Unbelievable Radio Discussion

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. It's 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, my name is

James White I am unfortunately hearing myself coming back at me very badly I'm not sure why that's not happened before maybe ah, there we go fix that Not hearing it anymore, so that's a good thing

I am currently in Fort Lauderdale, Florida Where tomorrow evening

I will be debating dr. Bart Ehrman Does the Bible misquote Jesus I have a book open next to me.

I've been It's funny. I Have talked about the

Philip Comfort New Testament text and translation commentary But I I wasn't

It's still new enough in my library that I'm not accustomed to going to it first and I had worked through the presentation.

I'll be doing at one o 'clock tomorrow Where I will be

Discussing Hebrews 2 9 Mark 1 41 Luke 22 19 and I had already worked through the variants on my own and Had looked at some commentaries some major commentaries, but had worked through the variants on my own and it come to particular conclusions, especially concerning mark 141 and I looked up at Sort of the shelf that contains my textual critical material and I said, you know

I don't think I looked in the commentary on that and so I pulled it down and Opened it up and Lo and behold right there on the page were all the conclusions.

I had come to upon my own with pretty much the exact same argumentation and So the more

I've been looking through it the more I've really been enjoying This New Testament text and translation commentary

It truly is a goldmine and I'm sure that rich is very happy that I'm talking about that right now because I know there are

Still a few left on the shelf when I left So if you really want to have a very valuable edition

One of the things that really bugged me when I was studying these texts is even I'm not really big on commentaries myself

Most pastors have a larger commentary library than I do but Even when

I did have what would be considered one of the major modern critical Commentaries they rarely had much about the text and much about variance and So here's one volume you can get especially if you put together with the

NET any 27 diaglot that Would I in my opinion? Tremendously strengthen all the commentaries you have because it fills in a gap that honestly just Really does exist there and so I was just Sitting here reading.

I just opened it up and it was talking about I'm looking at the the commentary on Acts 16 13, and I'll just read you the the options here

It's laid out so well It really is you have the

Westcott Horton and Nessie Alland United Bible Society has the reading we suppose there was a place of prayer

The variant to found the TR prayer was customarily made Invariant three found only in the

D was prayer was thought to be made now Especially in Acts when you find anything that has

D alone it It's well D is just D you is It's not really a copy of Acts.

It is a reinterpretation of that but anyways comfort rights It is difficult to judge which reading is original because the manuscripts not clearly line up with one reading against another

The Westcott Hort's Nessie Alland United Bible Society reading and the first variant However yield a similar sense

Paul and his companions went to the place in Philippi Where they supposed people would be praying the D reading is a variation of this

The majority reading is slightly different in that it points to a place where prayer was customarily made and this would most naturally be a synagogue

But there was not a synagogue in Phil in Philippi which required the gathering of at least ten adult Jewish males

Rather Paul found a group of women praying beside a river just excellent background information

And it's it's clearly laid out It's it's an excellent resource to have and so to be honest with you over the past couple of hours here on January 20th 2009

I have not By purpose had a television on even though in the very nice suite that I'm in right now

There is a very large television over there. I have not turned it on I Instead was doing two things.

I really enjoy doing first of all is listening to Beethoven and I think Beethoven just makes you feel smarter

There's just something about Beethoven's music the guy himself was a bit of a scoundrel but the music

Absolutely incredible so I was listening to Beethoven and I was working on my presentation

If you've been hearing me talk about working on my debate presentation for a long time now I have been working on it for a long time

I have never put as much time into a presentation as I have put into this presentation and Last night.

I was firing graphics off to Hasim son of Ramallah king of graphics

So he could pull some backgrounds out so you didn't have that in that white square I Had upgraded my keynote version a couple days ago and it has some new transitions that are really really excellent

They're gonna be extremely helpful. I now have the ability to take a section of like a papyri manuscript and Then outline that section and then blow it up and bring it out to another area just in one smooth

Graphic it's it's just great. It makes it much more readable really really neat stuff I'm very excited about this this presentation.

It's only 30 minutes long But I'm gonna

I'm gonna get everything into that 30 minutes. I can possibly get in there and So I was working on that while listening to Beethoven and Very specifically not watching the television.

