Why are copyists errors not important to the whole text?

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MarcoPG

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Hello,
I am always searching for a satisfying answer on Matthew 23:35, and that “son of Barachias” may be a copist addenda bothers me a bit. I understand that Scripture is inspired only for Faith and Morals, but how do we know if and when a manuscript contains glosses or errors?

Also, how do the Church see scriptural inspiration in light of these minor “addings”?

Thank you 🙂
 
Well it’s not important because no one says that Scripture is factually accurate. Truth and facts are two very different things. Two people can witness an event and give two very different sets of facts. What’s important in Scripture is what is God saying to us, not the factual minutiae.
 
MarcoPG said:
I understand that Scripture is inspired only for Faith and Morals
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Not to complicate matters, but* Providentissimus Deus* (Leo XIII, 1893; no. 20) teaches:

…[T]he system of those who … concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond … cannot be tolerated. For … so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.
 
Ad_Orientem said:
…[T]he system of those who … concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond … cannot be tolerated. For … so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.
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CCC
II. INSPIRATION AND TRUTH OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

What does Providentissimus Deus mean by “beyond” then? It doesn’t seem to teach inerrancy in everything.

Mainly I was asking about possible copists addings and how these would be discovered and understood.
 
Seraphim73 said:
Well it’s not important because no one says that Scripture is factually accurate. Truth and facts are two very different things. Two people can witness an event and give two very different sets of facts. What’s important in Scripture is what is God saying to us, not the factual minutiae.
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And yet a single word can completely change the meaning. For instance, Thou shall not kill vs Thou shall not murder. These two sentences mean completely different things.
 
Bell(name removed by moderator) said:
And yet a single word can completely change the meaning. For instance, Thou shall not kill vs Thou shall not murder. These two sentences mean completely different things.
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You are right. That’s why we don’t look to our own understanding of Scripture but we look to the understanding of the Church. If you don’t have that foundation you are likely to become lost.
 
A copyist error would be spotted by comparing a manuscript to the standard text. The errors these days are catalogued and sometimes given in a place in a variant apparatus. But there are obvious degrees of importance, since some things like misspellings and errors in repeating phrases and lines due to the monotony of hand writing a huge book. Those would be much different than an outright variant reading of different words or additions and omissions. Spelling errors are guaranteed in Bible manuscripts, almost every paragraph in every manuscript has spelling errors that are not exactly the same as any other manuscript. Additions and omissions are considered more carefully, but thankfully we as Catholics dont have to settle with scholarly theories but we have the assurance by the Apostolic Church that what we have is true and faithful to the Christian faith. The Christian faith came before the Bible, so we as Catholics dont put the product ahead of the designer, that is we dont put the Bible ahead of the one who put it together in the first place, that is the Catholic Church.

Textual criticism is very interesting and fascinating, but its not our authority, thankfully.
 
MarcoPG said:
Hello,
I am always searching for a satisfying answer on Matthew 23:35, and that “son of Barachias” may be a copist addenda bothers me a bit. I understand that Scripture is inspired only for Faith and Morals, but how do we know if and when a manuscript contains glosses or errors?

Also, how do the Church see scriptural inspiration in light of these minor “addings”?

Thank you 🙂
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When older manuscripts are found with a different reading. In this case, Iesus named a person other than the one listed in,
(2Ch 24:20 ASV) And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of Jehovah, so that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken Jehovah, he hath also forsaken you.

(2Ch 24:21 ASV) And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of Jehovah.

(2Ch 24:22 ASV) Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, Jehovah look upon it, and require it.
 
raoul1951 said:
When older manuscripts are found with a different reading. In this case, Iesus named a person other than the one listed in,
(2Ch 24:20 ASV) And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of Jehovah, so that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken Jehovah, he hath also forsaken you.

(2Ch 24:21 ASV) And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of Jehovah.

(2Ch 24:22 ASV) Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, Jehovah look upon it, and require it.
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What is your answer?
 
MarcoPG said:
Hello,
I am always searching for a satisfying answer on Matthew 23:35, and that “son of Barachias” may be a copist addenda bothers me a bit. I understand that Scripture is inspired only for Faith and Morals, but how do we know if and when a manuscript contains glosses or errors?

Also, how do the Church see scriptural inspiration in light of these minor “addings”?

Thank you 🙂
Click to expand...
In the Torah [1st five books of the bible] there are no copyist errors, it is larger than the NT and 3300 years old.
Whereas the NT is a mere 1700 years old.

The problem appears, to me, that the early Christians did not consider the NT to be holy scripture.
 
I await your posting of any error in the Torah !
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Any errors? In the time of Ezra (according to the Talmud) 3 extant Torah scrolls were discovered in the Temple courtyard, the maon book, the za’atutei book, and the hi book. These did not agree! You can find details of the discrepancies described online if you like. The resulting ‘correction’ took majority opinion on any error. So, of course there were copyist errors in the Torah, as recorded in ancient times.
 
Zipply said:
Any errors? In the time of Ezra (according to the Talmud) 3 extant Torah scrolls were discovered in the Temple courtyard, the maon book, the za’atutei book, and the hi book. These did not agree!
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I say Torah, you say Talmud. That is like me saying gospels, and you quoting from the early church fathers. So it seems that you know of no errors in the Torah.
You can find details of the discrepancies described online if you like. The resulting ‘correction’ took majority opinion on any error. So, of course there were copyist errors in the Torah, as recorded in ancient times.
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I do not need to. You obviously did not do any research on your source. As all three had the exact number of
books
verses
words
and letters.
The only difference between these scrolls was a ‘hey’ in place of an ‘aleph’ ect. that did not change the pronunciation or meaning of any word.

As such these differences would not qualify as an error to any Christian scholar. So in short there are no errors in the Torah by your own source.
 
I say Torah, you say Talmud. That is like me saying gospels, and you quoting from the early church fathers. So it seems that you know of no errors in the Torah.
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You didn’t even understand the sentence I wrote. This is useless.
The only difference between these scrolls was a ‘hey’ in place of an ‘aleph’ ect. that did not change the pronunciation or meaning of any word.
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…which is a copyist error (I guess while writing this post you figured out how to read my first sentence after all). A copyist error is a copyist error, whether it significantly changes the meaning or not.
 
Zipply said:
In the time of Ezra (according to the Talmud) 3 extant Torah scrolls were discovered in the Temple courtyard, the maon book, the za’atutei book, and the hi book. These did not agree!
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“I say Torah, you say Talmud. That is like me saying gospels, and you quoting from the early church fathers.”

Hello Tanachanswers,
I guess your misunderstood Zipply, who is saying: according to the Talmud there are 3 versions of the Torah, not that there are errors in the Talmud, or that he is talking about anything in the Talmud. He says that the Talmud says there were 3 versions of these Torah scrolls.
If I am right (Zipply could confirm), then your analogy doesn’t work quite well.
 
MarcoPG said:
“I say Torah, you say Talmud. That is like me saying gospels, and you quoting from the early church fathers.”

Hello Tanachanswers,
I guess your misunderstood Zipply, who is saying: according to the Talmud there are 3 versions of the Torah, not that there are errors in the Talmud, or that he is talking about anything in the Talmud. He says that the Talmud says there were 3 versions of these Torah scrolls.
If I am right (Zipply could confirm), then your analogy doesn’t work quite well.
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I understood her perfectly. And she is still completely wrong.
 
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