Textual Criticism argument

context, an argument about the pericope de adultera, or woman
taken in adultery, and its absence from some NT texts. The whole
subject of textual criticism gets into play.

"Internal evidence from the text
1. The style and vocabulary of the pericope differ markedly from the rest of John. 14 out of 82 vocabulary words in
the section are unjohannine. Also, the use of ‘hos’ as a temporal conjunction rather than John’s usual ‘oun.’"

And that might be because John wrote it out himself, because he was not educated, but could do basic reading and writing.

The argument someone used against Revelation, is that the style and grammar are different the grammar poorer than John's Gospel and Epistles. But in the former case John was alone, writing on his own, while in the latter case he was not, and could have had brush up the quality help from scribes. If anything that is a testimony to the legitimacy of Revelation, and might be an argument for the pericope, if a scribe argued about including it and he just grabbed the paper and wrote it in himself.
PRE FIFTH CENTURY WRITERS QUOTED IT:

"Ambrose at Milan (374) quotes it at least nine times; as well as Augustine in North Africa (396) about twice
as often. It is quoted besides by Pacian, in the north of Spain (370)..."

"Jerome included the passage in the latin Vulgate, and noted that (ca. 420), “in the Gospel according to John in many
manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, is found the story of the adulterous woman who was accused before the Lord.”
Jerome, “The Dialogue against the Pelagians” (2.17).
Augustine (ca. 430) was of the opinion that certain manuscripts were lacking the passage because it was deliberately
removed. “certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should
be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as
if He who had said ‘sin no more’ had granted permission to sin.” Augustine, “Adulterous Marriages (2.7)" https://austinbiblechurch.com/sites/default/files/documents/Pericope%20de%20Adultera.pdf



"Christine, you wrote: Jerome and Augustine were fifth century, but had access to copies made in the fourth century and Jerome would have had access to by seeking out copies from even earlier.

You you know this how? By omniscience?"

no by common sense. If we have copies from over a thousand years ago, how can any sane person think that in their time there weren't many copies around from 200 years ago or earlier? 

papyrus "In dry climates, papyrus is stable and rot resistant when stored properly. Stored in humid conditions, the material can be destroyed by mold. In Europe, if this writing material lasted more than 200 years it was exceptional." http://arthistorygroup.blogspot.com/2012/06/papyrus-parchment-vellum-paper.html

So you have a window of 150 (in a wet climate) to 250 or more (if in a dry climate) years for papyrus, depending on climate. Parchment was much more durable, vellum being finer and thinner was more on a par with papyrus. Jerome and Augustine were early 400s, combine these two bits of information what does that tell you?

Jerome was doing a Bible translation from Old Latin to then modern Latin and stated he examined not only Latin but Greek MSS.


Codex C is Ephraemi Rescriptus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_uncials looking at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Ephraemi_Rescriptus

I find two interesting things: "The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) is omitted; though the pericope is located on the lost two leaves (John 7:3–8:34), by counting the lines it can be proved that it was not in the book – there is not room for it (as in Codex Alexandrinus).[7] The text of Mark 16:9–20 was included to the codex, though it was located on the lost leaves; by counting the lines it can be proved that it was in the work.[8] "

This is confusing and incoherent, what lost leaves that there isn't room for? lost from these codices that are missing leaves in which case how do you know they were on them? or a coverup that they were on them because they are lying around separate? or what? 

