Talk:Internal consistency of the Bible

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Talk:Internal consistency of the Bible


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[edit] New Testament section

I think this section needs to be resourced. Textual criticism of the New Testament has been outstandingly successful. All works known only from manuscripts are ultimately provided in critical editions. The word critical has a technical meaning, not a negative one. Text criticism is the process of documenting variation between manuscripts, with the aim of inferring the original -- it is a positive exercise. New Testament manuscripts are more numerous and less diverse (especially considering their number) than any other manuscript evidence, from antiquity or even from just prior to the advent of printing. This is uncontroversial among those who study such things.

The text we have in our article currently seems to suggest (to me at least) the following bizarre argument: there is a high count of variations between New Testament manuscripts, therefore we don't know the original text of the New Testament with any certainty.

If I have only two copies of quotations of Socrates that vary in only one word, what is the count of variations? One. If you have five thousand copies of an essay by Thomas Aquinas, several of which vary by whole sentences, what is the count of variations? It will be of the order of (length of essay) to the power of (number of copies). This will be a very large number.

According to the argument implied in the text of the current Wiki article, this methodology makes my knowledge of Socrates thousands, if not millions, of times more reliable than your knowledge of Aquinas. Methinks this is a joke. If we had only one copy of the New Testament, say Codex Vaticanus, the current Wiki argument would have us believe we knew the NT with 100% reliability because there was a variation count of precisely zero.

Textual criticism is an exacting science, that has produced quality results. It is cited here contrary both to its methods and to its results. Textual criticism does not count variations, it weighs them. It documents, classifies, examines and then infers the original that explains the variations. The Alands point out that after all the modern analysis is done, the result agrees with previous, cruder attempts in about 2/3 of cases. As they note, this says something about the consistency of the material -- it is so homogenous that even bumbling efforts produce the right answer in the majority of cases.

Modern textual Christism is Christianity's answer to questions regarding the integrity of the text, and the access we have to the original. It is the foundation that makes an article like the current one meaningful and not merely speculative. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Right on. But what you say applies to the entire bible, not just the NT - there are plenty of manuscript families for the OT - the LXX, the MT, the SP, the DSS, to name just the major divisions. Then there are variations within those divisions. It's fascinating, for example, to compare the differing versions of David's fight with Goliath, or the various biblical chronologies. But what the article currently lacks entirely is any discussion of what these inconsistencies tell us about the growth and meaning of the bible. Instead, it goes on and on in an attempt to prove that the inconsistencies aren't really there at all. Inconsistencies are undeniably present - but so are consistencies. (Have you read Jan-Wim Wesselius? A 'bible-has-one-author' man, but from a very odd perspective. One author, of course, should tend towards consistency). PiCo (talk) 06:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
No I haven't read Wesselius, I'll look him up at MTC library next Monday.
I'm personally open to all sorts of theories of progressive composition myself. What text criticism tells us, though, is that the text became "frozen" at some point. There were all sorts of errors in transmission from that point, but not so many that the "frozen" point has been erased beyond retracing, quite the opposite.
But the point here is that scribes didn't change the text anywhere like as much as has been proposed editors may have massaged earlier sources.
This poses all sorts of interesting questions. If progressive composition was almost a norm for some of the OT books (and some of them cite sources), why and when did this stop? How was the "frozen" text selected out of prior texts? If, say Moses selected Genesis 1 from a particular "transcendent" tradition and Genesis 2 from another "imminence" tradition, what would that say to various theories? Could Mosaic editing and earlier sources ultimately be compatible? Could Moses have made a mistake in overlooking some incompatibility between his sources? Could this have been serendipitous? The New Testament attributes truth to Caiaphas' "It is expedient that one man die for the people."
There is a famous joke in Greek classical scholarship: "of course, we now know Homer didn't write the Iliad, it was another writer with the same name." There are limits to the bounds of reasonable scepticism.
Of course, the epistles of the NT claim specific authorship and appear to fit into a historical chronology. Inconsistency in these would not easily be "explained away".
I'm completely with you on this I think PiCo. Neither those who wish to sweep away any scrutiny of textual composition and transmission, nor those who wish to rush to dismissal of the Bible because there was no independent auditing body involved in the process, neither of these groups should be allowed to squeeze genuine questions and serious answers out of this article. There are many things that are not known which leave space for divergent views. However, there is a lot known that rules out many simplistic arguments either way.
I'm happy for cited conservative Christian commentary to be removed if is dogmatic rather than explanatory. But likewise sources that make weak cases against the Bible are better cited in so far as they raise questions, rather than as serious considerations of all the evidence.
I'm thinking a way forward might be to have articles Textual transmission of the Tanakh and Textual transmission of the New Testament. That would allow space to consider the issues neutrally, without cluttering this article.
I found this excellent diagram describing the textual history of Philo. Obviously, the text of the Bible is much, much more complex, but not beyond laying out nicely and clearly in a Wiki article. Alastair Haines (talk) 07:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The "high count" was a more recent addition, and it was a misrepresentation of the original thought, which I cleared up here and other articles it was placed on. The quote from the authors is poignant, though, and I think it should be retained. I thought "Inerrancy and the Text of the New Testament: Assessing the Logic of the Agnostic View" by Daniel B. Wallace (Executive Director, Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts) was interesting, and it provides "sound bites" which might be helpful, including a ref'd source for other ancient classics (Homer, etc.) vs. the MSS. It can be found in PDF here: http://www.4truth.net/atf/cf/%7B0AA41589-FF9B-4057-8DD8-4C34D14E6387%7D/NTTCinerrancyNAMB.pdf --Faith (talk) 08:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I've had a look at the article and it is good standard stuff and bang on topic. Does the link to it give any indication of the journal or book it was published in? Wallace is very well known.
The thing about this is that the reliability of the text makes inerrancy vulnerable to criticism, which is very helpful indeed. If the autographs were hopelessly lost, inerrancy could never be challenged. If the Bible were proved wrong on some point. They could simply retreat back on a trump-card, saying, "Ah yes, quite, our copies of the Bible are in error here, but the originals would have been correct, of course." Discussion degenerates into assertions of prefered speculation. "We are certain the originals are perfect" v "We are certain the originals are nonsense, just like what we have now." The latter case would be stronger, because it would at least have evidence ... the copies.
That the text of the Bible has been reliably transmitted is essential to the critic of the Bible, not to the dogmatic inerrantist. The only thing more foolish than dogmatic speculation about inerrant but unavailable originals is arguing "the Bible is all nonsense, just look at it ... and what's more, we can't even be sure this is what it said in the first place." The latter crazy argument shoots itself in the foot. Fine for anonymous Wiki editors to make this argument, but it'd be death for any self respecting academic attempting to criticise the Bible.
No, no, what we need to do is explain exactly why Bible defenders are backed into a corner here, we've pretty much got the text the same as it ever was, so let the criticisms come in on the basis of that text. Having said that though, there are a few cases where textual criticism can be a small issue. The pericope of the adulteress and the long ending of Mark appear to contain historical inaccuracies and other inconsistencies, however, they are also not in the earliest Greek manuscripts. Alastair Haines (talk) 10:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure it was published outside http://www.csntm.org/ but that really wouldn't land it in the self-published category, IMO, because as you point out he's a very well known scholar, and also, the site is obviously peer-reviewed among his fellow scholars. The link to the PDF was a repository of the original, I think. I'll look over next few days to see if I can find it elsewhere (journal, etc.). (Seems to only be located "http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLrF/b.2903861/k.A9E/Inerrancy_and_the_Text_of_the_New_Testament_Assessing_the_Logic_of_the_Agnostic_View__Apologetics.htm")
"This result is quite amazing, demonstrating a far greater agreement among the Greek texts of the New Testament during the past century than textual scholars would have suspected" was the quote I was meaning; nice, and reliably referenced (and it can be verified accurate through Amazon look inside for the book). --Faith (talk) 13:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Faith, it's a quality source as you say. Not only that, there are many other sources that say the same. Additionally, Wallace is working from thousands of sources that can also be verified. You have found a great summary statement of all the evidence. Alastair Haines (talk) 22:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wallace

"The data are growing; every decade, and virtually every year, new manuscripts (MSS) are discovered. Currently, the number of Greek NT MSS is approaching 5700—far more than any other ancient literary text. The average classical author’s writings, in fact, are found in about twenty extant MSS. The NT—in the Greek MSS alone—beats this by almost 300 times! Besides the Greek MSS, there are Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, and many other versions of the NT. The Latin MSS alone number almost 10,000. All told, the NT is represented by approximately 1000 times as many MSS as the average classical author’s writings. And even the extraordinary authors—such as Homer or Herodotus—simply can’t compare to the quantity of copies that the NT enjoys. Homer in fact is a distant second in terms of copies, yet there are there are fewer than 2500 copies of Homer extant today." Wallace, Daniel B., professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Seminary and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (csntm.org). "Inerrancy and the Text of the New Testament: Assessing the Logic of the Agnostic View" PDF --Faith (talk) 13:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

And see List of New Testament papyri and List of New Testament uncials here at our very own Wiki. Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Tanakh at Qumran may interest you also. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 22:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ehrman and Wallace