I did not watch the moment and One of the reasons was I I went to breakfast this morning here in the hotel

And unfortunately they had CNN on and I have especially avoided CNN since November 4th of 2008

The few times I have been exposed to it in in airports Has honestly not only made me feel like I now live in a foreign country

But has Repeatedly brought up the the mud the the phrase in my mind man worship

There is it is frightening to me that issues of What a man's worldview is what his experience is?

What his policies are are irrelevant in this nation right now. I just feel like I have been dropped into the middle of of a foreign country

Because the the nation that I grew up in was so very different and I really feel like a foreigner today in in my own land

I Look out and it looks the same Though I've not I've only been to Fort Lauderdale a couple times.

I probably couldn't tell the difference especially in Florida I can't tell what city I'm in because they all look the same no offense to my my the lovely

Floridians But you're missing one important ingredient around here. It's called a mountain

It's just I can't I can't deal with flat flat flat so But it still looks like my country but Listening this morning.

I couldn't get out of the of the room fast enough I had to take at least a few moments to chew my food and one of the reporterettes on the on television

Made this comment and honestly, I heard this we could go back and prove this but I heard this one of the reporterettes said

Every time Obama speaks the collective blood pressure of the nation goes down ten points and I almost choked on my

Cheerios. I I've just never heard anything like this before and it is frightening to me

There is such a massive lack of discernment amongst the American people that Someone who is is being viewed in this way,

I I don't know what to say The the fact that you have this this sticky pluralism that has been promoted today where you have

Gene Robinson praying and You know to the

God of all of our faiths It you know, how long honestly how how long?

Before that kind of an attitude becomes Very much not only a part of the fabric of the culture, but this this frightening specter of hate crimes

Comes before I truly as I as I look around and go Lord have mercy be with your people and give them guidance and Yesterday somebody was telling me

About a World Net Daily article they saw where someone was talking about praying for Obama's failure and Immediately I said failure in what?

Failure as president or failure to damage the nation by promoting

Ungodliness, I think we have to be very very very careful If you've been watching the blogosphere you have undoubtedly seen

Numerous prayers for the president -elect posted. Everybody has posted a prayer for the president -elect.

I even thought about doing it but decided that I would let that pass but There's there's a hard edge to some folks

That Really does not reflect. Well, I think upon any of us If you just simply say well,

I hope he fails without expressing what you mean by that then you're not really communicating with any clarity

When it comes to the murder of unborn children When it comes to the subversion of what's left of the moral fiber of the nation when it comes to the profaning of God's institution of marriage and the family when it comes to the promotion of the life -destroying behavior of homosexuality

Then obviously in all of those I would pray that anyone Barney Frank or Pelosi or anybody would fail in Promoting Godlessness in our nation.

It should be our prayer. It's always been our prayer at our church that God would bring repentance

To this people that the gospel would go out With power and that God would bless the preaching of the gospel would bless those who who proclaim the gospel with clarity and That that's always our prayer and so we always pray that there will be

Repentance we still use that word despite its impopularity amongst the populace that there would be repentance toward God and That obviously repentance would bring about with it a change

In the lives of those who by God's grace recognize their own sin Some of you will remember how politically incorrect

I was on September 12th When I on the this very program

Discussed the issue concerning How we are to respond? to a national attack as we experienced on the

September 11th and And one of the things I said was, you know, we hear a lot of people saying

God bless America But what are they saying God bless America with what we need is

For God to bless America with a soul shattering

Experience of repentance a recognition of his holiness and the depth of our depravity and sin that's that's what we need for to have

America blessed with but as Was born out as I rather Cynically predicted at the time all this

God bless America stuff was not going to in any way shape or form have an impact upon What Hollywood was was?

pouring out the filth that it pours out and its hatred of God and None of this was actually connected to any kind of repentance whatsoever and so that really is what our nation needs as well and it's certainly from my perspective as We see these false teachers

Who have great access now to the person in the White House? Being put on the same level with you know, all religious opinions are now equal

That's where our society has been going, but it has lurched very quickly At an amazing speed that direction

People in their middle age like I am Must be waking up and going, you know

Things are changing a whole lot faster than they used to And I think there's a number of reasons for that, but we have certainly seen that in the context of events within the

United States, so I Have not turned television on I have no intentions of doing so I'm a little bit focused on other things

But part of the reason for that is that I do experience frustration when I when I hear people

Worshipping a man and Doing so for no particular reason whatsoever

In fact, I must admit I have heard so much open racism in our nation of late that it that it makes me ill and I know there are people who feel that only certain kinds of people can be racists.

