Text Criticism - What is it?

bob_2 · 04-16-09 3:23 pm

I suggest this article as a start to this conversation: Good Question: Text Criticism and Inerrancy <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/31.102.html" target=_top>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/ 31.102.html</a> Opening question: How can I reconcile my belief in the inerrancy of Scripture with comments in Bible translations that state that a particular verse is not 'in better manuscripts'? This response is written by J. I. Packer, his bio is here <a href="http://www.theopedia.com/J.I._Packer" target=_top>http://www.theopedia.com/J.I._Packer</a> : <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:... In the New Testament only one word per 1,000 is in any way doubtful, and no point of doctrine is lost when verses not "in better manuscripts" are omitted. (As examples, see Matt. 6:13b, 17:21, 18:11; Mark 9:44, 46, 49, 16:9-20; Luke 23:17; John 5:4; and Acts 8:37.) Such has been God's "singular care and providence" in preserving his written Word for us (Westminster Confession I.viii). So how does all this bear on the Christian's very proper faith in biblical inerrancy—that is, the total truth and trustworthiness of the true text and all it teaches? Holy Scripture is, according to the view of Jesus and his apostles, God preaching, instructing, showing, and telling us things, and testifying to himself through the human witness of prophets, poets, theological narrators of history, and philosophical observers of life. The Bible's inerrancy is not the inerrancy of any one published text or version, nor of anyone's interpretation, nor of any scribal slips or pious inauthentic additions acquired during transmission. Rather, scriptural inerrancy relates to the human writer's expressed meaning in each book, and to the Bible's whole body of revealed truth and wisdom. Belief in inerrancy involves an advance commitment to receive as from God all that the Bible, interpreting itself to us through the Holy Spirit in a natural and coherent way, teaches. Thus it shapes our understanding of biblical authority. So inerrantists should welcome the work of textual scholars, who are forever trying to eliminate the inauthentic and give us exactly what the biblical writers wrote, neither more nor less. The way into God's mind is through his penmen's minds, precisely as expressed, under his guidance, in their own words as they wrote them. Text criticism serves inerrancy; they are friends. Inerrancy treasures the meaning of each writer's words, while text criticism checks that we have each writer's words pure and intact. Both these wisdoms are needed if we are to benefit fully from the written Word of God. ...<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

bob_2 · 04-16-09 3:38 pm

Here an interview with the renown Bible translator Eugene Nida on the topic: Meaning-full Translations <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/2.46.html" target=_top>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/ 2.46.html</a> Eugene A. Nida is not a household name, but the 84-year-old resident of Belgium has influenced the Bibles read by most Christians around the world. The "premier linguist and translation consultant," as the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions styles him, writes mostly about technical topics: descriptive linguistics, cross-cultural communications, translation theory, and semantics. However, the translations he helped shape in over 200 languages make it easier for many millions of lay Christians and nonbelievers to grasp the meaning of the Bible. <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:When we bring together a group of folks who want to be translators, it takes a month to get them willing to make sense intellectually. It takes another two weeks to make them willing to do it emotionally. They can accept it intellectually but not emotionally because they've grown up worshiping words more than worshiping God. We can't have conferences for new translators in less than six weeks because of this psychological hurdle. Otherwise, within a year's time they will be producing literal translations because it's so much easier to do it word-for-word. Bible translators often think they must aim at almost exact verbal correspondence to the original in order to make sense. Many of them insist there must be consistency of words. But consistency in principal words is misleading because words have a variety of meanings depending on context. So a translator can be consistently wrong as well as consistently right. This "word worship" helps people to have confidence, but they don't understand the text. And as long as they worship words, instead of worshiping God as revealed in Jesus Christ, they feel safe. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

bob_2 · 04-16-09 3:51 pm

Continued <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:What is really needed is for people to take the message seriously and share it with other people, focused primarily on what this message has meant to me. So many Christians love to argue about the Bible rather than take it seriously as a message that is important for their own lives. In many of the churches in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, people take the Bible's message far more seriously than they do here in America, where the Bible is so ordinary. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/2.46.html?start=4" target=_top>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/ 2.46.html?start=4</a>

