Truth and its pursuit

[David Koot]

But this goes to the scientific distinction between accuracy and precision. Precision is how close all the answers we obtain are to one another. Accuracy is how close each answer is to the true answer. It seems to me that the kind of approach you advocate is all about precision, but in science we know that precision does not always imply accuracy.

Precision. I like that.

As for the 'true answer,' by which, I assume, you are referring to the question of how closely the written message approximates the message given by God, I also recognize that such is quite unprovable. There would be no point in my essaying to discover a proof. I know for a fact that such would be impossible, in an objective sense as well as in an observational sense.

[bevin]

Note: The following author is NOT arguing that the scriptures are unreliable, but he is providing lots of references to evidence that the copyists between 30 and 200 AD made lots of changes ranging from spelling errors to wording changes to whole stories being inserted or removed...

Lost Christianities - The Battles For The Scripture And Faith We Never Knew. Bart D. Ehrman. pg 218 and on

"our earliest manuscripts (...) of Paul's letters date from around 200 CE. The earliest full manuscripts of the Gospels come from about that same time"

"We currently have nearly 5400 Greek copies of all or part of the NT, ranging from tiny scraps to ... all 27 books bound together"

"no two copies (except for the smallest fragments) agree in all their wording"

"no-one has yet been able to count all the differences... Some estimates put the number at around 200,000, others at 300,000 or more"

"For example, the earliest manuscripts of Mark end at 16:8 with the report that the women fled Jesus's empty tomb in fear"

"almost all scholars acknowledge that the story (of the woman taken in adultery - Bevin) was added to the manuscripts of John's Goospel many years after it had first been circulated"

[David Koot]

Note: The following author is NOT arguing that the scriptures are unreliable, but he is providing lots of references to evidence that the copyists between 30 and 200 AD made lots of changes ranging from spelling errors to wording changes to whole stories being inserted or removed...

[bevin]

As I said earlier "I have only read a couple of books by experts on this issue, and they tell me..."

You are not disputing the facts that Ehrman has stated - the dates, the approximate number of changes, or that there are cases where significant differences exist between the texts.

Furthermore you are not claiming that we have found all the variants, or the originals.

So this tells me that we are not sure of the precise wording of any part of the NT.

Hence any understanding of the NT needs to be based on broad outlines or detailed concepts supported from texts in multiple books rather than on the precise meaning on one text or even one book - because we can't be sure that the precise wording was (a) what was intended by the original author, and ( not modified in the copies we are using.

Of course, as you imply, for those texts where all the oldest fragments agree and are close in time to the original, it is likely that they are indeed the original words - or (less likely but still possible) that those particular words were editted very early indeed.

/Bevin

[bevin]

Ehrman's book is very interesting from a second direction.

He clearly shows the range of christian beliefs in the first few hundred years (MUCH wider than today), and hence you realize that the early Christians did not regard the same books with the same respect or the same understanding that we do today.

In short, presented with much more direct access to the original material and the copies than we do today, the early Christians found it MORE difficult, not less difficult, to decide what they meant.

In other words, what we are doing today is bringing a larger set of preconceived ideas to a much smaller set of the evidence and concluding that we understand it better.

Partially that is because all the things that disagree with our preconceived ideas have been filtered out.

Filtering out contradictory evidence makes the remainder more precise, but less accurate.

/Bevin

[bevin]

Of course, Christian's typically claim the filtering was God-controlled.

Curiously many SDA Christians do not regard the same filtering as a necessary step in the correct understanding of EGW's writings.

[David Koot]

You are not disputing the facts that Ehrman has stated - the dates, the approximate number of changes, or that there are cases where significant differences exist between the texts.

[David Koot]

for those texts where all the oldest fragments agree and are close in time to the original, it is likely that they are indeed the original words - or (less likely but still possible) that those particular words were editted very early indeed.

/Bevin

I agree with that. As for the possibility of early editing, looking at the question candidly, as a possibility, it is there, but at that point, my faith in God's oversight (one of my axioms) kicks in.

[David Koot]

the early Christians did not regard the same books with the same respect or the same understanding that we do today.

[D. Allan]

This is one of the most interesting threads ever. Have we more than scratched the surface of the topic? Anyway. David, I think our differences are 'axiomatic.' There are certain things which you do not question, but accept without evidence except that provided by an axiom. Which is, as I understand from H.S. geometry, that you build on it and see if the edifice stands. If consistency and coherence are possible. In other words you see if it works, the pragmatic method or view. No this is alright for a Christian if we chooses to go by certain unquestionable axioms. But what if you had chosen different axioms? And why not? With different axioms you could be a Buddhist or Islamist, or agnostic, Hindu, etc.

So it comes down to a matter of faith which axioms, if any, one chooses? There are some who say, "Truth depends on what you belive!" That sounds like a Yogiism to me. So it seems possible that your personal orientation to religion may be subjective after all in its roots, at least, for if you had been born in Arabia or Tibet you most likely would not be a Christian, having chosen different axioms.

