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RND;
I did not find a single quote nor a single piece of evidence nor a single piece of data in your prior post that relates to your theory that "
changes to a text invalidates the text". (If ANYONE else saw real data regarding this theory, please point it out to me). You post was simply a repetition of your claim that "other people have motes in their doctrinal vision". I will assume that your post was simply another deflection from any meaningful look at
your claim that "
changes in a religious text invalidate the text".
The doctrine you are trying to create supports your purposes,
But what happens if a fair-minded person applies your doctrine justly to the bible?
For example : If a naive agnostic or athiest were to apply your new doctrine to the bible, then it provides confirmation that the biblical text is invalid since thousands of changes have been made to biblical texts.
This has always been my point. Your attempt to create a doctrine as a tool to harm someone else does harm to all Christian texts and to the others who could have developed faith in those texts, but did not because of your new doctrine.
The hypocrisy that applies rules to others that does not apply to itself is not a new problem for Christianity. 2nd Clement reminds us of the problems this caused among the early Christians.
“For the Lord says, “My name is continually blasphemed among all the nations.†Why is it blasphemed? Because you do not do what I desire. For when the pagans hear from our mouths the oracles of God, they marvel at their beauty and greatness. But when they discover that our actions are not worthy of the words we speak, they turn from wonder to blasphemy, saying that it is a myth and a delusion. 2nd Clement 13:2-3
The non-Christians made sport of Christian hypocrisy and importantly, they mocked and rejected Christianity due to this hypocrisy.
One type of hypocrisy that was mocked was the obvious Christian self-arrogance and hatred for others by christians who taught humility and love with their mouths. The hypocrites excused themselves with a claim of "tough love" (i.e. I'm doing this because I love you...) Gad reminds us that
“Hatred is evil, since it continually consorts with lying, speaking against the truth; it makes small things big, turns light into darkness, says that the sweet is bitter, teaches slander, conflict, violence, and all manner of greed; it fills the heart with diabolical venom. (Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 5:1-8)
It is a poignant reminder that Gad provide regarding the hypocrite who “loves arrogance, because hatred blinds his soul.â€
Your consistent deflections from a discussion regarding your new doctrine is not simply a misunderstanding, It is a refusal to discuss and apply your doctrine that “change to text invalidates the text†to your own beliefs. You cannot to name a single manuscript family that agrees one with another, nor can you name a single New Testament manuscript (out of the 25000 you refer to) that is free of error. You cannot even name a single English Bible translation that is free of error. But IMPORTANTLY, the errors do NOT invalidate these records.
Rather than allowing a discussion of your new doctrine, you simply lash out at me by claim that I "reject the authority of the Bible.†This is certainly incorrect and I have at least as much respect for sacred texts as you and, I would guess from our discussion so far, I have a deeper historical grounding in early Christian texts than you. I am at least familiar with early Manuscripts and their characteristics and I have NOT made naive and incorrect claims regarding them.
We have known about textual errors and omissions in various manuscripts for years. Some were intentional and some were inadvertent human error. Certainly the early Christians used this knowledge against the Jews. The early Christian apologist,
Justyn Martyr, in his early dialogue with Trypo pointed out that the
Jews removed certain passages from the scriptures which would have made it more clear that Jesus was the very Messiah they had looked for. These sorts of errors are intentional.
The Jews themselves have known of intentional scribal errors. For example, the Jewish
Talmud (which dates to the 5th century a.d.) Itself lists the
tiqqune sopherim (the "errors of the scribes"). Most of these errors are assumed to be intentional alterations of the Old Testament due to scribal concerns that certain ideas showed disrespect for God, or the original texts disagreed with the scribes bias’ regarding God.
The many
Jewish Chronographs that try to reconcile conflicting numbers and dates in records are varied and well known. These are attempts to reconcile conflicting numbers and dates. There is no need for the Chronographs if the records were both correct and clear.
For years, the Dead Sea Scrolls were almost a thousand years older than the oldest extant Jewish versions of complete Old Testament Books. They also show many
thousands ("thousands") of variations from later Jewish records.
All the typical plus and minus and change variations are seen in comparisons to other Jewish Texts.
Variant Readings are COMMON in ancient versions of Jewish texts. Students reading biblical Hebrew simply need to look at the footnotes (i.e. "The critical apparatus") of the scholars’ edition of one of the most commonly used scholarly
Hebrew Bibles (i.e. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) to discover that
variant readings are listed on every page of this bible. Students reading Jewish Midrashic compilations such as Stone’s Chumash (which contains various content from multiple midrashic accounts as well as accounts of the sages") will notice frequent multiple various readings of Jewish texts.
