Isaiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls

This is ridiculous. Just THINK, OK, just THINK.The OTHER scrolls ARE proof that there have been no changes as they too are the same texts we have, though not in as good condition as the Isaiah scroll. They aren't as complete and perfect as the Isaiah scroll, which is why it is always made the reference point, but the others are evidence of lack of changes since then too.Did you read the Sally example in the TheologyWeb discussion that I posted for the second time above? TheologyWeb Campus I would reverse the story to make the point I've been trying to make. Say one of the first three Sally sent it to simply lost it and then died. But the recipe had already been copied and sent out to a dozen or so others, and it kept being copied and handed down for a hundred years until one of them came down to you on an index card tucked away in your mother's cookbook. It hadn't been tried for many years and you didn't know if it was the same recipe as the original.Then you see a story in the local newspaper about this recipe being discovered behind the baseboard of an old house that was being remodeled and you recognize the same recipe. It's dated a hundred years ago. Eventually stories come out about others who have had that same recipe handed down to them too. Some say they remember their grandmother's having it but it's no longer to be found. On editorial pages and on message boards you all get together and compare your versions.Twenty people are found who possess a copy of this recipe. You discover that they'd all come from different sources than you got yours, and nobody could trace theirs back to the one found in the old house but a couple thought they could trace theirs to one of the other original three whose copies had been destroyed.Some have a few spelling errors. A couple got the ingredients or the mixing instructions in a different order from yours. One has one less ingredient than yours does. Seventeen of them including those with the spelling errors say exactly what yours says, and the two that reversed the instructions don't affect the outcome of the recipe anyway.But even with all that certainty some people write in doubting it's the same as the original recipe because after all a FEW of them say something slightly different.But the seventeen that agree with each other also agree with the one found in the old house.Would you or would you not be justified in concluding that the copying that was done over those hundred years was very accurate in order for seventeen of you to get the exact same recipe?Whether or not they are identical to the one "Aunt Sally" originally wrote down can't be ascertained for sure from this of course. This is the point PaulK kept bringing up. But I hadn't claimed any certainty past the one found in the old house as it were.

Of course not. Perhaps I should have said "back past." Couldn't you try just a LITTLE harder to follow the argument here?

Sally represents the original, say Moses. The DSS were copies of the original, like say one of the three Sally gave hers to. We got ours from another one of the three.A ten year old could have figured this out but I guess you don't want to bother.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 05:20 PM

YOu have misunderstood this whole thing from the beginning. You have been pursuing an argument of your very own that is unrelated to what I said. You still aren't getting it. You should apologize to me for starting this thread and continuing to make your irrelevant challenge.

If I were upset it would only be at the inability of my opponents to understand logic. I'm continually amazed and appalled at the strange inability to grasp simple thought on this site that hosts people who consider themselves thinkers. You and Tagless are typical specimens of the malady. Truly a phenomenon to be studied I believe.

I think the problem with this concept is that "without error" doesn't mean errors of copying or spelling or even leaving things out, it just means it's the message God wanted to get across to us. HOW isn't all that important. It must have been inspired in many different ways. Some of it was no doubt communicated directly from God, certainly to Moses, and to the prophets, but even they put much of what they heard into their own words. But it's mostly intended just to say all this is what God wanted us to know, and He guided it and protected it for that purpose. I have to supposed that the histories were guided by God indirectly rather than by direct communication as the prophecies were, and preserved by Him providentially. The actual words of God certainly came directly to the prophets though, even if in some cases they used their own words to convey it:

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2Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.

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I think this is the best definition of inerrancy:

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...this thread was opened because Faith made the claim that one scroll, Isaiah scroll, of the DSS was support that there have been no significant changes throughout history in the text.

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"throughout history" ONLY SINCE THE DSS.

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Unfortunately, since the DSS are not the basis for the modern text (information from Faith) this "support" for "no significant changes" becomes irrelevant.

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WHAT ABSOLUTE IDIOCY. WHEN YOU FINALLY RECOGNIZE YOUR RIDICULOUS IDIOTIC ERROR I WANT AN APOLOGY FROM BOTH YOU AND PAULK.

