New International Version - 2011 Version

[Rob Bowman]

Joseph,

You wrote:

It might be worth pointing out that many scholars believe that many of the NT books, such as the pastoral epistles and 2 Peter, were written in the second century. I don't see how the amount of manuscripts proves that a New Testament book was written in the first century, but I don't think that was your main point anyway.

I was speaking of the NT as a whole. In my earlier post I went into more detail and stated more precisely that all scholars agree that all of the NT writings were produced within a hundred years or less of the time of Jesus' death (i.e., by about 130 or earlier). This should cover even the extreme late dates for the Pastorals and 2 Peter favored by a small minority of scholars. A very few scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tried to argue for dates as late as the mid-second century for a few NT books, but it's hard to find anyone who will defend such dates now. In the specific example I gave of the epistle of Paul to the Romans, scholars unanimously acknowledge that it was written by Paul in the mid-50s of the first century.

Again, in my earlier post, I explained how the thousands of manuscripts prove that the NT writings date to within a hundred years or less of the time of Jesus' death: they form a "genealogical tree" that point to that period as the time of the origins of those writings.

[Joseph Antley]

Again, in my earlier post, I explained how the thousands of manuscripts prove that the NT writings date to within a hundred years or less of the time of Jesus' death: they form a "genealogical tree" that point to that period as the time of the origins of those writings.

I read the post but disagree with the logic behind it. Considering the late date for the overwhelming majority of manuscripts, the "genealogical tree" can only really be firmly traced (in my opinion) to the third century, with your first major codices appearing in the fourth century. For some individual NT books, the papyri pull it back to the second century (the most famous of course being P52).

Not to say that I think that any of the NT books are that late -- there is ample other evidence besides manuscripts that can place most of the NT in the first century.

[Rob Bowman]

Joseph,

You wrote:

I read the post but disagree with the logic behind it. Considering the late date for the overwhelming majority of manuscripts, the "genealogical tree" can only really be firmly traced (in my opinion) to the third century, with your first major codices appearing in the fourth century. For some individual NT books, the papyri pull it back to the second century (the most famous of course being P52).

Not to say that I think that any of the NT books are that late -- there is ample other evidence besides manuscripts that can place most of the NT in the first century.

Greek NT manuscripts dating from ca. 200 or earlier attest to the existence by or before that date of Matthew, John, and most of the Pauline epistles (including Titus, one of the Pastoral Epistles) and of Hebrews. The textual data from these manuscripts shows that none of them are autographs, attesting to some history of transmission, and thus pushing the origins of the books back earlier than the end of the second century. The argument is complicated, but these manuscripts ca. 200 and earlier appear to represent branches of the genealogical tree far enough up the tree to indicate that the "roots" of the tree date to within that hundred-year period of 30-130 that I indicated. There are also third-century manuscripts of Mark, Luke, Acts, Revelation, and some of the non-Pauline epistles; the evidence of a transmission history preceding these manuscripts proves none of these books could have originated later than the second century (and is consistent with them originating in the first).

I'm not too particular about the precise terminus ad quem that the manuscript evidence by itself establishes for the possible range of dates for the NT writings. My point to ebeddoulos was that the manuscript evidence attests undeniably to the antiquity of the entire NT and gives scholars confidence that we actually possess reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors. This evidence stands in stark contrast to the absolute lack of any ancient-language copy of any portion of the Book of Mormon. Would you agree that there is a significant contrast here?

[ebeddoulos]

ebeddoulos,

Your comments have nothing to do with the point I was making, which was that the thousands of manuscript copies of the books of the New Testament (I used Romans as an example) prove beyond any reasonable doubt (even to skeptics and others antagonistic to Christianity) that the NT books originated in the first century, whereas the absolute lack of any original-language copy of the Book of Mormon is one of the reasons why no non-Mormon scholar regards the Book of Mormon as originating from the ancient world.

I am happy to discuss text-critical issues in their proper place. However, I do not want to let such issues as the correct reading of Hebrews 2:9 obscure the point I am making here.

My comments have everything to do with it. I suggest that you just do not like my response. The original texts were copied at a time when, due to untrained, unqualified copyists, the least care was given to accuracy. The latest texts were copied by trained, dedicated clerics but they copied texts tainted by a millennia-plus of built up layers of errors. You, yourself, have previously stated that there are large chunks of the Bible that you do not believe are scripture because you think they are late additions thus making them in effect so much rubbish. This even though the vast majority of the surviving texts have versions of those verses and they far outnumber those that do not. Does it really matter then how many copies of those disputed verses are available or how ancient they are if they are not valid scripture? A pile of ancient rubbish is still rubbish, is it not?

Conversely, the LDS standard works have been certified by prophets of God to contain the fullness of the gospel. (Doctrine and Covenants 42:12) That in turn has been validated to me through the ministry of the Holy Ghost. This in my mind trumps your trifling arguments. It is this interaction between man and God which sustains and fuels the growth of the church, making it the international religious movement which it is.

[Zakuska]

This seems like its a copiest error... We read in Nehemiah about the people reading the book of Deuteronomy. Its quoted thusly...

Neh 13

1 On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God (Insert homoioteleuton here) for ever;

2 Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them: howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing.

