In the case of the NT, we are in what is arguably the best situation in ancient history.
In comparison with mainstay ancient works,
"The data that emerge in the comparative argument is impressive for the New Testament’s textual basis. No matter how the numbers are updated or changed for classics, the New Testament still has more attestation, better attestation, and better early attestation. Indeed, noted classicist Giorgio Pasquali has said as much of the New Testament: “No other Greek text is handed down so richly and credibly.” [Giorgio Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo, 2nd ed. (Florence: Le Monnier, 1952), 8.] This cannot itself prove that we have exactly what the New Testament authors wrote down, but it does show that the New Testament scholar has better material to work with than scholars of standard classical works." [Hixson, Elijah; Gurry, Peter J.; Wallace, Daniel B.. Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 86). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.]For example, the NT was completely written by the end of the 1st century AD (i.e. 100 AD).
The Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) is the standared 'keeper of record' for NT witnesses. Their dating estimates are used as the 'standard', and --combined with Nestle-Aland(28)-- we have confidence in these witnesses:
These are partial copies, but they survived -- and bear witness to content even closer to the events.
So, by the tightest criteria scholars can muster (without eliminating all the other classical works), the NT we have is a trustworthy copy of the original.
Now to me this is serious 'oddness'. If I interpret this to mean that God somehow 'made sure' we had this text, but didn't make sure we understood it(!), I run into the 'could and should' issue of your question...I will get back to this when I get to the above question, but I did want to point out that the historical record does argue for some 'special handling' to have occurred (i.e. in textual preservation), but not the area we might first expect (i.e. understanding and/or translation).
3. Okay, why should we believe that God has devoted this extra-special attention to these specific pages, and none to any of the other writings produced by human civilizations?
A couple of points here..most simple and one that will undoubtedly sound really strange and paranoid.
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1. If He were trying to get a message to us in history, all He would need to devote special attention to would be His message...
Ergo...this book might NEED special protection in history by God to ensure that the information got across and stayed available (to be sure, there are other ways that God COULD/DID get his message across (e.g. dreams, visions), but these He only seemed to use sparingly (I'll give my opinion of why, when I address the top question)
2. We don't know but that He might have given "special attention"--in varying degrees--to certain other documents, but "special attention" is a spectrum phrase...the Bible claims to be a message from God at least 1,000 times(!)--this might need more 'management attention' than say a prayer of some first century Church leader that might inspire commitment 2,000 years later in my life...We don't know but that God might have 'unfettered' the genius of the Shakespeares and the Michaelangelo's of the world to produce such works of robust beauty...He really loves truth and beauty and diversity and growth...why might not he grow individuals that manifest these characteristics in science and art and human endeavor?...(I think he grows wildflowers where no one will ever see them, because he just loves beauty...he didn't have to create a universe of color, and music, and sunsets, and flowers, etc...it could have all been gray and only 6 species and only xxxx...anyway, I've 'gone to preaching'...sorry...back to the subject)
3. (A conspiratorial view) I know this will sound really bizarre, but it is something I do have to factor in (even though I don't understand this very well at all)...
IF we understand the bible to teach that there are super-human intelligences in the universe (i.e. angels),
AND IF we understand that one of the brightest of these is a malificent, maleviolent, malignant intelligence,
AND IF we understand that somehow, someway these intelligences are able to interface and influence the world of mankind,
THEN I would predict that the maleviolent intelligences would do everything within their abilites to destroy/distort/discredit this book with its message of God's love for mankind...
For starters, I would point to Paine's "Age of Reason" which persuades me that Moses, for instance, could not be the author of the Pentateuch as used to be commonly claimed; segue from there into "The Book of J" for apparently informed speculation about who DID write some of it, and when. Then pop over to a nice book on the history of the Bible which I read about 3 months ago, which points out that three of the epistles which begin with greetings from Paul cannot possibly be reconciled with the information we have (from Acts and other epistles) about his life, associates, and activities and so are not likely to have been authored by him.
In a case like this, Dave, we will need to resort to actual arguments/data. Your sources above (which I would like to get publication data on, by the way) would have convinced you by arguments (some strong, some weak). I have a similar set of books that argue the converse with arguments (some strong, some weak)...The way to really proceed here is for you to bring the strongest arguments to the conference, so we can interact over them...especally the Paul one...I have not studied the Pauline authorship issues within the last 10 years, but was under the studied impression in the mid-80's that the prevailing view of scholarship then was that of general acceptance of Pauline authorship. Most views held that there were attempts at fraudulency, but that the obviously pseudo-epigraphic and/or pseudo-nonymous writings (e.g. in which someone wrote under another's name) were excluded early from the church...there were more than enough eyewitnesses and more than enough emphasis on truth, to create an infertile environment for fraudulent writings...we actually have a group of such books that were detected and excluded by the early church...this shows that the practice was NOT accepted and that the biblical admonitions to 'test everything; hold on to that which is good' (biblical skepticism, I call it!)--I Thess 5.22--was being adhered to...
Later..glenn
His response to the above, plus my reply
To David...
Just getting back to a couple of open items...I leave for camping in the morning so I must be brief...
