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Gregg & Hallee
Hallee The Homemaker
Loving a Life of Biblical Womanhood
Copyright © 2009-2012 Hallee The Homemaker All rights reserved.
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Hi Gregg,
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You’re right that at times people have been deceitful in their support of Darwinian evolution. It can be anything from planting fossils to wishful thinking about the interpretation of evidence. The thing is, that doesn’t tell us whether macro-evolution is true or false. What is more, it distracts from the truth of the situation found in the evidence.
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Why don’t Darwinists just tell the truth? Well, they’re human I guess. Some of them do tell the truth and some of them don’t. Of course there are going to be a few bad people in any group and you’ve managed to pick some out. Are they the majority? Well you’ve hardly shown that. Doing good science is hard work and sometimes people will take the easy way out. But all this is avoiding the question of whether there is evidence for evolution. I wrote about the evidence from the vitamin C gene and I would still appreciate your response to that if you get the time.
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You say that there’s no fraud in God’s word. Maybe that’s true, but the Bible as we have it isn’t free from fraud. We have manuscripts of the gospel of John with and without the story of the woman caught in adultery. See the NIV note before John 7:53. Someone either added that or removed it. Similarly, 1 John 5:7 was either added or removed. See the NIV footnote. Opinions are divided as to what the original text said in both cases.
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In the case of 1 John 5:7, the earliest Greek manuscript containing it is from the 16th century at the dawn of the age of the printing press. Manuscript being just a technical name for a hand-written document. It turns out that this Greek manuscript was written when Desiderius Erasmus refused to include 1 John 5:7 in his printed Greek New Testament unless a Greek manuscript which contained it could be found. A manuscript was provided. Honest? I don’t think so.
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So it’s clear there have been frauds within Christianity too. Does that tell us that macro-evolution and Christianity are both false? No. It tells us that fallible humans have gotten involved with both. The frauds are a side-issue. What matters is the evidence for/against the issues themselves.
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May peace be with you,
Neil.
Neil,
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I work upwards of 90 hours per week on a busy airbase in a combat zone. As I already said, I am not prepared to fully answer your vitamin C post, nor am I ignoring the point. It isn’t that I don’t care to answer it or can’t answer it. It just isn’t high on my list of priorities, believe it or not.
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Without reading it I can ask you if it starts with valid assumptions or if it is based on the question begging assumption that all forms of life evolved from a common ancestor.
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I will also point out that you have yet to satisfactorily answer many of the points that I have made. But, I won’t kick long dead horses.
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As far as the alleged frauds in the Bible, I do not often use NIV translation because it also depended upon the Alexandrian texts which I do not consider authoritative. When I can study the original hebrew/greek I do that but rely heavily upon the KJV or NKJV in my personal spiritual journey.
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Even so, the truth of creation is outlined in the book of Genesis books 1 through 11 and not really described in any great detail in the single verse 1 John 5:7 or the story of the adulterous woman in John 7.
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But I get your point, although I believe that a more apt comparison of Darwinian fraud to Christian fraud might be some overzealous Christian painting the image of Jesus on his storage shed and claiming it magically appeared there overnight, or dripping cow blood on a statue of Mary to make her cry tears of blood. When it comes to intentional fraud, that is probably closer to apples to apples.
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The real difference, in my opinion, is that you would be hard pressed to find any Sunday School in America pointing to pancakes that look like the apostles as “proof” or even evidence that God’s word is true. Meanwhile, still in school textbooks today in 2010 in some cases you find Heackel’s embryos or some other misdirection along the recapitulation lines, “vestigial” organs, the geologic column, junk DNA, “SUPER” bugs, homology arguments that bend scale to ridiculous proportions, any number of so-called “missing links” that turned out to be balony years ago, and the “TREE OF LIFE” that isn’t even supported by the fossil record which should be the bare minimum.
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So, while Christian fraud is rarely codified, Darwinian fraud often amounts to a pretty large body of the alleged “evidence” for Darwinism.
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Now, what do you think that means? I assume, being a true-believer, you are just filling in all the gaps with assumptions.
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God Bless,
Gregg
Hi Gregg,
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Sorry for going on about vitamin C. The thing is, that kind of evidence is what convinces me that macro-evolution is true. I appreciate that you’ve got concerns about the material in school textbooks. I’m not really in a position to comment because I haven’t got any to hand. In any case, when I want reliable information, I don’t get it from Sunday school or school books.
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I’m aware that I haven’t answered all of your points. Like you, I have limited time. But if you point out one or two particularly important points then I will address them to the best of my ability.