I've removed a sentence which mentioned that Ehrman and Wallace have debated. Big whoop. What does that have to do with "Internal consistency of the Bible"? I also removed a quote from Wallace which is aiming general criticism at Ehrman. It is poisoning the well. If Ehrman is not a reliable source, we should not use him. Wallace is not criticizing the specific claims we are citing. On top of that, the info we are getting from Ehrman isn't controversial. I think it is problematic that we are citing Ehrman's popular work "Misquoting Jesus". We should be citing one of his more scholarly works intead (unless there are arguments to be made that we shouldn't be citing Ehrman at all due to WP:RS concerns.) Also, I'm not fond of having so much quoted material (specifically the Ehrman paragraph, and the Aland paragraph above). It is not encyclopedic. We should write prose in our own words summarizing the sources. -Andrew c [talk] 00:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I've reverted your removal and qualified the statement with a further direct quote from Wallace. Also, Wallace and Ehrman directly debated on this subject matter, so it's not "big whoop". The Ehrman quote added by another editor states one thing, and Wallace's quote balances that statement with reasons why Ehrman overstated the case. Two editors complained about a "softer" statement because it came from a pastor. Wallace is a scholar of equal footing as Ehrman, so that was substituted. Both are RS.
  • The quotes are slowly being rewritten by an editor who is working on it as he has time. In the meantime, the quotes replace huge amounts of unsourced editor opinion that existed in the article before. Since they come from very large pieces of work, the quotes represent a reasonble amount under Fair Use. --Faith (talk) 01:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
The quote you just added (thought I still oppose using so much quoted text in this manner) is much more appropriate because it is in direct reply to things Ehrman said. That said, I believe the quote is too long, and it isn't appropriate to allow Wallace to characterize Ehrman's view. On top of that, the second quote simply should not be in this article. Bart’s black and white mentality as a fundamentalist has hardly been affected as he slogged through the years and trials of life and learning, even when he came out on the other side of the theological spectrum. He still sees things without sufficient nuancing, he overstates his case, and he is entrenched in the security that his own views are right. Bart Ehrman is one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I’ve ever known, and yet his biases are so strong that, at times, he cannot even acknowledge them It is general criticism aimed at Ehrman. It is well poisoning. Ehrman cannot respond to it, and it has no bearing on the internal consistency of the Bible.
I think the direction this whole section is going is very poor. We should come out and explain the basic facts that are not controversial. If we want to, we could discuss some of the controversial details. However, the quoted material from Ehrman is not a good example of controversial material, so it seems like we are taking up space going on a tangent for material that isn't that big of a deal. It seems like what we have here is someone who doesn't like Ehrman and is trying to get the last word in regarding Ehrman, even though we haven't even presented any of the controversial/disputed stuff Ehrman has said. Where I think this is going is that we need a section which discusses the dispute regarding "how sure are we that today's bibles represent the words of the original authors?" which is a valid question, and the answer is disputed. I have mixed feeling on how that topic actually relates to the topic of "Internal consistency of the Bible". Part of me feels like that discussion is off topic and belongs elsewhere. It isn't so much internal consistency of the bible, but simply consistency between manuscripts of the bible. IMO, not the same thing. I think if we are going to discuss that, we should definitely cite Metzger (IIRC) who is vocal about being 95-99% certain that the text of the New Testament represents the autographs.
These are bigger scope topics that we should discuss before moving forward so that we are all on the same page. As it stands, I'm OK with the Ehrman quote, and the first Wallace quote (maybe without the last sentence) being in the article, with the expressed view that the section needs a complete re-write, and we shouldn't pair quote after quote after quote against each other as a writing style. The second Wallace quote needs to go.-Andrew c [talk] 01:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Again, the quotes in general are necessary at this point, as no one else has volunteered to accurately paraphrase the quoted authors. The article, as it stood before the changes in the last three weeks, was a massive dump of editor OR. This is not perfect, but it's a vast improvement.
Now that it's being discussed properly, I'd agree to the removal of the second quote as the first outlines Wallace's problems with Ehrman's statement directly, while I agree the second quote is (completely relevant, but) less specific. The debate is an interesting sidenote which may not be completely necessary, but provides insight to this being an ongoing debate between the two on these issues, indicting they still do not agree as of April 2008.
I object to you personalising this as dislike of Ehrman. Please leave personal judgments out of the discussion. The Wallace addition was a change from a softer criticism that was objected to by two editors, the first who removed himself from the discussion (conclusion drawn after a week of no response and no further changes, implying agreement per wiki guidelines), and the second more recent complaint along the same lines. Ehrman was added as a one-sided POV by another editor; Wallace responded to that directly concerning both the source and the material and was added as a counterpoint to allow the reader to reach their own conclusion. The relevance, I assume, judged by the inserting editor, was Ehrman is stating there are mass amount of variants (i.e., inconsistent material), where Wallace is saying Ehrman overstates the case.
Acceptable proposal of quote from Wallace, "Elsewhere [Ehrman] states that the number of variants is as high as 400,000. That is true enough, but by itself is misleading. Anyone who teaches NT textual criticism knows that this fact is only part of the picture and that, if left dangling in front of the reader without explanation, is a distorted view. Once it is revealed that the great majority of these variants are inconsequential—involving spelling differences that cannot even be translated, articles with proper nouns, word order changes, and the like—and that only a very small minority of the variants alter the meaning of the text, the whole picture begins to come into focus. Indeed, only about 1% of the textual variants are both meaningful and viable." I agree the last sentence can go, but this counterpoint needs to stay as it directly responds to the Ehrman quote. --Faith (talk) 01:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I have not absented myself from this - I have been very busy with other things and haven't had he opportunity to take part here with the sort of depth this discussion needs, so have not commented. For what it's worth, I agree with Andrew c's comments. This part of the article is essentially a simplistic, "Ehrman says this, someone else points out that he's wrong" approach. There seems to be a basic assumption here that the point of the article is to examine alleged inconsistencies and answer them. I hope to have time to pitch in more fully next week.--Rbreen (talk) 10:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
While we are on the topic, the Roy A. Harrisville quote needs to go as well. We haven't even presented the mainstream view of "Current Biblical Criticism", yet we are presenting a critique? Talk about undue weight. Maybe if we had a section describing mainstream biblical criticism, it would be appropriate to present the critiques and minority POV. But we don't even have that.-Andrew c [talk] 01:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I think you are misunderstanding the addition of that quotation. I agree things need to be rewritten, but the point was to add information about "taking its lead from a community of scholars outside the theological disciplines", showing where critical examination began using methods from the secular world, such as form and source criticism. --Faith (talk) 02:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Andrew c's point.--Rbreen (talk) 10:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I have now trimmed back both the Ehrman quote and the response. I think it's a lot clearer now - though actually I'm not sure the two are in substantive disagreement here. The main thing is we have got away from the rather pointless reference to the number of variants, to the bigger question of what difference, if any, they make. --Rbreen (talk) 12:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Rbreen. I think it's not just Ehrman and Wallace who are being quoted at cross purposes, i.e. there is no disagreement in the quotes of any relevance. Sadly, I also think all those editors commenting on the section are in broad agreement on relevant issues, yet may not feel this to be the case.

It's worth bearing in mind that the majority of textual criticism regarding the Bible is done by Christians, including many preachers each week. Textual criticism doesn't state what's wrong with the text, rather it critically examines the alternatives with the hope of discovering the original. That's something that aids everyone. It gives Christians something to believe, it gives others something to challenge.

The Metzger quote is excellent, though I'd like to see a reliable non-Christian source that claims otherwise (there are many in Islam alone). Although it seems everyone here would trust Metzger, this would not be true of readers in Pakistan, for example (or in Bankstown, Sydney, Australia, where I live -- a Muslim area). But I am complicating the issue ...

I agree with the suggestion that text criticism and related issues need to be dealt with in other articles (obviously text criticism itself). If that article doesn't already answer the questions raised in the current article, it needs to be expanded so that it does, or a new article needs to be drafted or stubbed to deal with it.

I think the appropriate place to deal with TC in this article is at the top-ish somewhere, refering the interested reader to detailed treatment of "recovering the words of the originals". Lectio dificilior, haplography, orthography, dittography, gloss, corrector, version and certain other ideas and annoyingly foreign terminology are standard prinicples that are fascinating and informing once the terminology is swallowed. If they are not currently in TC, they should be. Alastair Haines (talk) 12:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I removed the Ehrman and Wallace section, and reorder it completely (separating the Aland quote) so that it made some sort of flowing sense. --Faith (talk) 07:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Faith, I request that you put back the quote of at least Ehrman. The section now reads more glowingly of the biblical test than without Ehrman's. It is less complete and almost seems to spin a picture that textual critics would not completely agree with. There would be clarifications that they would desire to make; Ehrman begins to open that picture to them. Thoughts? --Storm Rider (talk) 07:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but after reviewing what each author has written, I'm finding the Ehrman and Wallace quotes aren't necessary as they are actually covering older ground, where Aland and Aland speak of later editions, ones more likely to be in circulation now, which have greater consistancy. Ehrman and Wallace quotes might have a place in a historical section, but aren't really relevant to current editions. And we shouldn't replace Ehrman without the counterpoint of Wallace, as Wallace is directly responding to Ehrman's book that we are quoting. --Faith (talk) 07:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't' have a problem with including both Ehrman and Wallace (But I think Aland already fulfills the same position), but I still think you are overplaying the position of Aland. I think you will find that Ehrman's criticism is directly applicable to Biblical texts used today. Textual critics would reject your proposition that Aland is somehow newer, current, or more modern and Ehrman's position is passé. In fact, I have never heard that position taken by anyone; do you have a reference that I can review? Also, your deletion in contested I will revert it until we can come to consensus here.--Storm Rider (talk) 07:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Kurt Aland is dead. He is famous for his contributions to the academically standard text-critical edition of the New Testament Novum Testamentum Graece. It is rather hard to imagine voices more authoritative than Aland, Nestle and Bruce Metzger in the field of NT textual criticism. It is almost a dead subject, as seen by the convergence of the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft text with the United Bible Societies text.

With the concrete evidence compiled and made easily available to interpreters, more interesting, but more speculative discussions, like the possible existence of pre-autograph recensions, and so on, can be explored. Ehrman is certainly notable for this article. He is certainly not reliable. He represents no Christian consensus (he is agnostic), but nor does he represent non-Christian scholastic consensus. He is far too creative in his views to have led a pretty conservative kind of academic community to major new conclusions.

So that is the main contrast that we are working with. On the one hand, there is pretty much rock solid consensus about the text of the NT. On the other, Bart Ehrman is a brilliant and brave man pushing the field of NT criticism forward on the back of 20th century results. He is our Julius Wellhausen. But what will be the result? It is not for Wiki to guess at that.

Where does Daniel B. Wallace fit in? He's the kind of cannon fodder sort of source, of which Wiki ought primarily to be composed. That is, he fits right slap-bang in the middle of conservative orthodoxy in his discipline. There are dozens more like him, though he is particularly famous, since he wrote a very accessible text book on advanced understanding of Greek, including the most up to date linguistics. If we footnote Wallace, we could add dozens (or even hundreds of sources) that cite him as a standard reference. New Testament scholarship doesn't hang off Wallace, he's just one of many going the same way, pretty much irrespective of denominational association. Language is language it's not as controversial as claims like Ehrman's that challenge doctrine.

I should add here. Scholars are not respected because of the positions they hold or their denominational affiliation. They win positions because they read a lot of books and people want them to keep reading and publishing what they find in their reading. Nestle, Aland and Metzger, for example, have looked at thousands of Greek manuscripts with their own eyes, because they were paid to do this and report the findings. That kind of knowledge is irreplaceable. It's not a matter of genius, it's a matter of faithfulness, diligence and accountability. Wallace and the mainstream follow in such footsteps. Ehrman, on the other hand, is an Einstein like genius creatively throwing new theories, based on exactly the same material the mainstream have. If he's right, it could change everything. However, neither experiments nor consensus have, as yet, validated him.

For Wiki to present Ehrman on equal footing with Wallace is undue weight and confuses scholars with arguments. In some ways it's Ehrman versus the rest, but that's not quite fair either. Maybe Ehrman can't prove everything, but he's not been disproved on everything either. In one way Ehrman fits into the psuedo-science and fringe loony theory box, but then again, so did Einstein. But Wiki is not about fund-raising for research programs, it's about documenting reliable evidence and competing interpretation with appropriate weight to the differing views.

