The FAILUREs of the Christian oral tradition

Gday all,

Apologists such as Roark make much of the alleged 'oral tradition' which preserved the teachings and life of Jesus until the Gospels were eventually written decades later.

Let's consider some examples :


The oral tradition totally FAILED to record the Lord's Prayer - supposedly directly taught by Jesus to the disciples. But we have DIFFERENT versions of the Lord's Prayerv - the Gospels have differing versions, and the MSS have more different versions again. The Lord's Prayer is one of the most VARIANT items in the MSS - yet supposedly this came directly from Jesus to the disciples. This shows clearly that the alleged 'oral tradition' totally failed to record Jesus alleged words.


The oral tradition totally FAILED to record the names of the apostles - we have various DIFFERENT lists.

The oral tradition totally FAILED to record correctly who Cephas and Peter were - early Christians thought Cephas and Peter were different people, but later there were considered the SAME person.

The oral tradition totally FAILED to record the (alleged) words of God himself at the baptism - early Christians quote 'this is my son, this day have I begotten thee', but later it becomes 'this is my son, in thee I am well pleased'.

The oral tradition totally FAILED to record the alleged last words of Jesus on the cross - we have DIFFERENT versions in the Gospels.

The oral tradition totally FAILED to record the genealogy of Jesus - we have DIFFERENT versions in the Gospels.


On this evidence, oral tradition conspicuously failed.


K.

G'day Kapyong,

- Firstly, of what exactly am I an "apologist"? Just because myself (and the vast majority of modern historians) disagree with your stated opinion that there is "zero evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ" doesn't make us Christian apologists. Just so you know, I am actually an atheist.

- Secondly, I was actually referring to the Jewish oral tradition, not the Christian oral tradition (indicating the cultural group). I think you'll find that the Jewish oral tradition did an amazingly spectacular job of preserving Jewish history over millenia. Anyone who denies this is delusional. Given that the first Christians were Jews, it is natural that they used this method for passing on their knowledge of events in their time.

- Despite your hairsplitting of the details in your post above, if you knew ANYTHING about the Dead Sea scrolls of Qumran, or the science of textual criticism, you'd find that the similarity (to each other) of the various vastly-disparate manuscripts recording earliest Christian events is actually quite remarkable.

- Over 25,000 ancient manuscripts have been found of the New Testament writings. This is, again, nothing short of remarkable in the world of archaeology and textual attestation of early Christian events. So, forget about oral tradition, if you like. There is plenty of written evidence that this man existed and affected the lives of enough people that this utterly unlikely-sized archive of manuscripts has survived to this day.

All considering, the discrepancies are very few and far between. Many of them are simply differences in translations. John, for example was around long enough to train Polycarp, and by the time Polycarp’s student Irenaeus wrote his works, the books were already pretty much accepted by the Christian Church of the day. Please don’t tell me this is a Constantine/Council of Nicaea rant, because that is a work of fiction from the “Da Vinci Code”.

reply to post by Kapyong

It's easy to criticize the Media. Bandwidth or strength/quality of the frequency...
...and then miss the person described in the message.

I have seen this many times...
...a person becomes seduced by some form of biblical criticism...
...and fails to understand the story being told.

It's like being given a $1,000,000 check...
...and then criticizing the quality of the ink or the paper it is printed on.

Considering that heretics and satanist organizations such as freemasonry have done everything in their power to corrupt, undermine and discredit the Bible, it has stood the test of time remarkably well.

Modern archeology is also slowly step by step confirming much of what is in the Old Testament.

I would not be to concerned about splitting hairs over minor details.
What is important is the broader message contained in the Bible, and that has not changed over two thousand years.

[edit on 25/3/2010 by Silver Shadow]

Consider this:

The most important factors in determining the reliability of a historical document are A)the number of manuscript copies in existence and B) the time between when it was first written and the oldest existing copy.

In comparision....

Author Written Earliest Copies Time Span #ofCopies

Caesar (Gallic Wars) 100-44 BC c. AD 900 c. 1,000 years 10

Plato (Tetralogies) 427-347 BC c. AD 900 c. 1,300 years 7

Thucydides (History) 460-400 BC c. AD 900 c. 1,300 years 8

Sophocles 496-406 BC c. AD 1,000 c. 1,400 years 100

Catullus 54 BC c. AD 1,550 c. 1,600 years 3

Euripides 480-406 BC c. AD 1,100 c. 1,500 years 9

Aristotle 384-322 BC c. AD 1,100 c. 1,400 years 5

Homer (Iliad) 800 BC c. 400 BC c. 400 years 643

Herodotus (History) 480-425 BC c. AD 900 c. 1,350 years 8

Demosthenes 300 BC c. AD 1100 c. 1,400 years 200

Livy (History of Rome) 59 BC c. 350 (partial) c. 400 years 1 partial

(Natural History) AD 61-113 c. AD 850 c. 750 years 7

New Testament AD 40-100 AD 125 25 years 24,000+

(from Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, Don't Check Your Brains at the Door, and Josh McDowell, New Evidence that Demands a Verdict)