Yet it appears in Deuteronomy like this...

Deut 23

3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever:

4 Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.

5 Nevertheless the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.

The red section seems to be an homoioteleuton. The scribe's eyes seems to have jumped backwords to verse two.

Deut 23

1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

2 A ******* shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

But now that brings up some intresting implications. Ammonites and Moabites shal NEVER for eternity enter the congregation of the Lord?!

And crtics have problems with the temporary Priesthood ban?!

NOTE: I can't seem to find any info if this is a homoioteleuton or not so any help documenting it would be appreiciated.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Zakuska

[Rob Bowman]

ebeddoulos,

Your little picture says it all. You are preaching, not reasoning.

By the way, the fact that Mormonism is a worldwide religion is not evidence that it is the true form of Christianity. Pentecostalism began seventy years later than Mormonism but it has ten times as many members!

[Zakuska]

By the way, the fact that Mormonism is a worldwide religion is not evidence that it is the true form of Christianity. Pentecostalism began seventy years later than Mormonism but it has ten times as many members!

All one need do to join Pentecostalism is make a little Altar call, fall on the ground and convulse.

[ebeddoulos]

Your little picture says it all. You are preaching, not reasoning.

Got it. In short, you have no response. No response even though you argued that the “manuscript evidence attests undeniably to the antiquity of the entire NT and gives scholars confidence that we actually possess reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors.”

My point to ebeddoulos was that the manuscript evidence attests undeniably to the antiquity of the entire NT and gives scholars confidence that we actually possess reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors.

To do so you embraced manuscripts which contained the verses which you earlier declared that you do not accept as scripture:

Those who recognize (as I do) that Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 were later additions to the books of Mark and John do not accept these texts as scripture.

The emphasis, I am sure you recognize as your own. Therefore, it appears as though you define the “entire NT” as everything except for certain passages such as the “later additions to the books of Mark and John” which you “do not accept … as scripture.” And it is this abbreviated New Testament which “supposedly” provides “reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors.”

You must realize that the majority of the surviving texts of John contain the Pericope Adulterae. So on the one hand you embrace these texts as “reasonable facsimiles” while on the other hand you “do not accept these texts as scripture.” And it is with this ambiguous argument that you challenge the authenticity of the divinely revealed Book of Mormon? To be perfectly honest, I do not blame you for the Chicken Little “What we talkin’ ‘bout?” response.

By the way, the fact that Mormonism is a worldwide religion is not evidence that it is the true form of Christianity. Pentecostalism began seventy years later than Mormonism but it has ten times as many members!

Wow ... a straw man argument ... color me unimpressed ... especially in light of the “supposedly” “thoughtful and gracious” anti-everything-from-the-Dalai-Lama-to-the-Seventh-Day-Adventists IRR article titled “Cults and New Religious Movements - An Annotated Bibliography” by Robert M. Bowman, Jr. in which the following appears:

House, H. Wayne. Charts of Cults, Sects, and Religious Movements. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. Includes LDS, JWs, Unification, United Pentecostal Church, The Way International, A Course in Miracles, Freemasonry, Mind Sciences, New Age, and eleven other groups.

I added the emphasis. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is one of those with which you disagree? Did you indicate which ones falls into that category and if not, how is one to know?

Well, it was nice talking to you.

Edited by Ebed Doulos: At Vance's request, I removed the link to IRR where IRR claims to be “thoughtful and gracious”. Considering the overall anti-everything tone and nature of the site and those who represent it, I found the description to be quite amusing. Belly laugh amusing, actually. My apologies.

Edited September 12, 2011 by ebeddoulos

[Rob Bowman]

Zakuska,

You wrote:

All one need do to join Pentecostalism is make a little Altar call, fall on the ground and convulse.

Nice caricature. Way to go.

[Storm Rider]

All one need do to join Pentecostalism is make a little Altar call, fall on the ground and convulse.

Come Zak, this is not helpful. Pentecostalism is a rather interesting form of Protestantism; it is certainly not a form that I personally could appreciate, but I have been in several of their meetings as a young man. Most of Protestantism does not demand a lifestyle; it is something of a Sunday thing. There are certain groups that do demand that it is not only a Sunday event, but an entire lifestyle comes with the commitment. The LDS Church definitely is a lifestyle as well as a religion; there are others also.

With the groups where all that required to belong is to show up on Sunday, the congregation go grow very quickly. I feel these churches do a very good job of welcoming people to joining; good signage, open doors, entertaining meetings, good music, etc.

I have always found Matthew 7:14 Because stait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. I have always interpreted this that there will not be a majority of people that recognize it and follow. There are a wealth of additional deductions that could be made about his verse, but they do not belong here.

Regardless, let's try to focus on the topic and resist being "ugly" to our fellow Christians.

[Rob Bowman]

ebeddoulos,

You wrote:

Got it. In short, you have no response.

What? Let me summarize the discussion so far.

Ebed: The lack of the gold plates is no more of a problem for the Book of Mormon than is the lack of autographs for the New Testament.

Rob: Not so: we have thousands of copies of the NT establishing that its books originated within a hundred years of Jesus' death, but no textual evidence for the Book of Mormon's existence before the 1820s.

