Comparing Homer
Fiction vs fantasy
Occasionally updated and edited.
Copyright © 2009
The argument follows this syllogism:
• No one doubts the textual veracity of Homer's, Iliad or The Odyssey.
• Extant New Testament texts are more abundant and dated closer to the original autographs than those of Homer's Iliad or The Odyssey.
• Therefore, we should trust the veracity of New Testament texts.
Similar arguments are applied to virtually any extant body of manuscripts including Caesar's Gallic Wars, Shakespeare, Josephus, and others.
The argument falls on this analysis:
Why would any credible scholar accept extant copies of any ancient text to be faithful copies of the autographs without a side-by-side comparison of those extant copies?
Suppose one could compare the extant copies of an ancient text such as Homer's Iliad side-by-side. Then suppose 30,000 variations were discovered among the manuscripts. The conclusion would certainly be drawn that all the copies cannot be true to the original text.
Yet, that is the case with the New Testament.
Noted Bible scholar John Mill compared known extant copies of the New Testament and identified about 30,000 variations. Mill's research began in 1677 and required thirty years to complete. The publication of his research in 1707 was a significant event in the history of textual criticism.
In the three centuries following Mill's research, the number of known extant copies of the New Testament has increased significantly. As more manuscripts became available for study, more variations were discovered. Currently, the number of variations is so large that no one knows how many there are. Some estimate that there are between 200,000 and 400,000 variations.
If there were hundreds of thousands of known variations within a body of extant manuscripts of any other ancient texts (or more recent texts, such as Shakespeare), no one would presume to know the the correct content of the autographs. Later translations would be dismissed as unreliable.
The relatively high number of extant New Testament manuscripts testifies to the popularity of the Christian religion, but argues against the veracity of the subsequent translations.
Apples and Oranges
Apologists pretend to want nothing more than the Bible be given the same respect as other historical documents. That illusion crumbles when we consider how the Bible is viewed in comparison to other writings.
Consider:
No one believes The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar or the works of Josephus to be inerrant histories.
No one believes The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar, the works of Josephus, the writings of Shakespeare or the Homer's epochs to be inspired of God.
If the historical accounts recorded by Herodotus, Thucydides, Berossus, Xenophon, et al, had contained fanciful tales of parting seas, fire called from heaven or walking on water, they would be promptly dismissed from serious consideration. All are subject to scrutiny and dubious accounts are called into question or outright refuted.
Why should the Bible be treated differently?
No one believes Shakespeare's Midnight Summer's Dream to be an account of actual events. The historicity of King Arthur is doubted or disbelieved by almost every serious academic.
Yet apologists expect us to acknowledge the whole of the Biblical record as historical, inerrant and inspired of God.
March 8, 2009
