Historical Proofs of the Bible

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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This new thread is designed for those who are objective in their thinking, and will read what I have to demonstrate the historical evidences for the Bible. This is not for those who can only hurl redicule, sarcasm and make irrational nonsensical statements. These have closed their minds and this site is not suitable for them. I am only presenting small portions at a time, because of the vast amount of evidence.
The first category: Documentary evidence

  1. As far as the number of surviving early manuscripts(mss) the New Testament significantly outweighs all other ancient mss. There are in access of 24,000 mss, as compared to its nearest competitor the Illiad which has 643 mss in existence today.
  2. The interval between the time of the original mss to the present extant mss is the smallest. Between 250 to 300 years with exception of some small pieces that are dated within 100 years. This may seem a great discrepancy, but compared to other ancient mss, it is trifling. Ceasar’s Gallic Wars, which were written between 50-58 B.C. have only 9 or 10 good mss, all dating over 900 years after the original mss.
    Of the 142 books of Livy’s(59 B.C.-17 A.D.) Roman History only 35 survive. These are only known by 20 mss of any consequence, only one which that contains the fragment of books III-VI, are not dated earlier than the fourth century.
    The Histories of Tacitus(ca. 100 A.D.), of the 14 books, only 4 and a half survive; of his 16 Annals only 10 survive in full, but these date over 800 years later.
    Commenting on the mss evidence, Sir Frederick Kenyon, former director and principle librarian of the British Museum states, " . . .besides number ,the mss of the New Testament differ from the classical authors, and this time the difference is clear gain. In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and date of the earliest extant mss, so short as in that the New Testament. The books of New Testament were written in the late first century." Handbook of Textual Criticism of the New Testament, London, MacMillan and co. 1901. So much for now.
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A couple things:

  1. So you are arguing for the validity of the Bible based on how many copies of it there are and how quickly they circulated? I’m confused by your logic.
  2. The present version of the Bible that is circulated has been heavily edited by Constantine et al., so I wouldn’t be so sure as to the percentage survival of the original text. If it did survive better than any other western text . . . so what? Again, I don’t understand your logic here.

Facts are great, but you no more have an argument with a pile of facts than you do a house with a pile of bricks. I’m curious, please flesh this out a little more.

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This only a start, this first installment is not meant to be comprehensive, I am researching and compiling information, you will have to exercise at little patience. My logic should be obvious, I am presenting historical evidence, this is a portion of this evidence.
From my present research Constantine has little to do with the mss evidence, what sources can you cite to substantiate your claim. For me the fact that the New Testament is a historically reliable document and I can read with confidence concerning its accuracy. You should try to get a hold of William Ramsey’s book, St.Paul the Traveller

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Only a certain amount of genetic differenciation can occur from a certain amount of generations [genetically]. If noah and his arc had 2 of each animal, then this would have reflected in the genes today. Also, if there was an Adam and Eve, this global insest would be evident in modern genes.
Read all about more here:
home.entouch.net/dmd/fld.htm

Also if there was only 2 of each animal, this imbalanced populus would be brought to nothing by the preditors.

The bible is an imperfect set of books that contains both truth and lies. Be careful what you believe in.

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It is a somewhat slanted report, so keep that in mind while reading it, but most of the information contained within is accurate. If you can filter out the editorializing and stick to the facts, then this has a good section on what Constantine did for the Bible:

bidstrup.com/bible.htm

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Ok, thanks. Be aware of this, I’m currently studying a B.A. in Philosophy, to fulfill my undergraduate requirements, to earn a PhD in Philosophy. I already have both a B.S. and M.S. but I want to change careers, from elementary school to college. Besides other things, I am pretty busy, so be patient.

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Doubt to your heart’s content, you are so biased that no amount of factual evidence would ever satisfy you. Why do I say that? Because I have close to thirty years of debating and dialogue, and your kind are all the same. That is why I don’t intend on wasting any time with you. I only deal with people who have intellectual hurdles not moral hurdles. Most people don’t want to believe in God, bcause they have moral standards to live up to, and accountability for their actions. Your comments aren’t intelligent they are twisted by your irrational thinking. So long, and in eternity we will know the truth. Jesus still loves you and died for your sins. To receive Him is be forgiven and reconciled to God, and spend eternity in heaven. The other option is not very pretty.

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Thanks, for your imput, but please be patient, if you read my earlier post, I am busy. :smiley:

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And how many of these are mere fragments?

And who is placing their life–present and future–on Livy’s works, Ceasar’s Comentarii de Bellico Gauli, or Homer’s Illiad? What major importance is there to believing that Ceasar killed Vercingetorix? The difference between these texts ands the Bible is that the Bible is used as a supreme authoritative text on one’s life. Livy, Homer, Cicero, Ceasar, etc are not. There is a higher demand for accuracy in something that claims to be so important to one’s life.
And, let’s also not forget that Codex Siniaticus (to whcih you are referring as the earlist complete manuscript) is dated to the 5th century at the earliest. That’s still a very long time for textual corruption and manipulation.
Again, it doesn’t matter if our copies of Plato and Ceasar have been corrupted because no one places their “eternal life” on those works. People do do such with the Bible, especially the New Testament.