The attitude of Jesus Christ to Truth - He said, I Am the Truth - and that is the ultimate in subjectivity, isn't it!

[David Koot]

Some things may be empirically studied and understood with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Other things are incapable of observation or direct analysis. To speculate would be quite unacceptable. Thus, the place of axioms.

To illustrate:

1) A student may ascertain the meaning of words in the Greek New Testament with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and within predictable error bounds, based on the semantic range of the word and usage pattern, etc.

2) The student may look for evidence of internal consistency and validation in the Bible.

3) S/he CANNOT observe the actual events described in the Bible, nor externally verify if the account given in the Bible is consistent with the facts of what occurred.

That, I submit, is where an axiom may be called for. Here is a formulation of that axiom:

The Bible, as the inspired Word of God, contains an accurate description of the nature of God and His dealings with humanity. That record may be observed in the original languages in which the Bible was written. The original manuscripts of the Bible accurately reflect the facts of the nature of God and His dealings with humanity.

Any thoughts?

Dave

[bevin]

I disagree that the actual events can not be observed.

Things are measurable but events are not. When we say we are observing an event, what we are saying is we are comparing measurements taken over time of things.

So we can observe events that happened in the past, by finding changes that those events have caused in things we can measure today.

For example: I observe the event "David Koots replied last night to D Allen's entry" by observing your note this morning.

Often what we think of as an immediate observation is actually delayed - by tiny amounts of time. For instance as I sit here typing I can observe the characters appearing on the screen - even though it takes about 0.3 / (300E6m/s) = 1E-7 seconds for the light to get from the screen to my eyes, and 0.03 seconds for my brain to process it.

So observations of events in the past is basically what all observations are - the only question is how far in the past and how certain are we the cause-effect correlation.

Similarly I can observe the actual events in the period of time covered in the Bible. I am measuring the effect of those events on objects near in time and space to me.

Thus I do not need an axiom that the Bible is accurate. It's accuracy about large physical events can be tested by measuring the effects of those events on the world around me today - and I find that the 'less human' and the 'older' those events are, the less accurate the Bible is.

The Bible descriptions of origins and the flood do not match even closely match the observable world - these are both not-directly-human and very-old.

The Bible descriptions of Egypt and Exodus do not precisely match the observable world - these are fairly-human and very-old.

The Bible descriptions of the Babylonian captivity do match the observable world - these are very-human and fairly recent.

In terms of unobservable phenomona - such as the Nature of God, and the Great Controversy - well, now you are basically placing a bet based on personal feelings about whether there is a God and what such a God would be like.

The only way that one could build up confidence in the Bible's reliability about unobservable things is to have the Bible accurately do things that can only be accounted for in a supernatural way.

The usual way to do this is via (a) personal testimony, and ( prophecy. Unfortunately both of these are not compelling - (a) there is just too many faked, gullible, poorly sampled, and conflicting personal testimonies for that to be convincing, and ( the Bible track record on predicting the future is not as solid as many fundamentalist christian's would have us believe (1844 comes to mind as a clearly failed attempt at a prediction based on an interpretation (however flawed) of the Bible).

/Bevin

[David Koot]

So observations of events in the past is basically what all observations are - the only question is how far in the past and how certain are we the cause-effect correlation.

[bevin]

The ability of a device to predict the future is easily measured, and is fundamental to life. You get the device to make a prediction, you watch the world, and you determine if the prediction comes true.

The device becomes interesting when (a) it frequently makes correct predictions, and ( no other device does as well.

It is this proven ability to make predictions that other devices can't make that make one trust a device when it says "make this sacrifice or you will die". Before then, it is just another attempt by someone to get you to give them money.

For example: I doubt you would send me $10 a day for a device that tells you that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning. It is a perfect prediction, but you have other ways of getting the same prediction. On the other hand, you would send me thousands of dollars a day for a device that could reliably predict the closing Dow Jones Industrials Average even one hour before the close of the stock market. No other device can, so my device is valuable.

In the case of the Bible, the device is a combination of the text and the methodology (assumptions and patterns of reasoning).

One such device led the Millerites to predict Jesus' return in the skies in a blaze of glory in 1844.

It failed. Later attempts to patch up the device after the fact do nothing to make one think the device is in the least bit accurate. Until the patches led to a device that makes a successful prediction that other devices do not make, no confidence is gained in the device.

/Bevin

[D. Allan]

Quote:

1) A student may ascertain the meaning of words in the Greek New Testament with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and within predictable error bounds, based on the semantic range of the word and usage pattern, etc.

2) The student may look for evidence of internal consistency and validation in the Bible.

3) S/he CANNOT observe the actual events described in the Bible, nor externally verify if the account given in the Bible is consistent with the facts of what occurred.

That, I submit, is where an axiom may be called for. Here is a formulation of that axiom:

The Bible, as the inspired Word of God, contains an accurate description of the nature of God and His dealings with humanity. That record may be observed in the original languages in which the Bible was written. The original manuscripts of the Bible accurately reflect the facts of the nature of God and His dealings with humanity.

