Jerald Dirks, The Deen Show, and John 1:1

The Early Manuscript Tradition and the Preservation of the New Testament

When we look at the history of the New Testament, we discover some very interesting things when we look at the earliest papyri manuscripts that history has preserved for us. Now, if it were not for the Roman persecution of the early Christians, we would have an even wider, greater mass of materials to examine, which would keep textual critics quite busy.

But during the persecution of the church in the first two and a half centuries of its existence, thousands of manuscripts were destroyed. I saw an article only recently about a single church at the end of the third century in Egypt, where 32 codices were taken from this one church and multiply that out over all of Egypt and then, of course, the rest of where the church was at that time.

That's a lot of material. But what has survived still gives us the earliest, richest, fullest manuscript tradition of any work of antiquity by far. And when we look at that information and we look at when the New Testament, in essence, comes into our view, what we discover is rather interesting.

Even though the common theory today is that the Gospel of Mark is the first one written, it certainly wasn't the most popular. That was, by the way, never the view of the early church. But Mark is the least popular of the Gospels.

It seems that the most popular is the Gospel of John. And even though John is normally dated very late by many people, it is the earliest attested book in the New Testament and the most widely attested in that primitive time period as well.

In fact, here's a picture of one manuscript. This is a page from P75, which is a Gospels manuscript. And P75, one of the best Gospel manuscripts that we have very accurately done. This is actually from John 1 .1, a prologue of John.

The beginning of John is found here in this picture from P75. And then here is P66. I like this graphic because it shows the papyri book form. Instead of just a single page, you see as it is in book form.

And this also contains a prologue of John, beginning at John 1 .1. It's actually quite readable in the unsealed text of the New Testament. So these date from around 175 to 200. There are earlier fragments of P52, the famous very small papyri fragment from John chapter 18, from the first half of the second century as well.

And so when we look at this, what can we discover? Well, if we're going to theorize as modern scholarship loves to theorize about how the New Testament books were written over time, we have some historical explaining to do if we theorize that any of the books developed in stages, that there were redactions and edits.

The only way you can come up with that is to say that a single author did it and that it was never distributed until it reached its final form. Because if there had been different forms of these books in circulation, then the manuscript tradition would give us evidence of this.

But the manuscript tradition does not. And so the weight falls upon the one making the assertion that there were these various stages or massive emendations and changes. They have to explain the silence of the manuscript tradition.

Very frequently, this is done by saying, well, yes, the church was in control of everything. The church suppressed as if the persecuted Christian church of the second and third, early third centuries could actually do anything like that.

The worst period of imperial persecutions at the end of the second century, this very same time period, Christians are dying by the droves and they are in hiding. And the idea that there was some centralized church authority that was running around suppressing manuscripts and stuff like that is it's humorous because it's so silly.

It's not suggested by serious people, but it is suggested by people trying to get published or trying to make money or whatever. So it is interesting then to recognize that when we look at something like the Gospel of John, there is one, you know, the final section of the Gospel of John where the pronouns become plurals and we testify and things like that.

You know, it could be, you know, the testimony of the community after John's death or something like that. That's not relevant. But the chopping of all of these texts up as we see in so much liberal redaction criticism and form criticism writings has absolutely no foundation in the manuscript tradition itself.

They have to say, well, this was all done before it began to be distributed and we just theorize it based on this and that. And of course, then it becomes every form critic for himself. There really aren't any rules by which you can judge these assertions anyways.

Critiquing the Deen Show and Jerald Dirks on John 1

The reason I mention all of this, aside from hopefully providing some interesting historical background and to help you to sometimes when you hear the assertions being made by people on, in various forms of media to, you know, examine it and examine it from a position of strength and knowledge.

The reason I specifically mention this is because of a clip that I want to play from Gerald Dirks. He was just recently again on the Dean Show. Now the Dean Show is an Islamic program, but you know, when you think about it, when you think of the topics that they do, it's almost always an anti-Christian program.

