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Yep. There are less than a handful that really affect anything. In fact, the overwhelming majority of variants, as we call them, are basic misspellings.

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As you doubtless know better than me, opponents of the faith try to use the stunningly large number of variants (several hundred thousand) to cast doubt on the NT. But when you consider that, for instance, the finals verses of Mark 16 represent quite a number of variants multiplied by whatever number of manuscripts differ on that text, then it becomes clear why there are so many. And when you consider that the 0.5% of the NT text that is in some doubt would include, as I understand it, the somewhat lengthy Mark 16 passage as well as the story of the woman caught in adultery, then the reliability of what we have becomes astonishingly good.

The final verses of Mark, I am convinced, are not authentic. Besides the manuscript evidence, there is so much in it that doesn't fit Mark's style. Then there's the shorter ending that appears in numerous manuscripts; that one is obviously spurious, but it points up the fact that we don't know how Mark's gospel ended. Various people at various times felt the need to create an ending, but the one in our modern Bibles clearly came from a time when theology was a LOT more developed than it was in the first century.
The woman caught in adultery is problematic, not so much because it may or may not be authentic, but because for whatever reason, the guys making the manuscripts couldn't decide where to put it. Some even put it in Luke. Now, the story fits John's style, it sounds like something Jesus would do, and it's not out of character with the Gospel of John. Why was there so much confusion about where it goes?
In the words of Tevye, "Well, I'll tell you. Idunno."
And as I said, the work continues. I'm doing my daily reading from the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, 4th edition. They publish what they call a "Textual commentary" as a companion volume that explains the reasons for the decisions they made on the various readings. The Textual Commentary I have is for the 3rd edition. It's interesting to see the differences between the two editions as we learn more and discover more. We may never reach 100%, but we'll ding dong sure keep working toward it.
From the loose-ends dept.: the 5th edition has been out for quite some time, I'm just too cheap to buy it until my 4th edition wears out completely!

I think your views on Mark 16 and John 8 have become fairly mainstream. I've heard D. Wallace flatly say they should not be in the NT. Reading a book now by Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson on issues regarding textual criticism. It's been very good.

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

But as the New Testament shows us, "common sense" and "rational intelligence" can't account for everything.

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They can't account for everything in any topic being discussed but they are the best thing we have to determine the facts of anything.

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Since the Bible is a book all about an almighty God deliberately intervening in that framework and doing things that are contrary to what we would call "common sense", that's not going to be the best way to approach it.

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There you have stated the essential problem in Bible/Torah/Koran/Gita/etc. discussions. When one side ultimately offers "God said so" as part of the discussion, facts become irretrievable. As a student of religion, I don't have the luxury of declaring I'm right because "the Bible tells me so". When a theologian is suggested as the final arbiter in the Mary/Magnificat discussion, that leaves me without recourse. I absolutely accept that someone has faith, but I can't accept the argument from faith (argumentum ab fide) as definitive in this instance. In any case, it's not essential to basic Christianity.

I read the Magnificat in several Bibles in English, and they all seemed like a later addition. I was hoping for your Greek take on the issue, but, after your several posts of methods of Biblical examination which were all very interesting, I was left with a theologian for an answer.

I won't go point by point to your latest reply since you would then be encouraged to come back with your own point by point. I don't accept your insights on this issue and you don't accept mine, so I suggest we leave it at that, otherwise we may end up taking potshots at each other, and that is not in the interest of either of us.

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There you have stated the essential problem in Bible/Torah/Koran/Gita/etc. discussions. When one side ultimately offers "God said so" as part of the discussion, facts become irretrievable. As a student of religion, I don't have the luxury of declaring I'm right because "the Bible tells me so". When a theologian is suggested as the final arbiter in the Mary/Magnificat discussion, that leaves me without recourse. I absolutely accept that someone has faith, but I can't accept the argument from faith (argumentum ab fide) as definitive in this instance. In any case, it's not essential to basic Christianity.

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Sorry, but that's off topic. I said no such thing. I said that with a book of this type we have to take a different approach than just "common sense". We have to go back to author's intent and the world the author was presenting. I have made no claims, nor did I suggest that theologians are the final arbiter of anything. You read that stuff into my posts.
I'm speaking strictly as a textual critic. I'm making no judgments as to theology or anything else. I'm looking at the text, nothing more.
You won't hear me giving you "because the Bible says so" because I agree with you that that's a cop-out. If that's all one has, it's a sad state of affairs.