Generally considered to be the last book of the NT canon written, the Revelation of John is dated to 90-120 AD. With Siniaticus being dated to the time right after Augustine (5th Century), we’re looking at at least 350 years (as you have said) of transmission and “interpretation”. That’s totally worthless if we’re trying to base a person’s religious worldview on it. The Qu’ran is much more reliable when compared to the NT because it was composed within 200 years of Muhammed and there is a verifiability to the transmission from that original composition…especially because it is still written in the original language today.

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I am presently addressing textual criticism, I am taking this topic one step at a time, I would appreciate your patience, I will address your replies as we progress through this discussion. But one point I will address, the dating of the last N.T. book. All conservative and many liberal scholars agree that John’s Revelation was written no later than 85 A.D. I will answer that issue in a future post in greater detail. I appreciate your patience in this matter. :smiley:

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Ok, your proofs have convinced me there is in fact a book called the bible.
Good job.
Have you any evidence of its veracity?

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Wilczek, You are getting ahead of me, the topic of the historical Jesus follows this in a future post. I intend on proceeding one topic at a time, and will not leap frog from topic to topic.
Textual comparison:
In antiquity such writings as Homer’s Illiad and later the Scriptures were memorized by men, because both were considered sacred and used in defense of such doctrines pertaining to heaven, earth and hades. In addition, both were used as primers to teach students how to read. (XHapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism 1968 Oxford University Press)
As E.G. Turner points out that, "Homer was no doubt the most widely read author in antiquity. (Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, Princeton University Press, 1971.
By comparison the Illiad was written 900 B.C. the earliest copy is dated at 400 B.C., a 500 year difference, with only 643 extent mss copies. However, the New Testament out weighs this, having in excess of 24,000, many are not fragments, the earlies dated at 125 A.D. , giving a difference of 45 years. This is significant in light of textual corruption, the further a mss is displaced from the original document, the greater the corruption of the text. For example, the Illiad has 15,600 lines of which over 764 are corrupted, or of questionable origin. The New Testament has 20,000 lines of which 40 are suspect. The Illiad has 5% corruption as compared to 1/2 of 1% for the N.T. Keeping in mind the Illiad is the best preseved document of antiquity.
The National epic of India, the Mahabharta, has suffered even more corruption. It is about 8 times the size of the Homer’s combined works, roughly 250,000 lines. Of these about 26,000 are corrupted, with in 10%.
Concerning N.T. textual corruption, Benjamin Warfield wrote in his Introduction to Textual Criticism of N.T., quotes Ezra Abbot’s opinion about 19/20th of the N.T. textual variation “. . . have little support . . . although these are various readings and of the 19/20th of the remainder are of little importance that there adoption or rejection would cause no appreciable difference in the sense of the passages where they occur.”
Essentially the corruption are of little concern and can be dispensed.
Philip Schaff in Comparison in the Greek N.T. and the English Version states, the variants that exist in some MSS do not “alter any article of faith or precept of duty, which is not already abundantly sustained by other undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of scripture teaching.”
Fenton John Anthony Hort, whose life has been with the MSS states, "The proportion of words virtually accepted on all hands as raised above doubts is very great, not less than 7/8th of the whole. The remaining 8th, therefore formed is a great part by changes of (word) order (probably in translation, this is not uncommon, I have spent the better part of 5 years studying N.T. Greek and word order in Greek is not of any import, as in English) and other comparatives trivialities, constitutes the whole area of criticism. Hort goes on to even state that the textual corruption could be as little as 1/16th of the entire N.T.
Warfield referring to Richard Bentley, "the real text of the sacred writer is compentently exact; . . . nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost . . . choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design out of the whole lump of readings.
Schaff quotes two separate authors, first, “We possess so many MSS, and we are aided by some many versions, that we are never left to the need of conjecture as the means of removing errata.” (Tregallen, Greek N.T., “Protegomena,” P.X.) The second author, Scrivner, as far as he is concerned, " the copiousness of the stories from causing doubt or perplexity to the genuine student of the Holy Scripture, that it leads him to recognize the more fully the general integrity in the midst of partial variation. (Companion to the Greek N.T. and English Version, MacMillian, Co. 1883.
The conclusion is obvious that the textual integrity out weighs any other document of antiquity, in accuracy, number of MSS and least amount of corruption. This is foundational, because if the Bible is corrupted or not well documented the remainder is trival. My next post I will present the reliabilty of the New Testament authorship and dates of books. As always please be patient, this the only computer with an internet connection. :smiley:

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Thanks. I will, but please be patient, I must do much research. :smiley:

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From John MacArthur Study Bible (a pretty conservative work) with corroboration in The New Testament: Its Background and Message (Thomas Lea, dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, also very conservative):

If you’d like, i can get some more quotes (from Leas’s book, a NRSV study bible, a few articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals) that all argue for a date at least as late as the mid 90s CE. In fact, i can get some quotations from people who are on the committee to decide what should be considered part of the critical Greek New Testament (Scot McKnight, Wayne Grudem, etc). You’d have to have pretty strong evidence for your dating if you wish to argue with the people who decide what was the original Greek texts.
One last note, this area was once my undergraduate major (i.e. when i attended a conservative Protestant seminary) and is part of my current graduate studies. i doubt that you’d be able to refute all of my evidence.

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Interesting,

Keep the info coming.

With regards,

aspacia

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strange-loops.com/athdisprovinggod.html
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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I had read about that, I believe my source was William F. Albright, but I have to check on that. I have studied N.T. Greek, probably not as far as yourself.

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