Ehrman's 400,000 Variants

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

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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

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Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed

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Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with dr.

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White call now It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll -free across the

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United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

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Here is James white And good afternoon, welcome to the dividing line on a

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Thursday afternoon there was no Tuesday edition because I was over in California at California State University East.

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I'm sorry. I You were in California, well, that was really lame

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They're talking to me Distracting me stop it. Get out of here. Get out of here.

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Let's turn that thing off I'm trying to do a show here. Yeah, tell you it's hard to get good work. Good good workers these days really is

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It's just just tough anyways Mm -hmm. Yes, California State University East Bay Hayward, whatever other names they have.

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I guess you say Hayward now says East Bay. I don't know anyway For those of you who haven't noticed this will appear tomorrow morning on the blog

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I have placed the video from the debate Well, all right.

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I have placed the video from my little Casio Teeny tiny credit card sized camera, which was sitting on a chair in the first row

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But somehow and I didn't really put any effort into this at all But it was framed up about as perfectly as it could be

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It was I don't know if Figgy helped it with that or not Figgy might have helped to get it framed up, right? but anyway, it was on a little teeny tiny tripod on the front row and They were supposed to have somebody there to record it, but the student never showed up So thankfully

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I have a Between my mp3 player which does a really good job and the camera which does a really good job

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We still got it taken care of even though it was just me myself and I doing that but anyway, and Figgy helping out and some other folks down there on the front row, so That is on YouTube.

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I I didn't put the audience questions up. I I included them in the mp3 which I need to tell you where to find but I Included the whole thing.

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Well, it's actually it's it was recorded on that system member. We plugged it in. It's recorded there somewhere You'll just have to find it and throw it up on the website.

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But the mp3 is is very very very Listenable it's in it really came out.

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Very very good I'm very impressed with those little mp3 recorders which what they can do, but I didn't put that on the video, but there are five

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YouTube videos in a playlist on my YouTube page and they will appear

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On the blog at midnight tonight and you can watch that if you would like. I'm really not gonna

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Go over it. I I You'd sort of have to watch it for yourself and decide for yourself

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I it was far too short to really accomplish much of anything and I I'm not really certain where My opponent was going with some of the things that he did the thing that drove everybody nuts is

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Whenever he'd refer to me. He would always refer to me at least twice So it'd be professor pastor or professor reverend or professor pastor reverend or professor white pastor white or professor white pastor white reverend white and No one could figure out why this was he had asked me beforehand and I had said

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James is fine Oh, no. No, we're in an academic setting here, you know, and I'm just like what that What so, you know after about the 14th time people in the audience just sort of looking at him

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Like what's going on here? So it was a little bit odd, but anyhow, the debate is available and You can you can take a look at there on my

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YouTube page Where I currently have I last looked seven hundred and forty nine subscribers so I was looking for a number seven hundred and fifty and so subscribe to my youtube videos and You'll catch them before they ever show up on the on the blog because sometimes they show up two months after I post them on the

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Blog, which is fine. That's that's great. If you want to do it that way so With that the next next time

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I head out is to the fire conference over in it. I'm hitting, California all over the place

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I'm heading back to California again, which is not helping my frequent flyer miles a lot They're nice short trips, but my frequent flyer miles are not doing too well

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But I will be headed back very shortly after that to Georgia These first full weekend in Georgia and so that'll that'll undoubtedly help and then

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Houston, Texas in July Anchorage in August Santa Fe in September I tell you

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I yeah, I'm I am All over the place this year last year was a little bit less and then this year

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All over the place. It's pretty pretty amazing Anyway now that I Finally have 751 subscribers now.

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Whoo. Yay. All right need to get to a thousand. So keep working away Now that this that's over with and then the debates ten days earlier with Joel I'm well

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Rube I can say I'm well Rube very fast now It just took a little while a little practice, but that's taken care of and so on so forth yesterday morning

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I got on yield bicycle and I started listening to the

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Bart Ehrman Dan Wallace debate now I'm gonna play some sections, but I'm gonna tell you right now.

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You need to get online and buy these things I think it's watchman fellowship that's making them available. It's only 10 bucks

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Just support them in doing this. You need this and now the downloads huge like 371 megs or some huge amount of space like that, but and for 10 bucks 371 megs

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That's that's that's not bad at all. So You need to go get them because I thought this was a very very good

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Encounter I have not finished even listening to the entirety of it I've just listened to main presentations and I thought

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Dan Wallace did just a masterful job in in presenting his material and in really

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Going after the key issue and and folks listen to me now. This is this is important for you to hear

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This is the key Apologetic issue of our day. Can we trust the scriptures now post -modernists, of course?

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You know don't really They're so afraid of certainty, they're so afraid of truth.