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jlisenbe
I think your views on Mark 16 and John 8 have become fairly mainstream. I've heard D. Wallace flatly say they should not be in the NT. Reading a book now by Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson on issues regarding textual criticism. It's been very good.

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Is that Daniel Wallace? I've met him, he seemed like a good guy.

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You won't hear me giving you "because the Bible says so" because I agree with you that that's a cop-out. If that's all one has, it's a sad state of affairs.

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I wish you'd elaborate on that.

Yeah, it was Daniel Wallace. I really like him.

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jlisenbe
You won't hear me giving you "because the Bible says so" because I agree with you that that's a cop-out. If that's all one has, it's a sad state of affairs.
I wish you'd elaborate on that.

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Too many people use that line without first asking the really hard question: what does the Bible really say about this? That requires more than just reading the KJV or any other translation. It requires digging in deeper than one could imagine to understand the grammatical, historical, and cultural information surrounding a particular statement so we can understand what the writer was trying to tell us. Too many don't do that. The creation story is a prime example. I'll just give one example for the sake of brevity.
"There was evening and there was morning, one day". They tell us "Every time the word 'day' is used with a number like this it means a literal day."
The part they don't tell us: the construction they refer to is used exactly once in the Hebrew Bible, and it's right here. There are no others to compare it to. That means somebody made up this rule to back their young-earth creationism.
As I like to tell people, if you have to lie to support your position, your position sucks.
This is why experts are important. I don't consider myself one of them, as the saying goes, I stand on the shoulders of giants. Not everybody can dig into it as deeply as I have been privileged to do (mostly because not everybody is as warped as I am), but we can all draw from those who can and have done so. They come to different conclusions sometimes, and that's when it's incumbent on the rest of us to find the tools we need to evaluate and decide who (if anyone) is right.

That's what I've spent my life doing. I love the egghead stuff and the light it brings to my own study and learning. I also know that 99% of people have no idea what these people are talking about, so I've taken it upon myself to try and translate the scholarese into actual human language. I've had varying degrees of success, needless to say.

Another example: Jesus said if your eye offends you, which is to say, it makes you sin - he was talking about lust as I recall - pluck it out and throw it away. How many of us are doing that when we see a temptation? Well, the Bible says so, we should all be blind. But good analysis of the time, the language, Jesus' way of speaking, and the culture, tell us he was speaking metaphorically. We know eyes are neutral, they're nothing but receptors. Lust and the rest take place in the mind. So he meant, look at something else (grossly simplified but that's what it boils down to).

And so it goes.

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Yeah, it was Daniel Wallace. I really like him.

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I enjoyed meeting him. It was a long time ago, so I'm sure he has no idea who I am. We were both meeting lots of people.

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Too many people use that line without first asking the really hard question: what does the Bible really say about this? That requires more than just reading the KJV or any other translation. It requires digging in deeper than one could imagine to understand the grammatical, historical, and cultural information surrounding a particular statement so we can understand what the writer was trying to tell us. Too many don't do that. The creation story is a prime example. I'll just give one example for the sake of brevity.
"There was evening and there was morning, one day". They tell us "Every time the word 'day' is used with a number like this it means a literal day."

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You make a good point. A simplistic, single verse/passage approach can be dangerous, but there is similarly a danger with the "consult an expert" approach. Who is an expert? The experts frequently disagree more than they agree. There are, for instance, more opinions on the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit than can be counted. So I'd agree with the text you used as an example, but then there are many other passages where the meaning is clear. John 3:16 comes to mind. It does not take an expert to understand that.

If we are solely dependent on theologians, then we are in trouble. The glory of the story of Martin Luther is that he stood, one man all by himself, in opposition to all of the experts and came out on top. His plea was always the same. He insisted that they show him his error in the Bible by public debate and not by the mere wisdom of man. That business of serious discussion and even public debate is a great safeguard against error.

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If that's all one has, it's a sad state of affairs.

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This statement puzzles me. Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by it. I would suggest that if we do not have Biblical support for our beliefs, and even more if our beliefs are not "birthed" in scripture, then we are in a truly sad state of affairs. I am, of course, referring to our Christian faith.