Incomplete and Lost Narratives : As Justyn Martyr claimed, there are multiple narratives that have changed. There is much lost or corrupted data that would have made the scriptures more clear. (Whether the Jews would have accepted Jesus if such changes had not occurred in their scriptures is another matter)
An example of a lost passage of scripture is from the DSS text of Samuel : The missing paragraph belongs to 1 Samuel 11:1. It presents forty nine words (49) which are missing in the Hebrew Bible as well as in other Jewish texts in this single verse. With the restoration of this passage, the final verse in Chapter 10 transitions smoothly and with a better understanding as we enter the first verse in chapter 11. With such textual restorations of the text,
the entire context of the story can be put into it’s proper perspective: After restoring the missing words, the translated Jewish text reads:
"And Nahash, king of the children of Ammon, oppressed harshly the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had fled from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead (1 Sam.11:1)
The restoration of the missing paragraph does NOT invalidate the record as your doctrine suggests. Rather the restoration of lost text helps readers to understand the situation; the conditions of the treaty of Nahash, and the underlying motive to rally around King Saul and the prophet Samuel. It elucidates the Israelite motive to Slay many Ammonites and to cause the others to flee.
Missing text in the ancient records is NOT a rare occurrence. There are also smaller, but significant additions in verses 11, 13, 18, 22, 23 and 24 IN JUST THE FIRST CHAPTER OF SAMUEL. This is partly the reason the New International Version Bible prefers the DSS textual readings over the traditional hebrew text.
The NIV is NOT the only bible trying to correct corruptions and deletions from the traditional manuscripts. "Today’s English version"; "Revised Standard Version", the "New Revised Standard Version", "The New English Bible", The "New American Bible", etc. have ALL changed their text using DSS corrections over the prior traditional biblical text. This change in text did NOT “invalidate†the record, it simply corrected a deficiency.
Such on-going discoveries confirm what the apostolic Father Papia’s taught us : that current Judao-Christian texts represent only a portion of the tests floating around in earlier centuries. It is not just a "few words" that are missing, nor even just stories, but entire BOOKS that are missing from the current narratives. For example Joshua 10 relates the "sun stool still, and the moon stopped", but it refers us to a book missing from the Jewish narrative when it says: "Is this not written in the Book of Jasher?" (Josh 10:13) It is not just this narrative that could benefit from restoration of excluded books, but MANY other stories cannot BE understood without referencing materials excluded from existing biblical narratives.
Another example (of hundreds) of this type of exclusion is Genesis Chapter 44. Joseph instructs his servants to place a silver cup into Benjamins sack as a ruse to retain Benjamin in Egypt. One point of confusion is "THE CUP" and it’s having been used in "divining" or as a source of "revelation" (like the urim and thummim was to the Dead Sea Scroll Jews). The Genesis 44 naratives (kjv) says :
“"And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest, and his corn money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? ye have done evil in so doing.
In the biblical narrative, the entire story of Joseph, who, when eating with the brothers,
pretended to be inspired by the cup and thus being able to set the brothers down according to their birth mother is missing from Old Testament narratives. The importance of WHY it is the CUP the brothers would have presumably stolen, is lost to modern Old Testaments. One must read the stories from Jasher, or other sources.
The same is true of Zelikah’s (Potiphar’s wife) feast from Joseph’s history. It is excluded to the Jewish Old testament. One may read references to it in the Quran, or they may read Jasher for a fuller version, but they cannot find it in modern Old Testament text.
Such examples of exclusions of narrative and selective editing of scripture are vast and certainly books HAVE been written on the vast amount of exclusions, additions and other changes to manuscripts underlying our current texts. Early Judao-christian texts are full of references to material that is missing from manuscripts. The pre-creation council histories are frequently referred to in Judao-christian literature of their day and age. One has to use other Christian histories such as Abbaton, or Kabbalic, or enochian histories, etc to access data regarding the origin and fall of Lucifer. The Nichodemas histories are full of references to the descension that are missing from the New Testament. Even the early Christian diaries such a Perpetua give us more information on what early Christians believed and taught regarding these subjects.
Early Christian claims such as Justin Martyrs against intentional Jewish corruptions did not apply only to Jewish manuscripts. When one looks at horizontal judaism’s motives for manufacturing and adding new text to old narratives; or for excluding older, more complete text in newer narratives, the motives do not seem to me to be so different than for other religious groups who did the same thing..
For example:
the variant readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch are different in approximately six thousand places when compared to the traditional Jewish version. Some variations are
not minor variations. Most major variations are intentional changes dealing with temple worship. For example: The tenth commandment in their decalogue relates to "the sanctity of Mount Gerizim".
The Christians have also manipulated these texts to support their own doctrinal biases An obvious example is Luther’s intentional exclusion of the second of the ten commandments in his 1522 translation. This is why the ten commandments were initially different for Protestant Europeans than for Catholics during the Reformation. Luther’s motive ("judishes sachenspiegel") for changing the text was not substantially different than what motivated the Jewish tiqqune sopherim (errors of the scribes). They changed the text because the text it did not suit their prior biases. It happened with the Jews; with the samaritans; with the christians, and I suspect it happened with the Muslims.
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