Misquoting Truth

[ryu238]

Ever hear of the book Misquoting Truth by Timothy Paul Jones?
A summary of the chapters are discussed here.
http://www.rightposters.com/?blog&post=misquoting-truth
This passage from the link confused me

Ehrman believes that the authors of the Gospel’s were anonymous. Jones notes that the accuracy of the Gospels does not depend on who first wrote them. Jones admits it’s impossible to prove with certainty who wrote the Gospels, but he argues that one can make a probable case for who did.

Ehrman believes that the authors wouldn’t have put their names in the titles of the books. Jones notes that that isn’t necessarily true, given that many authors did that at the time, so it’s perfectly legitimate for one to expect books to be called “the Gospel according to Matthew”.
....
points out two of the Gospels specifically claim to be based on eyewitness reports: The Gospel of Luke claims to be the testimony of “those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning” and the Gospel of John states “The one who saw this has testified – his testimony is true”. The Gospel of John is based on the eyewitness testimony of the apostle John.

Additionally, early church leaders (Papias of Hierapolis, Irenaeus of Lyons) believed Mark and Matthew were also based on eyewitness testimony. Mark was believed to be based on eyewitness testimony of Simon Peter, and the apostle Matthew was responsible for the Gospel that bore his name.

To support the claim that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, Jones points out that when Mark’s first Gospel began circulating in 70 A.D., that it’s almost certain that people who had seen the risen Jesus were still alive.

His defense falls flat because there are problems which debunk this found here: https://adversusapologetica.wordpre...ector-and-the-authorship-of-the-first-gospel/
This bugs me greatly. I mean you claim eyewitness accounts and they end up making blunders.

 

[rjh01]

What the truth means now and what it meant 2,000 years ago are different things. These books were written 200-400 years after Christ. So, no, they cannot be written by people who were alive then.

 

[Degeneve]

What the truth means now and what it meant 2,000 years ago are different things. These books were written 200-400 years after Christ. So, no, they cannot be written by people who were alive then.

The scholars usually agree that the gospels have been written at end of first century or at the beginning of the second century. But they usually agree that the writers were not eye witnesses.

 

[marplots]

The scholars usually agree that the gospels have been written at end of first century or at the beginning of the second century. But they usually agree that the writers were not eye witnesses.

Given the problems with eye witness testimony, it's probably better that they weren't.

 

[rjh01]

The scholars usually agree that the gospels have been written at end of first century or at the beginning of the second century. But they usually agree that the writers were not eye witnesses.

Yes, I just checked. You are right. That is still 60+ years after the event. So the information at best is second hand. Plus old men would be telling things what happened when they were much younger. This alone would make a lot of difference to what actually happened. Then what we are reading are actually several generations of copies. This would add in several more errors both deliberate and otherwise. Then add in errors in several generations of translation on top of all this. So now we have several different versions of the story of Jesus.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Yes, I just checked. You are right. That is still 60+ years after the event. So the information at best is second hand. Plus old men would be telling things what happened when they were much younger.

You're assuming a modern lifespan.

 

[Peterson]

You're assuming a modern lifespan.

You're assuming the lifespan was different.

http://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans-constant-2-000-years.html

Also, from everybody's favorite book:

For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

 

[Bikewer]

Ehrman's work on this is pretty exhaustive.....And he maintains that this information has been known to NT scholars for a very long time....But never disseminated to religious congregations.

He points out that JC and his followers would have been illiterate, and that the oldest survivng manuscripts (still "copies of copies of copies" ) were written in scholarly Greek.

Also points out the many errors, deletions, additions, and alterations apparent in the old texts. Not to mention the existence of over 100 "Gospels", many of which are wildly different than the 4 picked for inclusion....And the existence of dozens of "Jesus cults" , which likewise differed wildly from each other in terms of what they believed JC had been and what his purposes might have been.

 

[bruto]

Uh oh, did I see the name Ehrman? I'm getting out of here....

here come de judge!