Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus

Interesting comments from Farrell Till that "if [the Bible] is found to be erroneous in some of the things that can be verified by extrabiblical corroboration, then how can one be sure that it is right about those things that cannot be verified by extrabiblical corroboration?", from Alt. Bible. Errancy, May 31, 1998:

TILL
>No, you have misunderstood me. I would never say that the Bible is
>"useless" if it contains even one error, any more than I would say that

 any book is useless if it contains one error.

>BILL S.
>Then why did you say: "An errant Bible isn't worth the paper it is printed on"?

TILL
Admittedly, that was poorly stated. I should have made it clear that I
meant that an errant Bible used as a basis of religious authority isn't
worth the paper it is printed on.

>TILL
>>...However, I do agree with Archer's view on the trustworthiness of

 the Bible. If it is found to be erroneous in some of the things that can 
be verified by extrabiblical corroboration, then how can one be sure 
that it is right about those things that cannot be verified by extrabiblical 
corroboration? 

>BILL S.
>As we've agreed, it would be impossible to prove such things to you -
>that is why they call it "faith". If I read a newspaper, I can't be
>sure all of the facts have been perfectly reported, however I can have
>reasonable confidence that there is at least some truth in what is
>being reported. I don't stop reading the newspaper because one day it
>got it's facts wrong. Similarly, I can trust in certain "truths" in
>the bible even if the bible is shown to contain errors. 

TILL
Well, I learned a long time ago that blind acceptance of what is 
printed in newspapers is a foolish course to follow. However, you 
are comparing apples to oranges, because newspapers report 
that which is commonplace and ordinary. They make no effort to 
indicate that readers who don't believe what is printed in them run 
the risk of incurring dire consequences. If I believe an error that 
was published in a newspaper, then all I have done is believe an 
error published in a newspaper. The process usually ends there.
I don't take this error from door to door in my neighborhood in 
efforts to make others believe it, and I certainly don't continue to 
believe the error once that its falsity has been demonstrated. 
Needless to say, this is not the case with biblicists. No matter 
how much evidence may be presented to show that there are 
errors in the Bible, they will continue to believe that they are 
truth and will work feverishly to try to make others believe them
too. Surely, you can see the difference.

BILL S

>I don't expect to convinve you to beleive as I do - but I do object to
>your implications that the Bible cannot be trusted on anything if it
>can be shown to contain even one error.

TILL
As a source of authority, it cannot be trusted if it can be 
demonstrated that it contains error. If, for example, it can be 
demonstrated--as it has been--that the Bible is wrong in saying 
that Joshua destroyed a city named Ai in his conquest of Canaan 
(Josh. 7-8), then how can I be sure that the Bible is correct when 
it claims that Moses received God's law on Mt. Sinai? If the Bible 
is wrong about an ordinary, commonplace claim that an army 
once destroyed a city, by what logic does one conclude that 
even though the Bible has been shown to be wrong in 
commonplace matters, we can still trust that it is right about 
extraordinary claims that it makes. What we're really talking 
about here is the widely accepted rule of evidence that says 
"falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," which means, "False in one 
thing, false in everything." This rule of evidence doesn't actually 
mean that if a witness is shown to be wrong in one point of 
testimony, that means that he/she is wrong in every point 
of testimony. It merely means that if a witness has been caught 
in one falsehood, the jury will be justified to doubt him/her in 
anything testified to that cannot be confirmed by independent 
corroboration.

Farrell Till

Authorship Of "Matthew"

From the Errancy Discussion list, 10-4-97:

MATT

The consensus of biblical scholars normally means 'higher criticism', something I am none too impressed with. The Gospel is attributed to the disiciple Levi ooopppsss sorry Nancy :) Matthew, if there is evidence to say otherwise then Let's hear it.

TILL

Well, how about this "evidence", Matt? Those critics whom you aren't at all impressed with have recognized that the author of "Matthew" used the gospel of Mark as his source, because over 90% of the gospel of Mark is embedded in the gospel of Matthew. If Mark really wrote Mark, then he was not an eyewitness to the events he wrote about, but if Matthew wrote Matthew, he was an eyewitness to most of the events. Why would an eyewitness have to rely on an account written by someone who was not an eyewitness in order to write a biography of Jesus?

Luke The Historian

From the Errancy discussion list, 8-18-97:

TILL

Otsen has cited the amazing historical accuracy of Luke as an argument for biblical inerrancy, as if he somehow believes that because one biblical writer was accurate in some geographical, political, and social matters, he was therefore right in everything he wrote and that the entire Bible must, as a consequence, be inerrant. In an earlier posting, I listed over two dozen references that Luke made in the book of Acts to extraordinary events. I challenge Otsen to present to us some kind of extrabiblical evidence to prove that at least some of these events actually happened. Until he can do this, he is in effect arguing that because Luke knew the geography of the region he wrote about and the names of some public officials and such like, we can thereby know that Luke was also accurate in his reporting of the various miracle claims found in his gospel and the book of Acts. 

I'll use just one example to show how fallacious this line of reasoning is. In *The Twelve Caesars,* the Roman historian Suetonius recorded many events and named many public officials that are universally accepted as historically accurate. However, Suetonius also stated that when Roman officials were arguing over where the body of Julius Caesar should be cremated, two "divine forms" came down with torches in hand and set fire to the funeral couch (Penguin Books, 1989, p. 52). Suetonius also stated that a man who had just recently purchased the mansion that had been owned by the grandfather of Caesar Augustus went to sleep in the room that had been the nursery of Augustus, and in the night he was "hurled out of bed by a supernatural agency and found lying half-dead against the door, bedclothes and all" (p. 56). Suetonius further claimed that Emperor Vespasian healed a blind man and a lame man by just touching the lame man and spitting on the eyes of the blind man (p. 284). Tacitus made this same claim. 