1) Yes, that is an interesting and important pursuit for scholars. But don't you think we ordinary people can find the real meaning of religion from the many good translations. I differentiate the 'real meaning' from all all the work put into upholding dogma. For good English prose I like Phillips New Testament. The Living Bible is good too.

2) Consistency doesn't neccesarily support validity. It's nice when we find it. But since the authors of the Bible are so many and so varied I'm not surprized nor troubled by inconsistencies. The 'real meaning' is above and beyond them.

3)There is the same problem in any branch of history in verifing past events after all the first hand observers have died, even the testimony of living observers often is faulty and varies from witness to witness.

Your axiom depends on original manuscripts. It is correct to say that it states that since we cannot observe or verify the Biblical accounts then we must axiomatically declare them true and accurate?

To me the 'real meaning' of the Bible and all other sacred scriptures rises above and beyond any human inaccuracies in them. My only axiom (so far) is that all inaccuracies are human. :)

[David Koot]

But don't you think we ordinary people can find the real meaning of religion from the many good translations. I differentiate the 'real meaning' from all all the work put into upholding dogma. For good English prose I like Phillips New Testament. The Living Bible is good too.

[bevin]

Quote:

the internal consistency of the Bible.

Is there any evidence that the Bible is any more consistent internally than the Readers Digest?

When the four gospels can't even agree on what God said or who He said it too at Jesus baptism... When Paul and Peter are arguing about what rules should be imposed on the Gentile Christians... When the NT has both pro-faith and pro-works... When the OT teaches tooth-for-tooth and the NT teaches turn-the-other-cheek... When the NT reinterprets OT prophecies... When Jonah preaches destruction that doesn't happen... When Jesus goes and preaches to souls in hell...

There is a consistency - but it is only obtained by some form of understanding that reconciles one-God with three-Gods, law-and-grace, ...

Such consistency is not strong evidence of infallibility.

/Bevin

/Bevin

[David Koot]

Is there any evidence that the Bible is any more consistent internally than the Readers Digest?

I think the question is important enough to warrant a separate thread. Seems like it properly would belong in the Theology section, so will start it there.

Dave

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Then the question must arise, is the 'real meaning' you refer to consistent with the facts? Or does that matter?

Which facts, Dave? I ask because you have said we cannot observe or verify events in the past. I'm guessing that you refer to the words of the original Greek texts.

[David Koot]

[duplicate post]

[David Koot]

Which fact, Dave? I ask because you have said we cannot observe or verify events in the past. I'm guessing that you refer to the words of the original Greek texts.

Correct (based on the axiom that the words of the original Greek text accurately describe the facts.)

[David Koot]

In the case of the Bible, the device is a combination of the text and the methodology (assumptions and patterns of reasoning).

[bevin]

Quote:

Perhaps an early step would be to list the evidence in support of the 'device,; and then work with it from there. This student has done so, as have others. The device appears to work.

So, in the pursuit of truth, we apparently agree on how to proceed.

One looks for 'devices' that make predictions about experiments, and then so uses the devices, and then verifies that the results match the actual experiments.

If one is presented with two such devices, one looks for experiments where the two devices make incompatible predictions, and then does the experiment - hence motivating changes to or discarding of one of the devices.

Excellent - no axiom about the correctness of a device is needed.

/Bevin

[D. Allan]

I'm inclined to agree that no axiom is needed. If we make it an axiom that the Greek text accurately describes the fact, then no hypothesis or experiment can be made. Adopting such an axiom presupposes the results of inquiry. Such inquiries do need to be made regardless of the results that may turn up. And Christians should not be afraid of them. Can truth be a bad thing? maybe for those who are not ready for it, it can be.

Quote:

David Koot wrote:

However, in the case of a model developed for scientific inquiry, such as a hypothesis, it is possible to observe at first-hand the results. Such is rarely the case with the Bible. Both the predictions and the results are, in most instances, in the past.

The way I see it is that the Bible, in regards to the 'real meaning' does make hypotheses; for instance:

"Taste and see that the Lord is good," and

"If with all your heart you truly seek him, you will always surley find him."

Those are 2 instance among many that may be tested experimentally, or should I say experientially? Historical events that we cannot prove are insignificant in comparison to the "real meaning" of sacred scriptures that can be experienced personally by making the experiment. Of course, a person is not obligated to undertake making the experiment. (The experiment may undertake them, but that is a different story.)

Does this relate to what you two are discussing in any way at all?

Once one has found the 'real meaning' experientially, a person will not be afraid of any truth being able to undermine her/his confidence in the divine order. Perfect love casts out fear > fear hides truth.... Didn't mean to wax philosophical here.

Back to science!

[David Koot]

. If we make it an axiom that the Greek text accurately describes the fact, then no hypothesis or experiment can be made. Adopting such an axiom presupposes the results of inquiry. Such inquiries do need to be made regardless of the results that may turn up. And Christians should not be afraid of them. Can truth be a bad thing? maybe for those who are not ready for it, it can be.