That's frightening to me I know that there's not a lot of literature read in modern schooling and the young people might not be familiar with this but I can't help but think of 1984 and This this idea that we all have to think in a particular way

And if you don't think in a particular way then, you know, the government finds you to be a danger

It's frightening to me to hear this kind of thing going on And that's why again

I say I feel much more like a pilgrim these days then Then I ever had before even in in my own my own nation.

And so yes, I am focused on tomorrow evening In fact, I believe that Dr.

Ehrman will be arriving here within an hour or two after the program is over and So I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow

There will be a conference going on starting. I believe at 11 o 'clock in the morning here at at the

Sheraton Airport in Fort Lauderdale, I speak at 1 o 'clock on mark 141

Hebrews 2 9 and Luke 22 19 and Then the debate begins at 7 o 'clock

We're basically going to be using the conference to sort of shake everything out Make sure that the projection systems are working and Recording systems are working.

The last thing I would want to have happen is For this debate not to be properly recorded.

That would be indeed a tragedy because we have been saying for a long long time That's the main reason that we have been doing, you know, putting out this kind of effort and I've spent the time type of time

I've spent To be prepared for this particular Encounter so people are starting to come in The vans are starting to run to the airport's as people are coming in picking them up Bringing them here to this this location

So that tomorrow the conference can begin and the debate will take place so I have received many notes from people saying that you you are praying and That you certainly hope that What is going to take place is

Going to have value beyond just this time period that is our desire. That is the whole reason we've been doing this

It is my desire that this will be a DVD and mp3

That we can send to people for a long period of time

That will be of use to the the young college student who has run into a dr.

Carter type of Person who is brandishing the the weapons of Bart Ehrman's Presentations and that they will be able to hear that there is another side

There is a there is a rest of the story that needs to be understood and needs to be told and maybe leave and ask

Themselves a question. Why isn't the whole story? Being told that that is hopefully something they will begin to consider as well

And so I do appreciate those prayers Especially tomorrow evening as the debate takes place that the

Lord would bless not only the people that are here But especially in the recording of it so that that will be made available for Many years to come that is

I think very very important. And so with that I have queued up some some audio

If there are folks who had some questions about the debate or something like that eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

We have been successful in having Folks on the phone with me before even when

I am NOT in the studio there in Phoenix and so possibly maybe there will be that kind of Call today.

So just let me know eight seven seven seven five three three three four one what

I have queued up is a section of the

Unbelievable radio program with Justin Brierley on premier radio over in London, you may recall that I was on with Justin Brierley back in November and Abdul on the

Lucy on The subject of does belief in the Trinity necessitate shirk that was on the

Thursday morning that I was there At least that's what we recorded. It of course is played on the following Saturday But they at the time

Justin told me that he was going to have Bart Ehrman on and I am very thankful that it was a good discussion because he had

Pete Williams the ward of Tyndall house at Cambridge on as well and They had a very good discussion

About the subject of the text and so what I have a queued up here in my iTunes is a portion of that discussion where actually starting with Pete Williams Making I think an important point.

You made a number of excellent points. I thought and I thought we would start there and work our way through the program today

So I'm hoping that this will sound clear it has in the past Anyway, and I hope it will as we listen here as well let's pick up with the unbelievable radio program and This is a

Pete Williams talking with Justin Brierley. Sure. And so What do you stand on now as it were for Bart's his?