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I’m not going to get into what is a more apt comparison to Darwinians frauds. That’s just subjective. What I will say is that both the KJV and NKJV are based on that 16th century fraudulent manuscript. There’s no Greek manuscript before then which mentions the Holy Spirit at 1 John 5:7, but both the KJV and NKJV include the reference to the Holy Spirit.
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May peace be with you,
Neil.
That’s actually not true. Here is a timeline showing when that verse has been found referenced in historic documents. My source for that is here, and includes an explanation of why so many Greek manuscripts don’t find that verse (and why the Greek Orthodox church removed it):
200 AD Tertullian quoted the verse in his Apology, Against Praxeas
250 AD Cyprian of Carthage, wrote, “And again, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost it is written: “And the three are One” in his On The Lapsed, On the Novatians, (see note for Old Latin)
350 AD Priscillian referred to it [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. xviii, p. 6.]
350 AD Idacius Clarus referred to it [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 62, col. 359.]
350 AD Athanasius referred to it in his De Incarnatione
398 AD Aurelius Augustine used it to defend Trinitarianism in De Trinitate against the heresy of Sabellianism
415 AD Council of Carthage appealed to 1 John 5:7 when debating the Arian belief (Arians didn’t believe in the deity of Jesus Christ)
450-530 AD Several orthodox African writers quoted the verse when defending the doctrine of the Trinity against the gainsaying of the Vandals. These writers are:
A) Vigilius Tapensis in “Three Witnesses in Heaven”
B) Victor Vitensis in his Historia persecutionis [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. vii, p. 60.]
C) Fulgentius in “The Three Heavenly Witnesses” [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 65, col. 500.]
500 AD Cassiodorus cited it [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 70, col. 1373.]
550 AD Old Latin ms r has it
550 AD The “Speculum” has it [The Speculum is a treatise that contains some good Old Latin scriptures.]
750 AD Wianburgensis referred to it
800 AD Jerome’s Vulgate has it [It was not in Jerome's original Vulgate, but was brought in about 800 AD from good Old Latin manuscripts.]
1000s AD miniscule 635 has it
1150 AD minuscule ms 88 in the margin
1300s AD miniscule 629 has it
157-1400 AD Waldensian (that is, Vaudois) Bibles have the verse
1500 AD ms 61 has the verse
Even Nestle’s 26th edition Greek New Testament, based upon the corrupt Alexandrian text, admits that these and other important manuscripts have the verse: 221 v.l.; 2318 Vulgate [Claromontanus]; 629; 61; 88; 429 v.l.; 636 v.l.; 918; l; r.
Hi Hallee,
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Thanks for your response. It turns out I was incorrect when I said that the earliest Greek manuscript containing 1 John 5:7 is from the 16th century. I said that based on the NIV footnote. Well it’s a happy day because I’ve learned something.
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I think that we can agree that manuscript 629 contains 1 John 5:7. Manuscript 88 has it in the margin and from what I can tell, manuscript 635 has it in the margin too. The fact that the verse is in the margin indicates that it was a later addition or a correction. If the person who wrote manuscript 88 had been correctly copying from a manuscript with 1 John 5:7 in the main body of the text then he would have just copied it into the main body of the text, not the margin. In fact, if they had been copying from a manuscript with it in the margin they would likely have included it in the main body of the text in the new manuscript. It’s possible he accidentally missed out 1 John 5:7 and put it back in later. We don’t know.
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I agree that this verse is in moderately early copies of the Vulgate (written in Latin). There are also various references to it, or at least the idea, by the Church fathers. I’m not sure how much of Jack Chick’s list I accept. I checked up the first one and it looks like the quotation is incomplete.
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The footnote says “Unum. [On this famous passage see Elucidation III.]“.
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It looks like I got the right sentence but it seems far from clear to me that he’s quoting 1 John 5:7. Tertullian doesn’t say where he got it from. He might have gotten it from someone other than an Apostle.
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I also don’t think Chick has got a strong argument here. It seems to boil down to saying that the earliest Greek manuscript we’ve got containing 1 John 5:7 is from the 11th century, but we can be certain it was in the original. I’m going to have to look into the Vaudois more before I comment on that.
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May peace be with you,
Neil.
Neil, please fact check. “…both the KJV and NKJV are based on that 16th century fraudulent manuscript. ” is just an outrageously false statement.
ADDENDUM: Original texts that predate the 16th century by orders of magnitude:
The Massoretic Text
Earliest: 200 A.D.
Language: Original Hebrew
Authority: Used by Church Fathers
Usage: “Official” Jewish version
the Septuagint
Earliest: 300 B.C.