It is to laugh. Some brains get way oversised. Jesus Christ existed.
That's pretty much the reason for the religion, that most of the world
claims. It's called CHRISTianity. I'm sure you've heard of it. Must be fully important to you to
prove the world wrong though. You just make things really hard to understand for yourself not anyone else.

You should try Mahammed some time, hey I know Zeus, it would be a lot easier to prove he didn't exist. You wouldn't have the muzlim extremists
trying to take your head that way either. Lots safer, oh maybe that's
why you pick on Christ.

Different... Variant... Alleged... Failed.

"...with what judgement you judge you shall be judged."

Do you know simple Judaean Aramaic or Hebrew?
What is 'ShaPheTh'? Distinguishing Distinguish Distinguished?
or would you say He means; "Condemnation Condemn Condemned"?

How do you "Judge"?

Gday,

Originally posted by Roark
- Secondly, I was actually referring to the Jewish oral tradition, not the Christian oral tradition (indicating the cultural group). I think you'll find that the Jewish oral tradition did an amazingly spectacular job of preserving Jewish history over millenia. Anyone who denies this is delusional. Given that the first Christians were Jews, it is natural that they used this method for passing on their knowledge of events in their time.

Yes, but as I showed above, that alleged method failed in numerous cases.

But you just ignored all those facts.

Originally posted by Roark
- Despite your hairsplitting of the details in your post above, if you knew ANYTHING about the Dead Sea scrolls of Qumran, or the science of textual criticism, you'd find that the similarity (to each other) of the various vastly-disparate manuscripts recording earliest Christian events is actually quite remarkable.

Once again, you preach faithful beliefs and just completely IGNORE the evidence I posted.

You'll never actually address those problems I posted above, will you?

Originally posted by Roark
- Over 25,000 ancient manuscripts have been found of the New Testament writings. This is, again, nothing short of remarkable in the world of archaeology and textual attestation of early Christian events. So, forget about oral tradition, if you like. There is plenty of written evidence that this man existed and affected the lives of enough people that this utterly unlikely-sized archive of manuscripts has survived to this day.

10,000 copies of the writings of the Monk Han-SHou exist.
Huge numbers of copies of the Book of Mormon exist.
Millions of copies of the Lord of the Rings exist.
So what?

The NUMBER of copies of a book has NOTHING to do with the truth of it's contents.

Can you explain WHY on earth YOU think it does?


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by defcon5
All considering, the discrepancies are very few and far between. Many of them are simply differences in translations.

Rubbish.
They are major differrences -
changing the words of God?
changing the last words of Jesus?
changing the Lords' Prayer?

You simply ignored the facts I posted.

Originally posted by defcon5
John, for example was around long enough to train Polycarp,

Wrong.
John never said he met Polycarp,
Polycarp never said he met John.
It was a CLAIM by Irenaeus long long after the alleged events.
Anything emply CLAIM that Christians all BELIEVE.

Originally posted by defcon5
and by the time Polycarp’s student Irenaeus wrote his works, the books were already pretty much accepted by the Christian Church of the day.

Wrong again.
The books were still being changed in that time.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by troubleshooter
reply to post by Kapyong

 

It's easy to criticize the Media. Bandwidth or strength/quality of the frequency...
...and then miss the person described in the message.

I have seen this many times...
...a person becomes seduced by some form of biblical criticism...
...and fails to understand the story being told.

It's like being given a $1,000,000 check...
...and then criticizing the quality of the ink or the paper it is printed on.

Another post full of preaching which conspicuously FAILED to actually address the facts I posted.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
Considering that heretics and satanist organizations such as freemasonry have done everything in their power to corrupt, undermine and discredit the Bible, it has stood the test of time remarkably well.

More preaching.
Completely ignoring the major differences I posted about.

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
Modern archeology is also slowly step by step confirming much of what is in the Old Testament.

Rubbish.
Only true believers believe that.
Archeologists agree the Bible is myth in it's early stages.
Adam, Noah, Joseph, Moses, Solomon - all myths.