Studies and his research led to a complete abandonment of the idea that the birth of the

Word of God was divine Was some way authoritative And we've used the word already inerrant now

It depends I think to some extent different people may have different understanding of what that means But but what would you if you were trying to encapsulate how you view the

Bible now? Well, what is your belief about the New Testament specifically? Well, I believe that the

New Testament, but I'd also say this for the old is the Word of God Bart's position is that we don't have the original writings of the

New Testament I would say that we do we don't have the original copies But we do have the original Writings now, let me just stop it right there because I think that is an exceptionally

Vital point and if you're going to be attending the conference listening to the debate I think you you might want to zero in on on what people in just said

It is very important that we recognize that you can have the original writings

Without possessing the original copies That's exactly what he just asserted and that that is exactly the case.

Now. How could that be? Well, it can be because the manuscript tradition continues to to contain within it all the original readings themselves in a

Interview that so Dan Wallace did with Rob Bowman, which is on the I think it's for truth .com

website they were discussing this issue and and Dan Wallace raised the citation of Kurt Holland of the

Nestle Island text and His assertion that the New Testament text illustrates what is called tenacity

That is once a reading enters into manuscript tradition. That's all the manuscript tradition just simply means all the manuscripts

Once that reading enters in it stays there. This is why it's called tenacious and it is because of this tenacity

That we have confidence that the originals are likewise there and that we do not have to then

Default to conjecture to come up with a Reading but that the readings even when there is a variant

Wilkin one of those readings is the original and so what he's asserting is no, we don't have the originals

No one claims that we do But that does not mean that the originals have passed away in their readings and the words that they contain that the

New Testament Manuscript tradition is so rich so full so wide That there the original readings continue to be there

That will be in my opinion the key issue because Bart Ehrman continually says over and over again We don't know what the

New Testament originally said. I will be graphically demonstrating. I I have asked my computer my lovely

Mac here to Produce for me ironically in a Windows program.

I use Bible works for this because I still know how to use by works best, but A a number of graphics and what

I mean by I don't mean by a graph but I took screenshots of the

Greek text and I've asked the computer to mark The differences because the

Bible works has the ability to compare different texts and a mark where the two texts differentiate from one another and I Have I've put these into the presentation and saw at least one of the of the graphics

I've inserted Has nothing marked and this is a comparison between the two extremes of the manuscript tradition it's comparing the

Byzantine with the Alexandria and there are places where there's Absolutely, you can go for verse verse verse verse.

There is no difference between the widest portion of this spectrum And in fact when you compare the modern critical text with the majority text

There are less than 6 ,600 differences across the entire New Testament, that's an agreement of 95 % plus and that's taking the two extremes and So I'm going to be not just saying that that's the one disadvantage of attempting to discuss this

Is When you try to discuss it with voice only as we're doing on the dividing line

Very very hard even remember when we back when we did the textual critical series I posted a bunch of stuff on the website because If you can't see this stuff, it's very hard to describe it.

I Think one of the things that's going to be helpful for folks tomorrow evening. Is that?

My presentation has a lot of graphs and graphics in it that will help to illustrate

What's actually going on and I think it'll be more understandable at that particular point and of course by the way for those of you who are worried

We will be inserting the keynote presentation

Into the video itself. So when I make points That will be there.

That'll be illustrated at least the graphics will maybe sometimes that I'm just reading A text from the screen and there was a number of times especially when

I'm quoting her. Dr. Herman. That's the case Maybe they won't cut to it then but especially when there are graphics

Then that will be a part of what is going to be presented. So that that should be useful to everybody so anyways important point that was just made was

We may not possess the originals that Paul the original letter that Paul pens to the

Galatians or something like that But we do possess what was contained in that letter and as Rob Bowman said to Dan Wallace Dan brought up what

What Kurt Allen said and then Rob? Provided an interesting illustration.

He said well it what I like to liken it to is a large puzzle and It's not that we're missing any of the pieces of the puzzle

It's that we have some extra pieces that have accrued over the years Textual variants and that our job is to determine what the original was.

It's not that anything's lost, but we have to do work To determine the original and that's a I think an excellent

Illustration everyday illustration of what the textual critic is up against. I did include that in in the in the presentation,

I Don't have any PMS that I can see I was just told that I should be looking at a

PM But there are no PMS that I see so there's nothing I can do about that.

