories and legendary materials demonstrates that the author was just as uncritical as many historians of his time, but it has a serious consequence: large parts of the book read like a apostolic romance, not a historical book. This impression is reinforced by the lengthy narrative of the shipwreck (Acts 27-28) which is so typical of the Hellenistic romance." The problem is that the gospels receive no exteral corroboration on what they report. Therefore, it is difficult to disengauge historical narrative (historiography in the modern sense) from history-like narrative used as a literary device to serve purely theological ends. (The long discourse material of Jesus in Johns gospel is surely of this latter type) In Conclusion... If Dan really honestly wants to get involved in academic biblical scholarship and concomitant with that, if he wishes to pursue it to the bitter end as a discipline respectable in itself and independent of churchly and dogmatic ends then I suggest he join SBL and get a subscription to to JBL(Journal of Biblical Literature) to find out whats going on in the context of these matters which he writes. If on the other hand Dan wishes to be the author of merely edifying religious tracts for those people who sit in church and attend ice cream socials then let him publish what he has written as it is written. "Whoever can give his people better stories than the ones they live in is like the priest in whose hands common bread and wine become capable of feeding the very soul, and he may think of forging in some invisible smithy the uncreated conscience of his race." (Hugh Kenner, The Pound Ezra, p39) Gary