From: JDANIELS@asc.scottlan.edu
Date: Fri Dec 01 1995 - 09:51:32 EST
This is a good question that Richard Arthur raises.
While no grammatical rules may have been strictly adhered to, hence
the difficulty in measuring a NT document's grammatical prowess, it
is possible to compare the grammatical structures of the different NT
writings with other NT writings. The results of such comparisons
have revealed for instance, that the greek of Mark's gospel is
more rough, or, less fluid than, say, the greek of Luke-Acts. There
are also instances where modern scholars may think that a NT writer
might have gotten a point across more clearly if he would have used
another tense or mood for a particular verb. Instances like that
however, raise interesting questions that pertain to the field of textual
criticism as scholars struggle to make sense out of the textual
variants that are the result of the copying (by hand) and recopying of
the biblical record over the centuries. There are for example,
instances where are copyist in the third century, may have changed
the mood and tense of a verb in a verse of Paul's letter to Rome
because he thought it made better sense in light of his reading of
the letter. Textual critics try to determine which reading is the
most likely to be closer to what the apostle actually wrote--since
there are no original writings of the NT extant. This in itself
raises many questions for some about the "inerrancy" of the Bible.
I hope the above is helpful to you Richard, and not just a bunch of
stuff you already know.
Jack Daniels
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