TILL
Jerry, please! One Dave Court on the list is enough, so try to make your
analogies relevant and parallel to what we are discussing, i.e., biblical
inerrancy. Shakespeare is an unparallel example, because he lived and wrote
after the invention of the printing press, which made multiple, invariant
copies possible. I'm not really sure whether there are any "original
autographs" of any of Shakespeare's plays or not, but what if there aren't?
We don't have the original autographs of many modern books, because the
manuscripts written by the authors were submitted to publishers, who then
had them set in type, and published. The actual manuscripts of the authors
in many cases were simply disposed of. It is undoubtedly true that many of
the books published contained variations from the authors' originals;
however, the copies printed from the type setup were all alike.
Now let's suppose that we don't have the original autograph of, say, Hamlet.
So what? What consequences will I incur if I produce Hamlet from a copy of
the play that was not exactly the same as the way Shakespeare wrote it? I
won't go to hell or suffer anything dire like that, and the same is true
even of the works of Plato or anyone else who lived before the invention of
the printing press. I have a copy of *The Republic* in my personal library.
If it deviates in places from the way that Plato actually wrote it, so what?
Do I become guilty of sin by believing that Plato said something that may
not be exactly what he said? Do I stand in danger of going to hell?
Remember how you argued in our written debate that the Bible is "unique"?
In fact, I seem to recall that you argued that the Bible was the "most
unique" book that had ever existed, and I had to point out to you that
"unique" is unique and cannot be qualified. You consulted Roy Deaver and
found him in agreement, and so you then accepted this. Anyway, you argued
that the Bible is unique, so if you are going to argue that, you'll have to
accept the consequences of it. If the Bible is "unique," then you can't
compare the "original autographs" of the Bible with the original autographs
of Plato or Shakespeare. They are so unalike that the comparisons fail,
because you are comparing the unique to the ununique.
Now you may find security in what you call textual criticism, but in truth
this can tell you nothing about what was actually in an original autograph.
Let's take the book of, say, Jude. Someone had to write the first copy of
this book, which may not have been even close to what "textual criticism"
has determined is the probable reading of the original. Let's suppose that
someone wrote Jude and made only one copy of it. Now let's suppose that
someone didn't like the way that it read, rewrote it to say what suited him,
and then destroyed the original. After this, he saw that his corrupted copy
was reproduced several times and circulated in the area he lived in. Since
the original had been destroyed, there was no way that anyone could compare
the corrupted copies to the original or to other copies that had been made
from the original. As the corrupted version of the book gained acceptance,
other scribes made copies, at which time they made unintentional mistakes in
copying. Over time, these mistakes multiplied, but so many of the
manuscripts existed that lower critics were able to determine what was the
probable reading of the original. In reality, however, all that they
determined was what was the probable reading of the book as a copyist had
intentionally corrupted it and then destroyed the original. Lower critics
would have no way of knowing that this had even happened. So what guarantee
can you give us that such as this did not happen in the transmission of the
biblical text? How can you guarantee to us that any biblical book is even a
halfway faithful copy of the "original autograph"?
So I think the question is appropriate. How do you know that your KJV
conforms to the original autographs of the Bible?
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net