[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by BrianT

There are many items in my list, because I was breaking the logic down into very small pieces.

And I showed about 5 clear difficulties in the list. If the presumptions are wrong (e.g. inerrancy in the original autographs as the pertinent concept), the conclusions are irrelevant.

Originally Posted by BrianT

Item A only deals with the inerrancy of original scripture. Either they were or they weren't, yes or no..

When you tell me specifically what is "original scripture" then I will tell you if I believe it is inerrant. Are you talking about a book ? Scraps of paper ? Writings by Mark ? Translation to Greek by another ? Since I have little idea about texts, size, books or authors, I will not claim for myself a concept that has no application. Where and when did these particular texts occur. Was it ever in a single book form ? Multi-book ? What languages ? What words ?

The skeptics understand this well, and laugh at a concept so insipid as declaring "inerrancy" in that which can never be defined or seen.

"Yes, Mr. Skeptic, the original autographs are inerrant .. however I can never tell you with certainty what the original autographs say".

That such a doofus construction is taken seriously in Christendom only reflects on the modernist inroads and other factors (perhaps flouride in water or seminary indoctrination has addled brains). That is why you simply did not discuss the present tense aspect of Scripture given in the Bible itself.

Originally Posted by BrianT

You don't need to disect every line of the progression,

That way a reader could see the main flaws in a row.

Originally Posted by BrianT

only indicate where/why you disagree with any single line, so we can see where we first start to diverge.

The first major divergence is A, your use of a presumption of no definition.

To give a detailed example, you did not comment on Mark being written in Latin or Graeco-Latin. Apparently you understand that is a real possibility scholastically and in every other way. So would the "translation" into Greek then be Scripture ? It definitely would not be the "original autograph". Or was pure Scripture then lost and unfound as early as the 1st or 2nd century ? No longer was there pure and perfect Scripture.

Until you address such fundamental paradigmic stuff the rest is fluff.

Similar with the aspects of the Tanach (Old Testament). You never address how that was referred to as Scripture. Was the Old Testament impure or pure in the 1st century? Under your thinking, how could it be pure, if it was a change-over from a Paleo-Hebrew, if it had been at the hands of fallible man for centuries ? When was it all in one book, pure ?

When Jesus and Paul referred to "Scripture" .. somehow they missed all your concerns. Fallible copyists, dialects and languages, perfection only in the "original autographs". Why were Jesus and Paul able to call their texts, or the text read by Timothy as a youth, Scripture ? Did they need it all in one perfect, complete volume to use the term ? Wouldn't they have to be concerned that Inspiration was only in the "original" but not preserved in the copied texts ? Or perhaps they allowed for impurities and imperfections ?

Perhaps your concern is only for the NT, if so, say so. Perhaps you think they had pure OT Scripture in the 1st century, but we are not so enabled today. Then say so. Perhaps you felt they worked around imperfections and errors but called it Scripture anyway. Then say so.

So we disagree at the beginning. That is why I just ran through the other stuff.

Originally Posted by BrianT

I agree. What does this have to do with agreement or disagreement with any specific items in the list?

As I just pointed out, since you have no clear, consistent definition of Scripture, and a fallacious view that emphasizes the "original autographs" that does not account for preservation .. as per the OT through to the 1st century .. everything else falls to the ground. Your foundation crumbles, the rest is of only minor scholastic interest.

Originally Posted by BrianT

Since you seem to agree that one full, single, collated volume did not exist for the entirety of church history, I'll take that to mean that you also agree with the specifics of points F,G,H.

I made it clear that my textual theory does not depend on F,G,H. While I cannot say what existed when, it is simply not particularly relevant. I see no difficulty at all with the Reformation scholarship and the advent of printing gathering the words of God into one complete, pure volume, if they had been preserved earlier in diffuse, scattered form. This is so trivial I wonder why you cannot seem to comprehend.

Why do you insist that there had to be a different method of preservation that that which occurred ? Of course you do not have the faintest idea whether the Reformation Bible is correct or the corrupt alexandrian manuscripts are pure Bible. Or both at the same time. So you come up with convoluted constructs to try to mask your multi-confusions.