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They're so afraid of one thing being right and one thing being wrong That they may not even enter into the arena, but when it comes to the defense of the

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Christian faith Everybody and their third cousin is reading

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Bart Ehrman and quoting Bart Ehrman now, they may not check out Bart Ehrman They they may not

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You know actually give any thought whatsoever as to whether he is being consistent in his position at all

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But they're gonna be quoting him and remember when I announced that we were going to be having the debate with Bart Ehrman which we are and I once again encourage you not to procrastinate but to Get online and get your reservations in for for being at the debate

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When I announced that I played a number of clips from various people quoting

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Bart Ehrman and This included the Shabbir Ali in the first debate we did in 2006 and I pointed out books published by Muslims attacking the deity of Christ and who do they quote

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Bart Ehrman and I played for you quotations, you know Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and they're all

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Quoting Bart Ehrman and I did not know this until yesterday

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But that Bart Ehrman had been Nominated for man of the year for writing misquoting

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Jesus Now that honestly truly amazes me

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It amazes me because even even in the book He admits that pretty much everything he's been talking about has been talked about by biblical scholars for a long long time

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And he's right it has been it's just that the conclusions he come to he has come to is not what biblical scholars of in general come to themselves so That really gives you an idea of just how hungry the mainstream media is for Basically Christian apostates people who once were

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Christians and now they've become scholarly and discovered why they can't be Christians anymore Even Shabbir was making that kind of argument in Seattle last year was well, you know

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These people used to be Christians now, they're not maybe they figured out this stuff doesn't work See that's the argumentation is being put forward and of course in in So many universities all across the

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United States in community colleges and universities You have men standing and women staying in front of classes and very boldly without any first level

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Study on their own very boldly just repeating these arguments over and over and over again ad nauseum and Cramming this into people's brains until people believe it.

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They just believe that's true And so rarely can they run across Christians who actually can give an answer?

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to the assertion That I'm going to play for you now from from Bart Ehrman now. I was a little taken aback by Bart Ehrman's presentation

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This is clearly I Don't know. I suppose a person who's being somewhat unkind or jaded might think that Bart Ehrman thinks that Southern Baptists are not the brightest bulbs in the pack because his

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Presentation was was very simplistic. I mean honestly, there was absolutely positively nothing in Bart Ehrman's Presentation that I didn't wasn't presenting as far as the facts go as a junior in college if you if you pick up The the little thing

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I did years ago in the text of New Testament Except for a couple of the examples that he used everything else

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I had already addressed all that stuff and so here you're you're coming up against Dan Wallace and you're

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You're explaining to your audience what papyrus is You're explaining to your audience

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You know basic things about Greek manuscripts and textual variants and stuff like that And and I'm just like why what this was very odd.

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I Found that to be a very strange thing, but eventually he gets the key issue and here's the key issue

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This is what the the Muslim This is what the secular humanist.

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This is what the atheist Thrives on this is what they will throw at you and you need to know how to respond to it

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You cannot just simply go well Go read this book by James White go read this book by Norman Geisler go read this book by whoever

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You can't do that You have to know this stuff yourself You have to be able to give an answer for the hope that's within you

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And if you believe the Bible's Word of God, then you need to be able to address these issues This is the stuff that people are gonna be repeating to you and to your kids and to the people in your church, etc

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Etc. You've got to know this stuff The the big arguments real simple how many

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Textual variants are there and we're I'm gonna play this for you but let me just give you the numbers right up front

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Bart Ehrman's gonna say they're between 300 and 400 ,000 textual variants in the

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New Testament and since there are only a hundred and thirty eight thousand one hundred and sixty two words in the

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New Testament that Means there are more textual variants than there are words in the

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New Testament now Stop right there for a moment and put yourself in the situation.

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I find myself in quite often maybe in a debate maybe on a radio program in a conversation with someone and Someone fires off that round there are more

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Textual variants in the New Testament than there are words in the

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New Testament What are you gonna do? How are you gonna respond? Because what what is if you just stop right there if you say nothing more

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What are what is the commute what is being communicated was being said if there are more textual variants than there are words

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Then what's the average person who hasn't a clue? How ancient documents are collated transmitted translated anything like that What's the first thought that's gonna go across their mind?

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We don't have a clue What the New Testament originally said?

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So you can see how many groups have we talked about over the years we've been doing You know, this is our 25th year without mega ministries

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And I was doing I was doing radio programs on Mormonism before Alvin mega ministries started so I'm looking at three decades now of doing this stuff almost not quite but getting close and The Mormons in general love that Because they believe the

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Bible would be the Word of God as far as it's translated correctly, right? and of course the atheists

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Christopher Hitchens love that and the Muslims love that the Jehovah's Witnesses don't love that It has the least one group you're not gonna be dealing with that particular issue on so but there's so many who just will grab that and they'll just throw it out for effect and So we have to have

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Effective responses now. I did appreciate at least one thing here and That is that as soon as Bart Ehrman gets done talking about how many variants there are here

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He's going to say something important and it's something that needs to be put on a t -shirt someplace

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And that is Bart Ehrman will say the vast bulk of those textual variants are absolutely positively meaningless meaningless

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I Appreciate that Dan Wallace will repeat that absolutely meaningless

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They most of times when people throw out the more variants than words in New Testament They don't include the they are absolutely meaningless part