Ebed: There are textual variants in the NT, like the one at Hebrews 2:9.

Rob: The textual variants do not undermine the conclusion that the books originated within a hundred years of Jesus' death.

Ebed: There are a lot of textual variants, including some verses that you say don't belong in the NT. And we have modern revelations and the Holy Ghost--and we're a worldwide religion.

Rob: The fact that Mormonism is a worldwide religion proves nothing; Pentecostalism has been around a shorter period of time and has ten times as many people worldwide.

The person here who has not given a response to the other person's argument is you. I will try to make this simpler for you.

Yes or no: We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in the original Greek language, some dating from as early as the second century.

Yes or no: All scholars, regardless of religious or non-religious beliefs, agree that the books of the NT originated within about a hundred years or less of Jesus' death.

Yes or no: We have zero manuscripts or copies of any portion of the alleged original language text of the Book of Mormon.

Yes or no: No scholars outside the Mormon tradition regard the Book of Mormon as ancient literature.

Conclusion: Yes or no: There is a significant difference between the textual evidence for the antiquity of the New Testament (massive) and the textual evidence for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon (none).

Please answer the above yes or no questions.

Let's go back to your comments that you complain I did not answer. You wrote:

The original texts were copied at a time when, due to untrained, unqualified copyists, the least care was given to accuracy. The latest texts were copied by trained, dedicated clerics but they copied texts tainted by a millennia-plus of built up layers of errors.

This is a misrepresentation of the facts. The vast majority of variants in the manuscripts at all stages of transmission are mere spelling errors. Most of the remaining variants are also inconsequential (e.g., a text reading "Jesus Christ" instead of "Christ Jesus"). The copyists of the NT books were for the most part untrained, but that's not a problem, because there were so many copies made by so many different copyists that nothing was lost (with only one possible, highly debatable exception--see below) and nearly all of the secondary variants (alterations and additions) can easily be detected and eliminated.

You, yourself, have previously stated that there are large chunks of the Bible that you do not believe are scripture because you think they are late additions thus making them in effect so much rubbish. This even though the vast majority of the surviving texts have versions of those verses and they far outnumber those that do not. Does it really matter then how many copies of those disputed verses are available or how ancient they are if they are not valid scripture? A pile of ancient rubbish is still rubbish, is it not?

We are talking here about a grand total of about 40 verses of the New Testament, out of nearly 8,000 verses (7,957, I believe, is the exact number in the KJV). That works out to about 0.5% of the verses of the NT being additions to the original text. To put the matter positively, 99.5% of the verses in the KJV of the NT were part of the original books. "Large chunks"? "A pile of ancient rubbish"? That's rubbish.

The book of the NT that is in the "worst" state textually (in terms of whole sentences or verses) is the Gospel of Mark. Most scholars believe that some 17 verses in the KJV of Mark do not belong to the Gospel. That means that 97.5% of the verses in the KJV do belong in the Gospel. A small minority of scholars think the original ending of the Gospel of Mark was lost and a new ending (16:9-20 KJV) was added by a later writer. If they are correct, this would be the only place in the NT where anything of the original text was lost. However, as I said, this is the opinion only of a small minority of scholars. The majority of scholars think that the Gospel of Mark originally ended at Mark 16:8. If they are correct, then nothing of the original Gospel of Mark has been lost. A minority of scholars (all fundamentalists) think that Mark 16:9-20 is the original Markan ending; if they are right, then again nothing of the original Gospel has been lost.

The only other place in the NT with an addition to the text that runs longer than a single sentence is John 7:53-8:11. Here again, the Gospel of John has remained quite pure textually: about 98.5% of the verses in the KJV of the Gospel of John are viewed by scholars as original.

Every other book of the NT is in even better shape. For every other book of the NT, well over 99% of the verses in the KJV of each book are regarded as original to that book. For 21 of the 27 books of the NT, there are no verses in the KJV that scholars do not regard as original to the text.

While all of this statistical evidence proves that your characterization of the NT text as "rubbish" is false, the fact remains that your whole line of argument is irrelevant to the point I made. Even if whole chunks of the NT were lost and large portions of the surviving manuscripts were secondary, the manuscript evidence would still prove that the NT writings were ancient texts dating from within about a hundred years of Jesus' death. Take, for instance, the Gospel of Mary. Only part of the book is extant, with our one major copy having a large part missing (probably about half of the original book). But even with that bad a copy, what we have is sufficient to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the Gospel of Mary was originally written in the second century. The question of the completeness, accuracy, and purity of the text is a different question than the question of the manuscript evidence for the origin and date of the book.

I should also emphasize that the "problem" with the NT text is a problem of addition, not subtraction. We are not missing anything that was in the original NT writings (as explained above). All of the words of the original NT writings have come down to us in the manuscript copies. The problem is one of addition: the extant manuscripts contain additional words that were not in the originals. These additional words are typically accidental additions (repeating words already copied), explanatory glosses that scribes added to clarify something in the text, or pious expansions of the text (e.g., "Lord Jesus Christ" instead of just "Jesus"). In effect, as NT textual critical scholar Dan Wallace has put it, what we have is something like 102% of the New Testament. This is the opposite of what many Mormons popularly believe, that important things were left out or suppressed or lost from the text of the NT writings. The evidence is decisively against that claim.

