Does the Bible Misquote Jesus? Part 2

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Who was the Founder of Christianity? Jesus or Paul? Part 3

00:11
Okay, James, thank you again. Very lively rebuttal. I have a number of questions.
00:18
Some of them can be answered very quickly, I think. First, in your opening address, you said that there are only 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 viable differences among our magistrates.
00:31
Where did you get that number? I said viable and meaningful.
00:39
Where did you get that number? I got that number from a number of studies by Dan Wallace that examined both the issue of viability as far as the number of manuscripts behind a reading, as well as those that actually changed the meaning.
00:55
He has estimated, actually, I went above his number. He's estimated 1 ,100 to 1 ,400 at that point.
01:01
I went above that number, just simply so as to be careful. So, this is
01:06
Dan Wallace's opinion? I think Dan Wallace is an excellent scholar, and he very regularly has accurate numbers, especially in the material that he presents.
01:18
I'm just wondering how somebody knows that it's both viable and important. I mean, for example, you don't think
01:23
Mark 141 is important, or that Hebrews 2 .9. I never said that, sir. Does he think those are important?
01:29
We would both say those are important, sir. He's never said otherwise. So, those are included in the 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 number?
01:35
They would be, yes, sir. Okay. It just seems like it's a little odd to come up with a number like that, that is probably more guesswork than anything, but okay.
01:43
You say there are 12 manuscripts written within a century of the books of the New Testament. That's news to me.
01:50
What are these 12 manuscripts? I'm not sure why it's news to you, sir. Dr. Wallace said the same thing to you at the Greer Heard Forum as well in his opening statement, so I don't understand how that can be news.
02:00
But if you would look, for example, at Philip Comfort's New Testament text of translation commentary, and again, since Dr.
02:09
Wallace presented that to you. I'm asking what the manuscripts are. A whole list?
02:15
Well, I can look one up for you. I know P52. Yes. There are a number, of course, partly would be the issue of when we date those
02:25
New Testament manuscripts. Yes, it would. That is my question. For example, P32 of Titus is quite possibly that early as well.
02:36
If you want an entire list, I can look it up for you here. It will take me some time to get to it. I think the fact that Dan Wallace says something doesn't really make it so.
02:43
I didn't say just Dan Wallace. I'm reading something other than Dan Wallace in front of us here. P32 is dated to the year 200.
02:52
Well, again, there are many people who believe that the numbers that are assigned in the back of Nessie Olin are extremely conservative.
03:00
I see. Obviously, there are many, for example, T .C. Skeet. Conservative would mean that they're dated later than normal or earlier.
03:09
I don't understand. Being dated not as early as they could be. Well, yes, you could date anything to any date you want, but the question is what grounds do you have?
03:17
Actually, that's correct. Are you familiar with T .C. Skeet's discussion of these variants?
03:25
Yes, I do know T .C. Skeet, yes. Okay, well, and you're aware of the fact that on a number of the papyri manuscripts listed in the
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Nessie Olin text, he would actually give an earlier - Okay, let's talk about T .C. Skeet. When does he date P32? Well, again,
03:39
I don't believe that he addressed P32 specifically. I believe that his was a manuscript of John that I was reading about, but are you not aware of the fact that there are variations?
03:49
You're not supposed to be asking questions, I think. You're correct. That's right. So I think that this number 12 is exceedingly high and is the number 200 within 300 years, and so that's why
04:00
I was just wondering - I'm sorry, 200 within 300 years? You said that there were 200 manuscripts - I said 120, sir.
04:06
Oh, 120. Yes. That's still probably high. Let's go to this business with the
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Byzantine and the Alexandrian texts, which you said you weren't talking about manuscripts.
04:17
You were talking about, I believe you said printed collations. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes, sir. Can you tell me what a collation is?
04:24
Well, I was using the term there to speak of the collection of the readings of a wide family of manuscripts into one representative text, such as you have in the majority text, or you had in that particular instance, the
04:36
Westcott -Hort text. That's different from a collation of a specific manuscript where you take a base text and then you work through a particular manuscript, providing every variation from that base text.
04:48
Historically, the TR has normally been used, but thankfully, in recent years, Codex Vaticanus has frequently been used as the base text for collation, things like that.
04:56
So there's two different ways in which you can use the term. Your latter definition is what a collation is. The other isn't a collation. It's a printed text, which is quite different.
05:03
But let's talk about collations for a second. Suppose you compared a collation of a Byzantine manuscript with an
05:09
Alexandrian manuscript. Do you think you would get a 95 percent level of agreement? Of course not. I never even intimated such a thing.
05:14
Okay. How high would the agreement be? Well, again, as you pointed out in your Brill compilation, that you need to have about a 70 percent to assign a manuscript to a particular manuscript family.
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And so Byzantine text would fall into the 50 percent. However, that's not the assertion
05:34
I was making. I understand your assertion. But now you're telling me that if you call a Byzantine manuscript against an
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Alexandrian manuscript, there'll be a 50 percent agreement? Well, I'm really surprised that you're not following what
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I'm saying, sir. Because obviously, as you know, when you're talking about percentages of variation, you're talking about not the total words in the manuscript and their readings.
05:55
You're talking about the variations. I was talking about the total words as I displayed before the people.
06:01
I was giving a computer rendering. When you collate a Byzantine and an Alexandrian manuscript, what is the level of agreement?
06:08
On variance or words, sir? On words. Words and variance are two different things.
06:16
I understand that. The percentage. Because, in fact, you're the one who's talking about words as being 95 percent in agreement.
06:24
I'm asking you, if you don't collate two texts, but you collate two manuscripts, what is the level of agreement in the words?
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The words would, again, a collation, the percentage of difference is in the variance, not in the total words of the manuscript, sir.
06:41
Are you saying that you don't know the answer? No, sir. I think your question is comparing apples and oranges.
06:47
Let me ask this. Have you ever collated a Byzantine manuscript? A Byzantine manuscript?
06:52
No, sir, I have not. Okay. Have you collated an Alexandrian manuscript? I have worked on sections in seminary, yes, sir.
06:59
Have you collated an Alexandrian manuscript against a Byzantine manuscript? Using the
07:05
TR, if you would call that, it's not even a Byzantine manuscript, so I've never put B against a medieval minuscule, no.
07:13
Okay. Well, the reason it matters is because you were making a statement about Byzantine and Alexandrian texts.
07:18
Yes, sir. But, in fact, when you compare the manuscripts with one another, this 95 percent agreement seems to me to be a somewhat specious number because, in fact—
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Is that a question, sir? I'm getting there. Okay. Isn't it a specious number? No, sir, it's not because you seem to refuse to allow what
07:38
I presented to these people. I ask anyone in the audience, go get BibleWorks, load
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Westcott and Hort, load the majority text, activate the module that compares them, and see for yourself.
07:49
But you're comparing printed texts. I said that in my presentation. I even stopped and said, now, these are not manuscripts.
07:57
These are printed texts. Yes, it's a very important distinction. I don't have a timer. How much time do we have?
08:03
Twelve minutes. Twelve minutes. Oh, very good. Okay, let's see.
08:08
So, where do we want to go from there? Let's talk about your main point, which seems to be that the original text is preserved somewhere in the manuscript tradition.