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I understood that PaulK opened this thread being opened for that reason. As well as the fact the PaulK was not discussing changes post-DSS.

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NO HE WAS IN ERROR AS I *WAS* DISCUSSING ONLY THE POST-DSS PERIOD AND HE KEPT INSISTING ON HIS PRE-DSS IRRELEVANCY.

Just think through the facts.The fact is that the scrolls found in the DSS, especially the extremely complete and well preserved Isaiah scroll, have virtually the same text we have.There is no reason to believe the texts we have came directly from the DSS. I simply assume they wouldn't have because they belonged to an isolated sect who kept their copies for their own use. However, that is completely irrelevant. Why is this a problem? Ours no doubt came from among the many other lines of texts of the same period.There does not need to be direct lineage for the match between ours and the DSS to demonstrate the accuracy of copying over the centuries.As I asked Tagless, how does HE explain the near perfect match between our Isaiah and the DSS Isaiah -- or the match between our other Bible books and the less complete DSS versions of the same books? He wouldn't answer. Sure seems obvious to me, and to plenty of Christian sources on the internet, that it demonstrates GREAT integrity to the transmission of the Bible down through the centuries.Why would copies made directly from the DSS copies have any more chance of being more accurate than copies made from the many other lines of copies available at the time? There were THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of copies made from MANY different lines of copies down through the centuries. For ours to match so well these 2100-year-old copies certainly shows the integrity of Bible transmission through the centuries.Read through the links I posted if you have any real interest in understanding this.What IS the problem here? This doesn't take genius to follow it.{EDIT: CHANGING THE TITLE. THIS IS NOT ABOUT "BIBLE INERRANCY" -- THIS IS SIMPLY ABOUT THE TRANSMISSION OF THE TEXT THROUGH THE CENTURIES}This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 07:45 PM

People seem to be unable to grapple with the idea of "many other lines of texts." Every synagogue all over the Roman Empire would have had its own copies of all the Old Testament books, in the Hebrew or even the Greek Septuagint form. Which would have been copied for use by the new Christian churches, the copies held by this remote Jewish sect at Qumran (which may not even have been functioning at the time the gospel was spreading) or copies from the various synagogues of the Diaspora in the neighborhood?EDIT TO CHANGE THE TITLE: THIS IS NOT ABOUT INERRANCYAlso added some words in the text for clarity.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 07:47 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 07:48 PM

I have not argued AT ALL about the original autographs in this discussion of the DSS. PaulK kept trying to bring that in. It was not my subject ever. That is another subject which I asked him to introduce AS another subject if it's what he's interested in. But no, he persists in misreading what I am saying, which is not and never was about the autographs. It was always only about the reliability of the transmission that can be determined from the fact that the DSS texts are virtually identical to ours. No I am not arguing that. In fact the topic of Bible inerrancy should be clearly separated from this one simple point I've been trying to make for days now, about the OBVIOUS reliability of the transmission of the texts from the time of the DSS down to us.It's SO simple: Their Isaiah and our Isaiah are the same. Explain.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 08:06 PM

There WAS a strict obsessiveness among many of the Jewish copyists. They were known for that nearly superstitious carefulness about scripture. But that point is peripheral to my point.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 08:08 PM

