Wallace/Ehrman Debate

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James White.

And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line Special program today Jumbo DL going till 5 o 'clock. So an hour and a half. That's 40 only 45 minutes though for each of the two debates. We are going to be starting The Bart Ehrman Dan Wallace debate from I believe it was October 1st and the Samuel Green DIA Muhammad debate which would have been toward the end of October because it was within a week or so I was.

I think it was exactly a week after my debate with Abdullah Kunda. I had talked with Samuel Green about it and then I want to make some comments about about that Just a heads up keep your eyes on the blog for tomorrow we have some.

We have a whole new website coming and When you change that you have to change everything and I don't have all the details it'll be on the blog tomorrow, but be watching for a special announcement about how we can continue providing you with the dividing line and doing all the things we do and How you can help us to do that and so please keep an eye out for that tomorrow.

Why Bart Ehrman’s Skepticism Matters for Textual Criticism

Now before we just dive into the subject of the Bart Ehrman debate I want to provide some background and this is going to be a There's there's a lot of information here. There is a lot of depth we need to go into and That's what we do on this program very often sometimes we just have fun sometimes We go very in-depth in things and some of the things we're going into not easily done.

Sometimes much easier done with a digital projector where you can see things or what I did on Tuesday putting up the the blog article and and and maybe I'll need to do that and Provide some of the manuscripts and things like that, but I think we'll be able to do most of it.

But so much of What Bart Ehrman has to say and The claims that he makes goes back to the fact that let's face it the vast majority of the vast majority of pastors in Their training are not taught A great deal of this subject the textual criticism the New Testament Always been a fascinating area of my study.

I went very in-depth in it in in my education. But I knew that I was the only one in my class that had that level of interest in it. Most people just want to learn to read the text and that stuff just is not overly interesting to them.

Obviously in light of how often Bart Ehrman's material is used by Muslims and by unbelievers to attack the New Testament. The time when we could just put this stuff aside and not worry about it is long past.

It's long long past. In fact, I would say to the Older folks in the audience to parents grandparents. One of the greatest things that you could do for your grandchildren for your those going into university or whatever it might be is For you to be able to explain to them Aspects of the history of the Bible and to be able to recognize when unbelievers and others are misrepresenting the truth of the New Testament, you know, I've listened to the Wallace-Ehrman debate a number of times now and I Am absolutely convinced that from what he has said That Bart Ehrman would have to confess.

I have heard him say he said in the debate with me the New Testament is the earliest Attested document of antiquity by far He said in this debate. The New Testament is the most widely documented Work of antiquity by far and so he would have to say if he was honest That the New Testament is the most accurately transmitted document of antiquity.

That is his position now his position is that doesn't mean nothing because we don't have any idea what anybody said back then. It shows the radical nature of his skepticism. But if he was going to be honest He would have to say that of all Ancient documents the New Testament is by far the most accurate the most widely attested and the earliest attested of anything that's out there By by by factors of ten and a hundred a thousand, but you don't see that in any of his books.

And you're not you're not gonna hear his publisher promoting those things so To be able to deal with these things We need to know something about the history of ancient texts and how they're transmitted and let's face it that's not stuff that most of us were taught when we were in high school or college or university and So before I just start playing Bart's statements and responding to them.

I wanted to Do two things that will come up later on. I The the morning of my debate with Bart Ehrman the night before I had seen Bart Ehrman down in the bar at the hotel in Florida and I had introduced myself and he was watching the University of North Carolina play basketball.

So I was obviously Distracting him from what was much more important. And I in fact I had invited him because we you know, the conference was starting the next day I was gonna be speaking on his three favorite textual variants.

And of course, he went to the gym instead. He didn't feel that I had anything worthwhile to say on stuff like that. I'm I'm a nobody and That morning I and I forget now how I had even found this. I was just doing research and I found an article in the Journal of early Christian studies.

Bought it still have it and The article was on early papyri found in Egypt on other issues on other subjects and as I was reading through it. It was talking about The concealing of property by churches that were under persecution now if you know anything about the history of the church.

You know that from about 260 to 313 that 50 some odd years a little over 50 years was the Worst period of persecution in The history of the church even worse than under Nero. It was much more Empire wide up till then almost all persecution tended to be localized and So come and go come and go.