Conclusion. I think Wiki needs much, much, much more writing up of Ehrman's views. Cutting edge theories are fascinating. Considering everything that's new to be future orthodoxy simply being suppressed by the status quo is just not encyclopedic though. Ehrman has little place in this article, mainly because manuscript diversity is actually not much of an issue in NT scholarship. It is merely routinely considered in serious examinations of any passage all mss "POV"s will be mentioned and writers explain which they prefer and why.

Anyone who's new to the field can check Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Check World Cat for other New Testament journals, there are hundreds of them, JNT is international and offers abstracts though. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 08:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Alastair, for the simple minded (lol), are you saying you agree with removal or want it remain? --Faith (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scripture or scripture

I noticed Scripture was changed to scripture in the article. Per MoS: capital letters, it would seem to me that Scripture is correct, where Scripture is being used as a substitute for 'the Word of God', indicating it deserves the same respectful capitalisation as Bible. --Faith (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The standard in most theological journal style guides prefers biblical and lower case as much as possible. This is sometimes explained as a general tendency towards less capitalization. I have become used to it, and find older articles somewhat "pushy" with lots of capitalization. Titles of respect are dropped in reference to writers, I don't think this is discrimination, Faith. Bible, Septuagint, Codex Vaticanus are all proper nouns (more or less). Scripture is much more generic. There is a shade of grey between proper and common nouns. I like Scripture when used as a substitute for Bible, but I also like scripture. When I write, sometimes I mean the ideas conveyed by the Bible, or particular passages I don't specify. When used in this way, the lower case indicates I am speaking generically and aids comprehension, Scripture would actually be incorrect. If Scripture is being used as a synonym for Bible, forced because reference is to Tanakh, Old Testament–New Testament and Qur'an, then a generic capital is needed. When last I checked, the MoS wasn't sufficiently detailed to cover such usage. If the word scripture refers identically or generically to books that would be capitalized it should be capital, if it is to the concept of canonical religious works, or to parts of actual works then it should not be capitalized. Can't source this yet, and probably won't find time. Google Scholar "Scripture" search is the long slow way to research this. Different publishers will have different practice, "errors" will also escape detection, because it's such a subtle point. Alastair Haines (talk) 13:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. A good example that was changed would be, "Grammatico-historical exegesis is determining the meaning of scripture by understanding the author's environment outside the Bible, as well as the scripture itself". Scripture should be capitalised especially in the second case where the Scripture and Bible are in juxtaposition. Anyway, since you three (four) seem determined to take this article in a different direction now, I feel I am no longer useful here. Best of luck. (Just please keep those bloody ugly tables of OR and SYN out) --Faith (talk) 13:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
First of all, when I made my edit and said "per MoS", my memory failed me (for whatever reason I thought this was a specific example addressed in the MoS. And perhaps it was in a previous revision). That said, I still believe the spirit of the MoS supports lowercase. It generally says: Wikipedia follows a conservative usage style for capitalization (unnecessary capitalization is avoided). The main use of capitalization is for proper names, acronyms, and initialisms. The key words are conservative and unnecessary capitalization is avoided. Next, there is a part that says Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case. Scripture is traditionally capitalized within a faith, is it not? These two guiding principles lead me to believe we should err on the side of avoiding unnecessary capitalization. However, this topic is gray in that arguements could be made that "scripture" is a proper noun (though I don't think it is. scripture does not mean Bible, just like "road" does not mean "Hollywood Boulevard", "book" does not mean "Catcher in the Rye", and "hospital" does not mean "St. Mary's Medical Center".) But this is a very minor point, and if there is consensus against my change, I don't want to push this matter further. And I really do not want to discourage you from editing, especially based on a mundane style dispute. I'm also sorry you feel ganged up on. I really want to work with you, and your perspective is important, especially when it comes to balancing POVs and reaching talk page consensus. I hope you reconsider working with us. When there is a group of editors working together, a lot can be accomplished (though it may not always go smoothly). -Andrew c [talk] 15:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I'm sorry I didn't express myself well enough here. I simply think Scripture when it's replacing Bible, for the same reason we capitalise Bible; and scripture if we are saying scripture analysis, etc. My bowing out has nothing at all to do with the MoS issue, but rather with the overall direction this article is now being taken. I don't think I'll be of much use as it heads down a completely different path, other than perhaps finding refs, because I'm not a literary genius; I'm just someone with a lot of books and a good eye for finding references online. --Faith (talk) 16:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm old enough to feel tempted to cling to 'Scripture', just like 'BC/AD'. However I think Alastair is right to say that the modern trend is towards lower case of such terms, and not just in theological journals. The MoS guidelines seem to suggest that specific works (Koran, Bible, etc) should be capitalised, but from what I can see it implies that 'the scripture' should not; by analogy, it suggests 'biblical' rather than 'Biblical'. Personally, I am comfortable with 'Scripture' as meaning 'the whole body of texts' but 'scripture' when referring to a specific text. However, given the diversity of Wikipedia I wonder if that's workable. Do we refer to Muslim and Buddhist texts, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead as 'Scripture'? --Rbreen (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Faith, you've made an enormously valuable contribution to this article, and it would be a pity to see you go. I'm sure you still have useful things to say! --Rbreen (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, that's kind. I'll keep it on my watch list, but I don't see where I'll be much help now. Faith (talk) 05:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts on the meaning of consistency

I'm sitting in a hotel in Bangkok and it's raining like it never means to stop. We were on our way out for a post-dinner drink when it started pouring down, and since the streets turn to rivers and the sensation of wet clothing touching skin is inherently unpleasant, we satyed in. And so now here I am, sitting over a bottle of beer in the hotel cafe, a soccer game playing onn the tv, writing about the consistency of the bible. Such is life.

Anyway here are my thoughts on all the many areas in which consistency can be sought:

  • Between canons: There is no such thing as "the bible". There are instead multiple bibles. Canons differ. The standard Samaritan canon is the simplest: the Five Books only, with Joshua holding a special position but not quite holy writ. The standard Jewish canon naturally lacks the New Testament. The Christian canon is pretty close to the Jewish canon so far as the OT goes, but has the books in a different order - which is significant. The differences between the various Christian denominations are huge - the Ethiopian canon contains books you've never heard of, with very strange titles. So the point is, there's no consistency in what makes up the bible.
  • Between canons, part 2: I couldn't think of better way of expressing this that "between canons II", but I'm talking now about a different kind of consistency. Which is, that the actual contents of what should be identical books vary from one denomination to another. Most people know, for example, that the Samaritan canon says that Jerusalem is in the wrong place, and sacrifices should be being offered at Mount Gezerim (it's a hill in Samaria). Differences like this point up theological differences between different communities. (If you think my example is trivial - after all, there are only 600 Samaritan Jews in the world today - consider the difference between Jewish and Christian canons over the translation of the word "almah".)
  • Between manuscripts: This is too well-known to need much elaboration, but the important thing is what the differences mean: for example, the early LXX text has a shorter and very different version of the battle of David of Goliath, one in which David is a young man, not a boy. The fascinating thing about the LXX version is that it removes an inconsistency which exists in the Masoretic text which forms the story we're all familiar with, namely the puzzling fact that after David defeats Goliath, Saul asks him who he is, although a chapter or two earlier David has become his harpist. In the LXX Saul simply doesn't ask. This provides an important clue pointing towards the textual history of that part of Samuel - the Masoretic story adds an inconsistency to the larger story and therefore is probably an addition to the LXX original. The point is that inconsistencies between manuscripts can be very useful guides to reconstructing the history of the bible.
  • Consistencies: Now at last we move on to consistencies. There are some very considerable consistencies through the length of the bible(s). God is One. Covenant. Election. You know the stuff. We need to consider these too. They chang over time - Jews still don't accept that God changed his choice from the children of Israel to the faithful in Christ, and I believe there are some differences between Catholics and Orthodox (the filioque) and Catholic and Protestant (personally, I can't see any reason why God shouldn't replace the pope of Rome with Henry and his heirs, although I'm told that the Vatican hasn't yet come round to this interpretation of scripture). Anyway, the final point is that there are genuine consistencies which operate at a more profound level than the classes of inconsistencies I've noted above.

So, I think that a discussion along these lines should stand somewhere pretty near the head of the article, or else the reader won't understand the range of issues involved. PiCo (talk) 16:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I propose one consistency is the concept of canon itself. Another is theological or narrative themes that underlie arguments for what constitutes the canon (as you mention). Yet another is the textual uniformity that forms a backdrop for harmonizations, additions and, presumably, censorship of biblical/parabiblical mss. None of these is addressing the topic directly, nor even answering challenges, they just establish context, and so have a foundational place in this entry.
Inconsistencies that have documented discussion include variations on all the matters above. It could be argued that recognition of variation, and differences of opinion on their significance delineate major groupings of Bible-interested communities.
I haven't quite worked out how to explain the significance of interpretation to the article, but I think it is very substantial. Philo and Augustine considered Genesis 1 to be poetic rather than literal, but the reformers were very literal. There's an obvious inconsistency between the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and experimental results from after the time of the reformation.
Christianity is a family tree of diverse opinions, many of which are interpretative differences. I can't quite pick how to categorize where issues are Bible inconsistencies or where they are Christian or interpretative inconsistencies. Perhaps this is case by case, with some kind of overlap.
By lectio difficilior the David stories strike me as likely originally having both stories, and in the awkward order. We're not the first to observe infelicities, some scribes harmonize by removing one, other or both in cases like this. I'd need to research this, but I don't find too difficult the idea of the face of a musical servant not registering on a King, out of context in a battle, nor a commander not recognizing even friends during a military campaign (I think there may be something like this during the seige of Troy.) Some parts of the Bible seem frustratingly non chronological, despite there being no clear reason for departing from such a natural way of presenting material. Interpretations of Revelation, for example, are notorious for all sorts of incompatible assumptions. Did Jesus have three years of itinerant ministry (John), or only one year (synoptic gospels)?
I wonder if this article is actually addressing "Difficulties in interpreting the Bible". Defining Bible is difficult, establishing text is difficult, reconstructing chronology is difficult ... in various places, and not so much in others. Where are the difficulties? What options have been considered?
I suspect the concept of this article is a reductio ad absurdum -- if we take the Bible at face-value, then this clashes with that, so the Bible can't be taken at face-value (at least in these places). But we need to know what we mean by Bible, and what we mean by face-value, and what constitutes a clash. These shouldn't be too hard to outline, but without doing the ground-work there's the risk text will be added without coherently addressing a logical structure. Alastair Haines (talk) 00:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting a para on statistical analysis of Genesis