You didn't quote me and I don't know what you are referring to.There were THOUSANDS OF COPIES. COPIES. I'm not talking about "variations" or "traditions" I'm talking about COPIES OF THE OT SCROLLS, for the use of the various synagogues. The COPIES were INTENDED to be IDENTICAL. Nobody knows what errors may have been in some of them, as there are some minor errors in the DSS copies too, but errors are errors, they are not traditions. These are not different traditions or variations, they are all the SAME OLD TESTAMENT, hopefully with as few errors as possible. And with many to compare from, so much the less opportunity for errors to get a hold without correction. Because there are thousands of extant ancient manuscripts to compare it to that reveal that it is in error. Thousands of mss of both OT and NT back to the fourth century, an enormous wealth of manuscripts from which Bible scholars determine which are the most accurate readings.There is plenty of evidence that our own texts are accurate without the DSS but modern scholars raised doubts about this, and this is why the DSS scrolls, and particularly the very fine Isaiah scroll, are important - it shows that they are wrong, that our own Old Testament is thoroughly reliable -- at least as far back as the DSS, showing that all the meaning-changing errors so commonly supposed to have occurred over the centuries have in fact not occurred. Where is the word "variation" coming from? I have not been talking about "variations." I have been talking about the accurate transmission of only one book because it makes the point that there WAS accurate transmission against the accusations that there was not. This is not the subject and I was clear it was not the subject. I merely wanted to assent to others who have brought up this point. We know of a tradition of Jewish copyists who had such an obsessional attitude. I don't know if it's all or only some. {EDIT: And obviously if it's all, even they can make small errors in spite of themselves.}I use the term "virtually" in regard to Isaiah simply to be exact, because if I don't someobody will point out the trivial errors which would make "perfectly" false. Obviously I can't say anything or somebody will find some fault with it. I'd LIKE to say perfectly because in fact the meaning is IDENTICAL, the errors are TRIVIAL IN THE EXTREME.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 08:41 PM

Please let's just eliminate everything except the one issue this is about. There's only one issue. It's the very first one I started out with. Leave aside everything BUT this.The Isaiah scroll in the DSS is (virtually) identical to ours. This means the text has been transmitted to us from that period of time without (serious) error.Please let's stick to this one simple statement. Nothing else is required. This is the only information that is needed. The Isaiah scroll and ours are identical. Period.

Asgara, I have provided plenty of evidence on this thread to back up my points including the links about the numbers of ancient manuscripts available. Asking me to do it again is like some kind of method of torture. Besides, it's really not relevant. The only relevant thing is the original statement. All the rest of this is evasion. Copies are copies are copies. If there are errors in some of them they are still copies. YOU asked about variations. *I* was not talking about variations. I'm only talking about copies and there no reason to believe they were not very good copies as they belonged to the Jews who were very strict about their scriptures. Yes, virtually identical in meaning, all the OT scrolls possessed by all the synagogues in the Diaspora. As I said, they belonged to the synagogues, to Jews who were extremely strict about the integrity of their scriptures. We have the same scriptures now and so do they. They have not suffered from the intervening centuries. I'm sure theirs were virtually identical as the DSS are with ours. It is on the thread but it is irrelevant. It is just a side issue. Academic. Irrelevant.The ONLY relevant thing is the one statement I made at the very beginning.The Isaiah scroll in the DSS is virtually identical with our Isaiah texts and that demonstrates that our text has not suffered from changes over the centuries.I want this acknowledged. It is straightforward. It is simple. It is honest. It is true. Just acknowledge it. No other subjects matter until this is acknowledged. The thousands of manuscripts are irrelevant. The mindset of the copyists is irrelevant. The autographs are irrelevant. The actual sources of our mss is irrelevant.There is only this one obvious point on the table.Everybody needs to stop evading it and making something out of it that it's not. Please tomorrow then just seriously consider this one statement and the possibility that for some reason you are all trying to make something out of it that it is not. What is the problem? Is everybody here terrified of conceding even one simple obvious fact to a creationist? Really, the evasion of this simple logical statement is something beyond comprehension.

It doesn't. That involves the next step in the argument -- which I have very carefully NOT argued here. ONLY this one point. But if you are acknowledging this much, so far so good. Our Isaiah was copied accurately down through the centuries. Thank you.EDIT: The point was that our Isaiah text has been shown to be accurate for 2100 years.The next step in the argument is:The implication of the accuracy of the Isaiah textis that the copyists of the Christian Bible over the centuires have been very accurate overall.which has implications for the accuracy of the other books of the Bible.PLUS, the other books of the DSS are also the same books we have. They are just not as complete.This adds to the accuracy of the transmission of the Bible as a whole over the last 2100 years.That is, the whole Bible we have is the same Bible that was passed on over the last 2100 years.Can we all be on the same page with these points too?This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2005 11:24 PM