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Therein lies the heart of the issue. We are
evangelists to the lost. You and I have written enough on TT that any undecided
person or seeker can choose who they will go to for answers, who they think have
eternal life. My message is that God is love and I offer healing and freedom in
His name. You have your message. Let the people
choose.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Copying the
Bible
Yes I could. But with some of the stuff you pass as fact, why should
I? New Age doctrine trying to pass as christianity does not deserve
respect. I am more interested that your infection does not
spread. Caroline Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Kevin, can you communicate with a person you
disagree with without belittling them? Your thoughts would have been more
readily received.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 9:44
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Copying the
Bible
CW says Biblical scholars were quite surprised when
they found early manuscripts which did not contain lots of stuff
like the ending to Mark
Again you are Brewing New Age MOONSHINE!
ManuscriptS? How many? Must be a lot to throw out all those verses,
9-20!!!!!
The Evidence of the Greek: consisting of some eighteen (18)
uncials and some six hundred (600) cursive MSS. (618) which contain
the Gospel of Mark) there is not one which leaves out
these twelve verses.
So out of the 620 extant manuscripts that contain the chapter
we have 618 that contain 9-20 and 2 that do not Aleph &
B
Considering the character of aleph & B, this would be akin to 618
witnesses testifying in court in total agreement against a defendant. But
wait two more witnesses show. They both disagree with the 618 but also
with each other! Witnesses that can not agree on the facts or each
other, this is the nature of these hopelessly corrupt manuscripts.
The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible has
this to say about Codex Vaticanus (B) on page 624 under article Versions.
Quote: " It should be noted, however, that there is no prominent
Biblical MS. in which there occur such gross cases of misspelling, faulty
grammar, and omission, as in B." (Ref:H2)
"Aleph B D are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies
extant: exhibit the most shamefully mutilated
texts which are anywhere to be met with: have become, by whatever
process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the
largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional
perversions of Truth which are discoverable in any known copies of the
Word of God." Burgon, Revision Revised, p 16
Dean John William Burgon "The Revision Revised", 1881, p. 11; "Singular
to relate Vaticanus and Aleph have within the last 20 years established a
tyrannical ascendance over the imagination of the Critics, which
can only be fitly spoken of as a blind superstition. It matters
nothing that they are discovered on careful scrutiny to differ
essentially, not only from ninety-nine out of a hundred of the whole body
of extant MSS. besides, but even from one another. In the gospels alone B
(Vaticanus) is found to omit at least 2877 words: to add 536, to
substitute, 935; to transpose, 2098: to modify 1132 (in all 7578): - the
corresponding figures for Aleph being 3455 omitted, 839 added, 1114
substitued, 2299 transposed, 1265 modified (in all 8972). And be it
remembered that the omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions,
and modifications, are by no means the same in both. It is in fact
easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two mss. differ the
one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely
agree."
These two ms are the corrupt foundation that the new bibles are built
on.
Evidence from Church fathers:
http://www.lamblion.net/Articles/patristic_chart.htm Cited by many of the
early church fathers such as Justin (165 AD), Tertullian (220 AD),
Hippolytus (235 AD), Ambrose (397 AD) and Augustine (430 AD). Irenaeus
(155 AD)
Evidence of the versions:
The SYRIAC. The oldest is the Syriac in its various forms: the "
Peshitto " (cent. 2), and the "Curetonian Syriac"(cent. 3). Both are older
than any Greek 315. in existence, and both contain these twelve
verses. As also does the "Philoxenian"(cent. 5) and the "Jerusalem"
(cent. 5) contain these twelve verses
The LATIN Versions: JEROME (A. D. 382), who had access to Greek MSS.
older than any now extant, includes these twelve verses; but this
Version (known as the Vulgate) was only a revision of the Vetus ITALA,
which is believed to belong to cent. 2, and also contains these
verses.
The GOTHIC Version (A. D. 350) contains them.
The EGYPTIAN Versions: the Memphitic (or Lower Egyptian, otherwise
known as "COPTIC"), belonging to cent. 4 or 5, contains them; as
does the "THE BMC "(Or Upper Egyptian, otherwise known as the "SAHIDIC"),
belonging to cent. 3 contains them.
The ARMENIAN (cent. 5), the ETHIOPIC (cent. 4-7), and the GEOROIAN
(cent. 6) also contains them and bear witness to the genuineness of
these verses.
The evidence of the blank space: "To say that the Vatican Codex
(B)... ends abruptly at the 8th verse of the 16th chapter [of Mark's
Gospel], and that the customary subscription (kata Markon) follows, is
true - but it is far from being the whole truth. It requires to be stated
in addition that the scribe, whose plan is found to have been to begin
every fresh book of the Bible at the top of the next ensuing column to
that which contained the concluding words of the preceding book, has at
the close of S. Mark's Gospel deviated from his else invariable practice.