But toward the end of that period the Roman Empire just as an empire really tried to get rid of Christianity and We know they they specifically Focused upon attempting to destroy the Christian scriptures.

Well, here was an article and It was talking about Well, for example What happened to this church Eusebius and Lactantius? Both recount the destruction of churches during Diocletian's persecution yet some scholars have suggested that not all our churches were burnt or completely ruined during the Great Persecution, but only stripped of valuables and closed Stripped of valuables.

Well, what would be? Valuable in a church. Which is an interesting question to ask whether or not that was the case with other churches at the kissus Church. Not only were its possessions confiscated But the description former church implies the building was no longer in existence at the time.

The document was written thus confirming the situation you see this in Lactantius sketch. The papyrus gives an indication of what officials expected to find in a church. It even seems that they were working from a standardized checklist signaling the government's systematic bureaucratic effort.

Now what's important here is that you're getting information here from outside the New Testament. Obvious is the long after these writing the New Testament of How the Romans sought to destroy the Christian Church and what they were looking for when they would find a church and Go in to seize its property and this is a very thoroughly documented Article that that we're looking at here their list was rather broadly defined.

They checked for lands building cattle money and precious metals. Clothing and also slaves these all could be sold. Now then it gives The guest a pood xenophilum trial proceedings from the year 320. Incorporate an earlier document dated May 19 303 so 303.

It's 10 years before the end of the persecution 313 the acta of municius Felix from Serta in Numidia. This earlier document contemporaneous with our papyrus text serves as an interesting point of comparison.

The situation depicted in it is as follows. Delegation of government officials visits the church insert in Numidia Present-day a Constantine in Algeria and requests we quit requests books and other church property.

From the church are brought out a good amount of gold and silver objects some clothes and a number of shoes. That would make Imelda Marcos jealous to gold chalices six silver chalices six silver urns a silver cooking pot Seven silver lamps two wafer holders seven short bronze candlesticks with their own lights 11 bronze lamps their own chains 82 women's tunics 38 capes 16 men's tunics 13 pairs of men's shoes 47 pairs of women's shoes and 19 peasant clasps.

Upon closer inspection another silver lamp and silver box appear and also four large jars and six barrels in the dining room as well as one one large codex. In addition the officials visit the homes of Seven readers.

Now listen to this. Here's where this is why I'm quoting this some of you are going. Why are you doing this? This is just one example of secular history and the impact of the persecution on The transmission of the text of the Bible and the New Testament in particular.

In addition the officials visited the homes of seven readers confiscating in total 37 manuscripts. Which the readers had hidden? Clearly the Christians at Serda had unsuccessfully tried to conceal their possessions, but succumbed the pressures.

Where this was the total inventory of the church we will never know. Compared to the long list of assets of the congregations at Serda in North Africa the inventory of the church at Kisses is meager. There is just that bronze matter these bronze materials could be bronze lamps etc. Etc.

Now the footnote to the 27 the 37 manuscripts the readers could have brought to the books home to practice reading aloud their passages. However, given the fact that book cupboards the armaria in the church library were found empty.

It seems fair to assume that most books under normal circumstances would have been stored in the church. And that the readers had indeed concealed them in our houses because of the persecution. Now This is one standard-size church these documents.

Talk about over three hundred and twenty such churches being raided by the government. Multiply that by 37 how many fourth century and third century? Manuscripts were destroyed in this one locale. This one locale now.

This is this is secular history. This is not a Christian source. They're talking about other stuff but the reason That I bring this up is For you to keep it in the back of your mind. Because I believe one of the most effective and important aspects one of the most effective important arguments about the transmission of the text of New Testament that only came up tangentially in The Ehrman Wallace debate Has to do with the fact That those primitive centuries the centuries that Bart Ehrman will focus upon in his presentations.

You need to understand something what what Bart Ehrman says in this debate is the 1 of textual variants That are viable and meaningful that means they impact the translation of the text and They could be the original reading he says that's not what I'm worried about and you must remember that I asked Bart Ehrman in our debate and He seemed completely befuddled why I would ask this but it's so obvious.

I Asked him is it not true, sir? That if you edited the Greek New Testament and You got to make all the decisions about the variants yourself that the Resultant Greek New Testament would differ less From the current edition of the Greek New Testament the Nessie Allen 27th edition.