08:28
That we have all these variants, and that in every case, one of the variants is the original text.
08:35
Is that your understanding? Yes, I believe in the tenacity of the text that when we have a variant, the reason that we can invest the time in looking into it is that one of the readings that is there is the original reading.
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I don't believe we need to engage in conjectural emendation, just simply to fill in gaps as we do with most classical works.
09:00
Okay, and why do you think this? Because that seems to be the conclusion of not only
09:06
Kurt Ahland and an extensive discussion of that. I cited it in my opening statement.
09:12
But that also seems to have been the belief of a large majority of the textual critical scholars down through the ages, from Tischendorf onwards,
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Moises Silva, Dan Wallace, and others, have also enunciated the exact same things.
09:28
So, it's because authorities have told you this? Well, and I also find it to be very consistent with my own study of the textual variations in the
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New Testament. Okay. Would you agree that Eldon Epp is probably the dean of text criticism in America today?
09:41
Well, I think Eldon Epp, yourself, and D .C. Parker are probably the biggest names right now. Unfortunately, I would say that the perspective that you are now pursuing, and as you yourself have said for the past ten or fifteen years, you've pretty much given up on working on the original text.
09:58
That's sort of been done. So, okay, so Epp in America, and Parker, he's English, and maybe
10:03
Keith Elliott in England is a big name. How about in Germany? Who would be the authorities now living?
10:09
With the Ahlands out of the picture? Barbara's still living. I'm sorry? Barbara's still living.
10:15
Yeah, but I don't think she's publishing, right? She's retired from the institute. Maybe Klaus Wachtel or Geert Mink?
10:24
Yes, well, I'm sorry, I don't keep up with German textual criticism today. How about in France? I don't know anybody in France, sir.
10:31
Probably Christian Bernard Amfou. These are the biggest names in the field.
10:38
Epp, Parker, Elliott, Ahland, Wachtel, Mink, Amfou. So far as I know, none of them agree with you on this particular point about the preservation of the text.
10:47
Ahland doesn't, even though it's in the book? Who wrote that book? Kurt and Barbara Ahland. Yeah, Kurt. I don't know about Barbara Ahland, but what do you think about the movement that Parker is especially driving, which states that in fact it no longer makes sense to talk about the original text?
11:10
I think it is an abandonment of, I agree with Moises Silva's comments. You're familiar with those?
11:16
Oh, yeah. I agree with Moises Silva's comments in response to specifically
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D .C. Parker. Would you like me to read what he says, or is that since you know it so well?
11:29
If you've got some time to kill, go ahead, sure. Actually, he says, nor do
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I find it helpful when David Parker, for example, sanctifies his proposals by a theological appeal to divinely inspired textual diversity, indeed textual confusion and contradiction that is supposed to be of greater spiritual value than apostolic authority.
11:48
Actually, his primary exhibit that he gives in response to that is your book, Orthodox Scripture and Scripture, where he says you cannot read a page.
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He says there is hardly a page in that book that does not in fact mention such a text or assume its accessibility, that is the original.
12:03
I'm not sure if you've changed your viewpoint since 1993, but Moises Silva certainly would seem to feel that if you now agree with Parker that you have.
12:10
Yeah, I have changed my view a little bit, but my question is really about Parker. Why is it that David Parker thinks we can't get back to the original text?
12:20
Well, there are a number of reasons, theological and genealogical. Obviously, I have focused on his theological reason in that he asserts that we have made an artificial distinction between text and tradition, which
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I certainly would strongly disagree with. But as you yourself have said, as far as the current state of the manuscript tradition is concerned, we're as far back as we can get.
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I think the term that you used in an SBL article a few years ago was now we're just tinkering, as far as that is concerned.
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And so apart from some major find, a Dead Sea Scrolls level New Testament type of find, there seems to be a fair amount of skepticism at being able to get any farther back.
13:07
Yeah, I agree with that. Can you tell me when I've got like a minute and a half left? Absolutely. So, yeah, well, let's approach this from a different angle.
13:16
This business with P75 to B, a lot of people have used this. And I mean, let me say, you know,
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I know you keep saying I don't understand things, but, you know, the reality is I understand them. I just I don't buy them.
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And so let me tell you, let me ask you about this P75 to B. P75, say it was copied in the year 175, and say
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B was copied in the year 350, and the 350 is not a copy of P75, but it's very close to P75.
13:45
That's an argument for showing that there was a consistent line of tradition, at least in that Alexandrian proto -Alexandrian line, right?
13:54
All right. So the fact that somebody in the middle of the fourth century accurately copies a text, what does that tell you about somebody copying a text in the year 70?
14:08
A number of things. What I was attempting to explain, and you may consider it bogus and dismiss it, it doesn't change the fact that what
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I was attempting to present was this issue of multifocality and the multiple lines of transmission. That these two manuscripts are probably closer together than any other two manuscripts from that time period in their readings, and yet they are not in the same specific line of transmission.
14:32
Oh no, that's incorrect. They're both proto -Alexandrian manuscripts, aren't they?
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As I put on the screen, sir, what I meant by that was P75 is not the direct ancestor of B.
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They're so much in the same line of tradition that they're cousins virtually, aren't they? Okay, I'm attempting to answer, but you're just arguing with my answer.
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But you're not seriously going to contend that P75 and B are not in the same line of tradition, are you?
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I obviously define the term line there as direct lineal genealogical ancestor, which
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I did in my opening statement as well. What I'm saying is while they're both clearly proto -Alexandrian manuscripts, they are in the same stream, they represent two different lines within that stream because Vaticanus contains readings that are older than P75.
15:34
Okay, let me ask this. How many genealogical lineal manuscripts do we have related to one another?
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I don't even understand the question. Well, you just said that they're not in a lineal genealogical line with each other.
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In other words, one is not a copy of another. Exactly. How many copies of other manuscripts do we actually have?
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All I said, sir, is that P75 is not what was copied to make Vaticanus. I don't have any other way of expressing the statement.
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I'm asking a question. I'm asking how many copies of manuscripts do we have? In other words, where we have the original and the copy.
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You mean where we absolutely know which one was copied from which? You're saying
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B is not a copy of P75. Because it contains different, more ancient readings, yes. Yes, I got that.
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But I'm wondering if that's usual or unusual. Do we have copies of manuscripts in the tradition?
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The only thing I can think of you're asking is something like 1739 where we know something about the nature and the origination of what it is a copy of or even
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Beze or something like that. But very rarely do we know the exact lineal parent of any manuscript in the first thousand years.
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Exactly. So the fact that one isn't a copy of the other is, in fact, completely normal, right?
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Because we don't have copies. Yes, sir. But they are so closely related that they're in the same line of tradition, yes?
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Of course, yes, sir. Okay, good. What then does the fact that B is close to P75 but not a copy of P75, B copied in the year 350, say, what does that tell us about copying practices in the year 70?
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I said what it does is demonstrate that the onus is upon the skeptic to assert that there is corruption in the primitive period because since we have multiple lines coming out of the early period and yet it's the same
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New Testament that if there was some kind of primitive corruption, you would have multiple corrupted lines coming out that vary massively from one another, and that is not the case.
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Oh, that's not the case. So you said in seminary you did some collations of early manuscripts.
