What scientific research is performed by the JW's?The Watchtower doesn’t identify what “experts” viewed the manuscript.Breezewood - I am not quoting your post - metaphysics is a branch of philosophy - discussed here:
Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics
Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics: Although sensations (i.e., the conscious experiences that result from stimulation of the sense organs) are mental events, they seem to most people to be a source of information—fallible, perhaps, but in the main reliable—about a nonmental world, the world...www.britannica.com
We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:
Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;metaphysical - to be more exactmetaphysics
is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.
substance and attribute - the spiritual composition for a composite physiology.
We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:the religious itinerant never claimed to be a messiah ... nor disavowed their beliefs, the religion of antiquity.Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;
as pointed out before, the 4th century christian bible is a book of forgeries, a political document disguised as a religion.
Why do you think the Bible was from the 4th century? There are a number of manuscript copies of portions of the Bible dated to well before that - e.g. a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah dated to the 2nd century BCE. And the Greek Septuagint translation was produced from the 3rd to 2nd century BCE and we have manuscript copies of LXX (=Septuagint) from before Jesus' time.
There are also papyrus fragments of the Christian Greek Scriptures (aka NT) from the 2nd century CE.
See this article on an early 2nd century papyrus fragment of the book of John:
Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY
This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.wol.jw.org
Excerpt:
"Roberts suspected that this papyrus scrap was very old. But how old? To find out, he compared the handwriting on it with other dated ancient manuscripts—a discipline called paleography.* By applying this method, he was able to assign an approximate age. But he wanted to be sure. So he photographed the fragment, sent copies of it to three papyrologists, and asked them to determine its age. What did these experts conclude?
By studying the style of the script and the strokes, all three of the expert scholars agreed that the fragment had been written in the first half of the second century C.E.—just a few decades after the apostle John’s death! Paleography, however, is not a foolproof method of dating manuscripts, and another scholar believes that the text could have been written anytime during the second century. Yet, this tiny scrap of papyrus was—and still is—the oldest existing manuscript fragment of the Christian Greek Scriptures that has ever been found."
First of all, we do not believe our literature is miraculously inspired or infallible. We are into scientific and Biblical research and both become outdated as new discoveries are made. I have not found any errors in our current website - have you?
www.jw.org
So, how old do you think that manuscript fragment of John is? I will post more documentation shortly.
What manuscript fragment are you referring to? How do paper fragments make a connection to the gods? There are original manuscripts to Homer's iliad but I don't know of anyone who thinks that is a literal rendition of history.