So I'm hoping we're gonna be able to take a break maybe hopefully and So we will do so and be right back right after this

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Thank you And welcome back to the dividing line, my name is

James White I am in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the airport Sheraton Hotel normally don't tell you where I am, but You know

That's where the debate will be taking place tomorrow evening between myself and dr. Bart Ehrman of the

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Does the Bible misquote Jesus and I have been informed by the superpower of computer technology

I've noticed that my internet connection speed here is questionable at times. So if I go in and out a little bit, that's probably why but be that as it may that Mike in Columbus, Ohio is a new listener and He is going to join us here on the dividing line.

Hi Mike. Hello. Dr. White. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, sir I'm I'm somewhat new to To what

Bart Ehrman is saying now from what I can pick up he's saying that there's a problem with with some of the variants of the copies of the

New Testament and I was listening while I was on hold and I think you kind of answered my question as far as with you know addressing a textual variance, but I'm just kind of curious.

Do any of those textual variants that that airmen is talking about do they really touch on any central?

doctrines or beliefs that hope that Christianity holds to Well, he actually would admit

That the textual variants do not impact the central doctrines of the

Christian faith Here's here's what he said. I don't think we'll get this part in the

London program today But here's here's a quote what he said At the end of the program he said my book isn't questioning at all whether God is true or not

The question is whether the New Testament can give us access to this truth of God And my question is how can it do so if we don't know what words were in the scriptures?

And the reality is there are places where we don't know what the New Testament books originally said So if we don't know what they said

How can they be authoritative that strikes me as a pressing question one that eventually led me away from my beliefs in the inspiration?

the scripture into viewing the Bible is still a terrifically important and valuable book but not as delivering the words of God and then in the

Program where he was on with the infidel guy He said I thought at one time that God had inspired the very words the

Bible We actually have thousands of manuscripts the New Testament the original Greek language But most of the copies are hundreds of years after the originals and they all have differences in These thousands of manuscripts have hundreds of thousands of differences among them and after a while I started thinking that it didn't make much sense to say that God had inspired the words the text

Since it was pretty obvious to me that he hadn't preserved the words of the text because there are places where we don't know what?

the text originally said so it started making less sense to me to think that God had inspired the words because if he had done the miracle of Inspiring the words in the first place

Then it seemed like he would have performed the miracle of preserving the words after he'd inspired them He obviously hadn't preserved them because we didn't have them and that made me then doubt the doctrine of inspiration

And so there you have his own words. In fact, I just read about five or six slides from the debate presentation right there and His it needs to be understood that what he's saying is that when he when he makes the assertion, we don't know

What the New Testament originally said that needs to be translated into a way that is helpful to people

And that is what he's saying is there are textual variants in the New Testament Where scholars differ over the original what the original reading should be therefore we don't know with absolute

Photographic certainty a lot of people hear him saying well the original has been lost

But that's not actually what he's saying. He's simply saying that since Scholars can disagree over the readings then we don't know and what he means is we don't have perfect Absolute knowledge, which would come from having a photocopy of the original now of course, we don't have that for anything in history and so his level of skepticism results inevitably in a

Recognition that we don't basically know anything about history at all Until the most modern period of time and that everything we think we know about Julius Caesar And and all these other things are nothing but guesses

But they cannot be authoritative beyond the level of certainty we have of those of those guesses that we've taken and It sounds like he has a problem with knowledge in general, how do we know anything?

Yeah, well he he does understand that there are certain philosophical presuppositions coming to play here

And he says that basically the historian can only speak about probabilities This has been his argument when he debated

William Lane Craig and Michael Icona Is that he when dealing with the issue of the resurrection?

He says look I'm a historian historians cannot deal In theology, they cannot presuppose the existence of God which in and of itself is a major presupposition

In other words, you have to have atheistic history, but he over and over again says we can only talk about probabilities and on the level of probability anything that is a miracle in and of itself is the least probable explanation and so that Clearly is his assertion now.

One of the things I'm going to point out is that very clearly Many men like Constantine von

Tishendorf or Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield or or Dan Wallace or Gordon Fee or Don Carson All these people well know what the manuscript tradition looks like.