Then the Nessie Allen differs from the Texas Receptus and he agreed with that. He agreed with that so He says in this debate. It's not it's not the variants we know about That really matter. His argument is it's the variants we don't know about from the first few decades.

From the end of the first century into the middle of the second century. It's that time period he's saying we just don't know maybe there were some major Variants at that time. Maybe there are some major messing with the with the manuscripts and we just don't have any way of knowing.

What does that have to do with why I just read to you? It has a lot to do with it because you see What I emphasized and dr. Ehrman did not dispute this. In fact, he did not even respond to it to be perfect honest with you in our debate is the concept of multifocality.

And what does that mean? That means the New Testament was written by multiple authors at multiple places at different times to different audiences. It only came to exist as a single body over time. It was initially separate letters and separate documents.

Matthew Mark Luke John acts revelation, I guess you could say seven churches receiving that and What's important about that is a we don't have an Uthman Who could have ever edited the text of New Testament and put in doctrines and taken doctrines out and things like that, but What's even more important is that what that means?

Is that when we start getting manuscripts of the New Testament earlier than any other work of? Antiquity. But Bart says doesn't matter because we don't know what I even said, but when we start getting those manuscripts What do we find?

Do we get just one line of manuscripts. The answer clearly is no. I raised this with dr. Erman he did not dispute it. Dan Wallace raised it did not dispute it. We get different lines of transmission. In fact, we get lines of transmission that most scholars recognize are already intertwined.

It's not the phone game. It's not Chinese whispers. It's not one line. Or if you've got a bunch of mistakes early on you can never get back to find out it's multiple lines and It what did come up in this discussion was well, how often do you think mark was copied?

For for Erman's theories to really get traction There had to be very few copies of the originals, but there's no reason to believe that. None this the opposite is the case you would expect to have many different lines.

Coming from the originals even during the lifetime of the authors and so what you have when we start getting the papyri are Independent lines of transmission. Those independent lines of transmission if there had been this kind of of wild Uncontrolled really bad copying with all sorts of textual variants in them.

There would be evidence of this in these multiple lines That appear in history in our earliest manuscript copies of the New Testament but there is no evidence of this and What Bart Ehrman needs to be challenged on is?

That his cons to say we just don't know we just don't know. No, sir. You're making an accusation. You're making an assertion. It might have happened. We don't know we don't have the manuscript copies.

We need I say to you we do. Because of the fact that Christians had to keep producing so many because of why? The persecution of the church interestingly enough. Even the Muslims would have to agree with that.

If they've ever read Sahih al-Bukhari volume 6 pages 519 and 510 because Uthman was concerned about something very similar, but we won't go into that right now. That's why I mentioned this. Okay. Now I'm gonna skip to the very end of the debate and play you something I when I when I first heard it, I almost again Rode off the road off the road and I I haven't heard back from Dan.

I've written him a note today and I'm looking forward to hearing back from him. I Think I hear Dan it's it you probably be able to hear it over the stream. But right at the end of this I hear just barely and I'm gonna listen real closely again, I hear somebody go wow.

And I think it's Dan. Because that was my response when I heard what Bart Ehrman says here. This is one of the few places one of the few places Where an audience question brought something out that didn't come out with this much clarity in the conversation.

This normally doesn't happen. But here is a and in fact, this is normally the type of question doesn't even allow this is a follow-up question. From an audience member. Listen to what? Bart Ehrman says in Response to this audience question listen carefully to Luke are at all like the earlier scribes.

That's Dan before them or the scribes come later. Here's his follow-up. Can I just ask real quick?

Between what we have the strong the strong evidence that we have that's been presented and the original autographs. What would it be in between that that would convince you that that's trustworthy other than okay.

So here's here's the question the guy's asking Erman, okay. If we if we if we don't have the autographs What would it take. What kind of evidence dr. Erman would you need? What would you need? Now this is where and I got the feeling That Bart did not like being called a radical skeptic, but the fact the matter is he is a radical skeptic and This particular Example proved it and proved it with with clarity.

Listen to what Bart Ehrman would require To believe That the New Testament is trustworthy, but then the autographs.

Well, if we had early copies if we had copies of mark suppose suppose next week there there's a archaeological find in Egypt and say it's in Rome an archaeological find in Rome and We can we have reason to think that these ten manuscripts that are discovered We're all copied within a week of the original copy of mark and they disagree in Point zero zero one percent of their textual variation then then I would say that's good evidence.