Over and over and over again, attacking the trinity out of ignorance. They never have anybody on there actually knows these things, but they present people as if they do. Yusuf Estes and Gerald Dirks, their former Christian minister.

And Gerald Dirks has an MDiv from Harvard. And that just, you know, they don't have any idea how liberal Harvard is, how liberal Harvard was even when Dirks went there. And, you know, United Methodist deacon.

Well, you know, conservatives understand what that means, but they don't understand. They just accept this as, well, you're a very well-trained man. Well, as a result, they have him on and they just had him on for a two-part series, attacking the deity of Christ.

And again, if I had all the time in the world, it'd be very enjoyable to take each one of these assertions apart. Would not be difficult to do. I would love to have a debate on the deity of Christ, the crucifixion of Christ, the trinity, the history of the Bible, et cetera, et cetera, with Gerald Dirks.

That would be very enjoyable. I think we, again, have proved over and over again our capacity and ability to do this, even with people with whom we have the wildest disagreements. The debate we just did with Robert Price, for example, proves that we have the ability to do this and we can do so respectfully.

Would love to do that with Gerald Dirks as well. But for your benefit, I want to look at this clip and respond to it. It was the host of the program, who seems like a really nice guy, but doesn't listen to the other side, just has no background at all.

He conflates John 1 -1 and John 1 -14. And, you know, Eddie's his name. It's like, again, it seems like a nice guy. I've tried to contact him, but there's no getting through the firewall. He asked about John 1 -1, and I was completely taken aback by the shallow nature of Dirks' response.

As you'll see, he just dismisses it as a later addition and does not even attempt to substantiate the assertion at all. Here, take a.

Look at it. The word, the word was with God, and the word became flesh. This is somewhere in John 1 -1. The first chapter of John. Somebody will throw this in your face. What do you got to say? Well, first of all, the prologue of John, we know, is a later addition.

Later addition? Yeah, to the Gospel of John. Yeah, absolutely. Very much influenced by Greek philosophy. In fact, the term Logos is very much a term coming out of Greek philosophy. But the fact that Jesus was pre-existent, you know, Islam believes that we were all pre-existent in a spiritual sense.

That all the seed of Adam was gathered before God in a spiritual sense and made to affirm the oneness of God. So, pre-existence of God, or pre-existence of Jesus, excuse me, does not in any way imply divinity.

The Logos, Pre-Existence, and the Deity of Christ in John 1

Now, the first thing that I want to address is.

Just this sort of dismissive attitude that Dr. Dirks had. And by the way, Dr. Dirks is a psychologist. He has an MDiv from Harvard. You could get an MDiv from Harvard and not know almost anything about the textual history of the New Testament.

You really could, especially if you were focused upon, well, the things he was in psychology and things like that. But be that as it may, the Logos appears in Greek philosophical writings. There's no question about that.

But it is a simplistic thing to make reference to that and then dismiss it as some later accretion because of that. Philo made reference to it as well. Any meaningful exegetical commentary, and there are excellent exegetical commentaries on John, will not only discuss that, but will clearly pick up on the fact that John presents the Logos in a very non-Greek philosophical fashion.

And the fact that he hasn't even mentioned that makes one wonder in light of the fact the Dean Show is really presenting him as an expert on Christian theology. It would just strike me that I would have to, if I was in his position, make some defense if I was aware of the fact that that kind of scholarly literature is out there.

I'd have to make some comment about it. But the main thing is this dismissal of the entire text, absolutely a later accretion. Where's your evidence, Dr. Dirks? What manuscript does not contain the Prologue of John?

And if there are no manuscripts that do not contain the Prologue of John, how do you explain that in light of the fact that the Gospel of John is the earliest, most, the best attested of the New Testament books?

How do you do that? To my Muslim friends who will be watching this, what if I were to respond to the third ayah of Surah Taliq al-Khlas, Surah 114, verse 3, by simply saying, well, clearly a later accretion.