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Tell me, how do the early manuscripts stack up against each other in comparison with the later manuscripts? Well, as I've said in my published works, the vast majority of meaningful and viable variants take place within the first 250, 300 years of the transmission history of the
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New Testament. That's a given. Yeah, let me reword it. If you compare two Byzantine late manuscripts to one another, will they agree a lot or not very often?
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Well, of course. So the variations between 14th century Byzantine minuscules are almost totally based upon scribes falling asleep or slapping a bug while they're writing.
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What about the early manuscripts? The early manuscripts, because as I said in my opening presentation, they're being done in a very different period of time where very rarely did
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Christians have access to scriptoriums or things like that because of persecution taking place, the destruction of texts and things like that.
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There is a much wider variation between them. So the earlier the manuscript, the more differences there are between them.
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As P72 demonstrates, these men were not, by and large, well, P75 is different, but P72, P66, these were not professional scribes.
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One minute. I'm sorry? Okay, so let me just say something. The point is that the earlier you go, the more different they are.
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So you just extrapolate that the earliest were probably the most different. Let me ask about P72 where you resonate with this particular text, you said, that has 2
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Peter and Jude in it. What other documents are found in P72? There are some non -canonical documents in P72.
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My recollection was that 1 Peter and Jude were the only canonical documents in it. Right.
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So I'm just wondering about your resonating with this document. I mean, do you think the scribe thought that what he was copying was scripture?
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Well, I don't think that you can simply jump to the conclusion that because scribes included books in a single codex, that meant that they believed that everything in that codex was necessarily scripture.
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There are all sorts of works that were considered to be very beneficial for the reading of people that were included in codices that were not necessarily canonical.
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Yeah, I just thought that was odd. That particular manuscript is one that you resonate with because it's the earliest attestation we have of the
20:02
Protevangelium Jacobi. Time? Okay. Good. Thank you. Dr.
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Ehrman, you said in your rebuttal that P52 contains a major, I believe it was, you can correct me please if I was wrong, major textual variant that changes the meaning of the text.
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Do you have access to a textual variant there that is not listed in the Nessie Olin text? It's the restoration in the lacuna, as Metzger points out in his manuscripts of the
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New Testament, of the absence of the words es tuta before elelutha.
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And there are a couple of other variants. I mean, there's a full discussion of it in Metzger's book on the manuscripts of the New Testament. And you would consider this to completely change the meaning of the text?
20:48
No. Okay. All right. I mean, it changes the meaning of the text.
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I mean, I think anybody who thinks that the words of the New Testament are inspired has to think that the words matter.
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And so if the words change, that matters. All right. Dr. Ehrman, since you disagree with, evidently,
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Kurt Ahland on the issue of tenacity, could you list for us some variations in the
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New Testament where you are willing to assert that none of the extant readings in the manuscript tradition could possibly be the original?
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No. I think there's always a possibility. It's not a question of possibility. It's a question of probability.
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Of course, anything could possibly have been original. The original author might have written nonsense.
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And why not? It's possible. And later scribes might have corrected that nonsense. So one has to weigh probability.
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It's interesting that Westcott and Hort, the two giants in this field in the 19th century, were quite insistent that most of the text of the
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New Testament was preserved in a codex like Codex Vaticanus, and yet they resorted to conjectural emendation on a large number of occasions.
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If you want an example, if you want just one example, I mean, I don't know how much sense it'll make in English, but one common one that my teacher,
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Bruce Metzger, used to talk about as being possibly a strong case for emendation is 1
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Peter 3, verse 19, which follows a creedal statement about Christ.
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The Greek text—well, I guess I better read it in English. It says, Christ suffered for sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order that he might lead you—textual variant there—to
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God, having been put to death in the flesh but having been made alive in the spirit. And then chapter 19, the next verse says, in which also he preached, having gone to—having gone forth, he preached to the spirits who were in prison.
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Boyer and others, including Harris, have proposed emendations at this point because—well, for grammatical reasons, but also because they think that, in fact, it might be a mistake that, in fact, this is talking about the old early
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Christian tradition about Enoch, who was preaching the preaching of Enoch, according to some of the apocryphal materials.
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So, I mean, it strikes me that that's a plausible place where you might need an emendation. So what percentage do you believe of the
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New Testament is impacted by viable meaning textual variants? I've never put a percentage on something like that because I'm not sure that percentage actually means anything.
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I mean, for example, if I speak a sentence in a hundred words and I change only one of the words, but the word that I change is whether I say the word not or not, the entire sentence is reversed in meaning.
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Well, it'd only be a one percent change, but it'd be really important.
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So I don't think percentages—I've never really tried to calculate percentages because I don't think they matter.
24:32
You have often said that there are verses where variants change the meaning of an entire book. Could you give us some examples?
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Verses changing an entire book? Yeah, sure. I think that—I actually do think that if Hebrews 2 .9
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said that Jesus died apart from God, that there is no place in Hebrews then where Jesus is said to have died by the grace of God, and that the meaning now,
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I think, for Hebrews means that Jesus died like a full flesh and blood human being without any divine comfort or support.
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If the reading is not koros tehu but karas tehu, that he died by the grace of—karati tehu, he died by the grace of God, then in fact you do have the teaching that Jesus' death was an act of divine grace in Hebrews, which otherwise you don't have.
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And yet when you argued that point in the Orthodox corruption of Scripture, did you not argue that koros tehu is consistent with the theology of Hebrews?
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Yeah, the variant changes it. How can you argue that it's consistent with the theology of Hebrews if the variant changes it?
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I'm saying that koros, depending on which variant you have, the meaning of the book changes.
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So nowhere else in the book do you have this idea of Jesus' death that would be presented in Hebrews 2 .9
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based upon reading one 10th century manuscript and Origins manuscripts, at least some of Origins manuscripts.
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You said the majority, but I don't know where Origins actually said that. I'm sorry,
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I don't understand your question. So your assertion then is that the book of Hebrews would not present that view of the atonement of Jesus unless you have that reading in Hebrews 2 .9.
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Elsewhere it just doesn't— Nowhere else does Hebrews say that Jesus died by the grace of God. This is the one place.
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I understand that, but you believe that the original is koros because that is consistent with the writing of Hebrews, with the theology of Hebrews.
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That's right, and the variant changes that. Away from it. Okay, I understand what you're saying. On the
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Unbelievable Radio program in London, you discuss the length of time that exists between the writing of Paul's letter to the
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Galatians and the first extant copy, that being 150 years. You describe this time period as enormous.
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That's a quote. Could you tell us what term you would use to describe the time period between, say, the original writings of Suetonius or Tacitus or Pliny and their first extant manuscript copies?
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Very enormous. Sorry, ginormous would be a good one? Ginormous. Ginormous, okay. I mean, ginormous doesn't cover it.
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The New Testament, we have much earlier attestation than for any other book from antiquity. What you can't do is then say, well, then you can't trust any book from antiquity.
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Okay, yes, right, that's right. So it would be correct to write a book called misquoting
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Suetonius? Absolutely. Scholars do this. Scholars write books all the time about how you don't know about what
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Plato actually wrote or what Homer wrote or Suetonius or Tacitus, Euripides. This is just what scholars do.