bob_2 · 04-16-09 3:58 pm

Which Version should we use? <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/marchweb-only/3-18-21.0.html" target=_top>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/marchweb- only/3-18-21.0.html</a> This is what Christianity Today said when the NIV first came out. The article was first published in 1978. <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:We must never forget that the principal purpose of words is communication. Jesus Christ who is the incarnate Word of God looked and acted like a man of his time. In the same way, the written Word of God was inspired in the everyday languages of the people who first received it. Since the Greek of the New Testament differed from the older Greek of the classical Athenian writers, scholars long thought it a special "Holy Ghost" dialect. With the discoveries of ancient documents, we now realize that New Testament Greek differs from the classical because it was the common, somewhat simplified, dialect spread by the conquering Alexander the Great. We welcome the appearance and increased use of translations that more clearly communicate the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek to readers today. And there is evidence that understanding of God's Word is significantly enhanced by modern versions. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

bob_2 · 04-19-09 10:32 pm

Jesus.doc Is the New Testament Reliable? <a href="http://www.jesusonline.com/free_pdfs/y-jesus/Jesus_doc.pdf" target=_top>http://www.jesusonline.com/free_pdfs/y-jesus/Jesus _doc.pdf</a> <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:In July 2000 ABC News anchor Peter Jennings was in Israel broadcasting a television special on Jesus Christ. His program, “The Search for Jesus,” explored the question of whether the Jesus of the New Testament was historically accurate. Jennings featured opinions on the Gospel accounts from DePaul professor John Dominic Crossan, three of Crossan’s colleagues from the Jesus Seminar, and two other Bible scholars. 1 Some of the comments were stunning. There on national TV Dr. Crossan not only cast doubt on more than 80 percent of Jesus’ sayings but also denied Jesus’ claims to divinity, his miracles, and his resurrection. Jennings clearly was intrigued by the image of Jesus presented by Crossan. Searching for true Bible history is always news, which is why every year Time and Newsweek go on a cover story quest for Mary, Jesus, Moses, or Abraham. Or—who knows?—maybe this year it will be “Bob: The Untold Story of the Missing 13th Disciple.” But Jennings’s report did focus on one issue that ought to be given some serious thought. Crossan implied that the original accounts of Jesus were embellished by oral tradition and were not written down until after the apostles were dead. Thus they are largely unreliable and fail to give us an accurate picture of the real Jesus. How are we to know if this is really true? ... Boston University professor emeritus Howard Clark Kee concludes, “The result of the examination of the sources outside the New Testament that bear … on our knowledge of Jesus is to confirm his historical existence, his unusual powers, the devotion of his followers, the continued existence of the movement after his death … and the penetration of Christianity … in Rome itself by the later first century.”26 The external evidence test thus builds on the evidence provided by other tests. In spite of the conjecture of a few radical skeptics, the New Testament portrait of the real Jesus Christ is virtually smudgeproof. Although there are a few dissenters such as the Jesus Seminar, the consensus of experts, regardless of their religious beliefs, confirms that the New Testament we read today faithfully represents both the words and events of Jesus’ life. Clark Pinnock, professor of interpretations at McMaster Divinity College, summed it up well when he said, “There exists no document from the ancient world witnessed by so excellent a set of textual and historical testimonies. … An honest [person] cannot dismiss a source of this kind. Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational basis.”27<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> Read the whole article and see what YOUR opinion is.

bob_2 · 04-22-09 11:47 am

I'm opening this thread back up so your Alternate source, and Pastafarians can tackle the true TEXT CRITICS that matter to most Christians. But they usually won't go to secular university and study Zorastrianism, which I know is the in thing with secularists of the Emerging Church, but I'm not buying. Put it on the TEXT CRITICISM Thread so we don't pollute every thread on the board. Have a good day guys. Gotta go.

elaine · 04-22-09 4:00 pm

A starter for anyone wishing to know the varieties of biblical criticism: <a href="http://www.theology.edu/b/725a.htm" target=_top>http://www.theology.edu/b/725a.htm</a> The first requirement for criticism is the ability to read in the original languages, either Hebrew or Greek. Without that, we all must rely on the scholars proficient in those languages.

elaine · 04-22-09 4:02 pm

Wikipedia is also an easy source of explanation of the many forms.

bob_2 · 04-23-09 12:11 am

Reliance on scholars, if you just rely on secular sources, you are going to get a secular answer about the Bible. That is the problem and why Elaine, John and Neal have been avoid this thread, IMO, because I use some scholar that believe in the Bible and give reasons why. All Elaine, John and Neal can do is give sources and opinions about why not to believe in the Bible.

