Re: OT: Racial superiority / Intelligent design was Re:

On Jan 30, 1:22=A0pm, "Judson McClendon" <ju...@sunvaley0.com> wrote:
> "tlmfru" <la...@mts.net> wrote: 
>
> I said the documentation for the events of Christ's life were vastly more
> than any other comparably ancient event.

I think this needs to be nuanced rather more.  It's broadly true.  But
there are several different things mixed up in this, which I think I
should clarify.

Firstly the life of Jesus of Nazareth is indeed very well documented,
because of the existence of 4 contemporary biographies.  It is better
documented than any *comparable* figure of the same period; i.e.
relatively obscure provincial figures.  It has better *literary*
attestation than some emperors! But... it is not better documented
than some of the major figures of the immediately preceding period.
And figures who left traces such as coins and inscriptions are of
course not comparable; we have nothing like that for Jesus (or indeed
for most important figures apart from emperors and officials).

If we ignore archaeology, consider the emperor under whom Jesus
flourished; Tiberius.  Our major sources for all the events of his
reign are Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Josephus.  All these
write ca. 100 AD or later, but are perfectly good sources, and we get
a far better picture of his reign and policies from these than from
contemporary sources written in fear of Sejanus' praetorian thugs.  In
addition we do have contemporary literature of various sorts.  So
there is good documentation, of sorts.

But surely we are not comparing an obscure Jewish peasant with the
master of the world?  If so, surely we commit a canard?

> The documents are vastly more numerous, and much closer to the
> actual events. For example, there are
> only nine ancient copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars, and the earliest dates
> from over 900 years after the events. Yet no one seriously questions
> them. However, there are thousands of copies of the New testament
> manuscripts, some dating from about 30 years after the events, and that
> was in living memory of them.

This is a truly common confusion (on all sides, I might add), between
the *texts* that were written in antiquity, and the physical
handwritten copies (=3Dmanuscripts)that exist today of them.

The above paragraph is taken from some literature discussing the
evidence that the words written in the bible in ancient times have
reached us, responding to the objection that since all copying
involves error then we can't actually possess a copy of the bible word
for word anyway (which objection involves obscurantism).  And it is
absolutely correct; there are far more and earlier biblical
manuscripts than of any other Gr or Latin text.  There is no
mystery to this; the scribes of the succeeding period needed bibles.
The next largest group of manuscripts is of copies of texts by the
major Church Fathers, and for the same reason.

But this has nothing to do with the number of *texts* that describe
events.  Do I make the distinction clear?

> It is uncommon for even hostile secular critics who are knowledgeable
> of this evidence to question that the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life
> are accurate.

I can assure you that there is no detail of Christian origins that has
not been denied, misrepresented, lied about or distorted over the last
200 years.  Trust me on this!

But what I think you mean is that educated people of all religions,
including atheists who hate Christianity, do not try to assert that
the texts are so corrupt that we don't even know what they said.  I
think this is true, although one atheist bible scholar is currently
trying very hard to put this idea out.

In short I think that the above contains overstatements.  What we can
certainly say is :

1.  that the text of the New Testament that we have is a good copy of
the original -- better, anyway, than any copy of any other ancient
*literary* text -- and good enough for all practical purposes (whether
that includes theological or divine purposes is for people to whom God
speaks to say, not us :-) ).

2.  that the number of literary texts is more than adequate to detail
the life, career and teaching of this obscure but remarkable man, and
is even corroborated by stray mentions in surviving classical
literature, as far as they go.

I must admit that I don't quite understand why people get into
difficulty with all this.  The same sort of thing could be said of
Alexander of Abuteichnos, who invented a fake deity Glycon in the 2nd
century (documented by Lucian, and with coins of the cult), although
the evidence for him is much less.  The question is whether the claims
of this person are true.  On that, there might legitimately be more
than one opinion.

All the same, I weary of the silent presumption that all of us can
continue to live by whatever system we currently do, but only the
Christians have to prove their position.  Rationally that must be
nonsense.

All the best,

Roger Pearse