24AR29-09

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AR 29:9 - Upgrading the evidence for New Testament reliability

In this issue:

ATHEISM - "the world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks"

NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM - related "Myths and Mistakes"

Apologia Report 29:9 (1,650)
February 29, 2024

ATHEISM

"Where Does Religion Come From?" -- Ross Douthat (New York Times, Nov 15 '24) considers how Ayaan Hirsi Ali's path to Christianity as she herself describe it <www.tinyurl.com/y3v6nhrc> is "unusually legible to atheists, in the sense that it matches well with how a lot of smart secular analysts assume that religions take shape and sustain themselves. ...

   "At a certain point, the social and governmental order becomes sufficiently trustworthy itself that people begin to kick away the ladder of supernatural belief; hence secularization in the developed world. ... [W]hen a developed society seems to be destabilizing, threatened by enemies outside and increasingly divided within, the need for a 'big god' would return - and so people would reach back, like Hirsi Ali, to the traditions that gave rise to the social order in the first place. ...

   "One of the strongest attempts to explain the substance and content of supernatural belief comes from psychological theorists like Pascal Boyer and Paul Bloom, who argue that humans naturally believe in invisible minds and impossible beings because of the same cognitive features that let us understand other human minds and their intentions.  ... [Boyer and Bloom find:] 'This makes us animists and creationists.'

   "Boyer, for his part, argues that our theories about these imagined invisible beings tend to fall into their own cognitively convenient categories.  ...

   "With these arguments, you can close the circle. ... 

   "But here's what this closed circle leaves out: the nature of actual religious experience, which is just much weirder, unexpected and destabilizing than psychological and evolutionary arguments for its utility would suggest while clearly being a generative force behind the religious traditions that these theories are trying to explain. ...

   "But another path, which I've been following lately, is to read about U.F.O. encounters - because clearly the Pentagon wants us to! - and consider them as a form of religious experience, even as the basis for a new half-formed 21st-century religion."

   Douthat relates that people are "having largely unlooked-for encounters with entities that defy easy categorization and explanation. Some aspects of these encounters fit a Spielbergian science-fiction template, and since this is a secular and scientific age, the wider society embraces that template.... But when you go deeper into the narratives, many of their details and consequences resemble not some 'Star Trek'-style first contact but the supernatural experiences of early modern and premodern societies....

   "[W]hat you see in the communities that have grown up around these experiences is not a ratification of existing religious structures.... Rather it's a landscape of destabilized agnosticism, filled with competing theories about what's actually going on....

   "Far from being a landscape created by the human desire for sense making, by our tendency to impose purpose and intentionality where none exists, the realm of U.F.O. experiences is a landscape waiting for someone to make sense of it....

   "Given the existence and influence of Christianity, it makes sense that some intellectuals in a decadent post-Christian society would be drawn back toward its consolations. But why were we given Christianity in the first place? Why are we being given whatever we're being given in the U.F.O. phenomenon?

   "The only definite answer is that the world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks." <www.tinyurl.com/4snxjw4r> (paywalled)

   For more, see:

* - Carl Trueman in First Things (Nov 11 '23) <www.tinyurl.com/fabfeztm>

* - "UFOs and Aliens Are (Probably) Not What You Think: An Interview with Diana Walsh Pasulka;" <www.tinyurl.com/yevckc5m>

* - "Why some Latter-day Saints believe in UFOs and why these alien travelers fit with their religion;" <www.tinyurl.com/2tsnys9p>

* - "UFO 'religion;' influencing Congress to hunt aliens, says top Pentagon official" ... and our own archives at <www.tinyurl.com/AR-on-Hirsi-Ali>

 ---

NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM

"A Revised Approach to Defending New Testament Textual Reliability" by Doug Potter (Associate Professor of Theology and Apologetics, Southern Evangelical Seminary) -- We recently learned of this resource from the March 31, 2023 Meeting of the International Society of Christian Apologetics <www.tinyurl.com/46ujzvjc> which featured the paper. Potter champions Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, Elijah Hixson & Peter Gurry, eds. <www.tinyurl.com/y6nhvpze> to support the conclusion that the NT text "is a reliable reconstruction, based on enough good manuscripts and a sound method of reconstruction." Potter's operating premise is that "when it comes to presenting the evidence for NT textual reliability," some apologists "use inaccurate evidence and make inaccurate claims."

   In particular: "What blame I think can be put on the author of such published apologetic resources, which the authors of Myths and Mistakes do correctly lay at the feet of published apologists, is that authors have responsibility to inform their readers in their published work [as to] what information and numbers must be taken as general, as opposed to specific, and subject to change and why. This, I think, is the general failure of past apologists and needs correction and qualification in future publications. ... [T]hey could have known and communicated to their readers, as we will see, that these numbers are general, based on a functional count, and subject to change over time for various reasons. Failing to qualify the numbers in this way, leaves the impression that the numbers do not change, and classical scholars count manuscripts in the same way as NT scholars."

   Potter argues for a greater emphasis on precision in reporting textual reconstruction counting practices and comparison methods. Examples of the need for this improvement are primarily found in the work of Norman Geisler's book Twelve Points that Show Christianity Is True <www.tinyurl.com/2n9xxywm> and A General Introduction to the Bible, <www.tinyurl.com/mv9s8bbd> plus Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict. <www.tinyurl.com/323b6y4r>

   Potter seeks to "1) identify the significant things apologists get inaccurate or outdated, and 2) Correct #1 to help ensure there are no future inaccuracies, and outdated approaches." His conclusion reads, in part: "the suggested revision about manuscript variants, numbers, comparisons, dates, and the reporting of results of textual reconstruction, does, I hope, give accurate information and resources for the apologist to work with in defending the textual reliability of the New Testament...."

   With regards to reporting on Textual Reconstruction, Potter urges: "Instead of relying on the percentage estimates of past scholars and then counting those percentages to arrive at a single percent that shows a reliable reconstruction of the text, I suggest [their] concepts be explained, and three possible methods of reporting [which] may help show that the reconstruction of the NT text is as reliable as possible given the available manuscripts and methods of reconstruction done by competent scholars [whose] results are open to scrutiny."

   Potter also warns of strategies employed by Bible opponents which attempt to "undermine the entire method or process of reconstructing the text, even if it is done with great care and results in a reliable text. Some may say [that] any time gap between an author's autograph and our extant manuscript logically allows for the corruption of the text. Given that there are some instances that we know of orthodox corruption, it is not possible to reconstruct any NT text with any degree of certainty unless there is virtually no time gap between autograph and extant manuscripts." Valuable discussion follows.

   Another aspect of Potter's conclusion bears emphasis, namely that "the concept of meaning in a written text, should give us confidence that even if [its original] wording is difficult to [determine], it can still carry the same meaning as the autographs because meaning is immaterial. It is as form is to matter, so meaning is to language. Indeed, this is what makes translation from one language to another possible. For example, the sentence, 'Jesus walked down the path' can be worded very differently and still have the same meaning: 'Jesus strolled along the road,' 'Jesus then meandered along the dirt,' etc. even if translated into another language. Certainly, there is a point at which the words can be so different that the meaning is lost, but this is why having multiple manuscripts and an acceptable method of grading different readings helps recover the original meaning if not wording. I agree with Geisler, who often said we have '100% of the meaning of the original,' even if not the wording, and this is all that an argument for historical reliability needs to rest on." <www.tinyurl.com/bddjt322> (registration required)

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