And that's precisely what we don't have.

Yes, catch that. Did you heard it? Wow, that's got to be Dan. That's gotta be Dan and I agree with him. Did you hear that? I? Mean talk about Substantiating what I have said all along What I have said all along in fact, what what was the date?

Probie on the 2006 that was what was playing. That's where we are in the in the thing right now January 2006. Okay, so January 2006. I was reviewing I think Ehrman had been on the issues etc program or something like that and I was I was reviewing it for years, I Have been saying that Bart Ehrman's Standard for accuracy for the New Testament would require that God Did not give revelation prior to 1949.

I've been saying that I've ever heard me sad before. Why because? 1949 Was when the photocopier was invented. I've noticed with even modern texts before we went to digital printing before it hits the printers That even then you still do not have that kind of accuracy.

I know you don't yeah, even with some I'm a sci-fi reader. I read of I've read a lot of Robert a Heinlein. I've read some stuff about his earlier Works that have gone through three four different Editions where they still end up getting errors inserted from the printer, right?

Yeah printer errors are a long long long history so Here you this this guy asks a question, what would it take um Ten manuscripts copied within ten days of the writing of Mark that agree 99 .9 nine one percent.

Could any one could any human being at all? Could any group of human beings do ten handwritten copies of mark that would have a ninety nine point nine nine one percent Accuracy rate to it. I Sort of doubt it.

I sort of doubt it and You how in the world would you prove That these have been copied within ten days of the original there aren't any dates on these things and I think that's why Dan went. Wow. Because what he just said is there is no evidence that could convince me Outside of having a photocopy of the original there is none.

It's not possible. And that is why Bart Ehrman is a radical skeptic radical skeptic not a balanced skeptic but a radical skeptic and It's influencing so many other people in the same direction and The result is a complete destruction of any trust in the text of any ancient Manuscript because he goes on.

The next lady a lady asks a question after this about about classical works and he says yeah. We don't know what they said at least he's consistent. At least he's consistent. So there's the standard there's a standard that he gives and It is an impossible standard to meet and So when you hear Bart Ehrman saying well, we can't trust that.

This is why because what Bart Ehrman is saying is if I don't have a photocopy of the originals. Who knows what could have happened? Well, what evidence do you have in light of the widespread distribution in the New Testament that any of these changes took place.

We'll have more to say about that as we get into his presentation. But those two things I want to start there so that you would have that cut that that background. It's extremely extremely important and by the way If you want the reference a journal of early Christian studies, it's from John Hopkins University Press.

And that was page 351 was the citation of Volume 16 number 3 Journal of early Christian study is 16 3 Page 351 if you're if you would like to look that up for yourself at library or something along those lines.

It is a it was available in January of 2009 online I would assume that it still is but just so you have the have the reference there. All right so we we try to be thorough here and So unfortunately to queue up that one thing I sort of lost my spot as to where Bart started talking.

So given that this is live webcasting I'm gonna have to go searching for his opening here. There have been no we're close. Now I Before this debate took place dr. Wallace and I Exchanged a few emails and he said so James.

What do you what do you think he's gonna do? I said well Dan I Expect him to be Bart Ehrman. I expect him to probably use the same presentation used last time. When he debated me he used the exact same PowerPoint presentation used with Dan Wallace.

Including including the errors that he had to apologize for in both of he hadn't even fixed him. How do you fix him? He used the same jokes he starts off by saying how many of you believe that the Bible's Word of God and how many of you want to see me get creamed and he's trying to get little chuckles going and Somewhere through the debate he's going to insult his students and say that the vast majority of scribal errors in the New Testament Prove that ancient scribes could not spell any better than my students at Chapel Hill.

And You know, there's just it's this set thing and Dan was like, did you really think? He's just gonna do the same thing and I said I've never seen him do anything else and Given the fact that Dan himself has documented in his talks that Bart's not involved with textual criticism anymore hasn't been for ten years.

It's this it's really not what he's he's quite busy with other things. He doesn't really deal with this field anymore. How would his presentation change? Why would he even? Honestly given his perspective.

Why would he even feel the necessity to improve it? That's a question you have to ask and So as I started listening to his presentation and he started going through well p45 and the gospel of Mark and everything.