Originally Posted by BrianT

since there was a time in Church history that "the word of God" existed yet did not exist as a single perfect complete volume, then verses that talk about the word of God existing for all generations could not mean in a single perfect complete volume.

All Bible verses certainly are consistent with the formation of a single perfect complete volume. They do not insist on such a pure and perfect volume in every city, in every language, or in every century. All of that is the providential hand of God.

Such verses mean that God's word exists in fullness in all time. From heaven to earth. There never was a book lost, or a single verse lost, or a word lost. Even when the Hebrews lost the book of the law for some centuries, the word of God was still available. Even when the Christian world had the NT word slightly scattered among the Greek and Latin texts, the word of God was still available.

Ultimately there was a spiritual imperative (if you are a believer in the pure word) that the word would be available 'in toto' for the ploughman and the seminarian. That was the great and beautiful desire of men of faith and purpose like Erasmus and Tyndale. Any dissonance would be resolved, the pure Bible text would be available.

And either that was fulfilled in the Reformation Bible --> King James Bible or .. something else. I could see a deluded person thinking it would be fulfilled some years or centuries in the future by some new discovery (yes, this view exists). That would be rather insipid, and difficult from a preservation standpoint, yet more logical than your shifting sand. My view is that history and clarity and faith and scholarship and truth and purity and perfection has already fully converged. Through the Reformation Bible --> through the English Bibles, including Tyndale and Geneva, unto the pure and perfect and majestic King James Bible.

Originally Posted by BrianT

If you disagree with this, you have to explain how a single perfect complete volume existed for every moment of church history since the the last scripture was originnally penned.

You are wrong on all ends.

You never showed the "last scripture", what and when and how it was, what it said, why it was special. (Was Timothy's Scripture less authoritative than the "originals" written perhaps piecemeal centuries earlier in a difficult or unknown dialects ? - You never answer this.). You never showed that anything at all in any language actually ever qualifies to you as pure Scripture, at any time or place. Since you do not know the "originals" you must insist that there simply is no pure and perfect Scripture today, nor was there OT Scripture at the time of the NT (against the very NT proclamations).

So instead you try to work out redefinitions, to make purity only in that which is undefined and unfindable and unexpressible. This you contrast to what exists, which you view ass imperfect and unpure, but the best you have, ok for the message. However since it is all you have left (through the convoluted construct) you insist on trying, flailing, to call the imperfect and unpure the word of God, Scripture.

Oh, .. you simply have no comprehension of my simple explanation to you of the "perfect complete volume" being something that was very possibly only fulfilled by the providential hand of God through the Reformation and the advent of printing and the labours of men of faith.

Originally Posted by BrianT

This is not shortening the hand of God, it affirms his power to work despite imperfection.

That is, your view is that errant writings, contradictions, uncertainties, confusions, "imperfections" should be accepted and believed as fully the word of God.

Originally Posted by BrianT

Do you agree or disagree with the idea "scripture does not change meaning"?

This is an irrelevant question since you can never point to a single verse and say for sure "this is identical the original autograph, Scripture". Since you have no tangible Scripture, asking if the ethereal changes meaning is simply confusion. You do not know the meaning of Scripture. e.g. You do not know if it says "God was manifest in the flesh" (yes, it does) or "the only-begotten god" (no it does not). So if you do not know meaning, you can never discern if it changes meaning. This is your conundrum.

Originally Posted by BrianT

Point N is part of the progression. It comes after point M for a reason. You ask "Are you saying the "word of God" can be imperfect ?", after just having read points A through M, and not indicating where you disagree with the statements in A through M.

I indicated many disagreements, starting with A.

Originally Posted by BrianT

You're getting side tracked.

My "side-tracked" is pointing out the illogic on your end. Thus I ask you again.

Are you saying the "word of God" can be imperfect ? Errant ? Contradictory ?

Can an error be the perfect and pure word of God ?

Or are you simply saying there is no pure and perfect word of God today ?

All of your hodge-podge is simply to avoid giving straight answers to these questions. Or to deal with the contradictory answers you have given in the past.

Shalom,
Steven