The Historical Jesus

[h311inac311]

@h311inac311

You’re still (deliberately, I think) missing the point about Moby Dick. I mentioned it to refute one particular point you made, that the  number of copies of a manuscript has some bearing on the truth or falsity of what’s contained in that manuscript. It doesn’t matter if the author claims it to be true or if there are people who believe it to be true. 

Think about the converse of your argument: if there was only a single but complete copy of the Gospel of Luke, would you be less likely to believe it to be true? What you’re doing with your point about copies is setting up a scale of veracity based on a single - and rather silly - criterion.

Let me try another example. Consider Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘History of The Kings of Britain’. Monmouth claimed it to be true. It was considered to be a valuable historical source for nearly half a millennium. There are hundreds of manuscripts of it dating from during or shortly after Geoffrey’s lifetime. And yet it contains such nonsense as the Trojans found Britain, wizards, dragons, legendary kings, etc.

Boru

     What I'm getting at is that multiple copies can be compared one to another to ensure that they haven't been tampered with. Simply put, if we have 100 copies of Mark then it is basically impossible for any one person to be able to alter the Gospel of Mark. The edits can be compared against the other copies. People will make mistakes, language will change, even people with good intentions will add to the scriptures (as they did with the story of the woman caught in adutery) but ultimately the vast majority of these copies agree far more than they disagree. The mistakes can be made known by comparing them to the majority of the other texts that are available. 

                  I knew at least one of you would want to pull the "Gospels have been corrupted" card. So I was trying to get ahead of that claim.

      No, I'm not setting up a scale of veracity based on one single and important criterion. I'm pointing something out that's very important to know. The Gospels haven't been tampered with. We know that as a historical fact because of the many different copies of the original which are still available today. It is one point in favor of the Gospel, can a Mighty Temple be built on a single pillar? I'm just here to make sure that you guys know that the first pillar is there and that it is made of stone. 


 How do you know that Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'History of The Kings of Britain' is wrong?