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Of course there are scads of books on just these topics. And so when you cite them in your works, you will say according to the best sources and will question the reliability of Suetonius or the
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Gospel of Thomas or whatever else it might be. There's no scholar who's an expert in Suetonius or Cicero or the
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Gospel of Thomas who would tell you that we absolutely know what these texts originally said. So when you say know what these texts originally said, but they will believe that we have a sufficiently clear knowledge to quote
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Suetonius, you quote Suetonius, don't you? Yes, of course I quote the manuscript tradition of Suetonius.
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I mean it's just understood among scholars what you're quoting. And so you say in your books, I'm not really quoting
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Suetonius, this isn't really what he said? I'm saying that we don't have the original text for any writing from the ancient world.
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The New Testament is no different. Just as you can't establish the original text of the New Testament because you don't have sufficient evidence, you can't establish the original text of Suetonius because you don't have original evidence.
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For some of these authors, the manuscript tradition is pathetic.
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For some very important works from antiquity, we have one manuscript that's a palimpsest. And so, yes, absolutely we have exactly the same problem.
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And when you say that nobody goes on about the Gospel of Thomas, absolutely wrong. Scholars of the
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Gospel of Thomas talk about this all the time. This is a major issue of scholarship. I'm sorry,
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I didn't say that they don't discuss such things, sir, but anyway. Peter Williams of Cambridge suggested that if you were to edit an edition of the
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Greek New Testament using all your own decisions regarding textual variance, that it would differ less from the
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Nessial and UBS platform than the Textus Receptus does. Would you agree? Yes. So, you would say if you included all of your own readings, such as depending on Codex Beze and Mark 141 for the reading of anger, would you put that in your text?
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Yeah, I would. Okay. And yet the resultant text would be less different than the
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King James is from the New American Standard, if it was translated? I'm sorry.
30:13
You lost me there because I thought we were talking about Greek. Well, yes, but I'm trying to give an illustration to the people in the audience.
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The King James is translated from the TR. The New American Standard is translated from the NA -27, or actually NA -25. I think the last one was 26.
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But the point is that the differences in readings would be less than you have if you're sitting there with a
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King James versus a New American Standard. Would that be correct? I don't know. I've never actually thought about it.
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I mean, it seems to me it would make a big difference whether you wanted to say Jesus got angry at a leper or whether he loved him.
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It seems pretty significant. Okay. And looking at that particular one, you do believe that August Thijs is the original there?
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That's right. Would you comment on what has been said by Dr. Parker, for example, where he says the more he's studied
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Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, the more he's become convinced that its unique readings, especially when they're alone, are insignificant if you're searching for the original reading?
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Or Dr. Aulon's assertion that any of the readings of Bezae, when they do not have earlier attestation, should be looked at somewhat askance?
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Yeah. Well, Aulon doesn't like Codex Bezae. Parker loves Codex Bezae, but he does have this suspicion about it.
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But I believe Parker agrees with me on Mark 141, doesn't he? I have no idea what he says about 141.
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He didn't comment on it in Codex Bezae in his book on it. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great book, but I think that he agrees with me on Mark 141.
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However, is it not true that Scrivener, Metzger in the book you have right there and commenting on Bezae, they all recognize that Codex Bezae is incredibly free?
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Oh, yeah. I think so, too. I think a lot of its variants, in fact, are very strange indeed. It just shows how early manuscripts differ so widely from one another, or this is a case in point.
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So if Codex Bezae adds all sorts of commentary, the number of steps
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Paul stepped down, the time frame when he lectured in Acts, all these things are added.
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Why wouldn't it be more likely, given that there is no earlier manuscript support for that reading, that the writer of Codex D saw the very same strong language that you yourself have pointed to in your argumentation?
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He casts him out. He strongly upbraids him and made a change, as he did in so many other places in his writings.
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Yeah, that's a standard argument. That's what people have said for years, and I disagree with it. I think that, in fact, on internal grounds, there are solid reasons for thinking that it was
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Augustus. My principal reasoning has nothing to do with the value of Codex Bezae, as you probably know.
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I mean, you've read my articles on it, so I assume you've read my article on Mark 141.
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I have. So Codex Bezae is, to some extent, neither here nor there.
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It provides us with a reading, but it isn't the strong argument for the reading being original. Okay, and would that be one of the readings that you feel changes the entire meaning of a book?
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Well, no, I wouldn't put it that way with that reading. I would say that that reading provides a different nuance.
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Jesus gets angry a couple of times in the Gospel of Mark, and it's interesting to try and see why he gets angry in the
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Gospel of Mark, and this would be another place where he gets angry at Mark. I mean, it struck most scribes as a little bit odd for him to get angry at this point, and this leper comes up and wants to be healed, and it says
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Jesus got angry. And so, well, that's a little hard to figure out. No wonder they changed it until he felt compassion for the man.
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I mean, it makes sense that they would make the change. But, in fact, it probably said he got angry, and then the task of the exegete, the interpreter, is to try and make sense of why it is.
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Now it says that Jesus got angry when this leper approached him, and so it changes the meaning of the book to the extent that it gives you a fuller understanding of why
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Jesus gets angry in the Gospel of Mark. By the way, he doesn't get angry in Matthew or Luke. When you repeatedly say that we don't know what the original writings of the
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New Testament said, given that there are entire sections of text where there is no variation basically at all, would you agree that we know what those sections of the
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New Testament said? Okay, let me explain why, because I don't think I've explained it very well.
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Let's say Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, and they got a copy.
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And then somebody made a copy of that original and made a couple mistakes, and then somebody copied that copy and made a few mistakes.
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And then the original was lost, and the first copy was lost, and that all other manuscripts ultimately derive from that third copy.
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In other words, the original wasn't copied anymore. The first copy wasn't copied anymore.
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The second copy was copied twice, and both of those was copied five times, and each of those was copied 20 times. So they all go back in a genealogical line to the third copy rather than to the original.
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All you can reconstruct is what was in the third copy, and all manuscripts, when they agree 95 % of the time or whatever number you want to put on it, when they agree 95 % of the time, that just shows that they all go back to that copy.
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It doesn't show they go back to the original. And so this kind of perspective,
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I want to make sure that we're all understanding exactly what you're saying. This is why you would say that if anything was ever inspired, in essence, we'd have to have the original for it to be inspired.
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Now, look, I told you long ago that this was not going to be a debate about my doctrine of inspiration.
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I'm not saying anything has to be one way or the other. God could have inspired the originals and then decided to allow scribes to change the originals.
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God could have inspired all the textual variants. I mean, if you're saying if it's impossible, then when you're talking about God, nothing is impossible.
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The church father origin maintained that all of the textual variants were inspired by God, that he inspired the scribes.
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So, well, that's perfectly fine if that's what you want to think. I simply don't think so. My view is that if God wanted us to have his words, he wouldn't have allowed his words to be changed so that we don't know what the words were.
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So the standard then that would have to exist for you to have maintained the position that you held would have been either the originals or some perfect copy thereof.
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Why would God not allow the originals to be preserved? I used to ask myself that question. I mean, if he inspired
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Mark to write down this book, why wouldn't he let it? I mean, it wouldn't be impossible for it to be preserved.
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There are other books that are preserved that long. Why wouldn't he tell Christians, you know, keep that book so that you have something to judge the copies by?
