Help me to prove he is lying

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Jesus our Lords peace be whit You.
His own words is proof enough.
Blessings,Totterman.
 
All I can say is this man lacks faith. And in no small amount.

If someone believes that God is not capable of keeping His Word intact in some way throughout time (as we know, God is timeless) even though it has been translated many times over with seemingly limitless variations, then they either 1) truly have no idea what God can do, or 2) are putting God in a human-sized box (meaning God is not devine, entirely capable of error like man and therefore limited in power), or 3) are deliberately trying to decieve people by using skewed reasoning.

Either way, this man has no faith.

As far as proving he is lying, I can’t. But he is certainly free to voice his opinion - erroneous or not. All we can do is pray for him and any followers that may also lack faith that find his arguments to be legitimate.
 
I’m only into part two, but so far his first argument seems really weak:
  • He stresses that it’s around the bible belt which is predominantly Protestant, Sola Scirputra heresy.
  • Since it’s Protestant focused, he is forgetting the Tradition that runs alongside of Roman Catholicism, it is the same Tradition that keeps translation in line.
  • He questions God’s Will on the matter of preserving Holy Scripture, in the sense that it seems to fit with a Sola Scriptura point of view.
  • So far he neglects the Church in his arguments, again this is highly aimed at Protestants.
His argument on copyist error is as follows:
Original
|
Copy (contains error)
|
Copy (contains error x2) [x2 including the own errors in addition to the original error in the copy prior.]

Read King James, Douay-Rheims, Revised Standard, the differences are rather small, so small that it’s only in the use of words (which he admits). His main copyist error seems to be on assumptions, I’m sure reading older translations along with newer translations will even neglect the idea of copying errors after your pick of the older translation.

He states that the copy of Mark’s Gospel doesn’t arrive till 200 AD, when infact it’s earliest date is c70 AD, he’s 130 years off the mark, pretty huge gap.

Also, Catholic Tradition, like the Tridentine Rite, stresses on using the original language, so as to reduce any possible translation errors, they too attribute this attitude to scripture, the Vulgate.

This should reassure you, hopefully, I’ll resume when I have the rest.

God Bless,

Christopher.
 
His use to use P52 to calculate the age of the Gospel St. John is rather risky, as P52 is only dated by handwriting alone. Since the fragment P52 comes from a codex, dating it to the second century at it’s half way point is also rather stressing, the fragment would be one of the earliest surviving pieces of literary codex.

I’ll still be posting more in time.

God Bless,

Christopher.
 
CGDouglas said:
This should reassure you, hopefully, I’ll resume when I have the rest.

God Bless,

Christopher.
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Hello Christopher,

I don’t believe the OP is actually looking for reassurance. My assumption is that Slave of God is muslim, and is presenting evidence of the “corruption” of the Injeel, the book sent down on Jesus. This corruption is often used by muslims as an argument in favor of the Qur’an. I make this assumption because, while “Slave of God” is an unusual rendering in English, its rendering in Arabic yields the common muslim name, Abdullah.

Ehrman is very well known and highly respected. He’s not speaking here principally to protestants or catholics, but rather to a predominantly secular and scholarly audience — this is after all taken from a Stanford lecture series — that may also include protestants and catholics, but certainly includes a broader audience more interested in the secular usage of the New Testament in our society.

Neither is he addressing English translations other than in passing. Most of his presentation here, and in his book “Misquoting Jesus,” is about variations in the Greek manuscripts that are used for translation. There are about 5700 fragments and full texts that still exist, none of which are original. While we have small fragments of a verse or two that date back to the early 2nd century, such as the P51 fragment he mentions, we don’t have any complete gospels until nearly a century later. There are 150 years between the likely date of composition of the original gospel of Mark and the date of the earliest complete copy. During this period, and after, copying errors occurred which are still preserved in modern translations.

This isn’t an argument, weak or otherwise. It’s a presentation of what we know about the manuscripts that make up Christianity’s New Testament, as they exist in the language in which they were written, prior to being translated into other languages such as English. Nor is the information about variations in the early texts novel. As Ehrman mentions, scholars have been documenting these differences for centuries. He’s simply popularizing information that hadn’t previously been widely shared outside of academia.