neal · 04-23-09 5:45 am

That is the problem and why Elaine, John and Neal have been avoid this thread, IMO.... False. The thread is about the definition of textual criticism. As Elaine pointed out, a textual critic is a person with the ability to read the source documents in the original language. I critique the ideas set forth in translations which is why I like to use Youngs Literal Translation. When studying different translations I once saw a quote by a Biblical translator that had worked on one of the recent versions of the Bible. Somebody had asked him why a certain word was translated a certain way. He stated that if they had translated the word the way it should have been christians would not have bought the translation. IOW, the falsehoods are necessary in order to sell the translation. During the Enlightenment many of the educated critics of the Bible knew hebrew and greek. For example, David Hume and Thomas Jefferson both were able to read the Bible in its original languages. However, even with the tainted translations, it is easy to see that there is no dome.

john8verse32 · 04-23-09 6:43 am

maybe Bob would more easily recognize the "dome" if we used the KJV's word..."firmament" which means the same thing...something "firm", or hard over the earth to separate and hold up the waters overhead... like a tin type ceiling.. hand pounded out with tiny holes to let in the light from heaven (the stars), under which the 7 gods "wander" (as in "planets", in greek), after which we get the names of the week, and the multiple uses of 7 to indicate divine perfection... while the 12 hrs of the night sky, as measured by the constellations rising and falling overhead, give us the number "12", which indicates "completeness"... all night long. Thats why, after Judas either hung himself, or his insides gushed out, we're not sure which, the apostles cloistered themselves in a room until they could rebuild their number away from the ominous 11, back to the complete "12".

neal · 04-23-09 7:01 am

Exactly, John. Here's the description from the Catholic Encylcopedia:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:Firmament tt=77 (Septuagint stereoma; Vulgate, firmamentum). The notion that the sky was a vast solid dome seems to have been common among the ancient peoples whose ideas of cosmology have come down to us. Thus the Egyptians conceived the heavens to be an arched iron ceiling from which the stars were suspended by means of cables (Chabas, LÆAntiquiteÆ historique, Paris, 1873, pp. 64-67). Likewise to the mind of the Babylonians the sky was an immense dome, forged out of the hardest metal by the hand of Merodach (Marduk) and resting on a wall surrounding the earth (Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890, pp. 253, 260). According to the notion prevalent among the Greeks and Romans, the sky was a great vault of crystal to which the fixed stars were attached, though by some it was held to be of iron or brass. That theHebrews entertained similar ideas appears from numerous biblical passages. In the first account of the creation (Genesis 1) we read that God created a firmament to divide the upper or celestial from the lower or terrestrial waters. The Hebrew means something beaten or hammered out, and thus extended; the Vulgate rendering, ôfirmamentumö corresponds more closely with the Greek stereoma (Septuagint, Aquila, and Symmachus), ôsomething made firm or solidö. The notion of the solidity of the firmament is moreover expressed in such passages as Job 37:18, where reference is made incidentally to the heavens, ôwhich are most strong, as if they were of molten brassö. The same is implied in the purpose attributed to God in creating the firmament, viz. to serve as a wall of separation between the upper and lower of water, it being conceived as supporting a vast celestial reservoir; and also in the account of thedeluge ( Genesis 7), where we read that the ôflood gates of heaven were openedö, and shut upö (viii, 2). (Cf. also IV 28 sqq.) Other passages e.g. Isaiah 42:5, emphasize rather the idea of something extended: ôThus saith the Lord God that created the heavens and stretched them outö (Cf. Isaiah 44:24, and 40:22). In conformity with these ideas, the writer of Genesis 1:14-20 represents God as setting the stars in the firmament of heaven, and the fowls are located beneath it, i.e. in the air as distinct from the firmament. On this point as on many others, the Bible simply reflects the current cosmological ideas and language of the time.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06079b.htm" target=_top>http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06079b.htm</a> So, "God's Word" is actually a version of what the genocidal maniacs and their neighbors 'believed' at the time. These dudes, and their neighbors, also believed that some god had created a pair of humans. Nowadays, everybody knows the second day of creation was a completely made up myth but they will fight tooth and nail for that 6th day when the humans were made! It makes my brain become infected with stupid just listening or reading modern people demand that the 6th day is absolutely 100% God's Truth.