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But he didn't do that. We don't have the original. So it made me suspect that maybe
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God wasn't that interested in giving us his words. If he was, why didn't he give them to us? That was my question.
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So clearly that's not the perspective of the apostles themselves, who themselves did not have access to any originals of the
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Old Testament, and yet they quoted freely from the Old Testament based upon even translations of the Old Testament.
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That's right. It was not their view. I'm sorry? That is not their view. It was not their view, no. Right. So as you are thinking about this then…
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I should say, though, when they quote the Old Testament, it's a very interesting thing because they quote it in different forms, and in the form they quote it often is not the form that we have it.
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Matthew, for example, quotes the Old Testament sometimes. He'll give a quotation of scripture that you can't find in the
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Bible. Why is that? Because he had a different form than we have. So to apply your standard then, how could there have been any revelation given without the ability for perfect copying down through the ages?
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It didn't have to be perfectly copied. God could have just preserved the originals. So if there is any claimed scripture from antiquity that does not have the originals, the
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Koran has textual variation in it, it can't possibly come from God then?
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I'm not drawing that theological conclusion, and I don't really appreciate you likening me to a
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Muslim. I didn't. Both in your speech and just now. I'm not making any stand about the
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Koran. I don't know anything about the Koran. I'm simply making a very basic point, and I'm not making this as a normative point for everybody.
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I'm saying for me, it doesn't make sense to say that God inspired the words because he wanted us to have his words if he didn't give us his words.
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We don't have his words because the originals don't exist, and accurate copies don't exist. There are places where we don't know what the originals even said.
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So your standard for accurate copy is perfection, is it not? Perfection.
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I think if I copy the word ego, and instead of writing ego, I write al -taws, then in fact that is an imperfect copy.
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A perfect copy would be a copy that copied ego as ego. One of my tasks as a teacher at a research university is when
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I teach my undergraduate students, I try to teach them to think.
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And I try to force them to think. I try to force them to think logically.
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I try to get them to accept points of view, not because some authority has told them these points of view, but because they've seen the power of the arguments themselves.
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The arguments are much more important than the people who make them, in my opinion. And so it is with what has turned into the key argument in this debate.
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How do we know that we have the original text among the hundreds of thousands of variations that are found in the textual tradition of the
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New Testament? Kurt and Barbara Alon's book indicated that in fact the original text is always preserved somewhere among our variants, so we can rest assured that we have the original.
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But is this a view that makes logical sense? That's the question.
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Scholars have gotten away from thinking this. If you do like authority, then let me tell you the authorities for the other side.
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It's virtually every scholar who is actively pursuing this in the field, except for a few evangelical scholars.
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Now why would this be a theological point of view? Isn't this a historical question? Why is it that only people of a certain theological persuasion would take a certain historical view?
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Do they have some kind of theological reason for wanting this to be true? If they have a theological reason, fair enough, but what is the logic behind it?
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The situation is the one that I outlined a minute ago. When Paul wrote his letter to the
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Philippians, he wrote a letter that was sent through the ancient equivalent of the ancient mail.
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Paul did not know he was writing the Bible, and the people who got the book didn't know they were receiving the
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Bible. It was a letter sent from one Christian authority to other Christians.
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They read the letter. Probably some of them liked it. A couple of them probably didn't like it. Somebody decided to copy it.
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Well, they copied it, and they didn't know they were copying the Bible. They were just copying a letter, and somebody else copied that copy, and somebody else copied that copy.
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Of course, there are multiple lines of tradition. Absolutely. I've spent a good part of my career on this, talking about the multiple lines of tradition that come away from the book of Philippians and all the other books.
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Various copies were made. Many of them differ. They all differ from one another. Then those things were copied, and copies were copied all over the place.
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The originals were lost. The first copies were lost. The copies of the copies were lost, and the copies of the copies of the copies were lost.
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What guarantee is it that the entire tradition goes back to some kind of original rather than to a copy?
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What's the argument for that? What's the logic behind that? Most scholars today simply don't see that as a tenable point of view.
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That's why leading scholars in America, England, Germany, France, everywhere where text criticism is done, that's why the leading scholars in this field, by whom
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I mean people who go to the Society of Biblical Literature and read papers on the topic, and who go to the international meetings, and who are members of the
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Society of New Testament Studies, the people who do this for a living, that's why there is a very strong movement away from even talking about the original text.
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If you think God inspired the originals, why don't you have the originals? And why is it that we don't know what the originals said in places?
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The differences in these manuscripts do matter. It does matter whether the
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Gospel of John calls Jesus, ha monoganes theos, the unique God.
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That's very different from saying that Jesus is divine if Jesus is the unique God.
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Well, that's a very high statement that you find nowhere else in the Bible. Well, did he say it or not?
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It depends which manuscript you read. Is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly talked about in the
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Bible? It seems to me that should matter. Well, it depends which manuscripts you read.
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I know that James has dealt with these issues in his writings. It doesn't, though, mean that they're not important issues.
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When Jesus was going to his death in the Gospel of Luke, did he become so distressed that he began to sweat drops as if of blood?
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The passage that we get the term sweating blood from. It depends which manuscript you read, and it matters a lot for understanding
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Luke's Gospel whether Jesus went through that experience or not. Did the voice of Jesus' baptism in Luke's Gospel say that on that day of his baptism is when
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God adopted him to be his son? You are my son. Today I have begotten you.
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It depends which manuscript you read, and it matters a lot. I understand the arguments of people like James and Dan Wallace, but sometimes, you know, they don't make sense to me even though I intellectually understand them.
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Dan Wallace, whom he keeps quoting, insists that, in fact, differences don't matter in the manuscript.
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Well, if the differences don't matter, why is it that he is undertaking a major project dealing with Greek manuscripts, a project that is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars?
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If the differences don't matter, what does he tell these people he's trying to raise money from?
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Well, we'd like you to donate $50 ,000 to our cause because the differences don't matter.
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Of course they matter, and if they don't matter, it is shameful to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on this in a world where people are starving to death.
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If the differences don't matter. Well, the differences do matter, in my opinion.
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One issue that has continually come up, not from me, is the issue of preservation.
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And James has, I think, fairly asked why is it that every time I talk about textual criticism, the issue of preservation comes up, and my view of inspiration comes up.
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The reason it comes up every time is for the same reason it came up this time. It wasn't an issue that I raised, it was an issue that James raised.
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And when I had my interview with Pete Williams on London Radio a few weeks ago, it was an issue that Pete Williams wanted to talk about.
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And when it was an issue at the debate in New Orleans with Dan Wallace, it was an issue that Dan Wallace wanted to talk about.
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This is not an issue that I am really all that hot and bothered about. I simply talk about it at the beginning and the end of my book because it's the issue that at one time made me interested in knowing, do we have the original text?
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I wanted to know that because I was a Bible -believing, evangelical Christian who believed that God had given us the words of the text, and I became bothered by the fact that it appeared we didn't have them.
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And so that's what got me interested. It's what made it interesting to me at the time.
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Well, I think it's an issue that continues to be interesting. I raise it, though, simply as an issue
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I'm interested in, not in something I'm that interested in debating about. You can have your own view of inspiration, and I'm happy to tell you mine.
