the new new testament???

kofh2u writes:Will you continue to maintain your line of argument when it is clear that the two witnesses here are the House of Jacob and the House of Israel itself???

Your very serious problem is that you can provide no information concerning the lack of resistence concerning Eusebius' use of Josephus. there is simply nothing and there should be

Plenty has been provided.

You don't have independent sources. You have gospel writers who were all on the same side. Where do you have the other viewpoints represented, the viewpoints of the Jewish leaders and the Roman leaders?

Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliabilityby Matt SlickThe New Testament is constantly under attack, and its reliability and accuracy are often contested by critics. If the critics want to disregard the New Testament, then they must also disregard other ancient writings by Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. This is because the New Testament documents are better-preserved and more numerous than any other ancient writings. Because they are so numerous, they can be cross checked for accuracy... and they are very consistent.There are presently 5,686 Greek manuscripts in existence today for the New Testament.1 If we were to compare the number of New Testament manuscripts to other ancient writings, we find that the New Testament manuscripts far outweigh the others in quantity.2Author Date
Written Earliest Copy Approximate Time Span between original & copy Number of Copies Accuracy of Copies
Lucretius died 55 or 53 B.C. 1100 yrs 2 ----
Pliny 61-113 A.D. 850 A.D. 750 yrs 7 ----
Plato 427-347 B.C. 900 A.D. 1200 yrs 7 ----
Demosthenes 4th Cent. B.C. 1100 A.D. 800 yrs 8 ----
Herodotus 480-425 B.C. 900 A.D. 1300 yrs 8 ----
Suetonius 75-160 A.D. 950 A.D. 800 yrs 8 ----
Thucydides 460-400 B.C. 900 A.D. 1300 yrs 8 ----
Euripides 480-406 B.C. 1100 A.D. 1300 yrs 9 ----
Aristophanes 450-385 B.C. 900 A.D. 1200 10 ----
Caesar 100-44 B.C. 900 A.D. 1000 10 ----
Livy 59 BC-AD 17 ---- ??? 20 ----
Tacitus circa 100 A.D. 1100 A.D. 1000 yrs 20 ----
Aristotle 384-322 B.C. 1100 A.D. 1400 49 ----
Sophocles 496-406 B.C. 1000 A.D. 1400 yrs 193 ----
Homer (Iliad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 yrs 643 95%
New
Testament 1st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D. 2nd Cent. A.D.
(c. 130 A.D. f.) less than 100 years 5600 99.5%As you can see, there are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. That is an amazing accuracy. In addition, there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.Almost all biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the First Century. If Jesus was crucified in 30 A.D., then that means the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned, people who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the First Century that contest the New Testament texts.Furthermore, another important aspect of this discussion is the fact that we have a fragment of the gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing (John Rylands Papyri 125 A.D.). This is extremely close to the original writing date. This is simply unheard of in any other ancient writing, and it demonstrates that the Gospel of John is a First Century document.Below is a chart with some of the oldest extant New Testament manuscripts compared to when they were originally penned. Compare these time spans with the next closest, which is Homer's Iliad, where the closest copy from the original is 500 years later. Undoubtedly, that period of time allows for more textual corruption in its transmission. How much less so for the New Testament documents?Important
Manuscript
Papyri Contents Date
Original Written MSS
Date Approx.
Time Span Location
p52
(John Rylands
Fragment)3 John 18:31-33,37-38 circa
96 A.D. circa
125
A.D. 29 yrs John Rylands Library, Manchester, England
P46
(Chester Beatty Papyrus) Rom. 5:17-6:3,5-14; 8:15-25, 27-35; 10:1-11,22,24-33,35; 16:1-23, 25-27; Heb.; 1 & 2 Cor., Eph., Gal., Phil., Col.; 1 Thess. 1:1,9-10; 2:1-3; 5:5-9, 23-28 50's-70's circa
200
A.D. Approx.
150 yrs Chester Beatty Museum, Dublin & Ann Arbor, Michigan, University of Michigan library
P66
(Bodmer Papyrus) John 1:1-6:11,35-14:26; fragment of 14:29-21:9 70's
circa
200
A.D. Approx.
130 yrs Cologne, Geneva
P67 Matt. 3:9,15; 5:20-22, 25-28 circa
200
A.D. Approx.
130 yrs Barcelona, Fundacion San Lucas Evangelista, P. Barc.1If the critics of the Bible dismiss the New Testament as reliable information, then they must also dismiss the reliability of the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Homer, and the other authors mentioned in the chart at the beginning of the paper. On the other hand, if the critics acknowledge the historicity and writings of those other individuals, then they must also retain the historicity and writings of the New Testament authors; after all, the evidence for the New Testament's reliability is far greater than the others. The Christian has substantially superior criteria for affirming the New Testament documents than he does for any other ancient writing. It is good evidence on which to base the trust in the reliability of the New Testament.This article is also available in: Espaol, 中文1. Norman Geisler & Peter Bocchino, Unshakeable Foundations, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2001) p. 256.
2. The above chart was adapted from three sources: 1) Christian Apologetics, by Norman Geisler, 1976, p. 307; 2) the article "Archaeology and History attest to the Reliability of the Bible," by Richard M. Fales, Ph.D., in The Evidence Bible, Compiled by Ray Comfort, Bridge-Logos Publishers, Gainesville, FL, 2001, p. 163; and 3) A Ready Defense, by Josh Mcdowell, 1993, p. 45.
3. "Deissmann was convinced that p52 was written well within the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-38) and perhaps even during the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117)" (Footnote #2 found on pg. 39 of The Text of the New Testament, by Bruce M. Metzger, 2nd Ed. 1968, Oxford University Press, NY, NY). Bruce Metzger has authored more than 50 books. He holds two Masters Degrees, a Ph.D. and has been awarded several honorary doctorates. "He is past president of the Society of Biblical Literature, the International Society for New Testament Studies, and the North American Patristic Society." -- From, The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel, Zondervan Publishers, 1998, Grand Rapids, MI: pg. 57.

