From: sschaff@roc.slac.stanford.edu (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Subject: Re: Ancient Books
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Lines: 18

In article <Apr.10.05.32.47.1993.14396@athos.rutgers.edu>, 
whheydt@pbhya.pacbell.com (Wilson Heydt) writes:

|> As for the dating of the oldest extant texts of the NT....  How would
|> you feel about the US Civil War in a couple of thousand years if the
|> only extant text was written about *now*?  Now adjust for a largely
|> illiterate population, and one in which every copy of a manuscript is
|> done by hand....

Considerably better than I feel about, say, the Punic Wars, or the 
Peloponnesian War (spelling optional), or almost any other event in 
classical history.  How close to the events do you think the oldest 
extent manuscripts are in those cases?

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.