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

I said no such thing.
(My comment was - "When one side ultimately offers 'God said so' as part of the discussion, facts become irretrievable."

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You implied it by your statement dissing common sense when you wrote "...Since the Bible is a book all about an almighty God deliberately intervening in that framework and doing things that are contrary to what we would call "common sense", that's not going to be the best way to approach it. "

Bringing in "Almighty God" to bolster your position brought the conversation to faith, instead of a rational common sense examination. I don't object to you doing that, I just want you to acknowledge what you're doing. If a person of faith says he/she cannot understand or prove an issue logically since it is a matter of faith, I accept that position. If a person of faith tries to rationally prove the unprovable, I do not accept that and will debate the issue.

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I said that with a book of this type we have to take a different approach than just "common sense". We have to go back to author's intent and the world the author was presenting. I have made no claims, nor did I suggest that theologians are the final arbiter of anything.

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In post 62, you wrote "We leave it to the theologians to take it from there". You repeated that sentiment in Post 71, I repeat: we don't talk about whether they were Mary's words or not. We leave that for someone else. " I took that to refer to the earlier post.

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You read that stuff into my posts.

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If I have done that, I apologize.

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You won't hear me giving you "because the Bible says so" because I agree with you that that's a cop-out. If that's all one has, it's a sad state of affairs.

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Good. I agree with you. The Bible is loaded with excellence. It doesn't need "because the Bible told me so". Christians should follow whatever truth they find in the Bible. Not because it's in the Bible, but because it's the truth.

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Bringing in "Almighty God" to bolster your position brought the conversation to faith, instead of a rational common sense examination.

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It's literally the first sentence of the book. If you insist on approaching a book of that kind with a view that says "such things don't happen" renders your approach pointless. The only way to approach the Bible or the Qur'an or any other ancient book that reports encounters with deity, is to understand it on its own terms. Whether you believe the events happened or not is irrelevant to understanding the text.

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

It's literally the first sentence of the book. If you insist on approaching a book of that kind with a view that says "such things don't happen" renders your approach pointless. The only way to approach the Bible or the Qur'an or any other ancient book that reports encounters with deity, is to understand it on its own terms. Whether you believe the events happened or not is irrelevant to understanding the text.

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You wrote "Whether you believe the events happened or not is irrelevant to understanding the text." Immediately before that, you wrote "If you insist on approaching a book of that kind with a view that says "such things don't happen" renders your approach pointless".

The first sentence says belief or disbelief is irrelevant. The second sentence says disbelief ("such things don't happen") renders the approach pointless. Which is it? Both sentences can't be true.

I agree that textual criticism and those methods you mentioned are valid. That is a rational approach that aids in understanding and, as you say, renders belief irrelevant.

You further write, "The only way to approach the Bible or the Qur'an or any other ancient book that reports encounters with deity, is to understand it on its own terms". I have always understood the Bible on its own terms. If you mean belief in a Bible deity is necessary to understand the Bible, I couldn't disagree more. You can believe in a Bible deity, but you cannot demonstrate/prove the reality of a Bible deity.

Finally, total extermination of the human race in a flood, Noah's ark with a pair of every living thing aboard, and talking snakes are just three examples of my belief that "such things don't happen".

I hope I'm misreading your comments. If not, and you insist on offering a Bible deity as a proof of your position, I'm afraid we're at a standstill.

We're way off the original discussion. To sum that up, I believe Mary's Magnificat is a later addition to the Gospels because the literary language is not something Mary would say. It was added when Christianity was achieving influence and the Mary story helped to prove the divine intervention re the birth of Jesus who was now being seen as divine himself. You disagree, and that's fine.

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Originally Posted by Athos

Finally, total extermination of the human race in a flood, Noah's ark with a pair of every living thing aboard, and talking snakes are just three examples of my belief that "such things don't happen".

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[When] calculating the number of animals on the Ark, this would mean that Noah cared for approximately 7,000 animals.
https://arkencounter.com/animals/how-many/

Again, I very much believe the Noah story is an allegory.