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
I would not be to concerned about splitting hairs over minor details.
What is important is the broader message contained in the Bible, and that has not changed over two thousand years.

They are actually MAJOR details, which is why you FAILED to actually address any of them.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
Consider this:
The most important factors in determining the reliability of a historical document are A)the number of manuscript copies in existence and B) the time between when it was first written and the oldest existing copy.

Completely false.

You have confused two fundamentally different issues - you is arguing that because we have so many copies this proves the contents true. Well, this is obviously not true - the number of copies has nothing to do with the truth of the contents. Consider -

* the Iliad - over 600 manuscripts, more than the NT until after 1000AD - does this mean that the Iliad was more true than the NT until about 1000AD, but from the middle ages on, the NT became MORE TRUE than the Iliad?

* the works of 10thC. Yen-Shou of Hangchow - about 400,000 copies exist, about 4000 times as many copies as NT copies at that time - does this make the work over 4000 times MORE TRUE than the NT?

* the Book of Mormon - there are millions of copies of this work, many dating maybe a FEW YEARS after the original - would this make the Book of Mormon much MORE TRUE than the NT?

* the Lord of the Rings - there are many millions of copies of this work, (including the original manuscript AFAIK), dating from very soon after its writing - does this makes the Lord of the Rings of vastly more true than the NT?

No.
It should be obvious that the NUMBER of copies attesting to a work gives no support to the truth of the contents - yet apologists repeatedly bring this point up as if it proves something.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
B) the time between when it was first written and the oldest existing copy.

Wrong again.

We have the ORIGINALS written in stone of ancient egyptian myths about Osiris etc. (e.g. the pyramdi texts.)

These ORIGINAL TEXTS are MUCH closer in time to heir writing than the NT texts - therefor according to YOUR argument, they are MORE true than the NT.

We have copies of the Book of Mormon from with a year or two of it's writing. This ORIGINAL TEXTS is MUCH closer in time to heir writing than the NT texts - therefore according to YOUR argument, the Book of Mormon is MORE true than the NT.

This argument is complett and utter nonsense.

The earlyness of a copy of a book of myths has NOTHING to do with whether the book is true.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by randyvs
It is to laugh. Some brains get way oversised. Jesus Christ existed.
That's pretty much the reason for the religion, that most of the world
claims. It's called CHRISTianity. I'm sure you've heard of it. Must be fully important to you to prove the world wrong though. You just make things really hard to understand for yourself not anyone else.

It is to laugh. Some brains get way oversised. Xenu existed.
That's pretty much the reason for the religion, that most of the world
claims. It's called Scientology. I'm sure you've heard of it. Must be fully important to you to prove the world wrong though. You just make things really hard to understand for yourself not anyone else.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by YeHUaH ELaHaYNU
Different... Variant... Alleged... Failed.
"...with what judgement you judge you shall be judged."
Do you know simple Judaean Aramaic or Hebrew?
What is 'ShaPheTh'? Distinguishing Distinguish Distinguished?
or would you say He means; "Condemnation Condemn Condemned"?
How do you "Judge"?

WTF?


K.

So,

NOT ONE of you actually addressed the facts I posted.

NOT ONE of you could even bring yourself to quote my words!

I win.


K.

personally, i believe jesus existed.
the questions are,
virgin birth?
walk on water?
resurrection?
etc....etc....

reminds me of the old game in grade school, start a rumor, pass it down the line, and by the time it get to the end it's always different, blown out of proportion.


[edit on 25-3-2010 by rubbertramp]

Originally posted by rubbertramp
personally, i believe jesus existed.
the questions are,
virgin birth?
walk on water?
resurrection?
etc....etc....

reminds me of the old game in grade school, start a rumor, pass it down the line, and by the time it get to the end it's always different, blown out of proportion.

I have read N.T.Wright's book..."The Resurrection of the Son of God"

It is an extensive study of The Resurrection accounts, the historical background on attitudes about death during that time, the setting in which it happened and the effect it had on those that witnessed it.

It was either true or you have to accept that a group of uneducated fisherman had a revolution in thought about death that changed thousands of years of historical and local ideas in seven fundamental and revolutionary ways.

N.T.Wright is one of the Church of England leading scholars, Bishop of Duram and member of the House of Lords...
...before you dismiss the reality of the resurrection or criticise it read this book.

www.amazon.com...

reply to post by troubleshooter


interesting, i'd like to read that.
there's also the other theory that the romans drugged him with certain herbs before crucifiction. i for get the herb names, but it is true that certain ones slow the heartbeat enough to make one appear dead.
actually, i believe this concept was mentioned in one of dan browns books.