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My view is that if God wanted you to have his words, he would have given you his words.
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He didn't give you his words because his words and places are not preserved. So why do you think he inspired the words in the first place?
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That's my point of view. James wants to talk about this as some kind of hardcore standard that I have to apply across the board with respect to, for example, the
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Koran. I don't know anything about the Koran. I don't know very much at all about Islam.
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I'm not connected with Muslim apologists that he's in contact with. I do know that they use my work, and I'm sorry if people don't appreciate the fact that they use my work, but it's not really my fault.
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I haven't given my work to anybody. I simply write the books and let people read the books. The books, in fact, make very different points from points about inspiration.
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The books make points about whether we have the original text of the New Testament. Our topic of debate was does the
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Bible or did the Bible misquote Jesus, and the answer is yes. Remember that for most of history, the
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Bible was not the printed edition that you read today. For most Christians throughout history, the
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Bible was whatever manuscript happened to be available to them. What manuscript was available to the
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Christians in their churches? All of these manuscripts have mistakes in them, including mistakes in the words of Jesus.
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All Bibles misquote Jesus. Thank you. First of all, let me thank you all very much for being here this evening.
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I would like to thank those who have made it possible for us to have this encounter. Michael Fallon, of course, is primarily responsible for bringing this together, but there have been many others,
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Rich Pierce back in Phoenix, some of you who are here, Alan Kirshner down here, someone who's not with us this evening,
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Rosie Moscarelli has been very helpful to me in preparation for this debate. Many have made it possible for us to be here, and I hope you have found it to be a scintillating discussion.
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I believe that people will be amazed at comparing what
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I specifically and clearly said and what Dr. Ehrman has represented me as saying, especially on specific issues this evening.
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That's why I hope people will go back and they will listen again and again and again and check the facts for themselves.
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We were just told that scholars are getting away from this. Yes, postmodernism is creeping in.
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I think it is a tragedy. There are many who have spoken out against it, but I would like to point out to you
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I'm not one of those people that believes in authorities. If you were in Germany back in the 1800s, you would have believed on the basis of authority that John was a 2nd century document written toward the end of the 2nd century around 170.
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If you had believed even what Dr. Ehrman believes about the dating of John back then, they would have laughed at you as being out of step with modern scholarship.
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Then this little manuscript P52 comes along and all of a sudden we have a bit of a problem.
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Dr. Ehrman says, well, you know, some evangelicals, well, they've got their theological reasons. I would like to submit to you everybody has their theological reasons.
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Even those who call themselves happy agnostics still have a theological set of presuppositions where they know those presuppositions are there or not.
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What is the logic of believing we have the New Testament? It's the logic that Tischendorf and many others have accepted all along.
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That is, if there was that major corruption in that earlier period, why do we have only one
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New Testament text coming out? Are there variants? Yes. But is it still the same text? Is it still
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Philippians? Is it still Galatians? Is it still the presentation of the same theology? Yes, it is. No one questions that.
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In fact, in the paperback edition of Dr. Ehrman's book, he says, the position I argue for in misquoting
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Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Professor Metzger's position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition in the
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New Testament. What he means by that, I think, is that even if one or two passages that are used to argue for a belief have a different textual reading, there are still other passages that could be used to argue for the same belief.
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For the most part, I think that's true. And so we need to understand that when
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Dr. Ehrman talks about changes, scribes changing things, we don't know what the original text was.
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The standard that is being used is not the standard that has been used down through the centuries because to adopt that standard means that we have to become ultra -skeptical about everything that happened before at least the printing press and even then,
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I would argue, into the modern era. I don't think that there is any logic in that.
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I don't think there's any logic in looking at manuscript tradition and saying, yeah, this extremely unified manuscript tradition going back closer than anything else we've had clearly demonstrates that we don't have any idea what it originally said.
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That is not what the vast majority of people have come to and whether post -modernism takes us there or not,
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I don't know. I never compared Dr. Ehrman to a Muslim. Anyone who goes back and listens will know that.
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All I was saying is this. It is a documented fact that there are textual variants in the manuscripts of the
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Quran. Therefore, logically, if you apply Dr. Ehrman's standards, he would have to be able to write a book called
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Misquoting Muhammad. That's all I'm saying. That would be true of everyone in the ancient world.
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So why does Misquoting Jesus end up on the New York Times bestseller list? I think it's because we live in an age where many people are looking for a reason not to believe.
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That is why. A few weeks ago, I debated Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Shah, an
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Islamic scholar and apologist at Duke University. The subject was a comparison of the Bible and the
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Quran. Two of the four books on Dr. Shah's desk were by Bart Ehrman. At one point,
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Dr. Shah informed us that all we had for the New Testament were copies of copies of copies.
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I had to smile. If you listen to men like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, you will often hear
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Dr. Ehrman's name cited as the final authority in the scholarly demonstration of the corruption and utter unreliability of the
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New Testament. I don't think either man really has a clue what Bart is actually talking about, but that does not stop them from invoking his authority.
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A few years ago, my daughter ran into an anti -Christian zealot teaching in the Phoenix area, Lee Carter, who in the midst of giving the highly scholarly advice to Google the authorship of the
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Gospels, invoked Dr. Ehrman's name as part of his anti -Christian diatribe as well. I do not believe
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Dr. Carter has any meaningful understanding of the field of textual criticism, but he is representative of many in academia today who are more than happy to blast the
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New Testament and smugly proclaim to 18 -year -olds that scholars have proven it to be an unreliable document.
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Bart Ehrman cannot control the use of his words. As far as any of these have misused his comments, the responsibility lies with them.
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But the fact is that Dr. Ehrman has had many opportunities to correct these misapprehensions, and strangely, he doesn't.
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I have listened to NPR interviews where the interviewer is going on and on and on, and instead of correcting their many misapprehensions,
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Dr. Ehrman allows them to go on unchallenged. The fact of the matter is, if you're going to tell people repeatedly that we don't know what the
55:48
New Testament originally said, when at the same time you admit that the manuscript tradition of the New Testament is earlier, fuller, and better than any other relevant ancient document, then you need to be fair and honest and balanced, and at least inform your listeners that the majority of those who have studied this field believe the original readings do continue to exist, at least up until postmodernism, in the manuscript tradition to our day, even in the relatively small number of viable meaningful variants.
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To do otherwise is to use bare sensationalism, and such is unworthy of this important topic.
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At the same time, there is a vital need for education amongst believing Christians about the history and transmission of the text of the
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Bible. I have been beating this drum since the mid -1980s, so I can at least honestly claim consistency here.
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The Christian ignorant of the history of his sacred texts is a Christian who will be shocked at the mere presentation of historical facts, and who will then easily follow false lines of reasoning to faithless conclusions.
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The history of the Bible, including a serious dose of basic textual critical principles, should be part and parcel of our most basic instruction for those new in the faith.
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This is especially true in regards to our young people. We send them off to the university with almost no foundation upon which to stand, and then they end up in Bart Ehrman's New Testament introduction class.
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They need to hear about John 7 .53 through 8 .11, the woman taken in adultery, and the longer ending of Mark.