Language: Common Greek
Authority: Used by Christ and the Apostles
Usage: Used by early church
The early Christian church commonly used the Septuagint for its Bible, and later, the Old Latin version, which was based on the Septuagint. The Septuagint was historically considered a poor version because it was Greek, and varied dramatically from the Massoretic. Recent discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Samaritan Pentateuch reveal that the Septuagint was a very good translation, but from a different source text which we no longer have.
The New Testament manuscripts are more diversified than the Old Testament manuscripts, in that there are five different families of texts, but they are also much more similar to each other, more recent, and have more extant texts than the Old Testament. As a result we can have much greater confidence in the reconstruction of the original writings. Also, in addition to the multitude of manuscripts available, there is the writings of the church fathers, and also very early versions of the Bible in other languages.
The process of reconstructing the original New Testament begins with an understanding of the “Families” of extant manuscripts; their age, quality, and their character. Grouping manuscripts into families is based primarily on the presence or absence of common sets of variations in texts and is commonly relative to original geography.
a Byzantine – This is the family of the vast majority of the later manuscripts. As such, it is also the family used in earliest printings, becoming the “received text”. There is no “unambiguous evidence” of this family before 400 A.D.
b Alexandrian – This is the most neutral family of texts available, i.e. purest from known corruptions. It is the family most often employed by critical texts, and includes sources of a, A(except Gospels), B, C, L and the Coptic, Sahidic, and Bohairic versions.
The Church Fathers – Much of what has been written by the early church has been very valuable in discerning textual corruptions, and in ascertaining the authority ascribed various manuscripts during the early years of the church. The church fathers are also a source for quotations from manuscripts which are no longer available:
2nd Century
Justin Martyr – d.c. 165 A.D.
Tatian – d.c. 180 A.D. – Wrote the Diatessaron – a harmony of the Gospels.
Irenaeus – (125?-202?) – Smyrna, Asia Minor
Clement of Alexandria (150?-215?)
3rd Century
Hippolytus of Rome
Origen of Alexandria – (185?-254?)
Tertullian – (160?-230?)
Cyprian
4th Century
Eusebius of Caesarea (260?-340?) – Wrote “Ecclesiastical History”
Jerome – (342?-420) – Wrote the Vulgate, continued work of Eusebius on church history.
The Primary Manuscripts:
a Codex Sinaiticus – This is the preeminent Greek manuscript. It dates from the 4th century, 340-350 A.D. It was originally the whole Greek Bible, but is now missing most of the Old Testament. a also contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. This manuscript is a very recent discovery, not being edited (documented) until 1938. It is of the Alexandrian family.
A Codex Alexandinus – This manuscript was preeminent until the discovery of a. It dates from the first half of the 5th century. It is the whole Greek Bible, as well as the Psalms of Solomon, and two epistles of Clement of Rome.
B Codex Vaticanus – This manuscript has resided through the centuries at the Vatican in Rome. It dates from the 4th Century. It was the whole Greek Bible, including the apocrypha, but is lacking the pastoral epistles, part of Hebrews, and the Revelation.
C Codex Epharemi – This manuscript is a palimpsest, and dates from the 5th century. It has the interesting quality of containing texts identified with each of the five families.
D Codex Bezae – A codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century written in an uncial hand on vellum. This manuscript is the chief example of the Western family of texts, and is noteworthy because of it’s wide discrepancies from other texts. It has Greek and Latin text, the Latin being very similar to the African family of the Old Latin text. Codex Bezae only contains the Gospels and Acts.
D2 Codex Claromontanus – The codex is dated palaeographically to the 5th or 6th century. This manuscript contains only the Pauline Epistles. It is likewise in both Greek and Latin, the Greek likewise being of the Western family and the Latin likewise being of the African.
L Codex Regius – This is another unical codex and dates from the 8th century, but is conspicuously similar to a and B and must have been copied from a much older work.
Hi Gregg,
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Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean that KJV and NKJV are ONLY based on the 16th century fraudulent text. I agree that there are many other texts available to us now. I find it interesting that you don’t consider the Alexandrian texts authoritative despite them being “the most neutral family of texts available, i.e. purest from known corruptions.”
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May peace be with you,
Neil.
Hi Gregg,
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You wrote: “Without reading it I can ask you if it starts with valid assumptions or if it is based on the question begging assumption that all forms of life evolved from a common ancestor.”
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It starts with the scientific method, which I think is a valid and reliable way of gaining knowledge. It doesn’t involve begging the question. In fact, I addressed circular reasoning in the comment itself. It might not be clear, so please do let me know if you have any questions about it.
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May peace be with you,
Neil.