While this presents greater theological challenges to protestants who, having displaced the authority of the papal magisterium, must rely on Sola Scriptura, they’re not especially difficult. Even without the presence of original manuscripts, textual criticism of the existing copies allows a great deal to be said about how the original autographs must have appeared.

As ever, Jesse
 
lao_tzu said:
I don’t believe the OP is actually looking for reassurance. My assumption is that Slave of God is muslim, and is presenting evidence of the “corruption” of the Injeel, the book sent down on Jesus. This corruption is often used by muslims as an argument in favor of the Qur’an. I make this assumption because, while “Slave of God” is an unusual rendering in English, its rendering in Arabic yields the common muslim name, Abdullah.
Click to expand...
Given the content of his previous posts I’d say your assumption is correct.

Chuck
 
During the Q&A, Ehrman gave away the store:

“My view is that Christian doctrine isn’t based on any of these textual variations.” (Part 8 @ 1:30)

Of course not. And I wonder why that statement wasn’t in Dr. Ehrman’s prepared remarks. :rolleyes: Of course, this belies his premise that this can’t be the Word of God because God would have ensured that we have exactly what His Word originally said. The truth of course is that not only do the variants have no bearing on doctrine, but in almost all cases it is very easy to determine what the original inerrant manuscripts said; that is, unless you’re a blind guide like Bart Ehrman. If you don’t hear the voice of God in these words of Jesus, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Then it’s either because God has not given you this grace of faith, or because God has withdrawn that grace because you were unwilling to receive it.

But none of this should affect the faith of Christians. God has in fact well preserved His Word for us. And at the same time He has told us that His Church is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” - not the Bible alone. Ehrman and his ilk, and all of Satan’s minions who are surrounding the camp of God’s people (Rev. 20:9) can only draw out the goats to themselves, not our Lord’s sheep. Of course they can cause the sheep to stumble, but let’s just say they will wish that they had kept their big mouths shut. And Christians should always remember:

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20)

Indeed. Our God knows exactly what He is doing. So seek the Truth with a sincere heart and you will find Him, according to His plan. God bless.
 
lao_tzu said:
Hello Christopher,

I don’t believe the OP is actually looking for reassurance. My assumption is that Slave of God is muslim, and is presenting evidence of the “corruption” of the Injeel, the book sent down on Jesus. This corruption is often used by muslims as an argument in favor of the Qur’an. I make this assumption because, while “Slave of God” is an unusual rendering in English, its rendering in Arabic yields the common muslim name, Abdullah.

Ehrman is very well known and highly respected. He’s not speaking here principally to protestants or catholics, but rather to a predominantly secular and scholarly audience — this is after all taken from a Stanford lecture series — that may also include protestants and catholics, but certainly includes a broader audience more interested in the secular usage of the New Testament in our society.

Neither is he addressing English translations other than in passing. Most of his presentation here, and in his book “Misquoting Jesus,” is about variations in the Greek manuscripts that are used for translation. There are about 5700 fragments and full texts that still exist, none of which are original. While we have small fragments of a verse or two that date back to the early 2nd century, such as the P51 fragment he mentions, we don’t have any complete gospels until nearly a century later. There are 150 years between the likely date of composition of the original gospel of Mark and the date of the earliest complete copy. During this period, and after, copying errors occurred which are still preserved in modern translations.

This isn’t an argument, weak or otherwise. It’s a presentation of what we know about the manuscripts that make up Christianity’s New Testament, as they exist in the language in which they were written, prior to being translated into other languages such as English. Nor is the information about variations in the early texts novel. As Ehrman mentions, scholars have been documenting these differences for centuries. He’s simply popularizing information that hadn’t previously been widely shared outside of academia.

While this presents greater theological challenges to protestants who, having displaced the authority of the papal magisterium, must rely on Sola Scriptura, they’re not especially difficult. Even without the presence of original manuscripts, textual criticism of the existing copies allows a great deal to be said about how the original autographs must have appeared.

As ever, Jesse
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Thank you for this information Jesse, it was most helpful.

God Bless,

Christopher.
 
To answer Bart, you should simply explain what lengths copyists used to prove that they had a good copy — identiflying the center most letter on a page. Then, apeal to the Book of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Basically, the book of Isaiah in the DSS is about a thousand years older than any manuscripts that existed in that time. The accuracy between these those manuscripts is mind blowing.
 
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