They know the extent of variation They know the kinds of variation And yet they do not follow

Ehrman into this radical skepticism Why is that what what is it possible that the radical skeptic is setting up a standard that is

Absolutely impossible that he is presupposition Lee precluding the possibility of God revealing himself in Scripture prior to I would the number

I use is 1949 because I looked it up in 1949 is when the invention of the photo -mechanical photocopier took place and That really would would be what would be required to fulfill a dr.

Ehrman's Standard and that is that if there's any variation whatsoever because even printing even when

Gutenberg developed printing press printing in the old style

Required typesetting and in the process of typesetting mistakes were often made. There's all sorts of funny stories about the adulterous

Bible Where when typesetting thou shalt not commit adultery the word not fell out So there was actually a

Bible printed. It said thou shalt commit adultery. Well, we chuckle about that, but it reflects the reality of printing so I would argue that his standard requires that he

That that basically there there could not have been a written revelation of God until 1949

I've even seen the photo photocopies Successive generations where the the letters get blurred ease becomes fees

There are probably other examples Yeah Yeah, I remember the old -style photocopiers.

It didn't take too many generations until you couldn't see anything. So You know, the the point is that he has a standard that's simply unrealistic and and it needs to be challenged and someone needs

To say to him why why do you think? That God is under some obligation

To function in the way that you've determined. He's going to function. So what I've got to do in this first half hour That presentation

I'm gonna make Is in essence not only lay out those questions

But also lay out what I believe is the mechanism that God has used to preserve the scriptures that is consistent with his purposes consistent with the nature of the church the

Evangelistic mandate that the church has to proclaim the Lordship of Christ and the cross of Christ and so on and so forth

It's not easy to cram all that into half an hour, but I'm gonna do my best and then we have 15 minute

Responses and it's the responses that will Really I think give an indication of what direction the debates going to go in And then each one of us has 20 minutes to ask the other questions in the cross -examination period and that's of course for people who have

Listened to the debates in the past know that it's cross X is where? basically, the debate is either takes place or it doesn't either the wheels fall off there or You know cross -examination is where the rubber meets the road, so I'm very much looking forward to that that period of time

Okay, well, thanks for taking the the question of a humble channel rat All right, thank you very much.

I'm bye. Okay. Bye. Bye eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number and actually,

I think if I continue on with the material here you're going to see

Exactly. What's how airmen presents that so let's go back to the unbelievable radio program Pete Williams is about to finish up and then

Justin Briarley is going to go back to Bart Ehrman and ask him about the basic thesis of his book and Certainly, it's not necessary to have the original writings in Greek in that it would be perfectly possible to Accept the authority of scripture and not believe you had access to it in the original languages

The Reformers at the time of the Reformation Believed that the Bible had been authoritative in the

Middle Ages, even though people hadn't had access to it in its original languages So that's not a necessary Thing so I think that the

Bible is true. I'm happy with the word inerrant. I don't Use Bart's gloss of saying that means no problems

In the Bible, I love that. Not only the way it's being said no problems

Don't worry. I'm not gonna go into the British stuff. At least I'm gonna try to resist the temptation though It's very hard when you're living listening to Brits to to not

Demonstrate your your tremendous capacity of sounding like them. But anyway That is

I think an important point that that that Peter Williams just made and That is that that Bart does seem to confuse inerrancy with the idea.

There are no problems there are all sorts of problems we have to work through there are all sorts of difficulties and The late the less, you know about the history and background of the

Bible the more problems you're going to have in attempting to understand How certain things relate to other passages and so on and so forth, but I appreciated what he had to say there because Ermin does

I think introduce some level of confusion at that point that just isn't isn't necessary There are plenty of things that we can struggle to understand basically by that.

I mean true in a normal sense Okay, true it and so you when you say you do believe the

Bible is inerrant I mean, do you mean by that that we have a true? sort of if you like handing down of what was originally written and that the if you like there may be things that obviously need interpretation and understanding in the context of the time which

If you like some people like try to make out and perhaps this was true of your early life, but as a

Christian To make everything match perfectly in the Bible with a modern scientific Understanding for instance of the way the world works and that can be difficult because obviously people at another time

Lived when they understood things in different ways. I mean in what sense is the Bible inerrant in that way for you?

well, the the way I would use the word firstly is it tangentially attach tangentially attaches to the

Bible essentially because Because of God's character so it's it's derived from the fact that God speaks truly and that The Bible is his speech.

