Alan,
I wasn't dismissing the "meat" of your argument. However, I was jumping the gun. Sorry, I'm eager to get to the "meat" of my personal issues with the Gospels!
I think we can both agree that delving into textual criticism would be secondary to our dialogue. For one thing, you know more about it than I do. That I will happily grant!
Rather than bore our readers and spend countless hours researching scholarly criticism of languages neither of us can read or write I will capitulate.
In what little research I have done, I will grant you the point that we have a great deal of evidence that whatever transcriptional errors may be in our current NT they are not worthy of throwing the books out in the cold. Furthermore, I agree that there is indeed a mountain of scraps, fragments, and pieces of these books that date to the first and second century. And, in general, they match up.
I, of course, am still cynical about this issue, but not to a degree that should stop us from moving on to your next points.
I know this isn't a very congenial surrender, but it's the best I can muster and were we keeping score (thank God were not!) I would award the point to Team Alan!!
Yours,
JE
Whew...I thought my insufficient Greek and Syriac skills were about to get exposed. I will move the conversation forward with a new post soon.
ReplyDeleteMuch love,
Alan