2. If your reading of the Hebrew is correct, then I submit that the translation rendered in the KJV is bogus.
The KJV only had the benefit of biblical, archeological, and linguistic scholarship up to that point (1611 AD)...it is a bit off the mark in several places, but is at least 51% accurate...what we have learned in the 300+ years since then is...
1. The phrase 'you shall surely die" is not from one verb, but two verb forms put together (an infinitive and an imperfect tense, indicative mood form--from the same root of 'death'). This phrase has been shown to be an 'execution formula' (i.e. you will be condemned to death) in the other early Hebrew writings (gen 20.7; cf. Exod 31.14; Lev 24.16)...This would make the verse read "when you eat it, you will be condemned to death"...
(And I submit that a God who orchestrated the lives of the original scribes/authors could and should have taken equal care with the later translators, n'est-ce pas?)
2. The word for 'day' (Hebrew Yom) is now known to have a wider range of meaning than the simple 24 hour day ...it usually means 'day' but is also translated by words like: today, time, when, annals, years, always (!), life, times, lifetime, period, annual, age, etc....in the translation I feel most comfortable with intellectually (the NIV - New International Version), the phrase is translated "when you eat..."
3. A broader issue, actually, is the biblical notion of death...death is a very specific core concept (i.e. separation) that can range over a number of relationships...
(Outside of the bible, we talk of interpersonal relationships as having 'died' when separation has occurred)...So in a very real sense, Adam/Eve died in their relationship with God on that day they chose to violate his trust and to consider Him dishonest...(fortunately for us all, there is an equivalent Judeo-Christian theme of resurrection--even of relationships with other persons and Persons.)
I have outlined my thoughts on this, but have not had time to type them in...should be able to do it by next weekend...
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Your statistics clearly suggest some mechanism in the preservation/destruction of ancient writings besides random chance, I have to agree that far. But the common historical view is that in Europe the so-called "Dark Ages"
(Do you mean the old-term Dark Ages (i.e. the entire Middle Ages -- from disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in the 4th-5th centuries til the Renaissance) or the newer-term Dark Ages (i.e. the Early Middle Ages c.450-750)? Increasingly the "Dark" adjective has come to refer to the absence of information about the period as opposed to any supposedly intellectual darkness...)
were an extremely hostile environment for writings of any sort, with the partial exception of the Bible; none of the other writings had a committed, powerful, and LITERATE organization copying and distributing it.
As to this point, I don't know whether to agree with you and say that it proves my original point (of extraordinary actions by God--even to the point of using such a questionable group as the early medieval church-- to preserve his text, which would have otherwise been destroyed), or to disagree with the point as being somewhat overstated..so I will probably just iterate over the two and bring up some hopefully relevant points...
1. BEFORE this 450-750 period, there was a radical and abnormal decrease in the number of bible manuscripts...On Feb. 23, 303 AD., at Nicomedia, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict enjoining the demolition of Christian churches and the burning of all Christian books in the empire. Half a million Christians were killed in the process. (There were 9 previous official persecutions of Christians in the empire, but this was the first one that prescribed destruction of the sacred texts.) That ANY texts survived is barely believable...that we have SO MANY surviving mss. borders on the incredible! So, even going into an alleged 'period of protection', the church was starting with a huge deficit...I am not sure whether or not a 300 year lull in persecution (in the midst of general church decline) would be enough to make up for the quantities lost (remember, the church leaders were hit the hardest by the roman executioners--those who made copies were typically eliminated)...Where this seems to net out for me, is that there were plenty of setbacks and probably enough to offset any preferential treatment the church would have gotten/extorted...with the commensurate implications for mss. survival...it still seems statistically bizarre...and now, even stranger from the process detail...
2. Even BEFORE this period, we don't have an organization committed to transmitting the other classical works--except the monarchy...and you still have an semi-educated leadership in the 'barbarians' who cratered the west. And if the ravages of the incessant West vs. Invaders was what took out the mss (but I am not convinced of that yet), the church was only slightly better off (due to its political and cultural power)...
3. We actually do have the Church (but not the church of the West) transmitting and teaching at least classical Greek philosophy as late as 525 AD...the great Christian, statesman, and philosopher Boethius (ranked among the founders of the Middle Ages because of his contribution to education and thought) was translating aristotle and plato into Latin before being executed by the emperor Theodoric...he had studied the classics in Athens and North Africa...
4. In the late 6th century, we start to see a backlash from Celtic Christians...they start 'evangelizing' the new Europe...Celtic Christianity had a strong intellectual element from its inception, and produced in history the scholar known as the Venerable Bede (675-725)...he made significant contributions to anglo-saxon education and culture, which spilled over into Europe during the rise of the Carolingians...
5. By the time we get to the end of the Dark Ages with the advent of Charlemagne, we have massive papal and clergy reform occurring. Scholars such as anglo-saxon trained Alcuin performed cultural functions in the court of Charlemagne (he was the head tutor in the court at Toors)...
6. Then around 850-950 we get the real 'darkness'...Charlemagne's legacy crumbles, clergy lose their imperial protection, invaders sack churches without regard...we have no idea how many mss. we lost during this phase of the middle ages...we certainly lost a lot of classical works...
7. When we finally make it through this, we get to the founding of the universities (Paris/oxford in 1150, Notre Dame in 1100), funded by the church (who is in turn, funded and protected by the independent German monarchy--esp. Otto the Great)...