Right down to the jokes all over again. It might cause some people in the audience audience to go. Why are you reviewing this guy? Well, because he's still the biggest game in town. Unfortunately, he's still the person being quoted as the expert By everybody who wants to destroy someone's faith and belief in The New Testament and That's a shame but that's the way that it is and so let me find the exact start here and we're just going to listen to Bart Ehrman and.

Stop and start to make comments on papyrus, which was the ancient equivalent of paper. It was the.

We're getting close we're getting. Unfortunately, it's so over modulated. There's no break in anything. So I can't see where it's more highly. You need any. We're doing some musical background. World's leading scholar in text criticism.

Ah, yes there's he's he's talking about his.

Bit and written quite a lot on the issues under discussion. Here's the introduction. So we'll go Bart. We welcome you here tonight and we ask there we go. Can we trust the text of the New Testament?

Well, thank you very much for that generous Introduction mark and thank you all for for coming out. So just to get things started. Let me ask how many of you would consider yourselves Bible believing Christians.

Right. Okay. How many of you are here to see me get creamed? Right, okay. All right. So all I ask is that you approach it with an open mind.

Okay, if you listen to my debate with him this all sounds very very familiar. I.

I have long thought about these issues. As Mark was pointing out I did my PhD with Bruce Metzger who was the world's leading scholar in text criticism. I was his final PhD student. I did a both a master's thesis and a PhD dissertation under him and then when I when I graduated from Princeton Seminary, I wrote for his PhD.

For several years nothing except for books on textual criticism. I Decided a number of years ago five or six years ago to try and write a book for popular audiences. To explain what it is Scholars have said about this field and that was the book misquoting Jesus that Mark mentioned.

I should I should say that when I wrote misquoting Jesus, that's not the title that I wanted to give it. You may not know this but but scholars who write books for popular audiences usually don't give don't give the titles to the book.

They're not allowed to give the titles to the book and it's not a title that I wanted actually.

Which I find rather interesting for one particular reason and that is some of you may remember that when We arranged the debate with Bart Ehrman in 2009 for six months beforehand we were advertising the debate as being On the subject do does New Testament textual variation preclude the possibility of inspiration and Then we get a month out and he says no no.

No, I never agreed to debate that he had but I never degraded and he insisted that the title the debate be Misquoting Jesus. Now he could have said to use the title. He's about to give us here, but he didn't.

He forced us to use the title misquoting Jesus, which is very vague and doesn't really have much to do with what we really wanted.

But I find that odd since the book has to deal deals with how the New Testament had been Transmitted over the centuries by scribes who sometimes changed the text. I My preferred title for the book was lost in transmission.

Which I thought was pretty good pretty good title. My my publisher though decided against it because they thought that in in places like, Texas. If we called it lost in transmission and somebody went to the Barnes Noble and saw it on the shelf.

They would assume that it was a book about NASCAR. Okay, I will admit that's a new joke. That's a new one I suggested that might improve sales. Can we trust the text of the New Testament. To get to this question I need to give a little bit of background about how we got The New Testament's.

When you read the New Testament today you pick up the gospel of Mark and you read the words and you assume. You're reading the words that Mark wrote. Of course you assume that but you're reading them in English and Mark wrote in Greek and Are you reading the words that Mark himself actually wrote even if they are correctly translated from Greek into English?

First we have to think about the original mark. We don't know who Mark was. We don't know where he lived. We don't know when he was writing. It's usually thought that he was a Greek speaking Christian living writing sometime around the year 70.

So about 40 years after Jesus death and some people think he was writing in Rome. I don't know where he is, right? Let's say he was writing in Rome. Let's say he's writing in Rome around the year 70. Mark wrote down of course.

I would have a much earlier date for the gospel mark than that.

But we press on an account of Jesus life death and resurrection. This Book that he wrote was put into circulation the way books are typically put in circulation in the ancient world. It got handed around if somebody wanted a copy of the book.

They couldn't simply go to the Barnes Noble. There wasn't a Barnes Noble and the book had not been mass-produced. It had been written either by Mark himself or by a scribe by hand. If somebody wanted to have a copy of their own They had to make a copy or to have somebody else make a copy for them.