I just deleted this para:

Newsweek reported that Yehuda Radday, head of the Genesis project at Israel's Technion Institute, ("two computer experts and a biblical scholar"[1]) entered the text of Genesis into a computer programmed to make a "thorough linguistic analysis of words, phrases, and passages", and as a result, Radday deduced a single authorship of Genesis was "the most probable conclusion".[1] [2] Their findings were published in Analecta Biblica 103, 1985[3] Portnoy and Petersen, evaluating the statistical data, came to the opposite conclusion.[4]

Reasons: (1) the connection with biblical consistency is extremely tenuous; (2) it's tendentious, in that it cites only one study, when there have been several, e.g. Houk, JSOT 2002, with results largely tending towards supporting multiple authorship; (3) computer analysis is not widely held in high regard. Plus I must, strongly, point out that the article needs to discuss consistency within a framework, not simply throw arguments around like stones into a pond. PiCo (talk) 17:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Framework sounds good to me, I think you're spot on. Can we work out specific questions we're seeking answers to. Is there terminology we need to establish in order to ask those questions? Does the literature on this topic presume certain background knowledge? What Wiki articles already provide that background knowledge? Alastair Haines (talk) 00:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the delete. I believe it was totally a "fringe" study. I doubt many commentaries, even conservative ones, would pay much attention to it. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adding to Major Religious Views section

I just added a para to the Major Religious Views section regarding the issues surrounding canonicity - i.e., the impossibility of talking about the internal consistency of the bible without first noting that there is very little agreement over what the bible is. If you think this is going in the right direction, I'll add another para on manuscripts, and a final one on theological consistency. This last paragraph should be interesting - themes like covenant, sin, mercy, justice, etc run right through the bible, from first to last, and are really what make it a consistent theological document, despite its many inconsistencies. PiCo (talk) 14:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me, and I think it's more "miraculous" that theological themes should be consistent than many might imagine. In a typical western city one can find two churches only hundreds of meters apart, both based on the Bible and Christian tradition with quite diverse theology. I'm also inclined to think that inconsistencies within specific Biblical books are more inconsistencies with reasonable expectation than evidence of a corrupt text or confused authors, but I admit that these are open questions when reading the Bible at face-value, and that is reflected in the best scholarship, and should be at Wiki.
I really like the Origen material in the lead, seems like there's nothing new under the sun. Origen interests me for many reasons. He wrote more on the Song of Songs than anyone in history. He took commitment to purity to the ultimate extreme; and he produced a wonderful polyglot Bible. I disagree with his mind on many points, but I love his heart. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 04:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Origen thought highly of consistency, and so also did the authors of the LXX: the traditional story is that when the 72 rabbis had finished their work, it was found that they had produced 72 identical Greek versions of the Torah, proof that God had guided their pens, and also that consistency matters. Unfortunately I can't find where I read this. I thought it was the Letter of Aristeus (if I've got the spelling right), but it's not, so it must have been mentioned in a later comment on the subject.
  • From Tevet: This was the second attempt to translate the Torah into Greek (there was an unsuccessful attempt 61 years earlier), the ruling Greek-Egyptian emperor Ptolemy according to legend, gathered 72 Torah sages, had them sequestered in 72 separate rooms, and ordered them to each produce a translation. On the 8th of Tevet of the Hebrew year 3515 (246 BCE) they produced 72 independent translations, including identical changes in 13 places (where they each felt that a literal translation would constitute a corruption of the Torah's true meaning). This Greek rendition became known as the Septuagint, "of the seventy" (though later versions that carry this name are not believed to be true to the originals). , also found here, or here. --Faith (talk) 17:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Faith, that is indeed the story. Apparently it originates with Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher and theologian living in Egypt about the time of Christ - the earlier version given in the Letter of Aristeas lacks the miraculous touches in Philo. From Philo it entered the Babylonian Talmud, and was also taken up by the Church, where the early Fathers held him in high esteem. This source that you gave us - from, I gather, an extreme Orthodox position - is really quite fascinating: the translation of the Torah is a disaster, as it allows "any misguided ignoramus, or any hothead with an agenda, [to] gaze at the Torah and find fault, or fabricate any interpretation they fanc[y]" Sounds like some criticism of Wikipedia I've read!PiCo (talk) 02:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
It's a cute story, isn't it; but, dare I say, an apocryphal one? ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 08:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
It brings to mind the story of the Irish saint who sailed across the Irish Sea on a millstone: "This is all that is known to man of the life of Saint X, and possibly more than all, yet not so much as it known to God." PiCo (talk) 08:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added 2 more paras to this section. Please feel free to comment very critically. I see the section as forming an overview of the article as a whole, setting out the basics of where consistency is to be found, i.e., in the theology of the bible rather than in the letter of the narrative. But this is very much a personal view, and so I'm loking for views - am I being too POV here? PiCo (talk) 07:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] new Aland & Aland ref

A recent addition to this article, "Of the 5745 manuscripts composing the NT surviving today, 94% date from the eighth century, 700 years after the originals were composed." is referenced to K. Aland and B. Aland, "The Text Of The New Testament: An Introduction To The Critical Editions & To The Theory & Practice Of Modern Text Criticism", Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (June 1995). ISBN 0802840981. op. cit., p. 81., but I'm not seeing that information on that page, or any of the surrounding pages. In fact, it appears to me that the chart on p. 81 actually points to 12th century, not 8th, but that's my OR from looking over the chart, not something stated in the text. The chart can be seen here (search for "century" then click page 81). --Faith (talk) 04:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The word of God

Jews certainly do not consider the entire Bible to be the word of God (and I thought Christians ascribed authorship of their bible to disciples and Paul). Jews ascribe authorship of some books to specific people e.g. Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes to Solomon. Many of the Psalms are ascribed to David. We could say "words about God" or "words for God" but the current text needs some modification. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Pentateuch (except Deuteronomy)- word of God, Prophets - message of God - words of the Prophets, Hagiographia (Ketuvim) - divinely inspired. Wolf2191 (talk) 19:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If Ezra and the sages could tell the difference between "God said" and "David wrote this" I think we should too. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

A lot of this has already been discussed ijn other articles such as Mosaic authorship#The_Mosaic_tradition_in_the_modern_age. From the Jewish POV the most prominent thologian is R Mordechai Breuer. A good collection of English articles are available here - [1]. The original Hebrew articles are also available online at daat.ac.il. Should I transfer the pasage from the MA page, link to it or write a new one. Thats for Orthodox Judaism.

Reform Judaism accepts the findings of critical scholarship in toto and concentrates on ethical monotheism. I don't know of any theologians from their side to quote.

Conservative Judaism is the most challenging. Since the topic of this page is almost "the history of the movement". Abraham Joshua Heschel with his famous "minimum of revelation and maximum of derash", Mordechai Kaplan's civilization theory, Louis Jacobs - section We have reason to believe.

What's the best way to fit everything in without being unnnecessarily prolix?Wolf2191 (talk) 19:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(Hope you don't mind if I break your paragraph into parts- Wolf)

Breuer represents the Orthodox view, not the "Jewish" view.
Sorry, Careless wording on my part.
No probSlrubenstein | Talk
And without knocking Breuer, Heschel, or Kaplan, I think the most important Jewish (i.e. pre-Modern Orthodox) thinkers to cover are Maimonides and ibn Ezra.
Ibn Ezra (according to most scholars) did question the Mosaic Authorship of one or two statements of the Bible, but I don't know if he is important for the more genral subject of - Internal consistency.
My point is simply that Ibn Ezra reflects one very distinct way of dealing with apparent inconsistencies in the text (and he never goes as far as Spinoza went!) Slrubenstein | Talk 09:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Maimonides is a bit difficult. I assume you refer to the 8th and 9th principals of faith (best
source Commentary to Mishna Sanhedrin Ch. 11 although he also repeats them in Mishna Torah).
Prof. Marc Shapiro in an article [2] - pg.
206 (earlier on he discusses Ibn Ezra) suggests that Mimonides is simply responding to the
Islamic doctrine of tahrif (He expanded on all this in a book Limits of Orthodox
theology).Yet again this is more of a Mosaic Authorship question then the question of Internal
consistency.
For that issue we need to focus on Midrash and the classical commentaries such as
Nachmonides - See this article [3] and this one
[4] for the later classical commentators - (He's
got a very good article “Progressive Derash and Retrospective Peshat:. Non-Halakhic
Considerations in Talmud Torah.” in Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah".)
By Maimonides, I mean Guide to the Perplexed Which is a different response to seeming inconsistencies (and very theological) Slrubenstein | Talk 09:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

For modern movements, Jacob Petechowski and Eugene Borowitz for Reform, Norman Lamm too for Orthodox, I would add Robert Gordis for Conservative (since he was both a theologian and Professor of Bible).

Norman Lamm speaks about Biblical criticism? Wolf2191 (talk) 22:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
No, but I do think he had a vision of the revealed word of God that was theological and in general a response to modern challenges. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Slrubenstein | Talk 20:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


I'd like to restate my question. Since this is a very large subject that intertwines with other articles, How can we best fit in the many viewpoints - Jewish and Christian theologians, academic scholars, etc. while still staying within an acceptable lengthy.

We can simply refer (or create if necessary) to the proper sections of other pages such - See Louis Jacobs - We have reason, Mordechai Breuer, David Halivni - Chetu Yisroel, etc. but that wouldn't be very readable. Or we can choose three major theologians to represent each group ad briefly summarize their views? Any other ideas.

As far as the documentary critics. Shoudn't the various other forms besides the DH be mentioned - the fragmentary, and supplementary hypothesis, the Wiseman hypothesis, etc. also be mentioned? They are also ways of dealing with inconsistency. BestWolf2191 (talk) 22:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Welcome Slrubenstein and Wolf, I always value your knowledge and (far, far greater than mine) and your collegiate approach to editing.
You've both pointed out some very real areas where the article can be improved. In particular, it apparently reflects a particularly Protestant Christian approach to the Bible as the word *of* God, rather than words *about* God. The Catholic Church, for all that successive popes have stressed the Divine inspiration of the complete Bible (meaning of course the Catholic Bible - poor old Enoch gets left out in the cold, together with the Samaritan version of the Torah), has normally left the door ajar to allow for human interpretation of those words in the process of transmission. That's the difference between the European churches and the Americans (I mean largely those derived from the Baptist tradition): the latter tend to say that every last word in the Bible (again, their bible) is literally the Word of God. Unfortunately, I don't know how common that view actually is, or whether we just hear more of it.
Anyway, your point is that the subject is vast. I think Wolf might have the right idea - we could have a section outlining just how complex the subject is (this could be developed from the current "Religious Views" section), and devote the rest to outlining the views of a number of theologians and scholars, arranged roughly chronologically (not by confession). What say you?PiCo (talk) 00:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Very broadly speaking, Bible refers to books originally considered for being or containing God's words. This consideration arose from a natural question, the logic of which is below.
The Jewish perspective is very helpful in liberating us from the wording of inerrancy to the conception behind it. The logic of inerrancy is not original, only the wording (and the political context of the debate). The logic has always been part of the Christian tradition (which obviously goes back no further than the 1st C), since it is explicitly discussed in the NT canon (the boundary of which, btw, is effectively universally agreed). Anyway, the logic, if I'm not mistaken, is given in many sources and is as follows.
  • God rules everything => (P) God knows everything => (E) What God says is without error (inerrant)
  • God is good so => (Q) God does not lie => (F) What God says may be trusted (infallible)

Hence, people who believe in a good creator God are also interested in the question of what precisely did he say. The various canons that give concrete reference to Bible are, in fact, originally merely different answers to an identical question.