neal · 04-23-09 7:10 am

Oh, the idea of a dying and rising god was the common belief of the time. The idea that there had been a flood was a common belief of the time. The idea of a messiah was the common belief of the time. The idea that there was a sheol or hades or hell below this flat earth was a common belief of the time. The idea that God could smell your barbecue in his home on the dome was the common belief of the time. The idea that sickness was caused by demons was the common belief of the time. The idea that your tribal god could aid you in acquiring land by assisting you in wiping out the race over the hill was the common belief of the time. Magic wands that could turn into snakes or turn rivers to blood was the common belief of the time. The idea that there was going to be a galactic battle among the stars on the dome played out by good vs evil was the common belief of the time in persia and was acquired when the hebrews went in chains to babylon. The Jews were great copiers. They copied the Egyptians into their Psalms and Proverbs, the Persians into their Origin and flood stories, the persians again into their theology (Note how the writers changed dramatically after the exile) the Greeks with all the Platonism, and the christians just plagiarized anybody and everybody to come up with their concoction.

bob_2 · 04-23-09 9:02 am

Come on Neal, you can't take all those doctrines and show me a statement like the one in red about the firmament. You and John can start looking, I guess that those issues are taken today by religious scholars the way you say they are. Secular scholars maybe.

bob_2 · 04-23-09 9:03 am

Come on Neal, you can't take all those doctrines and show me a statement like the one in red about the firmament. You and John can start looking, I guess that those issues are taken today by religious scholars the way you say they are. Secular scholars maybe. John and Neal, the read letters of the firmament passage I have been continually saying, Neal continues to ridicule, as usual on many subjects.

neal · 04-23-09 10:25 am

... the read letters of the firmament passage I have been continually saying.... That is false. You originally started out by throwing some C&P up about how Genesis 1:6 did not mean anything about a solid dome. Now, recently, you have changed your tune and claim its just goat herders writing goat herder language.

renie · 04-23-09 11:55 am

Elaine, I tried the theology website you gave. Got a message from the Quartz Theology website that there was no such page. renie

neal · 04-23-09 1:30 pm

Renie Elaine has accidentally added a forward slash between the b and 725a. Try this corrected one: <a href="http://www.theology.edu/b725a.htm" target=_top>http://www.theology.edu/b725a.htm</a>

john8verse32 · 04-23-09 1:33 pm

and of course, the vast, celestial resevoir" was what came tumbling down all over the earth, all at the same time, to "flood" the earth 5 and a half miles deep to float Noah's boat <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/5/1028.jpg" alt=""> and cover Everest... NOT!! God in creating the firmament, viz. to serve as a wall of separation between the upper and lower of water, it being conceived as supporting a vast celestial reservoir; and even if one were to claim that it was in vapor form, it still would have had so much weight, that the pressure on earth would have stifled all life!!! and if the vapor had all condensed at the same time to fall as rain, the heat from condensation would have melted the surface of the earth. (when one boils liquid water to make vapor or steam, one must add heat....the reverse happens when steam or vapor turns back into water...it gives up the latent heat which had been used to change its state from liquid to vapor... thus the "vapor canopy" is a non starter (non)explanation for where the water came from for the flood....but people who believe the literal story of the flood don't usually understand science anyway...all it takes is faith.)

renie · 04-23-09 2:23 pm

Neal, thanks sweetie. renie

elaine · 04-23-09 5:56 pm

Investigating the Koran Scholars at Notre Dame are at the beginning of an intellectual reform movement in the Islamic world, an international conference this week at the University of Notre Dame reports. This is compared to the rise of critical Bible studies in the 19th century and the findings are as distressful to faithful Muslims as the similar findings in the Bible to literal-minded Christians, on finding inconsistencies in the gospels. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion23kristof.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted.." target=_top>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion23kristof .html?ref=opinion&pagewanted..</a>.