With regard to the additions in Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, you wrote:

Therefore, it appears as though you define the “entire NT” as everything except for certain passages such as the “later additions to the books of Mark and John” which you “do not accept … as scripture.” And it is this abbreviated New Testament which “supposedly” provides “reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors.”

You must realize that the majority of the surviving texts of John contain the Pericope Adulterae. So on the one hand you embrace these texts as “reasonable facsimiles” while on the other hand you “do not accept these texts as scripture.” And it is with this ambiguous argument that you challenge the authenticity of the divinely revealed Book of Mormon? To be perfectly honest, I do not blame you for the Chicken Little “What we talkin’ ‘bout?” response.

As I have explained above, the additions to Mark and John do not negate my descriptions of the NT text even if we view those two books in isolation. Of the verses in the KJV, 97.5% of those in the KJV of Mark and 98.5% of those in the KJV of John are original to those books. That's close enough to conclude that those books, even in the KJV, are "reasonable facsimiles" of the original books. And again, we have 100% of the original text of both these books, as well as of the rest of the NT.

By contrast, we have, not 100%, not 97.5%, not even around 50% (as we do for the Gospel of Mary), but...wait for it...zero percent of the alleged original text of the Book of Mormon.

On another subject, I had written:

"By the way, the fact that Mormonism is a worldwide religion is not evidence that it is the true form of Christianity. Pentecostalism began seventy years later than Mormonism but it has ten times as many members!"

You replied:

Wow ... a straw man argument ... color me unimpressed ... especially in light of the “supposedly” “thoughtful and gracious” anti-everything-from-the-Dalai-Lama-to-the-Seventh-Day-Adventists IRR article titled “Cults and New Religious Movements - An Annotated Bibliography” by Robert M. Bowman, Jr. in which the following appears:

House, H. Wayne. Charts of Cults, Sects, and Religious Movements. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. Includes LDS, JWs, Unification, United Pentecostal Church, The Way International, A Course in Miracles, Freemasonry, Mind Sciences, New Age, and eleven other groups.

I added the emphasis. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is one of those with which you disagree? Did you indicate which ones falls into that category and if not, how is one to know?

What is your point? I was not claiming that Pentecostalism was the true form of Christianity. Nor was I saying that it wasn't. I was simply pointing out that the number of adherents of a new religious movement does not have any relevance to the question of whether it is of God.

Subtract the entire Oneness Pentecostal movement if one wishes, there are still many times more (Trinitarian) Pentecostals in the world than Mormons, even with the Mormons having a 75-year head start. This proves that the quick growth of Mormonism in its short history is not good evidence that it is the true church.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Rob Bowman

[Vance]

Got it. In short, you have no response. No response even though you argued that the “manuscript evidence attests undeniably to the antiquity of the entire NT and gives scholars confidence that we actually possess reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors.”

To do so you embraced manuscripts which contained the verses which you earlier declared that you do not accept as scripture:

The emphasis, I am sure you recognize as your own. Therefore, it appears as though you define the “entire NT” as everything except for certain passages such as the “later additions to the books of Mark and John” which you “do not accept … as scripture.” And it is this abbreviated New Testament which “supposedly” provides “reasonable facsimiles of the actual writings of Paul and the other NT authors.”

You must realize that the majority of the surviving texts of John contain the Pericope Adulterae. So on the one hand you embrace these texts as “reasonable facsimiles” while on the other hand you “do not accept these texts as scripture.” And it is with this ambiguous argument that you challenge the authenticity of the divinely revealed Book of Mormon? To be perfectly honest, I do not blame you for the Chicken Little “What we talkin’ ‘bout?” response.

Wow ... a straw man argument ... color me unimpressed ... especially in light of the “supposedly” “thoughtful and gracious” anti-everything-from-the-Dalai-Lama-to-the-Seventh-Day-Adventists IRR article titled “Cults and New Religious Movements - An Annotated Bibliography” by Robert M. Bowman, Jr. in which the following appears:

I added the emphasis. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is one of those with which you disagree? Did you indicate which ones falls into that category and if not, how is one to know?

Well, it was nice talking to you.

Sorry, but your "thoughtful and gracious" link is to the abominable site that contains temple content. Please remove it.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Vance

[ebeddoulos]

What? Let me summarize the discussion so far.

Ebed: The lack of the gold plates is no more of a problem for the Book of Mormon than is the lack of autographs for the New Testament.

Rob: Not so: we have thousands of copies of the NT establishing that its books originated within a hundred years of Jesus' death, but no textual evidence for the Book of Mormon's existence before the 1820s.

• This is a strawman fallacy which I generally choose to ignore.

Ebed: There are textual variants in the NT, like the one at Hebrews 2:9.
Rob: The textual variants do not undermine the conclusion that the books originated within a hundred years of Jesus' death.

• Again a strawman fallacy which I generally choose to ignore.

Ebed: There are a lot of textual variants, including some verses that you say don't belong in the NT. And we have modern revelations and the Holy Ghost--and we're a worldwide religion.

