Have you heard apologists compare the bible to its contemporary manuscripts?, have you heard them tell you how all those books and histories don't have one tenth the credibility of the scripture based on the famous three question tests, heard them compare the bible to the Iliad and the history of the roman empire to prove that the bible is more credible than all those?
What irks me is this, you see, homer didn't claim that “Iliad” was inspired by god. One does not have to style his or her life to the “Republic”, nor face eternal damnation if he does not agree with Josephus's. Wars have not been and will not be fought over the works of Socrates. How can a book claimed to be divine and inerrant which demands absolute obedience be compared to any earthly book?. What does it prove?.
4 responses so far ↓
1 philjohnson // Jun 3, 2006 at 12:30 pm
I hear your frustration at the apologetic gambit. The backdrop to the gambit though has arisen in the modern western secular cultures where considerable scepticism has been expressed that the New Testament text cannot be relied on. The sceptical allegation tends to run this way: the biblical books are not to be trusted precisely because they push a religious view, and the books have probably been tampered with so that it is not feasible to even know what was originally composed.
The apologists have replied that in the Greco-Roman classical writings historians depend on written sources from writers like Tacitus, Caesar etc on the basis of very limited quantities of surviving manuscripts. In some cases only 1 or 2 manuscript copies; in the case of Homer aprroximately 500 copies. The point that is being made is if we explore the quantity and quality of the manuscripts in Greek for the New Testament we can demonstrate that we have a large body of extant material to compare. Once the textual criticism is undertaken we discover that we have a very good reconstruction of what the original books looked like. As the weight of the extant manuscripts are compared in quantity and quality with the Greco-Roman classics, we find that on the basis of far less extant written evidence classical historians proceed with a good measure of confidence that the past can be known.
In view of that, the sceptic’s allegation that we have an uncertain text is itself disqualified and the objector has to have intellectual honesty and concede that his/her objection is unwarranted.
Apologetics is often concerned with clearing away intellectual obstacles that people have. Apologetics cannot convert or save a person, but it is a relevant tool in the proclamation of the good news.
Perhaps in your frame of experience and cultural context this has not been an objection you have encountered. But in other contexts it has been and continues to be an objection to which a reply needs to be made. The fact that Homer did not claim divine inspiration or any revelatory basis to the Iliad is neither here nor there when addressing the specific issue of has the text been successfully transmitted by copying and recopying from the time of the first century until the invention of the printing press.
Moreover if one did take the question up with reference to other alleged sacred books — the Quran, Book of Mormon, Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita, Dhammapada — one can probe the issue of textual transmission. It is particularly pertinent in the case of the Quran as the Caliph Uthmann standardized the text and eliminated earlier variant copies. It has bearing on the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith claimed to be given directions on where to excavate it by angelic instruction, then supplied with divine assistance in translating the text, and then the golden plates were taken up into heaven — so no-one has the original plates to compare with Smith’s translation.
So while the argument may irritate you, and that’s fine for your personal and cultural settings, the issue of textual transmission and the quantity of NT manuscripts is important in other cultural settings where the gospel is denied, repudiated or challenged by sceptics.
2 Schizo Phrenic // Jun 3, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Hello phil
Thank you very much for clarifying. I am aware of the need for giving answers, intelliegently when needed, and am actively involved in apologetics as a way for evangelism in my workplece. The Part that bugs me is the background insensitivity of soem aplogists who have a formula method of dealing with crowds.
perhaps being an ardent presupposionalist also adds to my fury:-).
Blog on
3 Dr. Johnson C. Philip // Jun 4, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Phil Johnson has said what I wanted to say, perhaps much better than the way I would have said, and I record my thanks.
Coming to the insensitivity and presuppositional apol:
1. Some People in every profession show insensitivity. But we do not write off the profession or the truths they defend. Similarly, a certain number of apologists would do the same. Their proportion might be higher that that of, say, insensitive doctors or policemen. That is because of the non-exact sciences which also fall into the region of apologetics.
2. Second, you cannot be a pre-suppositional apologist if you are at the same time a medical doctor. That, I diagnose, is positively Schizo Phrenia. Apologetics uses, and depends upon, many presuppositions, but the presuppositional apologetics is an oxymoron.
Dr. Johnson C. Philip
http://www.BiblicalArcheology.Net
4 Schizo Phrenic // Jun 5, 2006 at 8:36 am
Hey, I don’t deny my schizophrenia.
And without presuppositions there can be no science.
Leave a Comment