He has left in this place one column entirely vacant. It is the
only column in the whole manuscript - a blank space abundantly sufficient
to contain the twelve verses which he nevertheless withheld... The older
MS from Codex B was copied must have infallibly contained the twelve
verses in dispute. The copyist was instructed to leave them out, and he
obeyed, but he prudently left a blank space in memorian rei. Never was
blank more intelligible! Never was silence more eloquent! By this simple
expedient, strange to relate, the Vatican Codex is made to refute
itself... By leaving room for the verses it
omits, it brings into prominent notice at the end of fifteen
centuries and a half, a more ancient witness than itself. The venerable
author of the original Codex from which Codex B was copied, is thereby
brought into view. And thus, our supposed adversary (Codex B) proves our
most useful ally: for it procures us the testimony of an hitherto
unsuspected witness." Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses Of Mark, p 86-87
Here is an example (columns) of what Aleph looks like, I could not find
mark (B):
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/howwegot.html
The Sinaitic Manuscript
Page 20 - 21:
David Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
*Note
Subject Change
Subject was "Rikk Watts on Genesis 1" and is now
"Copying the Bible"
Caroline Wong wrote:
> Both errors are
likely. People could deliberately
> add words to bolster the text
and make it sound
> better.
Wait just one minute, please.
If you were copying the Scriptures, you would
try real hard to copy
it accurately, would you not? Would *YOU* truly add
words to bolster
the text and make it sound better? I'm talking about
*YOU*. Think
about this carefully. I would venture to say that if you were
copying the Holy Scriptures, you would not add any words at all to
make it
sound better. I know that I would not.
Caroline Wong
wrote:
> In fact, Christians have been known to write
whole
> books and letters and attribute them to Paul or
John
> or some other Apostle. There was a lot of
controversy
> and uncertainty so adding words make things more
plain.
You are confusing outright forgery with monks copying the
sacred text. When
scribes were copying texts, they were very careful
NOT to add words and NOT
to subtract words. With this underlying
paradigm at work here, which
mistake is most likely to take place?
Would the addition of words or the
omission of words be the most
likely to occur if your modus operandi was
trying to copy the text
exactly and not add or subtract words? I think the
omission of words
would be the most likely mistake.
Caroline Wong wrote:
>
Biblical scholars were quite surprised when they found
> early
manuscripts which did not contain lots of stuff like
> the ending
to Mark or the story in John about the woman
> caught in adultery.
Mark can be explained by saying the
> manuscript lost its ending
but how do we explain John :-)
> We don't. We just put a note and
say it's not in the early
> manuscripts.
You give up on
explanations way too quickly! It could be that the guy doing
the
copying was called to lunch by his buddy and when he came back, he
picked up his copying efforts in the wrong place. It also could be
that the
part of the text he was copying from was damaged. Maybe he
spilled his
coffee on it, and so he planned to come back later when
he could get an
undamaged copy. I haven't examined these manuscripts
myself directly, but I
have read reports of those who have that
passages like Mark 16 actually have
a large blank space where the
omitted passage would fit. It looks like
indeed the copyist planned
to come back later and fill it in. This suggests
to me that the copy
he was working from was probably damaged in that place.
Caroline
Wong wrote:
> If copyists lost words as they copied, the later
manuscripts
> would have less words than the early
ones.
Now you are thinking, but your assumption here is that all
later manuscripts
were copied from all earlier ones. This is not
true. Many times copies
were made that became a dead end. In other
words, no further copies were
made from them. I think this is the
case with these two older manuscripts.
We need to keep this fact of
TWO manuscripts in mind because you talk about
older manuscripts and
some people might get the idea that there are a bunch
of them. The
truth is that we are talking about TWO manuscripts which
differ
significantly from about 5,000 manuscripts that have a more recent
date. The big question is how this could be, which is why Westcott
and Hort
came up with their Syrian recension theory. They postulated
that these
older Egyptian manuscripts were right but the majority of
other manuscripts
were wrong because there was a big mistake made
early on from which all
these other copies were made. It makes much
more sense that these two older
manuscripts in Egypt are the ones
which were mistaken, especially when you
consider that the
Sinaiticus text was found in a trash can at Saint
Katherine's
monastery. (Incidentally, for trivia's sake, I would like to
mention
that I have visited this monastery and spent the night there.)
Furthermore, the text was in all capital letters with no spaces
between the
words. Was this perhaps some fun experiment some monk
was doing because of
his boredom with copying texts all day long?
For all we know, it was a
teenager given the task as homework, and
he didn't even want to be doing it.
Maybe he was playing around with
it like a modern day teenager does with
video games. If he was not a
teenager, maybe he was someone just trying to
make the Word of God
more encrypted? Who knows, but when we consider that
the monks at
this monastery had such little opinion of this Bible that they
threw
it away in the trash can, one must wonder why the modern scholars want
to put so much stock in it. The only thing it has going for it is
its older
date. Is that really enough?
Peace be with
you.
David Miller.
----------
"Let your speech be
always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought
to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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