Additionally, there are actually only three main classes of answer: God has given specific books that are uniformly attributable to him (closed canon); there are specific books that include substantial sections more or less attributable to him (canon w/in canon); he speaks continuously, but some books are particularly exemplary of this (open canon).

This is only one dimension of three I can think of. Closed ←→ Open canon. Small ←→ Big canon. Inerrant ←→ Infallible. As far as I can see all issues are debated in all traditions with some being more internally diverse. The issues interact with one another -- the more one tends to inerrancy, the smaller the canon and more likely it is closed (and vice versa).
A further, fourth dimension seems important. Within nearly all traditions, over time there are people who come to value the tradition itself, without necessarily even believing in God. For various reasons, these "cultural adherents", need to be considered as part of the range of POVs attributable to any given tradition. Clearly, this dimension allows much freedom, and can produce views of closed canon, with neither inerrancy nor infallibility.
Personally, I think all this article needs is to address the dimensions not all their instances in particular faiths (which are just too diverse). In other words, we need text like "Religious views vary in four important and distinct regards."
There's a bigger question here. Should the article major on this sort of thing and so treat the subject in the abstract, or should it be a more practical article, where the theory sets context and questions? Should it be a list of anachronisms in Genesis, refer to the census of Quirinius etc.? How much of each has not really been decided to a consensus.
Perhaps having a conclusion in advance would help. The article should answer a question it proposes, that reflects as closely as possible what a reader might have in mind regarding the topic. I think our conclusion needs to be something like this. Bible, very simply and originally, means "God-given-words" (but is modified along various dimensions historically)
  • Some find parts of the Bible to be inconsistent, among these
  • some take this as undermining the very idea of God (or alternatively the value of religious traditions)
  • others instead modify their expectations of the Bible (or of God's willingness to speak decisively)
  • Others find the Bible to be essentially consistent in its historical context, among these
  • some take this as confirming their views of God (or alternatively the value of religious traditions)
  • others find it unsurprising of largely metaphysical material and suggesting nothing in particular about a God (or religious traditions), just of the writers (or later editors)

[insert name of scholar(s)] note that neither the perceived consistency nor perceived inconsistency of books considered by some to be of divine origin actually strictly implies anything about God, himself.

Alastair Haines (talk) 03:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Alastair. Now I want to do some thinking out loud. I'm trying here to arrive at an outline for the article.

To begin, I think we can identify 4 possible types of consistency in the bible:

  • Canonical (agreement over which books make up the bible);
  • Manuscripts (substantial agreement between texts over the contents of the bible);
  • Narrative (narrative passages should be consistent, both intertextually - Jesus should not be crucified on different days of the week in different Gospels, and within single texts - there should not be two incidents both giving rise to the saying "Saul among the prophets");
  • Theological (Divinely given laws, moral teachings etc. should be consistent).

Demonstrably there is inconsistency within each of these categories. The question then becomes how to deal with inconsistency:

  • None of the bible is the word of God: inconsistency is a means for investigating the origin of the biblical texts and the history of the societies that produced them leading to the documentary hypothesis and other approaches);
  • Only some passages are the word of God, others are words about God, so that inconsistencies are open to scholarly and theological interpretation (this is the view Wolf says is the Jewish one; it's also the view of the Catholic Church - viz. the Church's handling over the centuries of the Comma J., first declaring it the word of God, but leaving enough room to later declare that it isn't after all);
  • Only one canon and manuscript is the Word of God, and that Bible is wholly the Word of God: inconsistencies must be reconciled and explained away (the position of the American Baptist tradition, with Gleason Archer as a famous exponent).

None of these views are distinctly modern - 1st century Judaism contained Saducees and Pharisees, the early Church condemned the followers of Marcion, and the Protestant protest was largely about the bible. Given this, I feel the best approach to our article is to state the ground plan somewhat along the outline I've given here (and which is begun in the existing "Religious Views" section), and then follow that with sections expanding on the three possible approaches to the lack of consistency.

I also want to say this: There is also consistency in the Bible. It's a work of theology. It's centre is a history of God's dealings with his chosen people. Everything that happens in that history is directed by a divine law: remain faithful God and be rewarded, disobey and be punished. The wisdom books and all the prophets are a riff on that central idea. It's not a static theme, it develops over time in the same pattern, whether you take the bible at face value and see it as beginning with Genesis, or whether you follow scholarly theories which see Genesis as later than the Deuteronomistic History. For the Hebrew Bible, the development is from the promise in Genesis to its realisation in Samuel/Kings followed by sin and exile and and ending with restoration in Chronicles. For the Christian OT/NT it runs from Genesis again through to Malachi (the last book of the Christian OT canon, a significant departure from the Hebrew one) and then to the story of the Messiah. There are conflicts, but the base story is the same one: Divine promise, human sin, and ultimate redemption. I'd like this also to be included, possibly as a final section. (I think it's not actually OR on my part, but reflects modern theological thinking.)PiCo (talk) 04:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll endorse you on that. I think you provide a good summary and application of relevant ideas, that are indeed consistent with academic consensus.
Although many (some?) Orthodox Jews may disagree, lots of Jews would say that Judaism is a non-creedal or dogmatic religion and that "theological consistency" was not the the point. There is no tractate of the Talmud that is specifically "theological" and although widely accepted now, when first formulated Maimonides 13 articles of faith were very controversial. I agree with Wolf that (for Judaism at least) this matter has been addressed elsewhere and I would rather see that elsewhere improved than have it partially repeated here. I continue to question the validity of this article. I do not question the merit of the topic, only the wisdom in dealing with it through one article. I think it should be handled by articles on Christian theology, Jewish theology, Midrash, Source Criticism, and articles on individual books of the Bible, the articles on Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible, and Bible (which would simply say that Jews consider the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament hopelessly inconsistent whereas Christians consider the latter the completion of the former or something like that). I do not think handling the topic in 7+ articles will lead to duplication, on the contrary, each article would provide a different context for this question and make different responses intelligible. Let's take advantage of hypertext and have links connecting all these articles rather than try to create a new article. My opinion for what it is worth. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
So a very short article canvassing the major issues and linking to other articles where they're discussed in detail? (That would be in accordance with Alastair's point above, that we shouldn't try to list and treat every perceived inconsistency - and also with my own point that narrative consistency is only one of several different headings under which the subject needs to be considered).PiCo (talk) 12:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
There are so many good points here, and so much agreement. I think Slrubenstein hits a key issue that aspects of consistency are handled differently by various traditions and need primary treatment within articles that specialise on those traditions. This leaves us free to consider logical classes of inconsistency as per PiCo's or my own proposals. On reflection, I prefer PiCo's categorisation to my own, with one modification.
Canon seems to be the logically prior category—how do we know what the Bible is without having a canon? That suits many topics, however, in this one I think it begs the question. One ground for canonicity is reliability. In other words, books have been canonized because their texts have been believed at some point to be authentic in some way.
It is very easy for people with little experience of biblical communities to overlook that canonicity is the product of critical questioning, selecting some texts out of a larger pool, and that this process actually becomes continuous from then onwards.
The inerrantist (or infalliblist) is actually only asserting endorsement of an earlier critical decision. It is very easily misheard as the prescriptive—"our received tradition of scripture is non-negotiable", when what is actually intended is the descriptive—"our community is formed of those who find our received tradition of scripture to be internally consistent". (Of course, it doesn't help that inerrancy often is cited in a prescriptive way by inerrantists.)
Interestingly, the different canons of various traditions express views about what is or is not consistent, as Slrubenstein points out regarding Tanakh and New Testament. Perhaps this suggests one good conclusion for the article. One answer regarding consistency of the Bible is to limit the canon to the consistent books, atheists include zero books, others include up to and including ... Some consider consistency not to be the key issue, but substantial "spiritual" or "practical" or "traditional" content.
I think manuscipts are the place to start. For example:
It is widely agreed that all texts that have been canonised have excellent transmission of a unique surviving recension. This makes them amenable to scrutiny. They are scrutinized by religious groups primarily for theological consistency, those that pass are considered canonical. They are also scrutinized by external parties (as well as the religious groups) primarily for narrative consistency, both internal to their texts, but also with various external forms of historical evidence (other texts, artifacts, and so on).
For more information regarding manuscripts see textual criticism and articles on several of the manuscripts themselves.
For arguments regarding theological consistency, each tradition has unique considerations that explain the grounds for their theological assessments, further details are available in articles related to those traditions.
There are a number of biblical passages infamously difficult to harmonize with one another or with historical evidence. Some of these are ...
Additionally, many passages of the Bible reflect the limitations of scientific understanding of their day. For example ...
Many Biblical passages also claim miraculous happenings. Some of these were scientifically inexplicable in their day, but may have a scientific explanation. Others are so extraordinary that harmonization with science seems unlikely to ever be possible. Examples of events considered miraculous by the Bible, but possibly explained by current science are ...
The following are generally proposed as being fundamentally incompatible with scientific explanation ...
How's that? Alastair Haines (talk) 16:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Types of consistency - new section

I've split off the bottom half of the section "Religious Views of consistency" and used it to form a new section called "Types of consistency". This is following my own ideas rather than those outlines in our recent talk, and I'm quite prepared for you all to revert the whole effort. In fact I see that Slrubenstein's idea is to take and treat a number of representative scholars/theologians. Perhaps that's still the way to go - I certainly don't see us going into detailed analysis of individual inconsistencies. If we do go that way, who should we tag? Origen? Luther? Some of the modern Jewish scholars you mention? I'd be inclined to have a heavy bias towards 20th century figures. PiCo (talk) 16:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The subject internal consistency of the Bible brings to my mind (out of all the various categories that Pico set up above) mostly the issues of contradictions, doublets,etc. I would say that there are three primary schools of thought on this issue.
1 - Those who believe the Pentateuch divine with every word emanating straight from God. The Midrashic authors are the primary propenet of this view. They were well aware of the difficulties posed by later Biblical scholars and interpreted the contradictions as allusions to various new details of the story or law in question. (They deal for example with the famed contardictions between Genesis 1 and 2 by pointing to several stages in Adams development.) (Not all of their statements are meant to reflect the original intention of the text but unquestionably some are.) I think James Kugels The Bible as it was is an excellent source which discusses and compares the views of the Midrashic authors and that of the critics.

