The Muratorian Fragment and early canon.
This post is copied and posted with permission from Alisa Childers’ blog. (http://www.alisachilders.com) Do visit her blog and read firsthand what this fine apologetic is doing.
This is what she had to say:
Why the Muratorian Fragment is a Big Deal and What You Need to Know About It.
146 Give up the ghost, John 19:30
This post is mainly taken from Tim Challies (www.challies.com).
Sometimes we use an expression without thinking of where it comes from, or what its deeper meaning or implications might be. Continue reading
If our faith is not confirmed by our deeds, does that mean our faith is dead, leaving us lost? Or that our faith is useless, of no value to the congregation? Does this statement reflect on the salvation of the Christian, or on the practical implementation of his faith? These are the two versions found in the manuscripts we have. Which one would be what had been written in the original autograph?
James 2:20, KJV: “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?”
NIV: “You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?” Continue reading
This article by Prof Dan Wallace is absolutely superb. Do enjoy his sound reasoning and the logical outcome. Isn’t it wonderful to have a Gamaliel in this field at whose feet we may sit!
In the end it is all about the glory of God and the reliability of His Word coming to us through the ages.
Thank you Prof. Wallace.
A favorite argument against the existence of Q is simply that no manuscripts of Q have ever been discovered. No more than this bare assertion is usually made. But a little probing shows that this argument has some serious weaknesses to it. In particular, three come to mind: (1) If Matthew and Luke swallowed up Q in their writings, why would we expect to find any copies of Q? Or to put this another way, Luke says that he used more than one source, presumably more than one written source. If so, why haven’t we found it/them? The fact that we haven’t surely doesn’t mean that Luke was not shooting straight with us, does it? (2) Even the Gospel of Mark has few copies in the early centuries, yet it was endorsed as an official Gospel by Ireneaus. Yet this is a canonical Gospel, which apparently was regarded in some…
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The final clause of John 16:16 found in the King James Version of the Bible, is lacking from most modern versions of the Bible. Words printed in bold:
“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.“
NIV: “A little while, and you will see me no more; and then after a little while, you will see me.” Continue reading
Prof. Bill Mounce (http://zondervanacademic.com/blog/whats-a-janus-1-john-319-mondays-with-mounce/) acquainted me to another interesting concept in the New Testament. He writes: “Every once in a while we come across a phrase that can either look back to the previous or forward to the next.
Sometimes the phrase or verse is truly a Janus, looking both directions. But other times it only goes one way or another.
Bruce Waltke introduced me to the expression ‘Janus’. It refers to a mythical god with two heads, one looking forward and the other looking back. Wikipedia comments, ‘In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.’ Continue reading
I recently came across this explanation by prof. Larry Hurtado of how ancient papyri are dated. I liked to share it with the readers of my blog.
You may read the full report with comments at: https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/dating-ancient-papyri/
Prof. Hurtado says:
“Further to my recent posts about recent proposals for the dating of certain NT papyri, let me briefly clarify the process of dating papyri, which might well seem a mystery to those not familiar with it.
There are two main types of papyri: “documentary” (letters, official documents such as land-transfers, marriage contracts, shipping bills, etc.) and “literary” (treatises, poetry, history, fiction, etc.). Documentary texts are often/typically dated by the writer, which makes dating the manuscript fairly straightforward. But literary texts are hardly ever dated. So in their case the only way forward is by estimating the approximate time-frame of the handwriting (often referred to as the “hand” of the manuscript). Continue reading
Can you believe that on the last word of a sentence there could be no less than nine variations? That is the situation with Mark 13:8! How would one discern which could represent the original? Only one can be in accordance with the original autograph as inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Let us first look at what these variations are and how much support each has in the available manuscripts. Continue reading
While at school, we often had to copy a lot of information from the blackboard. I remember how easily we would make a mistake when the eye jumped from one line to another, either duplicating a word or sentence (Dittography) or leaving out a word or sentence (Haplography). If such a mistake could happen so easily, the same thing might have happened during the copy of the Biblical Scriptures.
In 1 John 5:13 we have such a variation. Let us study it. Continue reading
How did Jesus refer to Himself? As “Son of God” or as “Son of man”?
Jesus healed a man who had been born blind. This man was then banned from the temple by the Pharisees. When Jesus later met this man, He asked him an extremely important question. Did He ask him: “Do you believe in the Son of God?”, or did He ask him: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”.
To find an answer to this question, we use three criteria, the first looking at the manuscripts that contain the two variations and see what we could derive from the evidence there. Continue reading