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In the community of faith, first, a Christian with a sound, balanced understanding of how ancient documents were transmitted, and how
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God preserved the text by having it explode around the Mediterranean, so that no one could ever control its text and alter its message, will not be moved by the observation that the pericope adultery is not original.
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The weapons used against the faith in this instance are provided by ourselves, when we refuse to educate our own people on these matters.
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As I said in my opening this evening, you have heard from two men who, upon studying the same materials, have come to polar, opposite conclusions.
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One has seen in the lack of the original copies of the Scriptures, together with his difficulties with the problem of evil and end of faith.
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The other has found in those same materials the plain evidence of God's providence and concern for His people, and the words contained in the
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Scriptures, a compelling, satisfying, soul -anchoring assurance of His purposes in creation, including the existence of evil and of redemption in Christ.
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It is truly my hope this evening that you have been able to see that there is a consistent, sound, compelling answer to be offered to the skepticism of Bart Ehrman, and that this evening's encounter will spur the
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Christian on to deeper study of the great heritage of faith found in the Christian Scriptures. And if you come this evening skeptical about the reliability of the
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New Testament, I trust that you will dig deeper and ask yourself if you are really able to embrace the kind of radical skepticism that would require you to abandon any reasonable certainty of history itself to an unreasonable and unworkable standard of knowledge.
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The Bible does not misquote Jesus. Textual variants are not misquotations. Instead, we have seen that the
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Bible gives us every reason to believe we know what the apostles taught, what Jesus proclaimed, and as a result, each of us, by God's grace, has access to His life -giving gospel.
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Thank you for your time and for your hearing. Hi, I'm David Whedon from Minneapolis, and I just want to thank both of you for coming and doing the debate.
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It was very stimulating, and so thank you for that. My question is for Dr. Ehrman. You talked a lot about not having the originals tonight.
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That was really the crux, I think, of your argument tonight. And you said we can only be sure, let's say, if we're going back to, let's say, the third copy past the original, so we have an original and then a copy of that and then maybe to the third level.
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How do you know, and aren't you making a big assumption that there were mistakes from the original to that third copy?
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How do you know that there were mistakes made between that original and the third copy that it goes back to the genesis of?
59:56
Yes, thank you. It's an excellent question. And, of course, we don't actually know anything when it comes to this sort of thing, which may sound like total skepticism, but I'm sorry, we don't know.
01:00:08
How would we know? So what we have to do is extrapolate on the basis of what we do know. And what we do know is that as you go back earlier in the tradition, so the earlier the manuscript, the more the mistakes.
01:00:23
The manuscript tradition is filled with more mistakes early, and the reason is because the people copying the text weren't professionals.
01:00:31
And that was even more the case for the third copy than it was for the 33rd copy.
01:00:36
So the situation is actually much bleaker than I painted it.
01:00:44
Scholars for over 80 years now have been convinced that all of Paul's letters that we have actually are copies of a collection of Paul's letters that were made around the year 100.
01:00:55
In other words, they're all copies from about 40 years after the original, so they weren't the third copy.
01:01:02
It was much, much later. Okay, Dr. Warren? Very briefly, I think the thing that must be kept in mind is that these manuscripts did not exist in some vacuum.
01:01:10
They exist within the fellowship of faith. Paul's still around. There are people who knew Paul that are still around.
01:01:16
There were those who knew his preaching that were still around. I think there's a real danger in isolating the manuscripts from the historical context and the continued existence of the church just as with the
01:01:26
Gospels and the fact that, as Richard Balcombe has talked about, the eyewitnesses that continued in the church for a long period of time, very important as well.
01:01:33
Thank you. And your question is for? Dr. Ehrman, my name is Robert Melny.
01:01:39
My question is to you, the Old Testament went through the same process that you said that the
01:01:45
New Testament went through too, right? Exactly, the copy of copy of copy, right?
01:01:51
And then when they dug up the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948, and the book of Isaiah that's in this
01:01:59
Bible was translated, and it was 98 % perfect, word for word only two variances and prepositional variances.
01:02:08
How can the New Testament be different than that? Well, yeah, that's true.
01:02:15
The Isaiah Scroll they found was very similar to the Isaiah of the
01:02:20
Masoretic Text from the year 1000. The copy they found at the Dead Sea Scrolls of Jeremiah was 15 % shorter than the
01:02:29
Jeremiah we have, 15 % shorter. So there were a lot of changes being made by Jewish scribes.
01:02:38
And what that shows us, in fact, is the Jewish scribes in the Middle Ages were quite meticulous with their copying, would that the
01:02:46
Christian scribes were. If you compare two Christian copies from the same time period, say a thousand years separate, so you take a 3rd century copy of the
01:02:54
New Testament with a 13th century copy of the New Testament, you don't have anything like that amount of agreement.
01:03:00
There are massive differences. A couple of things. The Old Testament transmission is not like the
01:03:07
New Testament transmission. It's much more controlled because it was within just the people of Israel. One of the problems here is that the reason you had non -professionals copying these things is because they wanted the gospel to get out to as many as possible.
01:03:20
That's why non -professionals are doing it. The idea of comparing that to the Masoretic, something like that, just simply doesn't follow because it's a completely different historical context we're talking about.
01:03:31
Mr. Finley. Thank you, gentlemen, both. My question is also for Dr. Ehrman.
01:03:36
I'm really starting to feel unloved here. Sorry. You mentioned at least twice in your debate that if God wanted us to know his word, he would have preserved it.
01:03:48
You as an agnostic, how do you know that that is what God would have done given that is what he wanted? Yes, great question.
01:03:55
Let me reiterate, I'm simply stating here a personal opinion. I'm not stating something that I have done any scholarship on.
01:04:05
It's not what I've done research on. I'm just telling you my personal opinion, which is why it's not what I wanted this debate to be about because it's just my own opinion.
01:04:14
You can have a different view. I'm just telling you what makes sense to me. I've said it probably more than twice.
01:04:22
I think I've said it about 20 times. I've got 20 seconds, so I'll say it again. It seems to me that if God wanted us to have his words, that he would have given us his words.
01:04:32
If he wanted to, why wouldn't he? It wouldn't have been impossible to do. He could have made sure the originals were preserved.
01:04:38
He could have made sure that they were copied accurately. There would be no more of a miracle than inspiring them. The fact that he didn't preserve them, to me, indicates that he probably didn't give them in the first place.
01:04:49
This is obviously something that there is a big disagreement on. Obviously, you've heard my response to that.
01:04:56
God did preserve his words. It's the how that differs. The idea of having to have the originals is simply nothing.
01:05:03
I don't think anyone in the early church could have even begun to conceive of such a standard that Dr.
01:05:09
Ehrman uses now. I would just like to point out that I would like Dr. Ehrman to add to his book a disclaimer.
01:05:16
This conclusion, which atheists and Muslims and everybody else thinks is the conclusion of my scholarship, is just my personal opinion.
01:05:22
It's not actually scholarship. I think if you read my book, you'll see that, in fact, I don't state it as a result of scholarship.
01:05:29
Your question is for? Dr. Ehrman, of course, as everybody else. Actually, I do want to say this on the part of Dr.
01:05:36
Ehrman. I have read your books, and I am a Christian. And it actually has strengthened my faith. I know
01:05:41
Dr. White was talking about people quickly take your works and use it to promote atheism,
01:05:47
Islam, and so forth. But the thing is, is that, okay, okay.