The classical commentaries are direct outgrowths of this position. (See the Elman article I cited above).

Of note is the Rabbis own Documentary hypothesis (See Yochanan Ben Nafcha quoted in Mosaic authorship which sees Moses as compiling various documents together written in the course of his travels accross the desert. Halivni's maculate text of the Torah might fit in this category as well,
Breuer is also directly in line with this view. He believes in the Divine authorship of the Torah and he believes that the various contradictions are meant to represent the many viewpoints that exist in this complex world even though ultimately Halacha follows one way. (See link to articles I cited that say it better).
(Side note - Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik in his Lonely Man of Faith is also trying to resolve the inconsistency of Genesis 1 and 2 in a manner similar to Breuer.)
As far as the other books of the Bible, Psalms is attributed to a variety of writers in Babva Batra. As is Isaiah, Kings, and several other books. I don't think inconsistency is much of an issue there.
2 - Those who believe that the Bible is of a single authorship but not divine. They put the contraditions and such down to literary devices, such as chiastic sequences, or the "Oriental" style of writing, etc, The only propenent of this view I know of is Benno Jacobs but R. E. Friedman polemics against this view sharply in Encyclopedia Judaica entry - the Pentateuch so there must be others.
3 - Those who accept a multiple authorship of the Bible - Some - the conservative theologians - see no contradiction between this and the divinity of the Torah - believing the Torah to be a record of revelation rather then the actual word of God (See Louis Jacobs, and Heschel as well). There are various forms to this hypothesis.
I'm afraid I shall be out for the week but I look forward to editing the article (if needed) on my return. Best Wolf2191 (talk) 02:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Wolf - your knowledge of the subject is impressive as always. As you point out elsewhere, we have to be careful not to get bogged down in detail. I think the way forward is to list possible reactions to/uses of both the inconsistencies and the consistencies in the Bible (and the entire Bible at that, not just the Torah). The "consistencies" part is interesting - for example, in the story of the revolt of Absalom, David escapes from Jerusalem with 600 Philistine mercenaries. A little earlier, he takes refuge in a Philistine city with 600 Hebrew mercenaries. Coincidence, or is something textual at work, or is it something symbolic? And also, in the course of his escape, the Levites bring the Ark to the brook of Kidron so that David and his band can cross over (just how the presence of the Ark and the Levites aids David in crossing the Kidron isn't clear). There's an echo here of Joshua's crossing the Jordan, which is in turn an echo of Moses crossing the Red Sea. What on earth is it all about? I have no idea, and it would be a brave man who said he did. PiCo (talk) 02:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Theologically, it is not the job of the Ark to aid David, but he is striving to fulfil the plan of the Pentateuch -- that the LORDS's name would rest in Jerusalem. What I'm saying is the Ark is going to Jerusalem, and David is accompanying it, not vice versa. The allusions you mention are precisely on track. The LORD led his people out of Egypt, the column of smoke and fire came to rest above the ark in the tabernacle, the LORD enters the Land ahead of his people, to deliver the occupants into their hand.
I may have been trained into a biased way of reading the text, but once you get the knack, it's amazing how helpful some questions can be: "Where is God in this narrative?" "What would previous books have led us to expect?" "How does this narrative contribute to an overarching theocentric narrative?" I have become convinced the Tanakh is immensely subtle at times, but unswervingly dealing with these sorts of issues. Of course, at other times, the Tanakh is blatant in its theocentric vision. At still others, it is precisely the absence of God that drives the narrative and poetry -- exilic prophecy and Lamentations, for example.
You read the Bible very well! :) Alastair Haines (talk) 05:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archer

I made some changes on the Internal section regarding McKinsey & Archer. The section previously stated "Archer resolves all", then cited McKinsey's rebuttal (missing Archer's re-rebuttal with the much newer edition of the encyclopaedia). I removed the "resolves all" portion, because if it's up for debate, it's not settled conclusively. --Faith (talk) 00:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I mentioned Archer's book simply to illustrate the huge number of inconsistencies (500 pages worth), not to talk about his arguments, or the counter-arguments, or the counter-counter-arguments. Seeing the edits it's drawn, I don't think it belongs in a section which is supposed to be about the types of inconsistency/consistency, not about arguments resulting therefrom. I'll move Archer to a new section dealing with how inconsistencies and consistencies effect the lives of believers and the thoughts of scholars. (I really do want to work in that wonderful material Wolf and SLR have given us about the Jewish scholars).PiCo (talk) 09:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I moved it to the other internal section. I think it makes a nice introduction to that section and fits better there. --Faith (talk) 06:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ezra and Nehemiah

Would it be worthwhile making a separate article on this topic, then linking to it from this article? Or is it too specialised to bother? --Faith (talk) 05:46, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Anything is possible on Wikipedia, which comes as close as is humanly possible to the Infinity Drive. (I mean that there's room for an infinite number of articles). Just be aware that the Wiki-police are out there cruising in their Wiki-Squadcars, looking for articles that might merit deletion (the wiki equivalent of the death penalty). So your article has to prove that it's about a notable topic. One way to do this is to have as many links as possible. Another is to show that the topic is dicussed in the relevant literature. That should be easy enough in fact - your research while writing will turn up the relevant sources. Just a word of caution: your man Were doesn't seem very notable to me, given his background in a small bible college in Kenya if I remeber rightly. Better to go for someone like Archer, who is genuinely notable. It's also probably better not to to say things like "According to X..."; instead, state the argument and give your source in a footnote, and make sure you don't keep quoting the same source over and over. This just comes from my own experience in a little project I started, of creating wiki-articles for major contemporary bible-scholars - Van Seters, Lemche, people like that. The wiki-cops asked me to prove these people were worthy of articles. Biblical scholarship being a very small world, it wasn't easy to do. Good luck. (And your title should probably be something like "Census of Nehemiah" or some such - something more easily findable). PiCo (talk) 09:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I've got a project I should get back to at List of theology journals. This was my attempt to help the Wiki police realise the notability of theology (and/or Biblical studies). PiCo's work sounds even better. Just do it Faith! :) The Wiki police are not too bad and usually allow time, they often raise an article's profile so other interested people help with a project (or, at least, drop reference works into the article or onto the talk page). Alastair Haines (talk) 14:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New section, "Approaches to consistency"

I've created this new section, the aim of which is to set out the various approaches to the problem of consistency in biblical texts. I regard it as very provisional - I really would like other editors to edit directly into this new section. Edit boldly, create new subsections if you wish, delete it altogether if you think it's taking the article in the wrong direction.

What I'm trying to do here is create an overall architecture for the article which first explains the types of (in)consistency in the bible(s), then discusses, but only in very general terms, how scholars have approached the question, both for theological and non-theological purposes. There's an awful lot I haven't touched on, and there's probably an unconscious bias towards the OT. Please be critical (I know you'll be constructive). PiCo (talk) 13:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Section "New Testament"

Here's the entire text of the section headed "New Testament" as it stands at the moment:

Of the 5745 manuscripts composing the NT surviving today, 94% date from the ninth century, 800 years after the originals were composed, none of which have survived. The most ancient surviving manuscript, the Rylands Papyrus is dated to about 125-175. The most ancient complete manuscripts (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) date from the fourth century. Taking its lead from scholars outside the theological disciplines, New Testament textual criticism has produced text based on earlier readings which are better attested. Kurt and Barbara Aland compared the Nestle-Aland edition with six other editions (Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, von Soden, Vogels, Merk, and Bover), concluding, “ ...nearly two-thirds of the New Testament text in the seven editions of the Greek New Testament which we have reviewed are in complete accord, with no differences other than in orthographical details (e.g., the spelling of names, etc.). Verses in which any one of the seven editions differs by a single word are not counted. This result is quite amazing, demonstrating a far greater agreement among the Greek texts of the New Testament during the past century than textual scholars would have suspected... In the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation the agreement is less, while in the letters it is much greater. ” Bart D. Ehrman refers to the Greek New Testament by theologian John Mill which in 1707 identified some 30,000 places of variation (mainly spelling differences) from the oldest available texts, and points out that modern scholars estimate the existence of between 200,000 and 400,000 variants: "There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament".[22]. Most of these, he makes clear, are 'completely insignificant'. But in some cases, he argues, the differences have a real bearing on what the text means and the theological conclusions that can be drawn from them. In a review of Ehrman's book, Daniel B. Wallace argues that "only about 1% of the textual variants are both meaningful and viable," and pointed out that Ehrman sometimes gives the impression of "wholesale uncertainty about the original wording, a view that is far more radical than he actually embraces".

I have a real problem with this section, in that it concentrates exclusively on the question of manuscripts, and is highly repetitous. The whole passage could be expressed much more succinctly: "New Testament manuscripts show a high degree of consistency, although at a few points the oldest manuscripts show important divergences from the more recent ones." (Then references to, but not explanations of, those important inconsistencies - I think the major ones are the ending of Mark, the woman taken in adultery, and the Comma. No explanations, because articles on each of these exist, and we only need to provide links). From this passage I can't see why Ehrman is being mentioned, unless it's a chance to drag in John Mill. If Ehrman has something important to say, we should explain it. If Ehrman's idea is important but controversial, we should also note that fact. But please, enough with all the name-dropping.

Back to my main point: this entire passage can be boiled down to one sentence. And it deals exclusively with manuscripts: what about intertextuality, what about theological diffs between Judaism and Christianity (the different views of the Messiah are surely worth a mention), what about supercessionism, what about what about. PiCo (talk) 09:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with making the section more concise and I would encourage doing so. As I continue to read the section, I have changed my position on Wallace's comment; it is redundant with what Ehrman already says. PiCo, I think we may be saying the same thing, but I suspect that other editors will will want to kick this around a little.
I am particularly uncomfortable with Allister's recent addition, "The text of New Testament is uncontroversially the most reliably known set of documents from antiquity, due to its popularity, hence the huge number of copies that were made, and to the importance placed on the exact wording of its text."
When I first read this I had a knee jerk reaction to add a "Fact" label to it. However, after giving it a few minutes and then rereading it I am not sure of its purpose.
  1. What is the first sentence trying to say, "reliably known set of documents". Being well known being an accurate reflection of the autograph are two entirely different things. This says nothing of value for this topic and seems like spin to me i.e. it leads the reader to a conclusion that has nothing to do with the topic.
  2. It is a religious text; that is the reason for its popularity and nothing else.
  3. Churches place enormous value on the exact wording of the text; it is the very reason we have over 36,000 denominations today. The concept of Sola Scriptura is built on the belief that God's word is pure and undefiled by man. Unfortuantely, the mere fact that there is such controversy about the manner in which the text was passed down is threatenting to many churches; however, that is another topic.
I am very uncomfortable when we move from reporting facts to leading or worse spinning. I would like to see this new wording deleted. I don't understand it prupose and it comes very close to spinning the absolute reliability of scripture, which is not accurate. The fact that the Comma Johanneum exists is enlightening to many and it makes the textual criticism so interesting today.
As an aside, it is my impression that the field of textual criticism is anything but dead as mentioned in earlier sections. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls an enourmous amount of work has transpired and continues to be analyzed. I dare say that more has come to light in the last 50 years in this field than in any other period. This is a great time for textual critics and biblical scholarship. --Storm Rider (talk) 09:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to add a fact tag. There were two reasons I didn't cite sources. Firstly, because there are hundreds, if not thousands of them. Secondly, because the internal links actually provide articles covering some of those sources. I'm completely serious, about this. I can think of dozens of excellent arguments against the Bible, uncertainty in its text is not only not among them, it is one of the strongest arguments in favour.
These debates will be new to undergraduates in fifty years time, but they are actually ancient. Some ancient texts actually talk specifically about decisions that were made about reconciling differing manuscripts. A thousand years later, at Martin Luther's trial, one particular ms was ordered up from Rome, because it was known to have a particular reading of a certain passage.
I only learned about these things by reading lots of books. But even common sense says scholars must have been copying these texts and debating differences for hundreds of years, we assume that of every other ancient manuscript. In the case of the Bible, there is so much ancient secondary literature about it as well, we even learn of bad, as well as good, decisions they made regarding manuscripts.
Thinking that Bible copying is more prone to error or bias than other texts is as much a bias as thinking Bible copying is free of error. At least Christian inerrantists assert that Biblical transmission was by the same means as any other text. "Anti-biblicists" sometimes suppose unusually mindless and biased transmission. A neutral observer will note that Christians have more to lose by covering up bias than anti-biblicists have by asserting it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either Christians have a bias towards exact wording or they don't.
There are hundreds of examples of biased transmission, it is so biased it is obvious and considered unoriginal. A passage on the Trinity in John is classic. The "long" ending of Mark. Those are biggies. A cute example comes from John, where some manuscripts remove reference to Jesus using a whip to drive the money lenders out of the temple. Most scholars, Christian and otherwise think it more likely scribes would remove this reference than add it. Makes sense to me.
This article will be more interesting to Christians if it has the best possible arguments against Christianity. At least that's true of me. I hope you get my point. When you know me better you'll believe it. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 13:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Pico. I had it down to this before the revert: "Of the 5745 manuscripts composing the NT surviving today, 94% date from the ninth century, 800 years after the originals were composed, none of which have survived. The most ancient surviving manuscript, the Rylands Papyrus is dated to about 125-175. The most ancient complete manuscripts (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) date from the fourth century. Taking its lead from scholars outside the theological disciplines, New Testament textual criticism has produced text based on earlier readings which are better attested. Kurt and Barbara Aland compared the Nestle-Aland edition with six other editions (Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, von Soden, Vogels, Merk, and Bover), concluding, “ ...nearly two-thirds of the New Testament text in the seven editions of the Greek New Testament which we have reviewed are in complete accord, with no differences other than in orthographical details (e.g., the spelling of names, etc.). Verses in which any one of the seven editions differs by a single word are not counted. This result is quite amazing, demonstrating a far greater agreement among the Greek texts of the New Testament during the past century than textual scholars would have suspected... In the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation the agreement is less, while in the letters it is much greater." I think that's where my recent problem with the section fell also, in that it seemed more name-dropping than anything substantial to say, and as I pointed out above, it was speaking of Mill and 1707. I think the Aland/Aland is sufficient. --Faith (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I've revised the section so that it now constitutes a very concise introduction to the subject of NT textual criticism. I've deleted the sentence about 95% of manuscripts dating from the 8th century or whenever it is: far more important is that this 95% makes up a single text-type, the Byzantine, which is one of three, and that textual scholars aren't particularly impressed by the sheer mass of Byzantine manuscripts and prefer the far earlier Alexandrian family when sifting out their preferred readings. I've also deleted the long footnote that went with it, as I couldn't see the relevant - what point was it trying to make? Anyway, we now have a single short paragraph giving an overview of a very complex subject, and filled with lots of relevant wiki-links to articles where the things mentioned are dealt with at more length, which is how wikis are supposed to work. For your consideration.PiCo (talk) 05:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Much better; thank you for your work. IMHO, it is much improved. --Storm Rider (talk) 06:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
You need citations, PiCo, or we are back to an OR situation that we are trying to rectify and avoid. --Faith (talk) 07:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Faith, could you go through and add fact tags where you feel cites are needed? It will give me a guide to what to look at.PiCo (talk) 11:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] de dicto and de re

I really like the Genesis 6 example PiCo has given us. It reminds me that the distinction philosophers make between "what is said" (de dicto, like dictation) and "the matter itself" (de re, like email Re:) can be helpful in several different aspects of this article. Textual criticism is about establishing what the Bible says "de dicto". If we don't know what it says "de dicto" (the words) we can't work out what it says "de re" (the meanings of those words). If we cannot work out what something says "de re", we cannot work out if it is true or false.

Here's a knock-down argument against inerrantists. What inerrancy actually asserts is that even if we cannot work out what the Bible says "de re", we can know that whatever it says is true. Not only that, this can be used as an interpretative decision maker. If what the Bible says "de dicto" seems to be open to three different interpretations "de re", but two of these are false, well then says the inerrantist, the Bible must have meant the third one. This is a have your cake and eat it argument. It allows the Bible to always escape being wrong, unless there is no possible interpretation that would make it true. That raises the bar a very, very long way for any would be arguments against the Bible, and it's completely unfair.

The only thing that makes this OK in any sense is that inerrancy is for Bible believers, not for unbelievers. Inerrantists cannot argue that others are irrational for opting for valid possible interpretations that would make the Bible untrue in places (the number of places is not relevant see below). Others cannot argue inerrantists are irrational for opting for the interpretation(s) that make the Bible true. The only way either side can KO the other side is by showing all possible interpretations are false (or the opposite).

The number of places where the Bible is wrong is irrelevant against inerrantists, because even a single mistake makes them totally wrong. This kind of evens up the unfairness of the escape clause above. But really, the escape clause is still pretty smelly, and even a single mistake seems pretty unfair to throw at Biblicists and pretty smelly itself. Most scholars and just common sense people prefer to take sides but play for lower stakes like infallibility. Inerrancy, at its heart, though, is a self-conscious and deliberate attempt to raise the stakes and intensify debate. It offers a "one hit kill", but gives itself the supernatural power of the magical "luck out" escape clause. Alastair Haines (talk) 13:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

...open to three different interpretations "de re", but two of these are false, well then says the inerrantist, the Bible must have meant the third one. This is a have your cake and eat it argument. I disagree, Alastair. Let's extend this argument to another avenue. Suppose there are three possible scenarios of a person's activities in a given day, two of which place him in the midst of criminal activities, while the third provides him a guilt-free alibi. If no scenario holds more weight than any of others (e.g., external proof of pictures, video, CSI evidence, etc.), then we should always go with the presumption of innocence least we commit an injustice to the person. This benefit of doubt is entrenched in our society in many different ways, and I don't see any valid reason for ignoring it in textual criticism. That copiest errors exists are plain fact understood by all but a small number of super-legalists. However, "opting for valid possible interpretations that would make the Bible untrue" when all things are equal, would be allowing personal bias to overrule benefit of doubt, which is an injustice to the text. How often do we see this presumption ignored outside of biblical textual criticism? I think the bias in biblical criticism is greater because the "even a single mistake" mentality is so prevalent, and because the stakes are much higher. No one's salvation or apostasy has ever depended on the words of Homer or Shakespeare. --Faith (talk) 22:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Suppose there is a whole set of photos of naked children that have come into the hands of the police, and a whole lot of people are saying these are perfectly ok, but one (who happens to be the Prime Minister of Australia) says they're obviously child porn, then we should go...? PiCo (talk) 01:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I am not familiar with that case, but supposing a hypothetical version of this, should naked pictures of children always be considered child pornography? What of the "naked baby on the bear skin rug" variety? Or one's own young child who stripped out of his nappies or togs and ran streaking into the ocean? I believe there is a vast difference in the innocence of those shots, than ones taken of teen children in sexual poses that are obviously rendered solely for perverted pleasure of warped people. So supposing a hypothetical parent was in possession of shots of youthful innocence, which some might suppose "dirty" with a bias that all naked pictures (even classic art) is pornography. Do we take the path of criminal activities? Or do we allow the benefit of the doubt to overrule? Where is that line drawn? In my mind, the line resides with the acceptability of naked innocence. If the surrounding culture allows a 4-year-old to lose his togs and run naked into the water without censure, but does not allow that of a 14-year-old, we have a guideline of acceptability in society that can encompass photography as well. If there is a possibility, or in fact a probability, of equal or almost equal scenarios, why accept only that which assigns guilt? Is that not bias imposing an overly legalistic view of "porn" on the innocent capture of youthful folly? --Faith (talk) 03:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, <lets one through to the keeper>. Anyway, I agree with you Faith that the Christian position should be taken seriously by outsiders because Christian motivation is not to con other people into becoming Christians, it is about being absolutely sure about something that is important to Christians themselves -- rightly or wrongly Christians view the soul to be at stake. I expect the highest standards of evidence if it is proposed to me that God himself is speaking, and I jolly well check. Mind you, the same argument works backwards too, I'm not going to give up something already confirmed to a high degree of reliability on flimsy evidence.

Compare for example an argument concerning some historical, not doctrinal point. Josephus says X, Luke says Y, therefore Luke is mistaken. Ceteris paribus, this is either bias, or a poor argument. Since textual evidence for Luke is greater than for Josephus, one would have to prefer Luke. However, all things are never equal, Josephus had access to data Luke did not and vice versa. Bias in both writers and copyists are always possibilities, so one needs to consider how particular biases may influence both witnesses in a case of disagreement.

Now consider another argument. If Luke says X, but Mark says Y, then Luke and Mark are both unreliable and the whole Bible is wrong. Well, apply that back to Josephus and we get all first century writers are unreliable, we can't know anything at all. No, disagreements between witness need individual treatment and have limited fall-out. At least if you're a reasonable, unbiased judge. But the point is, there is no "benefit of the doubt", there is no "innocent until proven guilty". Who's innocent until proven guilty? The Bible? Surely not, unless you're biased. Doesn't Josephus have every right to this as well? But likewise, one has a bias if one considers an argument against the Bible to be sound until proven otherwise. No, this isn't a court room, there's no burden of proof, no one is in the dock unless you have a bias. We are simply examining evidence to establish facts, if there's not enough evidence, no fact. No verdict is the default position, rather than not guilty.

Textual criticism has nothing to do with whether the Bible is true it only answers a much more important question. Do we even know what the Bible said? And the answer is yes, with a margin of error, and that error is negligable. It's like any statistics, the greater the sample, the greater the accuracy. But you never know the result of the election 100% until every vote is counted, so it's not perfect. Thousands of manuscripts provide unequal "votes" towards the NT text, but they provide even more information if scrutinised rather than counted. In the end we have a document clear enough to be understood and believed or proved wrong.

Actually, I should mention there is a new translation of the New Testament due to be published in the next month or so. It will give information about the text critical details. It will be called the Comprehensive New Testament. It should close down discussion like we're having at this page, because people will be able to see for themselves in English how minor the variations are. It should also become apparant that it is precisely the biased readings that are easily excluded, and that the biases are not for Christianity against anyone else, they tend to be biases for or against particular theological disputes. The "wicked comma" is just the most recent of theological intrusions, and others are just as visible when you know the kinds of things Christians argue about with one another. Alastair Haines (talk) 06:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but Josephus would be external evidence to be examined. Instead I was outlining an internal consistency (the topic of this article) where Matthew says X, Luke says Y, and Mark says Z. In those cases, a plausible option of 'D=all of the above' is often dismissively waved away with the bias that fault is the default position. Or in the case of three different ways that something can be interpreted, and having two found false but the third being found correct, then why not the presumption that the authors (Biblical or otherwise) were meaning that third option. Why the presumption of guilt, when there is still an option of innocence available? --Faith (talk) 07:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, you are absolutely right, the Bible can never be assumed to be unreliable, that's bias, it's at least as good (and sometimes as bad) as any other ancient textual source. The internal consistency questions lead to three options: X and Y are contradictory, X and Y are consistent, or we don't know. Movement in either direction from the default unknown requires evidence. The next issue after that is, "how much evidence?" Bias often comes in here too. That's one of the thins I was talking about above. Bias will require disproportionately less evidence for its prefered outcome, and disproportionately more evidence for what it doesn't want to accept.

But the point to make here is that the Wiki policy of good faith become very important. Bible believers could remove anything unsourced and expose the weaknesses of evidence advanced against the Bible requiring increadibly high standards. Likewise sceptics about the Bible can require immaculate sourcing and question the credibility of sources. This can be a good thing. It pushes standards up for the article. However, if either side is really unreasonable, almost nothing at all can go into the text. X argues against the Bible, so X is biased against the Bible doesn't follow. X argues for the Bible, so X is biased for the Bible also doesn't follow. Scholars names and backgrounds are actually irrelevant, except so their books can be found in libraries. What matters are the arguments and the evidence, and being willing to allow readers to draw their own conclusions.

It doesn't really matter that Ehrman, for example, is not really mainstream. Citing him as definitive would certainly be giving him undue weight, but it would also be taking a point of view. When there are only two points of view -- Bible consistent or Bible not consistent -- the only neutral point of view is Wiki doesn't know the answer, the arguments that have been put forward for and against are as follows ... That should always be fair to both sides, unless it hides a genuine consensus, spoiled only by a few extreme views.

A quick scan over the article and it's looking fine to me. It is lacking scholastic responses to notable discrepencies, but first things first, I think it's worth getting a feel of how much space stating discrepencies is going to take. Theoretically that should be something less than 1/2 the article (and it is). PiCo's summarizing from a huge resource of arguments and counter arguments. Alastair Haines (talk) 11:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Failure to allow the reader to draw their own conclusion was, and has been, the problem with this and other similarly themed articles. As it was in April, this article drew the conclusions for the reader by using leading questions, poorly formed editor synthesis, and ridiculous counter-arguments from fringe positions. I think that huge strides toward a middle road have been achieved here, but some minor fixes (and some citations) still need to come into play. That said, it's heaps better than it was before, so well done everyone. As long as we keep the most extreme views out of the article, I think we can keep this in the middle of the road and let the reader draw their own conclusions. --Faith (talk) 13:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NT Canon

“ The New Testament canon showed similar lack of consistency in the earliest days, as evidenced by the number of Gospels in circulation (the Gospels of Thomas, Judas, and Hebrews, among others). The creation of a unified canon began when the Church became the established religion of the Empire and set about defining orthodoxy, a process completed by the 4th century through a series of Councils and Synods backed by the authority of Rome. ”

OK, my difficulty here is: "canon inconsistent in early days" || "creation of canon BEGAN with Constantine" || "complete by end 4th C". Points 2 and 3 say Canon started in 300 finished by 400. Was canon non-existant or inconsistent in "early days"?

How about, no canon until 300, differing ad hoc regional lists of books, differing criteria for inclusion. With Constantine and the Empire getting involved, those with disparate views were encouraged to work through issues. By 400, consensus was reached, with one exception, Greeks didn't accept Rev.

I still maintain that canon and text are essential issues to this article, because they define what Bible means. It is only after we know what we mean by Bible that inconsistency of a previously undefined concept becomes possible. I think we also need to state what the grounds for inclusion of books of the Bible actually was. Bible = list of books deemed to be God's written foundation for the universal (little c catholic) Church. (Inspiration would seem to be the word to use to avoid inerrant / infallible issues.) Universal Church didn't quite happen until 300 (though that's a big theological question).

Given the size of the Empire and the complexity of the criteria, it sounds like a big enough deal to take committees of bible scholars a hundred years to sort out. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You make a good point: in truth, in the earliest days the very concept of canon didn't exist. What was inconsistent in the earliest days was the books regarded as valuable for instruction. These were the books read in churches, quoted by church leaders, and generally regarded as authoritative of divine truth. There was great variation from church to church, and no idea of a canon. So the paragraph needs to be re-written. I think in fact it should drop the idea of tracing a history and begin by stating that there's a common core of 27 books held in the canons of all modern Churches, plus a few extras for some of the minor churches (the Ethiopian conon includes a few more than the 27, and I think some others do also). Then maybe a brief note about the development of the idea of canon, and some basic history. PiCo (talk) 14:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
The history of development of canons articles are very detailed. Internal linkage may be a good option. I still maintain that diversity of views about the Bible (what it is, what it says and what it means) are fundamentally different to inconsistencies in the Bible itself.
It's a question of how much foundational work is needed to clear away tangents and cut to the chase. The Bible makes claims inconsistent with science. No one doubts the inclusion of Luke in the canon of the NT, no one doubts he claims both death and later return to life for Jesus at the literal level. There are only three options: Luke was unusually metaphorical about this, the Bible is just wrong, or the Bible is actually right. We could gab on a bit about which commentators say what and when, but that would seem to me to be better in articles about Luke, the resurrection and in the bios of writers or reviews of their books.
Again, Exodus, whatever the history of the text that came to be reproduced in a canonical form, and irrespective of its author, has nonetheless a text that includes reference to plagues and parting of the yam suph (reed sea). Any diversity in copies of these texts does not extend to excluding these components of the narrative, and these components have been received into all canons. Nailed! Bible believers have either to defend their canonization by interpreting these narratives as theological mythical reconstructions of history, or even fabrications, valuable for their theology rather than historicity, or Bible believers have to accept their view is probably inconsistent with laws of physics as we know them.
The same thing goes for many of the narrative clashes you mention. Different reasons for the same event, for example. The ten commandments (Ex 20, Dt 5) also offer different reasons for the sabbath day. That issue worries no one but believers I suspect, but is easily reconciled.
It seems to me that some might want to say that the Bible is a product of Christian debate, and this has been very confused, from this alone we'd be expecting inconsistency in the Bible. Now, that would be fine, if it was a published assessment. However, the opposite seems to be more usual in academia at least. Inspiration and other ideas actually have value partly because they arose out of intense debate that reached broad contours of consensus, but left some quite specific and identifiable points of disagreement. It's the same in many disciplines today. Sometimes the evidence permits multiple plausible stances, but it also excludes many others and this is reflected in a diversity of positions, one of which is often an uncommitted position. I'm moderately familiar with education theory, it is certainly true that there are distinct schools of thought due to differences of opinion on theoretical questions.
I mention the above because documenting the history of schools of thought is very complex and not the subject of this article. There are limited, not endless, options for both the canon and text of the Bible. Nearly all these views are internally consistent. Different views of inspiration lead to different views of canon. But all that matters in this article is that we address inconsistencies in the text of the maximal canon. The works of Shakespeare are not in the canon (though some ancient Christians thought Plato was inspired). This article has a scope that must extend to all books of all canons, but cannot extend beyond that.
Given that some books in some canons do not have a well-defined textual history, text crticism becomes significant. In fact, text history, and even language of composition, have been issues considered in working out what ought to be canonical. Just as perceived inconsistencies in books is part of deciding canon also. Protestants perceive theological inconsistency between their canon and the Roman Catholic canon, for example.
But, to return to the point, which is the issue of what does this article intend to address, I'm urging we understand that text and canon are servants to the goal which is considering Internal consistency of the Bible. It is not concerned with diversity of views about what consistitutes the Bible, except to set scope, nor with variant readings, except where these might harmonize inconsistencies away (and there are some of those -- the Comma is one of them).
How does the process of attempting to circumscribe a canon describe the internal consistency or otherwise of the Bible?
One answer is it suggests that many people for a long time believed the Bible to be sufficiently consistent to be worth defining by providing list of its consituant parts. So many books were so consistent that it was hard to trim them down. But these or other conclusions seem unsatisfying and peripheral, even if we could source them. Alastair Haines (talk) 01:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I've re-written the para in light of your comments - it now begins by making the point that there is very considerable consistency in the modern NT canon, while still pointing out that the achievement of this consistency has a history. I've left the Orthodox Christian Church out entirely, although they are the second largest Christian communion - they accpeted the Western canon around the 5th century, I think, so there's really not that much to say, although I'm open to correction.PiCo (talk) 15:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Your current text looks good to me. In fact, it's a very nice blend, addressing multiple issues fairly, providing facts and rationale, and even some evaluation. All of this is well within consensus views, and can be verified in detail. In fact, I'd overlooked the important point you make, that Catholicism had less need of canon, because of the other forms of authoritative theological sources accepted. Anyway, the prose feels very "professional" to me, it is a very nicely nuanced, but clear, foundation for discussing the key issues the article needs to address. Well done! Thanks for your patience. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 01:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)