1. There are no "talking snakes" in the Bible.
2. Noah's ark is an impossible story unless the power of God is factored into it. There is, for instance, the question of where the 10 to 20 thousand feet of water went to. What did the carnivores on the ark eat? How about fish? How did saltwater and freshwater fish survive being in the water that would have existed during the flood? There is, however, some evidence for such a flood, and the Bible does seem to treat the story as though it actually happened. So perhaps it is allegorical, and perhaps it is accurate history. Either way, the Bible does not rise or fall on the answer to that question.
3. For those of us who believe in the resurrection, a serpent that speaks, or a donkey that speaks, are not big problems at all.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

1. There are no "talking snakes" in the Bible.

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Read Genesis 3.

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2. Noah's ark is an impossible story unless the power of God is factored into it. There is, for instance, the question of where the 10 to 20 thousand feet of water went to.

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Many floods mentioned in Mesopotamian (periodic flooding of the Tigris-Euphrates rivers) literature may have included the flood faced by a Sumerian Noah.

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What did the carnivores on the ark eat?

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Not only carnivores. For 40 days.... Who shoveled the manure? To put it where?

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How about fish? How did saltwater and freshwater fish survive being in the water that would have existed during the flood?

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They were just fine on their own.

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Read Genesis 3.

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I have many times. There are no "talking snakes" there.

It was much more than 40 days. More like 10 1/2 months before he found dry land.

Salt water fish would not have been "just fine" in an aguatic environment that would have been primarily composed of fresh water.

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Many floods mentioned in Mesopotamian (periodic flooding of the Tigris-Euphrates rivers) literature may have included the flood faced by a Sumerian Noah.

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I was not referring to that.

The carnivores would have been the problem. Herbivores could have, in theory at least, eaten primarily hay brought along for that purpose. I'm not discounting the possibility of Noah's flood being historically accurate. I'm just saying it would have taken God's intervention for it to happen as it did.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

I have many times. There are no "talking snakes" there.

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Genesis 3
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

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Salt water fish would not have been "just fine" in an aguatic environment that would have been primarily composed of fresh water.

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This was a localized fresh-water flood; the Tigris-Euphrates rivers flood in March, April, and May. Oceans were not affected.

No comments on who shoveled manure and dumped it where?

"Serpent"!! The singular "serpent" does not equate to talking "snakes" (more than one). I'm surprised you missed that. The Genesis three account is of ONE snake that supernaturally spoke on ONE occasion. So a person can believe in the Genesis three account and yet not believe in the likely derisively intended "talking snakes". They are not close to being the same.

You cannot have a localized flood where the water depth is measured in thousands of feet.

Done all the time is zoos. Noah and his sons would have dealt with it and simply dumped it in the water. But as I have repeatedly said, I don't see how all of this could have worked without an intervention of God's power.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

"Serpent"!! The singular "serpent" does not equate to talking "snakes" (more than one). I'm surprised you missed that. The Genesis three account is of ONE snake that supernaturally spoke on ONE occasion. So a person can believe in the Genesis three account and yet not believe in the likely derisively intended "talking snakes". They are not close to being the same.

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You obviously misunderstood Athos' reference.

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You cannot have a localized flood where the water depth is measured in thousands of feet.

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Thousands of feet??? Who was measuring?

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Done all the time is zoos. Noah and his sons would have dealt with it and simply dumped it in the water.

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Lots of pollution. By eight humans shoveling the s--+ of 7,000 animals? For the 10-1/2 months you claim?

And what did those eight humans eat?

Misunderstood? In what way? Athos is suggesting that to believe in Gen. 3 means a person believes in talking snakes. That is far removed from the truth. This has all been discussed repeatedly in the past.

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Thousands of feet??? Who was measuring?

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You must read more carefully. Genesis 7:19 "The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered."

I'm not claiming 10 months. The Bibles tells us that.

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And what did those eight humans eat?

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Ships carrying dozens and hundreds of people would travel for months in ancient times. What do you think they did...starve???

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

Misunderstood? In what way? Athos is suggesting that to believe in Gen. 3 means a person believes in talking snakes. That is far removed from the truth. This has all been discussed repeatedly in the past.

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He was speaking generically, metaphorically.

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You must read more carefully. Genesis 7:19 "The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered."

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Terrific descriptions to lend credence to this allegory.

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I'm not claiming 10 months. The Bibles tells us that.

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More detail in the allegory.

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Ships carrying dozens and hundreds of people would travel for months in ancient times. What do you think they did...starve???

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Noah and family must have enjoyed sumptuous dinners culled from their animal freight.