createdtoworship
In the grip of grace
- Mar 13, 2004
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I don't have to go any further than the writings of Eusebius to demonstrate the fallaciousness of that comment. Eusebius quotes Matthew 28:19 twenty one times, either omitting everything between 'nations' 'and teaching', or in the form 'make disciples of all nations in my name.' This is a huge change, obviously reflecting a change to the scripture to reflect a change in church doctrine.
All of these arguments that you are giving me, I have made, and have been proven wrong. The simple facts are, that not even the new testament scriptures have remained inviolate, and some sciptures were added in the second century with cover stories (2Peter and the Pastorals) by the burgeoning catholic movement, which seemed to have absolutely no moral compunction against "bearing false witness".
Probably the most dramatic change has been the baptismal scene, which in some of the older copies of the Gospel, per Origen, originally read that God told Jesus "in thee I am well pleased, this day I have begotten thee", which reflects an adoptionist theology that is hinted at in the proem of John, and mentioned in "Hebrews".
I have to take issue with the "bible is God's word" statement. Who first said it, when, where and why?
thats not a major change
By practicing the science of textual criticism - comparing all the available manuscripts with each other - we can come to an assurance regarding what the original document must have said.
Let us suppose we have five manuscript copies of an original document that no longer exists. Each of the manuscript copies are different. Our goal is to compare the manuscript copies and ascertain what the original must have said. Here are the five copies:
Manuscript #1: Jesus Christ is the Savior of the whole worl.
Manuscript #2: Christ Jesus is the Savior of the whole world.
Manuscript #3: Jesus Christ s the Savior of the whole world.
Manuscript #4: Jesus Christ is th Savior of the whle world.
Manuscript #5: Jesus Christ is the Savor of the whole wrld.
Could you, by comparing the manuscript copies, ascertain what the original document said with a high degree of certainty that you are correct? Of course you could.
This illustration may be extremely simplistic, but a great majority of the 150,000 variants are solved by the above methodology.
By comparing the various manuscripts, all of which contain very minor differences like the above, it becomes fairly clear what the original must have said.
Most of the manuscript variations concern matters of spelling, word order, tenses, and the like; no single doctrine is affected by them in any way.
We must also emphasize that the sheer volume of manuscripts we possess greatly narrows the margin of doubt regarding what the original biblical document said.
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