Berfore these posts get to long I think i can bring things into perspective

with a simple observation

pay very close attention to what i am about to say

Ill demonstrate in a moment

Now pay even closer attention.

If you are allowed to use non-human source/ evidence to establish the inaccuracy of say Josephus, (in your opinion)ie, it doesnt appear in the earliest texts, this or that, then it would follow logically that the accuracy, in the other direction with which are able to pinpoint the reliability of the earliest sources, has to be accepted as corroborating evidence

You cant eat your cake and have it.

IOWs they faithfully transcribed from sources which were just as reliable

Then of course we have the earliest church fathers testimony, writings that substantiate these facts

Berfore these posts get to long I think i can bring things into perspective with a simple observation

Dawn Bertot writes:If you are allowed to use non-human source/ evidence....

And you're still not addressing the point. I'm asking you for the equivalent of the evidence that we have for the Bounty story. Where's the antagonistic vewpoint in your evidence?

Objectivity requires an alternate viewpoint. Where's the alternate viewpoint?

Where's the account of the people who accused Jesus of a crime, the equivalent of Captain Bligh? Where are the records of the overseeing justice system, the equivalent of the Admiralty?

There is no evidence as to how reliable they were.

Dawn Bertot writes:Unless you are prepared to reject your reasons for rejecting Josephus, Pliny, Eusebius and others

Dawn Bertot writes:Where are the human accounts that and type of evidence that indite the lack of belivablity of Josephus, Pliny and Eusebius?

Dawn Bertot writes:When I asked you how many lines we need to make it evidence you said TWO. We now have several including what I just mentioned.

You seem to have lost the plot. I'm not rejecting "Josephus, Pliny, Eusebius and others". I'm saying that their evidence isn't enough.

I'm not trying to indict the lack of belivablity of Josephus, Pliny and Eusebius. The onus is on you to establish their believability. But as I've said, even if they were completely believable, they're not enough.

No, you do not. You do not have any alternative viewpoint. All you have is the viewpoint of Jesus' followers.

The standard I am asking for, the standard that we have in the Bounty story, has three separate threads. You have one. Different people saying the same thing do not automatically constitute independent witnesses.

Where's the account from the viewpoint of the Sanhedrin? Where's the account from the viewpoint of Pontius Pilate?

You mean, other than pointing out that you can't back up your claim that they were accurate transcriptions?

I would love to see you show that they are more than speculation, opinion, or stories to promote a specific religious dogma.

Basically, even if the Gospels are not modified to the very end, you can't show that the supernatural events described is anything more than myth.

Textual variation[edit source | edit]Main article: Textual variants in the New Testament
Textual criticism deals with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts. Ancient scribes made errors or alterations (such as including non-authentic additions).[115] The New Testament has been preserved in more than 5,800 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Ethiopic and Armenian. Even if the original Greek versions were lost, the entire New Testament could still be assembled from the translations.[116]In addition, there are so many quotes from the New Testament in early church documents and commentaries that the entire New Testament could also be assembled from these alone.[116] Not all biblical manuscripts come from orthodox Christian writers. For example, the Gnostic writings of Valentinus come from the 2nd century AD, and these Christians were regarded as heretics by the mainstream church.[117] The sheer number of witnesses presents unique difficulties, but it also gives scholars a better idea of how close modern Bibles are to the original versions.[117]On noting the large number of surviving ancient manuscripts, Bruce Metzger sums up the view on the issue by saying "The more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like. The only way they'd agree would be where they went back genealogically in a family tree that represents the descent of the manuscripts.[116]A similar type of textual criticism is applied to other ancient texts.[118] There are far fewer witnesses to classical texts than to the Bible, and unlike the New Testament where the earliest witnesses are often within a couple decades of the original, the earliest existing manuscripts of most classical texts were written about a millennium after their composition. For example, the earliest surviving copies of parts of the Roman historian Tacitus' main work, the Annals of Imperial Rome (written in 116 AD), come from a single manuscript written in 850 AD, although for other parts of his work, the earliest copies come from the 11th century, while other parts of his work have been lost.[116]The earliest copies of The Jewish War by Josephus (originally composed in the 1st century AD), in contrast, come from nine manuscripts written in the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.[116] After the Bible, the next best preserved ancient work is Homer's Iliad, with 650 copies originating about 1,000 years after the original copy.[116] Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War (written in the 50s BC) survives in nine copies written in the 8th century.[119] Thucydides' history of the Peloponesian War and Herodotus' history of the Persian War (both written in the 5th century BC) survives in about eight early copies, the oldest ones dating from the 10th century AD.[119]Biblical scholar F. F. Bruce has said "the evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning...It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament records than have many theologians."[120]

ramoss writes:...you can't show that the supernatural events described [are] anything more than myth.