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Bible more accurate than Homer

• Christian Fundamentalism , • Homophobia , • Richard Evans Lee

In my personal weblog I often write about Christianity and homosexuality. I get many hate filled responses and some baffling ones. This is part of one of the nuttier comments:

You have the stereotypical view of christianity. A true "born again" Christian does not believe that if a man rapes babies it will be transmitted to others. Some may, yes. The thing that separates some Christians from others is how well they are educated. The Bible is a historicly accurate and reliable book. there is only a .2% error rate between manuscripts, which is excpetionally small, as opposed to Homer's Iliad, which has a 4.2% error rate and is taken as truth.

This is about as foolish, silly and wrongheaded as Christians get. I'm almost grateful she shared her zaniness with me.

Richard Evans Lee
April 02, 2004 •
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Could this properly educated Christian tell us who exactly considers the Iliad to be true? And there is a difference between accuracy between manuscripts and just plain *accuracy*, anyway. Also, the Bible gets it wrong every time they call Yeshua "Jesus". That wasn't his fucking name, you're all getting it wrong, and yet you all think it's the infallible word of God. Uh-huh. Also, that's just one of hundreds of inaccuracies in the Bible, for cryin' out loud.

Posted by: Eli Sarver | April 2, 2004 5:53 PM

Hi. I appreciate that what your correspondent wrote sounds quite wierd, but I think this is due to her manner of expression rather than what she is trying to say. I think the figures she is quoting refer to the accuracy of manuscript transmission (i.e. 4.2% of the text of the Iliad is in doubt as opposed to 0.2% of the New Testament text) rather than an evaluation of the truthfulness of what is being said. (Such figures can be found in Josh McDowell's books, such as Eli, Jesus is the English translation of Iesous, which is the Greek form of Yeshua. Since Greek was the international means of communication when the New Testament was written, it is unsurprising that the Jewish names are often given in a Greek form. Could you perhaps come up with a slightly more informed historical basis for your views (as my dear sister in Christ was attempting to do, if in a slightly garbled fashion)? Does one perhaps detect a certain note of antipathy rather than scholarly objectivity in your comments ;-)? Richard, I've been enjoying your website in a morbid kind of way, though I'm not convinced it has edified me enormously. I trust you don't object to people praying for you? Grace and peace, David.

Posted by: David | July 29, 2004 4:31 PM

Any construct of quantitative transmission has to make all manner of arbitrary assumptions. It is meaningless. I don't care whether people pray for me; against me or about anything with the proviso they do it on their own space and not mine.

Posted by: Richard | July 30, 2004 2:54 PM

How do you feel?

Feel free to share your feelings about Bible more accurate than Homer. Please stick to the theme of the entry. Disagreement is fine. Homophobia, racism, and kindred expressions of hatred will be deleted. This site is one of my hobbies. I genuinely enjoy hearing from people and hate moderating or killing comments. Forthright disagreement is fine as long as it is civil.
My thanks,
Richard

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