It clearly represents a later conflict with Christianity, couldn't be original. What would your response be? I hope your response would be, what's your evidence? Not just what's your theory, but what's your physical evidence?

I mean, there are early manuscripts of the Quran, some of which don't contain Surah 114. But wouldn't I have to provide some kind of evidence, some kind of documentation? And yet he sits there and says, well, absolutely.

And of course, Eddie doesn't challenge him, because Eddie doesn't know, and just goes on from there. We have covered John 1 -1 many, many times, but I want to just once again encourage my Muslim friends to consider, is this text just talking about pre-existence as if when Allah rubs Adam's back and all of humanity comes forth and you have the covenant there?

Is that really what John 1 -1 is all about? It's hard for me to take seriously Dr. Dirk's argument, because he's not dealt with the text, he's not dealt with the history of the text, and he's not dealt with the text in any meaningful fashion in these comments.

This is just very simplistic, dismissive attitude. It's not helpful. And in fact, the guy has a Dean show. You need to pick it up. You need to get some folks on there. You need to do some debates. Let the other side be heard.

If your side is the best side, if your side is Al Haqq, it's the truth, it will prevail, won't it? I would think so. But let's take a look at the text itself. John 1 -1, here explaining to us is the Gospel of John, the origin of Jesus.

And notice what it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now, is that just mere pre-existence? The first phrase, enarkein ha-lagas, does refer to pre-existence, there's no question about that.

But it refers to eternal pre-existence. Now, do you really believe that Jesus as the lagas eternally existed, not just in the mind of Allah, but in reality? As far back as you push the arcane, the beginning, he exists?

And was the word, the lagas prostantion, face-to-face with God? As a mere, not just rubbing Adam's back and appearing on a great plane, but this says that the lagas eternally had a relationship with God.

And in fact, that the lagas eternally was as to his nature, deity. That's what kaitheas en ha-lagas means. Then it says, he was in the beginning with God. This one was in the beginning with God. This one, the lagas, the personal, not just an abstraction as in Greek philosophy, but the personal individual who is the lagas.

All things were made through him, and apart from him, separate from him was nothing made, which has been made. In him was life, and the life was light of men, and the light shine in darkness. The darkness did not comprehend it, or you could say overcome it.

Kaitelevin can mean either one. The point is, this isn't mere pre-existence. We're talking about the one in whom was life itself. May I ask my Muslim friends, in whom is life? Is it not Allah? And then notice the end of the prologue, verse 18.

No attempt is made to deal with this. We skip verse 14, where the word became flesh. Eddie conflated them together, but just so you see this 18th verse. No man has seen God at any time. The benagonis theos, the only God, the unique God who is at the Father's side.

This one has made him known, has exegeted him, has explained him. Now, let me just ask you, this is the earliest writings of the Christians. Now, I know some people say, well Paul's writings come first, but as far as what we can document, this is as primitive as it gets.

All the theories you've heard about Ebionites or Nazarenes, anything else, this is the earliest material that we can identify that the Christians believed. And modern liberals who have to apply the theory of evolution to everything, including theology, modern liberals just cannot handle what the text is saying here, and so they dismiss it.

Now, the text is clear. This isn't just pre-existence. This is an assertion of the deity of Christ, and Gerald Dirks ignored this. He just skipped over it, ignored it. It's like it wasn't even there.

And I say to the folks on the Dean Show, would you be impressed if we handled the text of the Quran in that way? Why do you expect us to be impressed when you handle the text of the Bible that way? Once again, just looking for that consistent Muslim.

Step up your game, gentlemen. On the Dean Show, let's have some debates. Let's have some give and take. Let's step up to the real issues. You want to talk about the truth? You talking about you believe the truth?

Well, then let's get the truth on the table. This kind of discussion is not helpful. Thanks for watching.