This document also is a hybrid of all text types: The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type, with the Byzantine readings in the Gospels, but with numerous Alexandrian readings. It is a weak Byzantine witness in Matthew, a weak Alexandrian in Mark, and a strong Alexandrian in John. In Luke its textual character is unclear.[13] Westcott-Hort classified it as mixed;[14] Hermann von Soden classified it as in the Alexandrian text-type.[15]
According to Kurt Aland it agrees with the Byzantine text-type 87 times in the Gospels, 13 times in the Acts, 29 times in Paul, and 16 times in the Catholic epistles. It agrees with the Nestle-Aland text 66 times (Gospels), 38 (Acts), 104 (Paul), and 41 (Cath.). It has 50 independent or distinctive readings in the Gospels, 11 in Acts, 17 in Paul, and 14 in the Catholic epistles. Aland placed the text of the codex in Category II.[1] According to the Claremont Profile Method its text is mixed in Luke 1, Luke 10, and Luke 20.[15]
In Apocalypse Codex Ephraemi is a witness of the same form of the text as Codex Alexandrinus.[16] 

And you will notice two experts don't agree on its classification. Maybe the classification boundaries aren't as exact as they make out?

and since most text differences don't make any difference in meaning, maybe they are all just scribal variants from an original?

For instance, someone says or writes that Bob came to town driving a brown truck, someone else might say Bob came to town in a vehicle, another a brown vehicle, another a truck, another (technically correct) an automobile (the term includes all internal combustion vehicles) and someone might say he rode rather than he drove which implies someone else drove, but can include him riding in a vehicle because he is driving it.

Then someone else gets into textual variants of the transmission of this information - ignoring the issue of the importance of the information itself. And to those who are like most of us (and myself on a bad day) not sharp enough, these variations would appear to be contradictions enough to raise questions about whether Bob exists, whether he ever came to town or not, and if so what in, a horse drawn cart (which is includable in vehicle) or an internal combustion device? 

And if Bob's biography is testimony to some event in that town, then we can question whether the event occurred or even if the town existed. 

And that is exactly the effect of all this textual criticism on the average mind especially those who exploit this to fight Christianity itself. 

So this thing is testimony to every text type in the book, leaves out the pericope and supports the 616 reading in the Apocalypse, which means it is one of those MSS that Irenaeus said had a scribal error in it on that point, so why not on others as well?



Their competence IS on the line because they ignore issues about the Bible that put it outside of normal books of ancient times, i.e., motives to tweak the text and accusations back in those days that it was done, SO IS ANY ANCIENT TEXT THE PRODUCT OF AN ORTHODOX OR OF A HERETIC SCRIBE? and motives within the orthodox camp to eliminate the pericope because of fear it made too light of adultery.




They totally ignore the fact, that Irenaeus was taught by Polycarp who was taught by John the Apostle himself, and that Irenaeus also was the recipient of the tradition of bishops from Peter and Paul, and therefore his opinion outweighs any early papyrus. 

All the early support to 616 that the fragment referred to below does, is prove that such scribal errors, as Irenaeus refers to, in fact happened, as he said they did. 

"Of some interest is the early support given by this manuscript to the number of the beast (Rev. 13:18) being 616 (here given in alpha-numeric form as XIV [with bar], the other early witness C has it written in full: ecakosiai deka ec).[37] Manuscripts bearing this reading were known to Irenaeus. He affirmed that 666 stood ‘in all the most approved and ancient copies’ (e0n pa=si toi=v spoudai/oiv kai\ a0rxai/oiv a0ntigra/foiv, Against Heresies V.30.1), and argued that 616 arose as a scribal error. The reading of P115 does not actually add much to the available evidence, except to confirm one side of Irenaeus’ account, and to add some early weight to the 616 reading."http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/NTOxyPap.htm

they then go on to point out that the two numbers are effectively the same if you transliterate Greek into Latin, ignoring that the proper approach would be to take a word or name and spell it in Greek and use the Greek number value of letter.s

Letters were used for numbers until the Arabic numbering system was developed. Thus in English if this was still done, 25 ice cream cones would be "KE ice cream cones" the eleventh (number 20) and fifth letters (number 5) of the alphabet being numbers. (after the tenth letter you count by tens starting with 20, after the letter meaning 100 you go by hundreds starting with 200.) But the alphabets weren't identical in order or content all the time, which would make a difference. The original code was in Greek, all efforts to decode must use Greek letters and their number value.