And so mark was eventually copied. Maybe mark was copied many times Maybe he's copied only a couple of times, but once it was copied more copies were needed and so some people copied the copies and Then some people copied the copies of the copies and some people copied the copies of the copies of the copies of the copies.

Now I don't know if you've ever and some people would have had the originals available to them and a copy and the originals would have been continuing to being copied even when other copies of copies were being made.

See. And. Then you would have had copies of copies that went to another place and they'd be copied there. And then they might compare two copies that they have there. See. It's not just a single line.

He always gives this this phone game idea and that's that is a very simplistic Unrealistic way of looking at how it would have been taking place. Especially given what how many manuscripts were found that church? 37.

Do you think some of them had mark more than once? Do you think if there were differences that people wouldn't notice that and compare them? See. All of his is about. All you've got is just one and you don't know about any others.

That's but the the historical evidence is that's not the way it was.

But this doesn't take that in consideration. You've ever tried to write out a copy of one of the books of the New Testament. Like the Gospel of Mark, but I can guarantee you if you do that, you're going to make a mistake.

You might make lots of mistakes and You are Much more highly educated and literate than the vast majority of early Christians. Mistakes happen when people copy texts and the problem is when somebody copies a text and makes a mistake.

The next person who copies the copy replicates the mistakes of his predecessor and And he makes mistakes of his own and then somebody comes along and copies that copy and when they copy that copy They replicate the mistakes of both of their predecessors and they make their own mistakes.

Or they have access to more than one and you've got churches and and you've. See it. I know this is his standard spiel, you know. He doesn't invest time and coming with anything new. But it'd be nice if you would listen to what people are saying and saying, excuse me.

But what about the historical fact that you know, like Christians got together and like if they if if you had two readers in a Congregation, they've got two different manuscripts of Mark and they discover a difference between them.

Do you think they're just gonna leave it there? Do you think did they have ways in those early decades of finding out what the actual original reading was? Do you think they would care? What the actual original reading was?

I mean These are questions the inquiring mind wants to know and then somebody copies that copy and it goes on like that for a year. After year after year, the only time mistakes get corrected is when a scribe is copying a text and realize Oh this copy has a mistake and they try to correct the mistake, but they don't know what the original said.

They're just trying to make it right. It's possible that when somebody tries to correct the mistake that they correct it incorrectly. In which case you've got the original copy you've got the mistake and you've got the mistake and correction of the mistake.

Three forms of the text and then somebody copies that form of the text and it goes on like that month after month year after year. Decade after decade and so you get copies of the copies of the copies.

We don't have the original version of Mark. We don't have the book. We don't have the first copy made of mark or the any of the first copies or Copies of the copies and we don't have copies of the copies of the copies of mark.

I'm not sure how he knows this.

I really don't. You know p52 for example, though. He's talking about mark and all we have is p45. So that's that's probably at least third third fourth generation. But still like when he says we don't even have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of any of the original New Testament books I have to go man even if John if John was written say in the 90s if you take the the late date for it for John and P52 is 125 or earlier.

Why couldn't that be a copy of the original? How long do you think they lasted? I mean did they just was it one of those mission impossible things where this original will self-destruct in 10 seconds it I Really think that's how it worked.

So, how does he know that?

Mark's book was copied for very many years before we have any copy. The first copy we have of mark is a manuscript that scholars have called p45. Now they call it p45 because it's it's written on papyrus, which was the ancient equivalent of paper.

It was the writing material people used to use and it's called p45 because this happens to be the 45th Papyrus manuscript of the New Testament that was that was catalogued and so it's called p45. This is what it looks like.

This is one page of P45 you can see that that it is not a complete page as you can see there. There are holes in the manuscript here and here and the some of the margin is missing here. But this is this is actually one of the best preserved pages of this manuscript p45.

P45 is not a complete manuscript of mark. Obviously, there's some things missing on this particular page. It's it doesn't have anything from the first three chapters. It starts with chapter 4 this surviving fragment.

We have it's it's not entire. It's just fragmentary. This copy has only five verses from mark chapter 4 and then it has verses from the following several. Eight chapters it goes from basically chapter 4 to chapter 12.

So it doesn't have the last four chapters. It doesn't have the first three chapters. So the missing the first three the last four and it has some some bits of the stuff in between. This is our first copy of the gospel of mark that survived except for small fragments.