Sorry, all I have is your word. I mean no offence, but it wouldn't be due diligence to take you at your word. Post verifiable facts. Show me what has convinced you so completely.
Not just my word, but the word of every scholar workign in New Testament studies, you can google around, see if you find someone that thinks otherwise, you won't.
The facts about the fragments of the NT, the apostolic father quotations, all the manuscripts and their attestation, these are all facts, they are all verifiable.
If that fact doesn't convince you I don't know how you can be convinced of ANYTHING in history, given that nothing is better attested than the New Testament. 43% of the NT is attested in the 1st 2 centuries, you came up with that, not me, in the 3rd century we have 3 times as many fragments and manuscripts as we do in the first 2 centuries combined, we also have much more extensive church father writings, Origen for example has volumes and volumes quoting extensively from every book in the NT.
And positing a theory, about constantine changing the text, is not only inplausable but impossible.
I don't really understand your disrespect. If you were right you wouldn't need to do this.
If I don't know, it's probably good that I listen, I am all ears, I was from the beginning, derogatory comments made me disrespect you. People who have knowledge of things have no reason to disrespect people that don't possess the same knowledge.
So get down off of your high horse, all is forgiven and show me the evidence, I want links to scholarly work, not yours. I don't consider people who talk down to others that they say know less than they do, scholars.
What's disrespectful is coming into a debate about textual scholarship on the New Testament without knowing the first thing about it ... I wouldn't dare to try and start debating quantum physics withsomeone that has studied it a lot, and if I did I would at least take the time to read something about it. You haven't read ANYTHING about it, it's obvious, and yet you come here trying to debate it, making claims you refuse to back up.
If you don't know what the difference between an origional, a manuscript, a frament and a complete text is, if you don't know what attestation is, or any of that, don't come and tell me I believe something because I want to, or that "it's a well known fact that," have respect for the subject you're debating and do research, or read about it, look it up. It's would be like me going to debate muslims and claim the worship a donkey or something, then when they show me that they don't, I just keep saying "yeah you do it says so here, show me where it says you don't worship a donkey," rather than stop, and actaully read a little bit about islam before I come in and try debate it.
I'm not a scholar, but I'd say this, read ANY scholar, N.T wright (liberal), Bart Ehrman (Atheist), Craig Evans (conservative), James White (more conservative), James Dunn (Liberal), Richard Bauckman (not sure), Bruce Metzger (liberal) ... Here's my point, any modern scholar writing will more or less assume the New Testament text's veracity, even Bart Ehrman who is famous for the book "missquoting Jesus" doesn't question the fact that we have a reliable text, and his whole shpiel is about disscrediting the bible.
I don't like to just quote scholars because I don't respect arguments from authority directed at me, I'd rather have actual evidence, that's why I showed you a list of the papyri showing exactly what's on the papyri and a list of who the apostolic fathers quoted.
Above you said from 330, so which is it?
This is crucially important because though it's just a 30 year discrepancy it falls right into the reign of Constantine.
Ok, please read.
The Codex Sinaticus is the earliest complete NT IN ONE SINGLE CODEX ... we have. That isn't to say that we have one book there, one fragment there and so on, and when put together the whole NT from before, do you see the difference? Also the Codex Sinaticus is the earliest one WE HAVE (remember what I said about papyri, it rotts quick), which is why scholars almost never date things by when we have our earliest papyri.
We have fragments and quotations and manuscripts of the NT going way before 300, making up most of teh NT if not all (when taken together), but the oldest surviving Codex where we have it ALL IN ONE BOOK is the Codex Sinaticus.
No, I don't, it makes sense that an emperor would tweak a religion that was the law. Henry the eighth did, he created his own church, that to this day interrupts the religion differently than the original church. Before him the catholic church had a strangle hold on Christianity and anybody can attest that they interpreted the bible differently.
Do you have any proof that it didn't occur besides your complete new testament that existed during the end of Constantine's reign but some how predated it?
Again I am all ears. Please enough with the "out of your league", and "you are so dumb" comments. I know you think you are way smarter than me. I am not really interested in that pettiness anymore. So leave it behind and act smarter. Or I am not really interested in what you have to say.
Yes But Henry the Eight didn't change a text that was already in circulation and do so in a way that no one would have known, he couldn't do that, it would have been impossible, its easy to start your own church, it's impossible to change a text of a book that's already widely circulated and have no one catch on.
I already talked about why it would have been impossible. My argument wasn't that the Codex predated it, it was that it was an Alexandrian text ... not a Byzantine text, and that the fact that we found one there makes it extremely unlikely that it was the first one ever written (it's not like Saini was a bible copying center), it would be like finding a copy of Obamas autobiography in Mexico ... it's VERY unlikely to be teh first copy of it. But my argumetn has always been the early attestation of all the fragments we have, and the apostolic quotations, along with the lack of any evidence of a change in text post constantine, no change, no evidence.
I'll cut out the "you are so dumb" comments, I apologise, but if you're going to debate a subject read about it a little bit. Do a little research, respect the subject enough to do that.