Rob: The fact that Mormonism is a worldwide religion proves nothing; Pentecostalism has been around a shorter period of time and has ten times as many people worldwide.

• Yet another strawman fallacy which I generally choose to ignore.

The person here who has not given a response to the other person's argument is you. I will try to make this simpler for you.
Yes or no: We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in the original Greek language, some dating from as early as the second century.

• Yes, and if you agree with Thiede and D’Ancona, parts of Matthew date to roughly 60 CE

Yes or no: All scholars, regardless of religious or non-religious beliefs, agree that the books of the NT originated within about a hundred years or less of Jesus' death.

• No. I personally think more on the line of John A. T. Robinson for an early composition – pre 70 CE – than J. Edgar Goodspeed who for some books such as 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and 2 Peter thought that 150-160 CE was appropriate.

Yes or no: We have zero manuscripts or copies of any portion of the alleged original language text of the Book of Mormon.

• No, but to the best of my knowledge there are none other than the Anthon Transcript though I may be mistaken.

Yes or no: No scholars outside the Mormon tradition regard the Book of Mormon as ancient literature.

• I do not know but I suspect that if there are, they are few in number. I also suspect that those that do have an odd habit of getting baptized.

Conclusion: Yes or no: There is a significant difference between the textual evidence for the antiquity of the New Testament (massive) and the textual evidence for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon (none).

• No. There is a lot of evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient work. They are just of the type you choose not to accept. Matthew 23:34 comes readily to mind.

This is a misrepresentation of the facts. The vast majority of variants in the manuscripts at all stages of transmission are mere spelling errors. Most of the remaining variants are also inconsequential (e.g., a text reading "Jesus Christ" instead of "Christ Jesus"). The copyists of the NT books were for the most part untrained, but that's not a problem, because there were so many copies made by so many different copyists that nothing was lost (with only one possible, highly debatable exception--see below) and nearly all of the secondary variants (alterations and additions) can easily be detected and eliminated.

Actually, it is you who is misrepresenting the facts. John Mill’s 1707 CE apparatus listed 30,000 variations. He did not even include the transposition of words let alone spelling errors. Furthermore 300 years ago, Mill only had about 100 manuscripts at his disposal. Today this number is dramatically larger; in excess of 5,000 partial and about 50 somewhat complete manuscripts in Greek, roughly 8,000 in Latin and a similar amount in Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Gothic, Sahidic, Slavic and Syriac. With the number of manuscripts increasing dramatically, so did the number of variations. While it is true that a lot of the 200,000 to 300,000 (some say more) variations found in the manuscripts available today are spelling errors and some are of little consequence, there are books half-full of variants which are judged to be “significant” enough to be in the NA/UBS apparatus.

We are talking here about a grand total of about 40 verses of the New Testament, out of nearly 8,000 verses (7,957, I believe, is the exact number in the KJV). That works out to about 0.5% of the verses of the NT being additions to the original text. To put the matter positively, 99.5% of the verses in the KJV of the NT were part of the original books. "Large chunks"? "A pile of ancient rubbish"? That's rubbish.

Forty verses are woefully understated but I suspect that you know it.

The book of the NT that is in the "worst" state textually (in terms of whole sentences or verses) is the Gospel of Mark. Most scholars believe that some 17 verses in the KJV of Mark do not belong to the Gospel. That means that 97.5% of the verses in the KJV do belong in the Gospel. A small minority of scholars think the original ending of the Gospel of Mark was lost and a new ending (16:9-20 KJV) was added by a later writer. If they are correct, this would be the only place in the NT where anything of the original text was lost. However, as I said, this is the opinion only of a small minority of scholars. The majority of scholars think that the Gospel of Mark originally ended at Mark 16:8. If they are correct, then nothing of the original Gospel of Mark has been lost. A minority of scholars (all fundamentalists) think that Mark 16:9-20 is the original Markan ending; if they are right, then again nothing of the original Gospel has been lost.

The only other place in the NT with an addition to the text that runs longer than a single sentence is John 7:53-8:11. Here again, the Gospel of John has remained quite pure textually: about 98.5% of the verses in the KJV of the Gospel of John are viewed by scholars as original.

Longer than a sentence? Nicely parsed and nuanced. How entertaining. This allows you to let all those verses which affected only one sentence to slide by. The following are from the NIV. Other versions differ somewhat.

Matthew 12:47; Matthew 17:21; Matthew 18:11; Matthew 21:44; Mark 7:16; Mark 9:44; Mark 9:46; Mark 11:26; Mark 15:28; Mark 16:9–20; Luke 17:36; Luke 22:43; Luke 22:44; Luke 23:17; John 7:53–8:11; Acts 15:34; Acts 28:29; Romans 16:24.

I may be missing some. Somewhere I think I’ve read that there were 40 such verses. However, perhaps you should have said “longer than two or three sentences. That way you would not need to explain the following verses which all affect more than one sentence.

Matthew 23:14; John 5:3-4; Acts 8:37; Acts 24:6-7

I am sure you are relieved that you did not specify those verses that have a word or so added that were subsequently modified, i.e,, removed. How many verses would that be? What would your guess be? Dozens? Hundreds? I vote the latter. Are a few words here and there significant? According to the Rev. Jack. A. Moorman's book “Missing in Modern Bibles - Is the Full Story Being Told?” the Nestle/Aland Greek Text is shorter than the Textus Receptus by 2886 words! Those 2886 words are equivalent to the books of 1st and 2nd Peter. That IMO is quite significant.

