Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mcnc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!bch From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Jesus, N'tzarim, and Yirmiyahu Ben David (pt 2) Message-ID: <2264@mcnc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 30-Sep-84 19:18:37 EDT Article-I.D.: mcnc.2264 Posted: Sun Sep 30 19:18:37 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 1-Oct-84 05:05:54 EDT References:Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service Lines: 38 Summary: In article lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeff Gillette) writes: >How, then, can we trust modern translations of the Bible? As >Yirmiyahu knows, we have more manuscripts of the New Testament than >any other document from antiquity. This includes over 81 fragments >of papyrus (most of which date from the Second through Fourth >centuries), over 266 "uncial" manuscripts (Fourth through Ninth >centuries), 2754 "miniscule" manuscripts (Ninth Century and after). >Additional evidence is available in over 100 early christian >writers (pre 500) who quoted Scripture passages, and early translations >of the New Testament (also pre 500) into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, >Gothic, and Armenian. These figures are available in Bruce >Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (1968 - Dr. Metzger is a >recently retired professor of New Testament at Princeton). > I have seen these figures before, in a variety of contexts, and I remain unimpressed. Sheer weight of documentation does not attest to accuracy, only to distribution. That early Christianity, as practiced by the followers of the Roman bishops, was widespread is not, I think, in dispute. > ...we can be more certain of >the reliability of the Greek text of the New Testament than *any* other >literary/religious document from antiquity - even the Hebrew Scriptures. >The difference in English versions of the New Testament stem almost entirely >from the subjective process of *translation*, not from a "corrupt" text! The notions of reliability and accuracy are confused here. That we have many copies of the text says little about its state of corruption. The initial translations most likely serve as the source for further copies. Rather than having many independent translations of an initial unknown source, we have iterative copying, with errors in the earliest being carried through to the later editions. That we believe we know what the earliest translations say is not at issue, the question is do they reflect the reality of the time. -- Byron C. Howes {decvax|akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch