Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

iskander wrote:Moderators easily intimidate and ban the alien breed invading their territory.

I see a bit of grousing about the atheistic moderator from some of our resident non-atheists, but as a matter of fact, almost all of the theistic and Christian participants on this forum have given me absolutely no reason whatsoever to want to ban them or anything like that. Those that do (I think there's been... one? two?) hasn't been for their difference of philosophy but instead because of them in particular. On the whole, the theists participating here have been excellent at keeping to the point and presenting their views on the subject. The body count, such as it can be called, has mostly been fellow atheists (at least a half dozen now) who don't care about this history and lose their shit when people try to talk about ancient Christianity as a real phenomenon.

You're not invading the territory here.

Any sharp words between us, in particular, have not been in my capacity as the admin of the site. I do understand that the admin tag might have a chilling effect when I weight in on a subject (perhaps), but that doesn't mean I don't expect vigorous disagreement. In fact, I'm pretty sure you've provided it. And you're fine.

I try to avoid personal attacks myself, a major reason is because it's low class and makes the attacker look bad to anyone who is neutral and reading the discussion.
One of the difficulties is knowing where the forum's line is between allowed personal attacks and personal attacks that derail discussion and make one liable to banning.
For example, Maximos' calling Neil a liar/dishonest a ton of times in a post, and making other posts like that was enough to get him banned. (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=268&start=0#p11035). So one might think that it would be grounds for anyone else who has a habit of making those kinds of low class attacks to get warned/banned.

I'm okay with the ambiguity. I'm okay with there being no bright red line for bad behavior. Two simple reasons:

1) Ain't nobody got time for that.
2) Without an independent judiciary and due process, it's all just a cloak anyway. Especially on forums where everything's done in a corner, which is par for the course. I haven't really seen a lot of good come from sites that try to codify a set of rules and regulations on speech.

What I give you instead is transparency regarding historical mod actions and a guarantee that if you don't like what's happening, you don't have to be here. That's it, like it or leave it.

iskander wrote:
Moderators easily intimidate and ban the alien breed invading their territory.

If you wants to oppose spin, you should be prepared to be intimidated and insulted. Better get used to it. And it does not matter for spin if you are atheist or Christian: no discrimination.

Cordially, Bernard

Peter Kirby wrote:I'm okay with the ambiguity. I'm okay with there being no bright red line for bad behavior.

Sometimes after a person has been on a forum for a while they see that there really are bright red lines, kind of like informal mandatory unspoken rules.
Making personal attacks on a moderator is usually a good way to get warned/banned by the moderator.

rakovsky wrote:

Peter Kirby wrote:I'm okay with the ambiguity. I'm okay with there being no bright red line for bad behavior.

Sometimes after a person has been on a forum for a while they see that there really are bright red lines, kind of like informal mandatory unspoken rules.
Making personal attacks on a moderator is usually a good way to get warned/banned by the moderator.

That's a pretty safe assumption, I guess. I make no guarantees here, but that's definitely a good way to gun for it.

I don't claim to be a saint. This is my prerogative. I have to read everybody's posts (uniquely - as admin - blocking people isn't an option). I generally have a lot of work to do outside of the forum, and I don't want to be distracted by forum drama.

On the other hand, it's never been just that, for a permanent ban. And we've seen plenty on the forum without so much as a warning (as is fine--I don't want to create a feeling of fear here... only, sometimes, to avoid some nasty headaches).

rakovsky wrote:Sometimes after a person has been on a forum for a while they see

That's a feature, not a bug -- I want people on the forum to be able to get a good gut sense of what the forum culture is like. That's a big part of why past mod actions are public.

Some have been defining the subject in the terms they expect from other forums -- violations and punishment. People aren't banned for violations. People are banned because it is believed that they are not a net asset to the forum and that the quality of the forum would be improved without them. If you're worried that you might step over the line, be an outstanding contributor. Cite references, build careful logical arguments, and otherwise try to contribute with facts and knowledge. You'll be fine.

Steven Avery wrote:

Ulan wrote: As soon as you accept that these contain the oldest extant complete manuscripts of gMark, any consideration of the total number of old manuscripts of gMark becomes completely irrelevant

Complete nonsense. All the various evidences and mss point back to exemplars in the earliest centuries, before the 4th. You would have to argue a Lucian or Syrian recension, and then hand-wave the Latin mss and the Western text-line and more, in order to try to claim that such mss are irrelevant. In fact, that position is simply laughable.

You complain a lot about lying and unfair debating here, but now you clip off my "because they are all later" from my argument that you quoted. I guess you are aware of the point that I am correct with my statement, which was that the number of old manuscripts of gMark with the LE is completely irrelevant, as they are all later. Before this argument comes again: I also used the word "extant", because that's what your usual argument with those 99.9% of all manuscripts is about. This simply means that the medieval church decided on a specific text version, which is irrelevant for the question what ending is original. Completely irrelevant.

Steven Avery wrote: You might claim that they have less than probative relevance, but to call them completely irrelevant is just an example of one type of totally warped thinking. It means you are oblivious of the basics of textual genealogy.

e.g try going backward from the 1700 Greek mss. From where they get the traditional ending?

What kind of question is this? When Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the now powerful church hierarchy unified the Greek and Latin text traditions, respectively. This took a few centuries. As they decided on the variant with the LE, that's what most late manuscripts show. Which means your "number of manuscripts" argument boils down to "history of the church organization", which is irrelevant (and yes, I use the word consciously) for any question of authenticity. It should also be clear to you that I am aware of the fact that most scholars think of the LE as having been written in the 2nd century (mostly because it's an obvious summary of text snippets from gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn and Acts), if your question regarding "where they get the traditional ending" was sincere.

You should base your arguments regarding authenticity of the LE on internal evidence. This constant repetition of the fallacious "99.9% of the manuscripts" point, even in this thread, just makes you look as if you had no idea what you are talking about.


Edit: Just to make this clear: I am open to the suggestion that the ending at 16:8 is not original, even if I can think of plausible scenarios that would make it so. However, I am sure that none of the surviving ending variants that differ from 16:8, including the LE, are authentic and that they have all been added later by different scribes.

Hi Ulan,

If the church hierarchy unified the Greek and Latin textual traditions, over some unspecified centuries and some unspecified geography, why are the Syriac Peshitta manuscripts largely In agreement with the Greek Byzantine mss?

And, more basically, why were the Greek and Latin textual traditions so different from one another, until the unification by the Reformation-era scholarship? (The development of the Received Text in the 1500s.)

Thanks.

Steven

The Peshitta is not a translation per se, but a revision of a translation.

davidbrainerd wrote:If your position is KJVOnly, or even Textus Receptus only, if you're a fundamentalist in inerrancy etc., it shouldn't even matter what the original text was, God guided the process of history to produce the pure TR or the KJV itself, everyone before the TR/KJV went to hell, all praise the holy KJV, first inspired Bible ever. In other words, when the inspired word is a translation (KJV 1611), or a recension (TR 1550), that came so late in the game, then basically you're arguing inspiration took an evolutionary path (TR is after all a mixmatch of nearly every earlier recension). So why are you arguing about the original when your beliefs in reality hold the original to be irrelevant.

The TR is a restoration text, not evolutionary. Quite simply, it represents the mass of Greek mss (Byzantine) preservation refined with the Latin preservation. The Greek correcting the Lain, the Latin correcting the Greek. Distinctively Alexandrian variants (e.g.Erasmus considering Vaticanus) were irrelevant.

Steven