elaine · 04-23-09 6:01 pm

Here's a copy which did not come through: ------------------------------- April 23, 2009 Islam, Virgins and Grapes By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF In Afghanistan, 300 brave women marched to demand a measure of equal rights, defying a furious mob of about 1,000 people who spat, threw stones and called the women “whores.” The marchers asserted that a woman should not need her husband’s consent to go to school or work outside the home. In Pakistan, the Taliban flogged a teenage girl in front of a crowd, as two men held her face down in the dirt. A video shows the girl, whose “crime” may have been to go out of her house alone, crying piteously that she will never break the rules again. Muslim fundamentalists damage Islam far more than any number of Danish cartoonists ever could, for it’s inevitably the extremists who capture the world’s attention. But there is the beginning of an intellectual reform movement in the Islamic world, and one window into this awakening was an international conference this week at the University of Notre Dame on the latest scholarship about the Koran. “We’re experiencing right now in Koranic studies a rise of interest analogous to the rise of critical Bible studies in the 19th century,” said Gabriel Said Reynolds, a Notre Dame professor and organizer of the conference. The Notre Dame conference probably could not have occurred in a Muslim country, for the rigorous application of historical analysis to the Koran is as controversial today in the Muslim world as its application to the Bible was in the 1800s. For some literal-minded Christians, it was traumatic to discover that the ending of the Gospel of Mark, describing encounters with the resurrected Jesus, is stylistically different from the rest of Mark and is widely regarded by scholars as a later addition. Likewise, Biblical scholars distressed the faithful by focusing on inconsistencies among the gospels. The Gospel of Matthew says that Judas hanged himself, while Acts describes him falling down in a field and dying; the Gospel of John disagrees with other gospels about whether the crucifixion occurred on Passover or the day before. For those who considered every word of the Bible literally God’s word, this kind of scholarship felt sacrilegious. Now those same discomfiting analytical tools are being applied to the Koran. At Notre Dame, scholars analyzed ancient texts of the Koran that show signs of writing that was erased and rewritten. Other scholars challenged traditional interpretations of the Koran such as the notion that some other person (perhaps Judas or Peter) was transformed to look like Jesus and crucified in his place, while Jesus himself escaped to heaven. One scholar at the Notre Dame conference, who uses the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg for safety, has raised eyebrows and hackles by suggesting that the “houri” promised to martyrs when they reach Heaven doesn’t actually mean “virgin” after all. He argues that instead it means “grapes,” and since conceptions of paradise involved bounteous fruit, that might make sense. But suicide bombers presumably would be in for a disappointment if they reached the pearly gates and were presented 72 grapes. One of the scholars at the Notre Dame conference whom I particularly admire is Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, an Egyptian Muslim who argues eloquently that if the Koran is interpreted sensibly in context then it carries a strong message of social justice and women’s rights. Dr. Abu Zayd’s own career underscores the challenges that scholars face in the Muslim world. When he declared that keeping slave girls and taxing non-Muslims were contrary to Islam, he infuriated conservative judges. An Egyptian court declared that he couldn’t be a real Muslim and thus divorced him from his wife (who, as a Muslim woman, was not eligible to be married to a non-Muslim). The couple fled to Europe, and Dr. Abu Zayd is helping the LibForAll Foundation, which promotes moderate interpretations throughout the Islamic world. “The Islamic reformation started as early as the 19th century,” notes Dr. Abu Zayd, and, of course, it has even earlier roots as well. One important school of Koranic scholarship, Mutazilism, held 1,000 years ago that the Koran need not be interpreted literally, and even today Iranian scholars are surprisingly open to critical scholarship and interpretations. If the Islamic world is going to enjoy a revival, if fundamentalists are to be tamed, if women are to be employed more productively, then moderate interpretations of the Koran will have to gain ascendancy. There are signs of that, including a brand of “feminist Islam” that cites verses and traditions suggesting that the Prophet Muhammad favored women’s rights. Professor Reynolds says that Muslim scholars have asked that conference papers be translated into Arabic so that they can get a broader hearing. If the great intellectual fires are reawakening within Islam, after centuries of torpor, then that will be the best weapon yet against extremism. •

bob_2 · 04-24-09 5:13 pm

Thanks for that contribution from the slime pond tender side of the discussion.

john8verse32 · 04-24-09 6:01 pm

Elaine's contribution was right on thread...showing that even Moslems have to rethink some of their texts.... Bob: your sarcastic comment, and continuing accusation at her in your profile is lamentable, as well as unChristian.... and coming from somebody who admits that he has not even fully read the Bible himself? give it up...she is more of a scholar than many of us (including you!!!)

bob_2 · 04-24-09 6:14 pm

John, I will give it up when you all do. I do not have the proof of an apology from any of you for your ridicule. During my life I have run across individuals like you that defend, by your silence individuals like Elaine and Neal. Then come on and make ME look like, for all those that don't have time to look at the history of abuse and ridicule and mocking of God. So put up or as they say "shut up", respectfully of course. I could use a cruder expression about producing or getting off the pot. but this will do to get my point across.

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