The Real Jesus - Refuting the Myths (David Lutweiler 1 of 4)

http://therealjesus.com

David Lutweiler describes the German Higher Criticism as an attack on the authenticity of the Gospels. The Higher Critics described the biblical Jesus as a person as a person who never existed in favor of a "Historical Jesus."

One of the most gifted biblical scholars ever to come out of Yale University, John Henry Ludlum, examined the writings of Julius Wellhausen and the German Critics in the original German. He began to see that the liberals had no case. They no documents, no evidence, no archaeological artifacts, but simply described a scenario by which the history of Israel and the New Testament writings could have taken place by simply making it up.

Ludlum then began to see the case for the authenticity of the New Testament and adopted the conservative evangelical view. He is like many brilliant scholars who still believe in the authenticity of the New Testament documents and the divinity of Jesus Christ.

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[jcr4runner]

"From what I have read, most textual critics ..."

You need to distinguish between liberal critics and conservatives. The vast amount of biblical criticism is done by conservatives since we outnumber the liberals by about 7 to 1.

The liberal media pays attention of course to the liberal theologians. You just need to look beyond the veneer and check out guys like Dan Wallace and William Lane Craig -- these are world-class scholars who are conservatives.

[jcr4runner]

The other thing you have to realize is that TC existed at the time of Jesus. Scribes were doing manuscript redaction and recension all the time.

There is even a big discussion over texts among the church fathers writings beginning in the second century -- so it is hardly true that mistakes could have gone unnoticed.

And again -- we are not talking about "different Bibles" -- but only small variants of a small percentage of the entire NT text.

[jcr4runner]

As I just wrote, it's conjecture. TC is a fairly reliable science. You can conduct copyist experiments with modern day untrained scribes that will bear out the accuracy of the scribal tradition.

A good example of this is comparing the Dead Sea Scroll MSS with the earliest extant Hebrew Masoretic texts of almost 1000 years later. This discovery showed how accurate the copyists were over many centuries.

(There are no "translational" errors in the Greek Greek MSS!)

[jcr4runner]

P.S. That 85 to 95 percent gap depends on how we treat two longer passages -- the ending of Mark and the so-called "Pericope Adulterae."

The other thing you have to remember is that to assume unreliability of the texts, you must do so out of conjecture. There is no manuscript evidence to suggest that.

You have to take the view that: "We don't have the originals so we don't know."

But ALL reconstruction of ancient texts is conducted without the originals.

So this is not new news.

[jcr4runner]

What we are talking about is a NT with a 2 percent significant variants, which can be resolved most of the time.

If we include ALL significant NT variants (even the minor ones) you can literally fit them all on one page.

A conservative Textual Critical view is that the received text is 98 to 99.9 percent accurate to the original. The liberals estimate it's 85 to 95 percent accurate.

Of course, I am a conservative. Even with the EXTREME liberal view we are not talking about a different Bible.

[jcr4runner]

The remaining one or two percent of these errors are called "significant" in that they affect the meaning of the text.

For instance a variant that has "Christ Jesus" rather than Jesus Christ" is NOT significant. But a variant that has Christ the Lord" is significant in that it has a different meaning.

We can even resolve many of these. And even if these were to be unresolved, nowhere does a major article of the Christian faith hinge on a disputed passage.

[jcr4runner]

Well, let's back up and describe what differences we are talking about here. Literally 98 to 99 percent of scribal errors we are talking in these early manuscripts about deal with spelling errors, grammatical errors, one or two words that are omitted or edited, word order that is changed or reversed, and so on.

In fact, in the entire NT there are only two or three passages (ones longer than a few sentences) that are in dispute.

[muzakgeek]

However, the autographs are, in fact gone. And for anyone to trust that the translations of copies made centuries after the originals were penned - during a period of overwhelming illiteracy - are wholly accurate and infallible is a fallacy.

Besides the numerous translational and copying errors, there are clear additions and changes that have been made and included. With the originals gone, additions & errors could be made by scribes during the copying process without review or reprisal.

[muzakgeek]

"Almost certainly of the 1st century"?

I have seen no scholarly consensus on this point. From what I have read, most textual critics have known for years that the number of any one manuscript version (despite its age) does not verify the original it was copied from.

If an error is made in an early manuscript and that one happens to be the one most copied, it therefore does not constitute an accurate representation of the autograph.

P.S. - I have not read Comfort's books.

[jcr4runner]

A bit more on your #2 --

2. There are thousands of NT manuscripts and over 100 fragments from 115 to 325 AD. There are minor differences in the best texts which shows a remarkable preservation.

The evangelical doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy of the NT does NOT require a word for word letter for letter accuracy to the original Greek manuscripts (otherwise how could we dare make a translation?)

What is preserved is an accurate sentence meaning.