01:05:53
Talking about double standards. Somebody tried to espouse the Jesus myth to you, that Jesus never existed. And you are an authority on the historical
01:05:59
Jesus. Here's my question. With the knowledge we have with the Gospels, how much can be deduced regarding how much we know about Jesus?
01:06:08
Yeah, that's a very good question. And I think that historians can only establish levels of probability.
01:06:15
You know, what is really almost certain? What is less certain but highly probable?
01:06:21
What's fairly probable? What's kind of probable? What's possible? What's unlikely? I mean, you have a level. That's what historians do.
01:06:26
They establish levels of probability. And I think with some things with the historical Jesus, you can establish very high levels of probability.
01:06:33
I mean, it's virtually certain that Jesus existed, that he was a Jew who lived in Palestine, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
01:06:42
I mean, those are very high levels of probability. So there have been people who have wanted to argue that I think that Jesus never existed, which is quite remarkable.
01:06:52
Since I wrote a book saying what I think you can say Jesus said and did. So I think but it's all based on levels of probability.
01:07:02
Well, one thing I find interesting, I played on my webcast Dr. Ehrman's encounter with the infidel guy because the first time
01:07:10
I ever heard Dr. Ehrman dialoguing with someone who was more radical than he was in skepticism on those issues.
01:07:15
And it was fascinating to listen to that dialogue. Dr. Ehrman earlier said, I'm not all that hot and bothered about the subject of the preservation of the text.
01:07:24
And yet even in the dialogue with Reggie Finley, the infidel guy, still raised the issue and presented it to him in that context.
01:07:32
That's why I think we have been discussing it this evening. Your question is for? Dr. White.
01:07:38
Hey, I'm so excited. Thank you. Great debate. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you, gentlemen.
01:07:43
My question concerns the John 8 passage. And as Dr. Ehrman even mentioned that it's a powerful story.
01:07:51
It is rich in biblical wisdom. And my question is, is there a defense that can be made of that passage as authentic in the life of Jesus, since its wisdom does have a biblical flavor to it?
01:08:08
And if there can be made a defense, what would that be? Well, I'm sure that someone, certainly
01:08:14
Byzantine priority people would raise a defense. But it would be a fundamental defense of the
01:08:20
Byzantine manuscript tradition. The reality is, not only do the earliest manuscripts not contain it.
01:08:25
The first to contain it is Codex Bese Canterburgensis. But the thing that to me is the clearest evidence that it's not original is that it sort of wanders around in the text.
01:08:35
In other words, in like the Farrar group, it's in Luke. Once in Luke 21, once in Luke 24.
01:08:41
And so when you have a story that appears in two different gospels and moves around like that, then clearly it's not an original part of the text itself.
01:08:52
And so I would think that there are many who would say that it has a dominical flavor.
01:08:58
That is, maybe it goes back to the Lord. But others would point out it actually syntactically and linguistically is much more
01:09:05
Lukan than it is Yohani as well. So I don't know what kind of argument would be made outside of simply defending the
01:09:12
Byzantine manuscript tradition as a whole. I'll respond by saying this is a moment
01:09:19
I want everybody to take note of. I completely agree. But we're not going to be hugging.
01:09:32
Okay, last two questions for the evening. Thank you both for the debate. It was incredibly inspiring to see your scholarship.
01:09:40
This is for Dr. Ehrman. Would you consider yourself to be a good person? Wait a second. That's the wrong question. Now I have a question for you considering what you made the statement on your first rebuttal.
01:09:49
You asked and almost kind of pleaded that we would keep an open mind, that we would listen to you and have an open mind.
01:09:55
And I'm checking your personal consistency of your convictions. Do you have an open mind to the possibility that you might be wrong?
01:10:04
Absolutely. I had a friend in seminary who used to say
01:10:09
I believe in my right to convert and to be converted.
01:10:15
And that's my view. The thing is on this particular topic,
01:10:21
I mean, we've talked about a lot of topics tonight. And most of these topics are things that I've thought about for 30 years.
01:10:29
And on a number of these issues, in fact, I've had an open mind and I've changed my mind. And so I'm completely open to be persuaded by argument.
01:10:40
Absolutely. I mean, for example, just one example. This might seem minor to you all, but, I mean, it's fairly major,
01:10:46
I think we would agree, is that I have become less and less convinced that we can talk about the original text.
01:10:52
When I wrote The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture in 1993, I thought basically you can talk about the original text.
01:10:57
And over the years, I've started changing my mind about that because I think that the evidence suggests otherwise.
01:11:04
If somebody comes up with a powerful argument that we can talk about it, I'm absolutely open to it. That was sort of a personal question to Dr.
01:11:11
Ehrman, so I'm going to do something personal here myself. I actually brought something for Dr.
01:11:17
Ehrman, and I decided to do this almost a year ago. It's probably the single most worthless thing that you could ever give to Bart Ehrman.
01:11:27
And once I tell you what it is, it's the necktie that I'm wearing. Sorry about that.
01:11:34
And Dr. Ehrman, it is P52. Both sides fully readable. Yes, thank you. We will hug.
01:11:51
Probably a Monty Python fan as well, so anyway. Okay. A last question of the evening.
01:11:58
Hello, I wanted to thank you both for the lively debate. I believe from a theological perspective that the
01:12:05
Bible— Who is this addressed to? Oh, Dr. White, actually. I want to ask you a question. I believe from a theological perspective that the
01:12:12
Bible in its original forms is the inerrant word of God. And if we, for the sake of argument, ignore inspiration because we've already covered that, do you believe the
01:12:21
Bible as we have it now is inerrant or the originals? Or what is your perspective on just inerrancy if we just neglect the inspiration portion of it?
01:12:30
Yeah, I would hold to the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, which makes a very clear distinction between the original and copies thereof.
01:12:38
I do believe in the tenacity of the text, and so therefore I do believe, as we've put it, that it's like having a jigsaw puzzle.
01:12:47
We've got 1 ,010 pieces instead of 1 ,000. It's not a matter of having lost anything.
01:12:52
And so, yes, obviously, as Pete Williams liked to put it in the radio program they did a few weeks ago,
01:13:00
Barth tends to see the glass as half -empty, and others tend to see it as half -full. And I really do believe that when a person begins to dig into these issues, that you discover that there is really no question about what the
01:13:12
New Testament teaches, about the role of Jesus and things like that, that these textual variants, especially things like the
01:13:18
Commiohonium— Dr. Ehrman kept saying, they're saying they're not important. I've never said they're not important.
01:13:24
I've said they do not alter the message, and that we should study them, but that we can know what the
01:13:30
New Testament originally taught. Yeah, so, you know, when
01:13:35
I started out in this study, I was a firm believer in the inerrancy of the original text, that I thought it had been copied and made changes by human hands.
01:13:46
And that view of inerrancy started crumbling as soon as I started seeing that, in fact, talking about the inerrant originals doesn't make sense if you don't have originals.
01:13:57
So I think that was the first step away for me from the view of inerrancy. Okay, thank you.
01:14:04
Would you please thank them again, folks? And thank you for coming out tonight. It's a great demonstration that you care about such matters, and that certainly is a start.