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From: lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeff Gillette)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Jesus, N'tzarim, and Yirmiyahu Ben David (pt 2)
Message-ID: <941@phs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Sep-84 15:43:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: phs.941
Posted: Sun Sep 30 15:43:46 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Oct-84 04:38:18 EDT
Organization: Duke Physiology
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> All translations suffer from the attempts of non-Jewish translators 
> trying futilly to understand the Judaic concepts of an early group of
> Jews. ...  Christian doctrines of today originate in the paganism of
> the Roman Empire. ...  One of the major problems with citing passages
> from modern versions [of the Bible] is that there it is slanted by so
> many interpretations from the Roman Empire which were alien to the 
> early N'tzarim sect. ...  Relying upon "Christianized" versions 
> promulgates the muddying of the distinction between Christian and
> Jew.


Granted that Jesus was a Jew; his disciples were Jews; and until at least
the eighth decade of the First Century followers of Jesus in Palestine
continued to live as Jews in a Jewish society (see part 1 of this 
posting).  The question, then, is 1) to what extent are the writers 
of Christian Scripture faithful to the meaning and intentions of 
Jesus; 2) to what extent were those who formulated early Christian 
theology (up till, say, the time of Augustine in the Fifth Century) 
influenced by "pagan" thought; and 3) to what extent have "Roman" 
interpretations corrupted the transmission and translation of the 
New Testament. 

Yirmiyahu has rightly reminded us that there are no "objective"
translations.  Anyone who has taken a foreign language knows that
some words and ideas just can't be translated adequately.  Other
words carry connotations that just weren't intended by the original
text.  The only way to *really* understand the teachings of Jesus
is to be a Jew living in the First Century.  The closest scholars
can come (i.e. intensive study of the language and culture of the
First Century) is rather like looking at a black-and-white photograph
of the Grand Canyon - not only has the landscape been flattened into
two dimensions, but the shades and tints are discerned only with great
difficulty.  

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).

Yirmiyahu is correct when he suggests that many thousands of 
differences exist in these manuscripts.  *Some* do effect the meaning
of a passage, and *some* even appear to have been introduced, on
purpose, to bring the text into line with some theological point.
The *vast* majority (from my own experience with the text of the
New Testament) turn upon some point of grammar.  Of those variations
that appear to be intentional, the vast majority are "benign" attempts
either to add details to make a passage more "interesting," or (in the
Gospels) to bring it into harmony with other passages of Scripture.
If "it is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which
the MS tradition is wholly uniform" (a statement I would take issue with
if I cared to take the time to check it out in the texts), it is also
safe to say that the canons of textual criticism (a quasi-scientific
discipline), which compare and evaluate the *whole* MS tradition, has
given us a Greek text in which the authenticity of hardly one percent 
presents serious question.

Pardon the extended digression on the subject of textual criticism.
The point I wish to make, however, is this:  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!

So how does the lay person, without detailed knowledge of the language
and culture, hope to understand the New Testament?   Probably the best
advice is that given by Charley Wingate - get a variety of (reputable)
opinions.  Studying a few scholarly commentaries (that discuss questions
of language and culture) should give the basic issues in a passage.
The bare minimum, however, is to look at several *reputable* English
versions, preferably with different  translation philosophies (like
the New American Standard Bible and the New English Bible, or the
Revised Standard Bible and the New International Version).  A person
who carefully studies several of the best commentaries on a particular
passage probably will understand it as well as many of the "experts."

The point I wish to make (am I becoming redundant :-) ) is that the
text of the New Testament is *reliable* and *accessible*.  If Yirmiyahu
wishes to assert that modern Christianity is a "corruption" of the
teachings of the Jesus, he is going to have to prove either 1) that
modern Christianity misinterprets the writings of the early Church
(specifically the 27 books of the Greek New Testament), in which case 
examples will be appropriate; or 2) that the early Christian authors
(again, the 27 books of the Greek New Testament) misinterpreted and
misapplied the teachings of Jesus, in which case some type of
evidence will also be appropriate.  Obviously sects and cults from
Second Century gnosticism to Twentieth Century ????? (fill in the
blanks yourself :-) ) have claimed one or the other, and all have
advanced arguments for their position.  

Perhaps, however, as I challenge Yirmiyahu to provide concrete evidence
for his claims, I also should address these two criteria.  After all,
how do we judge whether early Christianity correctly understood Jesus'
teachings and applied them to new situations, and how do we know that
*we* are correctly interpreting our own Scriptures?  This will have to
wait for the third (and last) installment on Jesus, N'tzarim, and
Yirmiyahu.


	Jeff Gillette		...!duke!phs!lisa
	The Divinity School
	Duke University
	Durham, NC