Every other book of the NT is in even better shape. For every other book of the NT, well over 99% of the verses in the KJV of each book are regarded as original to that book. For 21 of the 27 books of the NT, there are no verses in the KJV that scholars do not regard as original to the text.

And yet they are not sure are they? The scholars are unsure from year to year, version to version and edition to edition what the original autographs said. The NA/UBS Critical Editions have the bottom third to one-half filled with their apparatus showing the hundreds of significant differences between the various manuscripts.

While all of this statistical evidence proves that your characterization of the NT text as "rubbish" is false, the fact remains that your whole line of argument is irrelevant to the point I made.

Now you resort to a Red Herring Fallacy. Let’s be accurate shall we? I said that since you, by your own admission, do not believe large blocks of Mark and John are scripture, that you apparently thought those same large blocks of the New Testament were rubbish. I did not say that the New Testament was rubbish.

Even if whole chunks of the NT were lost and large portions of the surviving manuscripts were secondary, the manuscript evidence would still prove that the NT writings were ancient texts dating from within about a hundred years of Jesus' death. Take, for instance, the Gospel of Mary. Only part of the book is extant, with our one major copy having a large part missing (probably about half of the original book). But even with that bad a copy, what we have is sufficient to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the Gospel of Mary was originally written in the second century. The question of the completeness, accuracy, and purity of the text is a different question than the question of the manuscript evidence for the origin and date of the book.

And your point here escapes me. I’ve not argued that the New Testament was not ancient. It is. That is a given. The point I am making is that an ancient document with an imperfection is still a inperfect ancient document. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are a matched set, in this and many other ways.

I should also emphasize that the "problem" with the NT text is a problem of addition, not subtraction. We are not missing anything that was in the original NT writings (as explained above). All of the words of the original NT writings have come down to us in the manuscript copies. The problem is one of addition: the extant manuscripts contain additional words that were not in the originals. These additional words are typically accidental additions (repeating words already copied), explanatory glosses that scribes added to clarify something in the text, or pious expansions of the text (e.g., "Lord Jesus Christ" instead of just "Jesus"). In effect, as NT textual critical scholar Dan Wallace has put it, what we have is something like 102% of the New Testament. This is the opposite of what many Mormons popularly believe, that important things were left out or suppressed or lost from the text of the NT writings. The evidence is decisively against that claim.

Problem of addition, not subtraction?!?! How entertaining! The New Testament is missing whole books! Not just verses, which it is missing, but entire books. Take for example the lost book of Corinthians. We know where it is mentioned – 1 Corinthians 5:9. We know it was written by Paul. We know to whom Paul wrote it. We know that its subject matter was sexual immorality. Perhaps the NCV states it best: “I wrote you in my earlier letter not to associate with those who sin sexually.” This truly is a lost letter from the apostle Paul.

Then there is Colossians 4:16 which describes the Book of the Laodiceans. The Colossians were supposed to read the Book of Laodiceans and vice versa. Colossians made it into the Bible and the Laodiceans did not.

Then there is the letter which John wrote to Ditrephes mentioned in 3 John 1:9. It is MIA, too.

There are other books I could mention but let us talk about the quote by Paul of Christ that does not exist: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35-NIV2011) Where is the original recorded? It is MIA as well.

Then there is the missing messianic prophecy of the resurrection of Jesus, which Christ (Luke 18:31-34; Luke 24:46), Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) and even Josephus quoted.(Whinston, William, “The Works of Josephus”, Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, [1998] Antiquities 18:3:3, pg. 480) Where is it? Was it once in the New Testament? It sure as heck isn’t in the Old Testament. Like everything else above it is missing.

So we are “not missing anything that was in the original NT writings”? That’s funny! Did you factor belly-laugh inducing humor into your statistics?

As I have explained above, the additions to Mark and John do not negate my descriptions of the NT text even if we view those two books in isolation. Of the verses in the KJV, 97.5% of those in the KJV of Mark and 98.5% of those in the KJV of John are original to those books. That's close enough to conclude that those books, even in the KJV, are "reasonable facsimiles" of the original books. And again, we have 100% of the original text of both these books, as well as of the rest of the NT.

By contrast, we have, not 100%, not 97.5%, not even around 50% (as we do for the Gospel of Mary), but...wait for it...zero percent of the alleged original text of the Book of Mormon.

The short answer to that is: “So?” As I’ve explained several times, the LDS believe the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price and continuing modern day revelation all share in a divine origin. However, we do not think the Bible, fraught with error, riddled with contradiction and prone to misinterpretation, nor any of the LDS standard works for that matter, is the ultimate source of the Word of God. We believe that the ultimate source for truth is …

… wait for it … wait for it …

… a direct revelation from God. It is by revelation that all scripture is given to mankind. It is by revelation that the Gospel of Christ comes (Galatians 1:11-12). It is by personal revelation that we know Jesus (Ephesian 1:17). It is only by revelation from the Holy Ghost that we can testify that Jesus is our Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3) As I’ve pointed out, the confirmation of this truth (and all truth for that matter) comes from personal revelation direct from the Holy Ghost to each individual who asks with a sincere heart and real intent. (Moroni 10:4-5)

What is your point? I was not claiming that Pentecostalism was the true form of Christianity. Nor was I saying that it wasn't. I was simply pointing out that the number of adherents of a new religious movement does not have any relevance to the question of whether it is of God.