Reliability Of New Testament Documents

Farrell Till comments on a response to his 1994 debate 

with Christian apologist Norman Geisler. From the 

Errancy discussion list, 10/8/95:

Someone has posted a response to my analysis of Geisler's first speech in the Columbus College debate on the resurrection. I can very easily respond to this posting. In the quotation below, the poster accused me of setting up a straw man:"This is a straw-man argument. The massive number of extant New Testament manuscripts (MSS) does not prove the accuracy of the content, nor is Geisler claiming that it does."

I was both a participant in the debate and one of the transcribers of the tapes. I think I understand what Geisler was arguing on this point, and he was either arguing that the "massive number of extant New Testament manuscripts" proves the accuracy of their content or else I can't understand plain language.

Let's just let Geisler's own transcript speak for itself. The third sentence that Geiser read from his opening speech said this: "First, the New Testament documents are historically reliable accounts." After making this assertion, he spent over two pages discussing the number of manuscripts in existence, the "early" dates of the manuscripts, and the accuracy with which the originals were copied.

This brought him to the second division of his first speech, which he began with this statement: "In brief, there is nothing like this kind of evidence for any other historical event from the ancient world. *Now, if the New Testament documents are reliable,* it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later."

Notice the conclusion that Geisler obviously reached from the three points he had just made. He argued that (1) MSS of the New Testament are more numerous than any other ancient documents, (2) these manuscripts were copied within only a generation of the time of the events that they recorded, and (3) the manuscripts were accurate copies of the originals. Then he *immediately* concluded that "if the New Testament documents are reliable, it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later."

Now if this does not mean that Geisler sees that the number of NT manuscripts has a direct bearing on the historical accuracy of the claims recorded in the NT, I simply can't understand plain language. I would like to hear from the person who posted this "reply" and see him show what is wrong with the interpretation that I have drawn from Geisler's own statements.

I think my response to Briggs demonstrated that the number of extant NT MSS has nothing to do with whether the content in them is historically accurate.

Furthermore, my response to Briggs asked for proof of why the dates of the manuscripts would have anything to do with their historical accuracy. I said in this response that even if we had the very original autographs themselves that would constitute no proof at all that their content was historically accurate. Since any writer of an original document can make mistakes or deliberately falsify information, the historical accuracy of the document must be decided by other means. That is true of the NT documents too. My response to Briggs also pointed out that accuracy in copying the originals constitutes no proof at all of historical accuracy. Even if we knew positively that all copies of the original MSS had been copied with 100% accuracy that would prove absolutely nothing about the historical accuracy of the MSS.

JUST WHERE IS THE STRAW MAN?

The poster of the reply stated that I did not prove that any of the 30,000 variations in the NT MSS have any significant effect on doctrine. In the first place, I don't have to prove this, because, as I have repeatedly noted, even if there were no variations *at all* in *any* of these manuscripts, that would not prove historical accuracy. I did attempt to show how that a variation in the gospel of Mark [the absence of the Marcan Appendix in some manuscripts] would have a very significant effect on the doctrine of baptism as taught in the Chruch of Christ, and somehow this was interpreted as a desire to discredit the Church of Christ rather than refute the claim that the variations have had no effect on Christian doctrine. Several on the list have been debating the meaning of the word "Christian," and the best that I can tell, no agreement has yet been reached. 

Doctrinal disputes and controversies are so widespread in Christianity that there will always be some group who would say that variation X (no matter what it might be) has no effect on its doctrines. The fact that 30,000 variations exist in the NT documents is enough to discredit the claim that the MSS were copied with 99.9% accuracy. The fact that even 100% accuracy would prove nothing about historical reliability makes this argument a non sequitur if not the real straw man in this debate.

Whoever posted the reply to my analysis should take notice of the fact that several Christians on the list have tried to pull this same argument about the number of NT MSS on us, and it has been shot down enough that anyone should be able to see that neither I nor anyone else on the list is setting up straw men when we point out that the argument is totally without merit.

"I think you have misunderstood Geisler's purpose. Unless you can produce a quotation of Geisler saying that 'the number of New Testament manuscripts proves that the content of the New Testament is accurate', I think your complaints are groundless."

I have not produced a statement from Geisler in those exact words, but the quotation that I cited above from his speech clearly shows that this is what he meant. When he spoke at length about the number of manuscripts, the dates they were copied, and the accuracy with which they were copied, AND THEN SAID, "Now if the New Testament documents are reliable, it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later," if he didn't mean to say that the number of manuscripts in existence had a direct bearing on their historical accuracy, then please tell us what he did mean.

All through Geisler's second speech (which he simply read from a previously prepared manuscript rather than trying to answer my counterarguments), he referred to how he had established the historical reliability of the NT documents, yet he said nothing to prove the historical accuracy of these documents except to talk about how many of them exist, when they were copied, and how accurately they were copied. So please explain why I am setting up a straw man when I say that Geisler argues that the number of NT manuscripts in existence somehow proves their historical accuracy. Someone is having a problem understanding what Geisler meant, and I don't think I'm the one with the problem.

Farrell Till