So it's essentially that syllogism That that gives you The idea of inerrancy that does not mean that you can prove

Inerrancy, and of course someone might seek to disprove it and that's fine

What I would say then is it's it's a very broad Doctrine of of the truth of Scripture now, of course people

I think through history have always made a distinction between the actual copy they have in front of them and that about which they

Formulate doctrines of Scripture. So for instance, you'll find this with Calvin or Luther when they're writing they

Accept that the copy the edition the printed edition or the manuscript they may have may have what will have

Printing errors and other sorts of errors that come in that they distinguish from That to which they describe ascribe authority

I mean, I think it's a bit like I have two children and we read them Bible stories and they seem to know that The big adult

Bible is in some sense a more authoritative document than the lovely picture things that they receive and and I think

People have always made that distinction. Of course, there's always a failure to make that distinction because when people read the

Bible in translation With time often people begin to forget that it's a translation

King James Version was good enough for people need to be reminded that that's not the way the

Christian doctrine works Well, we will give bar a chance to come back on some of these things as we go on But I mean misquoting

Jesus in the States has been a huge success but I mean why do you think people have been so turned on to this particular book and what it has to say about your beliefs that the

We don't have any way of accessing the original documents or knowing that what we have is is a true representation of them

Yeah, well, you know when I wrote the book, I wasn't sure that anybody would want to read it I mean it's about it's a book about Greek manuscripts the

New Testament and it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would be On the New York Times bestseller list or anything But as it turns out, this is a subject that most people don't know anything about they never heard of before and People just assume when they buy a

Bible that they're reading. They're reading the words that were written. Of course, it's in a translation, but Basically the stories are in the

Bible or the stories that were originally in the Bible and people Have no idea that we not only don't have the original copies say of Paul's letter to the

Galatians We don't have a copy of a copy of that The original or a copy of the copy of the original or a copy of the copy of the copy of the original

We don't have a copy of this manuscript for for probably about 150 years after Paul had died

And so and and we don't have full manuscripts of the entire Bible until the end of the 4th century 300 years after these books were written people didn't realize that in fact

There was there were so many stages in the in the history of the transmission and that at every stage things were being changed

And I think this was news to people and and it just sort of struck a nerve. Well, we'll Now, let me just comment on that.

I Would actually and this is one of the reasons why one of the last graphics I have in the presentation is a page from p46 and P46 is a manuscript copy of most of the

Pauline corpus. It's not a complete We don't know exactly how large it was there is discussions about whether it contained the pastorals or not and so on and so forth but The page that I have is rather interesting because it contains the end of Galatians and the beginning of Philippians now

Bart is very clear in saying he only holds to seven original Pauline letters and Philippians would not be one of them.

So it's interesting he we heard him go to the mat in defense of Galatians against the infidel guy, but here is a manuscript from around the year 200 and maybe even earlier than that that has

Galatians followed immediately by Philippians Which I found rather ironic but be that as it may

If we are looking at at that Then we have a very very early

Reference to to Paul's writings and there are other References we have one a scrap of Titus which is

Probably more like 175 and things that you could actually push it back to about a hundred and ten years but anyway,

I Think I'm not not sure if it's coming up here or if it's at a later point, but it's in the same context

We're discussing this time frame this this period of time Notice what he said and the scribes are making changes all along Well what he means by that is textual variants occur in the manuscripts battle about you when

I hear about scribes Changing something that sounds purposeful. That sounds like someone sitting back going.

I think I'm not sure that I like this particular doctrine so I'm gonna change something and when he's faced with People who you know can read the text and can point to things and we'll ask specifics

Then he sort of backs away from that becomes a little bit more specific But when he's on NPR and things like that, he doesn't mind using that kind of language which can which can be very very

Misleading Because it sounds like the scribes are sitting there making wholesale changes when that simply isn't the case

Now if you read him carefully, he'll say oh, yeah, most of scribes tried to be very excellent copyists

Okay. Well, why not say it that way? That's that's one of my main problems With with his presentations.