Subtract the entire Oneness Pentecostal movement if one wishes, there are still many times more (Trinitarian) Pentecostals in the world than Mormons, even with the Mormons having a 75-year head start. This proves that the quick growth of Mormonism in its short history is not good evidence that it is the true church.

My point is that in order to buttress your strawman fallacy, you just pointed to another branch of Christianity which apparently you and the IRR think is a cult and which, apparently unlike your own denomination, is also growing. I find your parsed statement above concernong Pentacostals quite amusing.

Nice talkin' with ya.

Edited September 13, 2011 by ebeddoulos

[Calm]

It seems there is an assumption that there were multiple first generation copies, thus allowing for crosschecking, but what if there was only one first generation copy which contained a significant error that was then passed on to other copies. Without the original text available to compare, how would we even guess there might be a mistake? Why this faith built on the numbers of copies when there is no evidence available to check that the source of their text is inerrant (even if one assumes the autographs were without error, we have no way of telling the text source was that autograph and not an uncorrected copy that was used instead to create the other copies).

[Calm]

I believe Mr. Bowman is referring here to the Protestant version of the Pentecostals (do not know the correct term) and not the Oneness Pentecostals which are the ones usually labeled as a cult.Though if I understand correctly, such are a collection of churches having a social association much like the Baptists and not one church organization as we identify the LDS Church (not counting the break offs).If so he is still making an inappropriate comparison.

Add on....I see Mr. Bowman did clarify, however comparing a collection of churches to one church is still inaccurate (assuming my understanding of the association is correct.)

Edited September 13, 2011 by calmoriah

[Rob Bowman]

ebeddoulos,

I had summed up the central point I have been making in our discussion as follows:

Ebed: The lack of the gold plates is no more of a problem for the Book of Mormon than is the lack of autographs for the New Testament.

Rob: Not so: we have thousands of copies of the NT establishing that its books originated within a hundred years of Jesus' death, but no textual evidence for the Book of Mormon's existence before the 1820s.

You replied:

This is a strawman fallacy which I generally choose to ignore.

It is not a strawman fallacy. However, if you wish to ignore my argument, which of course you are free to do, then we cannot make any progress in this discussion.

[Rob Bowman]

calmoriah,

You wrote:

It seems there is an assumption that there were multiple first generation copies, thus allowing for crosschecking, but what if there was only one first generation copy which contained a significant error that was then passed on to other copies. Without the original text available to compare, how would we even guess there might be a mistake? Why this faith built on the numbers of copies when there is no evidence available to check that the source of their text is inerrant (even if one assumes the autographs were without error, we have no way of telling the text source was that autograph and not an uncorrected copy that was used instead to create the other copies).

This hypothetical worry doesn't seem very realistic. The autographs would have existed for several years at a minimum, and more likely for a couple of decades or more, affording plenty of time for each of them to be copied directly at least twice and more likely several times.

In any case, the textual evidence for any book of the Bible is vastly superior to the textual evidence for the Book of Mormon, of which there is absolutely none. I would rather have errant copies of the original-language text than none at all.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Rob Bowman

[Calm]

Is the statement 'the NT is demonstrated to be an ancient text---and nothing else---by the existence of ancient copies while the BoM does not have such a demonstration, but both must rely on other methods for evidence they are the Word of God and thus are comparable in this aspect' work for you? If not, why not?

[Calm]

<br />calmoriah,<br /><br />You wrote:<br /><br /><br /><br />This hypothetical worry doesn't seem very realistic. The autographs would have existed for several years at a minimum, and more likely for a couple of decades or more, affording plenty of time for each of them to be copied directly at least twice and more likely several times.<br /><br />In any case, the textual evidence for any book of the Bible is vastly superior to the textual evidence for the Book of Mormon, of which there is absolutely none. I would rather have errant copies of the original-language text than none at all.<br />

<br /><br />This seems to include some major assumptions.  An autograph could have been damaged by accident anytime from the moment of its construction.   If one includes the persecution of both Christians and Jews at the time, it would raise the probability.  It had to be destroyed or lost sometime or we would have it now.  There seems to be no reason, but faith, for why it was much later as you claim rather than earlier and in fact we have evidence of destroyed or lost writings that we do not have copies of. It seems strange to suggest we either have no copies of the autograph and thus it was lost or lots of copies which therefore allowed it to be saved with little error.

Define 'textual evidence' please.  If you mean solely original text and not other textual attributes, then I would agree with you.  But this does nothing in my view to demonstrating that the Bible is the Word of God.

Edited September 13, 2011 by calmoriah

[Calm]

So the BoM doesn't have copies to prove that it is ancient.***  It also doesn't have copies we have to spend countless hours arguing over which one is most likely accurate (even while knowing there's no way to demonstrate if any of them are).  I really don't see this as a negative myself.  We get to skip to the essential issue of determining if it is God's Word or not.

