Well bully me with factoids! (was Re: 25,000 copies)

Jeff (jepler@inetnebr.com)
Thu, 19 Jun 1997 18:48:43 -0500

On Thu, Jun 19, 1997 at 04:07:31PM -0800, Jeff Magill wrote:
> Helen th difference between the two NT manuscripts is the difference
> between the New King James and the NIV translations as a prime example..
> The fact is we have all the orignal manuscript in the form of 25,000
> copies from the original sources. The more manuscripts one has access
> to the more reliable the translation can be assured of is the rule of
> thumb. Again, Homer's "The Illyiad," which only has 600 manuscripts
> copies, is hailed as the greatest work of translational accuracy in the
> secular literature world. Let's see? 25,000 manuscript copies of the NT
> to 600 manuscript copies of Homer's "The Illyiad. Hmmmmm... You do the
> math Helen.

This sounds like it came right out of More Than a Carpenter, or some
other Josh McDowell book. I've written a response to MTaC, and in
researching it I checked up just _one_ of McDowell's sources. It was the
one he quoted in giving the three criteria he uses to judge the truth of
historical documents. But do you know what? The book he listed in his
bibliography, entitled _An Introduction to Research in English Literary
History_, gave three criteria for determining the authenticity and
authorship, not the truth or historical value of documents. The three
criteria, Bibliographical, Internal Evidence and Internal Evidence
are intended to answer the question of when a document was written,
and by whom. Unfortunately, McDowell misunderstands what these tests
purport to prove. Worse yet, he so seriously misexplains the nature
of the Bibliographical test that he can bully readers with his "twenty
thousand original MSS" factoid. (Five thousand more must have been
written since McDowell's book was published) The bibliographical test is
concerned with details like the paper used, the ink used, the style of
handwriting (or of the typeface) in the original documents, not a sheer
count of how many copies had been made of a manuscript. His account of
the other two tests are at least slightly recognizable as those from _An
Introduction to Research in English Literary History_, but as readers of
this list well know, the bible lacks both internal harmony and harmony
with real world facts such as geography, history and science.

I was downright disgusted with McDowell after reading this chapter
of his book. Strike one, he gets his criteria from a source not
even concerned with answering the question he's asking. Strike two,
he can't even properly describe to his readers what the criteria are.
Strike three, the bible even fails his bogus tests. If I knew what
baseball was, I would shout "You're OUT!"

If you care to read my paper, it can be found at
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/jepler/nails/index.html

See also Till's article "Questions for Jeff Magill" posted on June 19,
1997. Maybe 25000<600 when the 25000 are fragments of poorly copied bible
manuscripts.

Jeff
the ungroped

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