This is just very very sloppy on this very point and it Causes me to wonder if there's not a reason for that if that's not what he's specifically trying to do

But anyway, either now or later on he talks about the enormous Time period

Between the original writing and the first Evidences that we have the enormous time period.

Well, the the problem with that is that It sounds again

Like that would mean that if we looked at other ancient works contemporary ancient works

Suetonius Pliny the Younger Tacitus maybe some of the Greek historians from a little bit earlier that Their earliest manuscript evidence would be so much closer

If you're gonna use a term enormous this enormous time period of 150 years this enormous time period and yet anybody who knows anything about the history of Suetonius or Tacitus or Pliny knows that on average

Their first manuscript evidence is 500 years and there are some where it's 900 to a thousand years after the original is written before we have the first manuscript evidence of these works, but I Invite you to go read.

Dr. Ehrman's textbooks. He's written a number of textbooks for use in and colleges and universities and when he quotes

Suetonius when he quotes Tacitus when he quotes Pliny or any of these others

Does he ever say now we have no idea what these texts actually originally said or in the best sources?

We might read this No to my knowledge not even once And in fact compare this the the massive time frame

That is found between these other writings and their first manuscript evidence with something like p52 which could be within 10 to 15 to 20 years of The original of its writing that is the

Gospel of John Or then compare that with with some of dr. Ehrman's favorite materials such as the

Gospel of Thomas Which we only possess in some Greek fragments and in one

Coptic manuscript and there are major differences between the Greek fragments and The one

Coptic manuscript far greater differences than exist between any of our

New Testament manuscripts at all but do we have the same kind of Widely wildly

Skeptical citation of those sources. Well, no, of course we don't and that's what makes people like myself go

Hmm. I wonder why there seems to be a massive double standard here

What could be the reason for this? well Maybe the debate will make that very well known comes out in a bit more detail and allow you to kind of if you like put out the thesis the main sort of points

That you make in the book in the next section of the program but so that's the start of this program as we look at this question of do we have the original writings of the

New Testament and What difference does it make the fact that there have been changes that over time errors have crept in etc

How reliable are the documents we have and the translations we have of these documents and What impact does that have on the

Christian faith? Well two people with if you like different conclusions, but both with a vast amount of scholarly work and Research behind them

Bart Ehrman and Peter Williams joining me on the program today to talk about this very important issue And we're talking about misquoting

Jesus it so it was the New York Times bestseller from Bart Ehrman Recently, do we have the original writings of the

New Testament is the question? We're asking Bart's book has provoked a whole storm of a controversy

Available what has been available to the New Testament scholars for a long time just the facts about the Transmission of the

Bible and Bart's thesis is that we simply can't get back to the originals in the way

They were really written we can to some extent but not fully and many people don't realize that about the

Bible That's that's what Bart suggests in this book and it draws on all kinds of evidence for that We've got

Peter Williams also with us in the studio Peter is a Christian He's the warden of Tyndale house in Cambridge who he specialized for a long time in the translation of new and old

Testament documents So he's a if you like our voice of authority on the Christian side of this particular debate

And he believes that despite all of what Bart says in the book and much of which he agrees with we still have

Faith in the Bible and that it does give us if you like the intention and the words that were originally purported by the original authors

So let's talk about this and I think let me we're running out of time. So I did appreciate that last statement

I've often said one of the issues is when dealing with Bart Ehrman most of what he says is true

He's normally factually correct, but it is the lack of context and the spin of those facts

That Pete Williams is going to criticize in this by the way, you can download listen to the rest of this

It's an hour and 20 minutes long Just go to premiere radio Just Google Justin Briarley's name, it's a

I think premier dot Co dot UK dot org or something along those lines.

I don't have the reference right in front of me. I apologize for that But listen to the whole thing yourself.

I think you'll find it to be very very useful We're gonna try to do a dividing line from the ship on Friday if we can work it out

And give you a report on what takes place But we do ask that you would support us in your prayers and your giving to the ministry so that we can

Press forward at this very challenging time. I do appreciate all of you who have written and said you're praying and We will talk to you on Friday here on the dividing line

Lord willing. God bless Let this moment

We need a new