*****We can employ other methods to provide evidence of ancientness.

Edited September 13, 2011 by calmoriah

[Rob Bowman]

calmoriah,

You wrote:

I believe Mr. Bowman is referring here to the Protestant version of the Pentecostals (do not know the correct term) and not the Oneness Pentecostals which are the ones usually labeled as a cult.Though if I understand correctly, such are a collection of churches having a social association much like the Baptists and not one church organization as we identify the LDS Church (not counting the break offs).If so he is still making an inappropriate comparison.

Add on....I see Mr. Bowman did clarify, however comparing a collection of churches to one church is still inaccurate (assuming my understanding of the association is correct.)

I was comparing Mormonism to Pentecostalism, not the LDS Church to Pentecostalism; that is, I was including all sects stemming from Joseph Smith, not just the LDS Church. But no problem; we can do it your way. Consider the following statistics pertaining to individual religious denominations and sects:

Assemblies of God (a single Pentecostal denomination): established 1914 (84 years after the LDS Church); about 57-60 million members

Iglesia ni Cristo (a restorationist anti-Trinitarian religion from the Philippines): established 1914 (84 years after the LDS Church); roughly 5-10 million members

International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (a Pentecostal denomination): established 1927 (97 years after the LDS Church); about 8 million members

New Apostolic Church: established 1879 (49 years after the LDS Church), with roots going back to the 1830s; over 11 million members

Jehovah's Witnesses: established 1879 (49 years after the LDS Church); over 7 million active members (i.e., engaged in regular proselytizing); an estimated 18 million adherents

Seventh-day Adventism: established 1863 (33 years after the LDS Church), with roots going back to 1844; nearly 17 million members

The growth of each of these individual religious denominations or sects is significantly more impressive than the growth of the LDS Church.

[Calm]

<br />calmoriah,<br /><br />You wrote:<br /><br /><br /><br />I was comparing Mormonism to Pentecostalism, not the LDS Church to Pentecostalism; that is, I was including all sects stemming from Joseph Smith, not just the LDS Church. But no problem; we can do it your way. Consider the following statistics pertaining to individual religious denominations and sects....... />The growth of each of these individual religious denominations or sects is significantly more impressive than the growth of the LDS Church.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

I would agree in regards to numbers of recorded members.

[Rob Bowman]

calmoriah,

You wrote:

I would agree in regards to numbers of recorded members.

Is there a sense in which you would not agree? Is there some qualification here, e.g., recorded versus unrecorded members? I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

[Rob Bowman]

calmoriah,

You wrote:

Is the statement 'the NT is demonstrated to be an ancient text---and nothing else---by the existence of ancient copies while the BoM does not have such a demonstration, but both must rely on other methods for evidence they are the Word of God and thus are comparable in this aspect' work for you? If not, why not?

Yes, I think this works, but of course I didn't suggest that the existence of ancient copies of the NT proves or is evidence that it is the word of God. Also, the way your statement is framed seems to treat the difference as insignificant. It isn't. While being ancient is (obviously) not sufficient to establish either the Bible or the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture, it is a necessary precondition of either volume being inspired scripture, since both claim to be ancient literature. The lack of any ancient textual support for the Book of Mormon is a huge deficiency calling into question the authenticity of its most basic claim to be ancient literature. It puts the Book of Mormon immediately into the same category of alleged ancient scriptures known only in modern times (and in modern languages) as the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ and The Life of Issa. Is this the only consideration pertinent to the claims of the Book of Mormon? No, but it is a very significant hurdle at the very outset of any serious investigation or inquiry into the Book of Mormon.

[Rob Bowman]

calmoriah,

You wrote:

This seems to include some major assumptions. An autograph could have been damaged by accident anytime from the moment of its construction. If one includes the persecution of both Christians and Jews at the time, it would raise the probability. It had to be destroyed or lost sometime or we would have it now. There seems to be no reason, but faith, for why it was much later as you claim rather than earlier and in fact we have evidence of destroyed or lost writings that we do not have copies of. It seems strange to suggest we either have no copies of the autograph and thus it was lost or lots of copies which therefore allowed it to be saved with little error.

This isn't correct. In the case of numerous ancient writings, we have just one or two copies.

Clearly, I cannot prove that multiple copies were made directly from the originals of each and every book of the Bible. It is hypothetically possible that in some cases this wasn't done. But it is more likely that this did not happen than that it did. And again, even if every extant copy of a particular book stemmed from one flawed copy, our manuscript evidence for the original text of that book would be far, far superior to the manuscript evidence for the original text of any part of the Book of Mormon.

You wrote:

Define 'textual evidence' please. If you mean solely original text and not other textual attributes, then I would agree with you. But this does nothing in my view to demonstrating that the Bible is the Word of God.

"Textual evidence" in this context means physical evidence in the form of physical copies of the text. Again, I didn't claim that the textual evidence demonstrates that the Bible is the word of God. However, it does prove that the books of the Bible are in the most general terms what they purport to be: ancient texts passed down from generation to generation of Jewish and Christian believers.