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Vast majority But that's that's there. So let's let's listen to Bart Ehrman presenting the argument concerning the number of variants about today

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What can we say about the number of differences in our manuscripts today? Well as it turns out it's very hard to say exactly how many differences there are in our manuscripts today

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We have far more manuscripts than Mill had he had a hundred we have 5 ,500 so we have 55 times as many manuscripts as he had and this may seem a little weird

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But in this field the more evidence you have the harder it is to figure out what you're doing because because the more evidence you have the more manuscripts you have the more differences you have and so So it turns out evidence just kind of complicates the picture half the time

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But so we have all that we have got 5 ,500 manuscripts how many differences are there in these manuscripts the reality is we don't know

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Because nobody has been able to count them all even with the developments of computer technology

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It is probably easiest simply to put it in comparative terms

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There are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the

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New Testament Well, that's a lot More differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the

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New Testament Okay, so I think that's a fact, but what of that fact?

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Well the first thing to say about these hundreds of thousands of differences in my some scholars will tell you they're 200 ,000 some will say there are 300 ,000 differences some say they'll 400 ,000 differences

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I don't know. It's something like that between three and four hundred thousand would be my guess But the first thing to say about these three to four hundred thousand differences is that most of them don't matter for anything

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They are absolutely Irrelevant immaterial Unimportant a lot of them you can't even reproduce an

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English translation from the Greek It might help if we talked about the kinds of mistakes that you find in these manuscripts as it turns out

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The majority of mistakes that you find in manuscripts show us nothing more than that scribes in antiquity

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Could spell no better than my students can today And you and I appreciate that and Dan Wallace is going to make the exact same statement that the vast majority of these are

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Spelling errors he talks about the movable new He put up on this on a screen evidently a number of different ways that you could say

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Was it Jesus is Lord or the love of Jesus or something along these lines and all the different ways you could spell it the way you could do the ways you could move the words around movable news non -movable news and how

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Many of the variants in the manual in the manuscripts have to do with those very things that have

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Absolutely nothing to do with how you end up actually translating any of that into the English language

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But the point is that you have this presentation of 400 ,000

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Variations and at least he immediately said the vast majority of them don't mean anything at all.

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They're irrelevant They they don't impact the accuracy of the transmission of the text or anything along those lines

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Now that's vitally important because remember the debate that I'm going to be doing with dr. Ehrman in January It's not specifically on the

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Reliability of the text of the New Testament That's obviously going to be relevant

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But it is going to do with his assertion that you would in his own words

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You would think that if God Inspired this text

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That he would then make sure that there is no textual variation in The manuscripts and therefore his assertion that the existence of textual variation precludes inspiration now as I said

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I was extremely impressed with with Dan Wallace's presentation as well and he provided some important contextualization of This big number he gave us how many words are actually in The New Testament at just over a hundred and thirty -eight thousand obviously that would depend on which

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New Testament you're looking at You would have a variation between the na -27 and for example the

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Byzantine manuscript a tradition things like that, and I'm sure That Gail Rippling er has figured out exactly how to drive 666 out of those various differences if she has not

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I just gave her the topic for her next book, but anyway Then he started talking about Why do we have so many variants?

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Why are there more variants in New Testament than any other any other ancient document? It's real simple because we have more copies of Manuscripts for the

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New Testament than any other document. I mean think about it if you only had one copy of An ancient document guess what you have zero variance

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Because you only have one copy you can't have variance when you only have one copy Now, but if you only have one copy

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You have also zero reason for believing that it's the exact copy of the original

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You have no reason for thinking that just this one is is you know somehow the immaculately conceived and copied copy having lots of copies increases

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Two things it increases our knowledge of the original and it increases the number of variants

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This is where most people get confused They think that the number of variants should get smaller and smaller rather than bigger and bigger

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But remember if you have one manuscript if you've got

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Scribe Bart who is living in the 12th century and Scribe Bart has had a tough day

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His his superior at the monastery yelled at him during breakfast and So he's not having a good day and remember they don't have

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Glasses or LASIK or contact lenses or fluorescent lights or anything else and so scribe Bart his his

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Eyesights failing him and there's nothing he can do about it. And so scribe

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Bart one day while copying a a well -known text of the

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Gospels misspells a word a single word

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But since it's in a well -known portion the people doing the editing are just sort of flying through the well -known portions like we often do we read books and we see a

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Certain verse cited and we know it real well, we don't we don't take time to read it We just go zooming on by it and and they do the same thing and so it doesn't get caught it ends up in his

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Manuscript. Well Let's say that that is the only manuscript in the world

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That has his misspelled word in it that's still counted as a variant

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But start thinking about it if you have 5 ,500 Greek manuscripts, we're only talking about Greek manuscripts

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We're not talking about 10 ,000 Latin manuscripts and 5 ,000 other manuscripts and other languages Coptic Boheric Sahitic, etc, etc but if you have those 5 ,500

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Greek manuscripts and You divide that into let's go with the big number 400 ,000

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How many variants is that per manuscript and then remember? The average

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Greek manuscript has over 200 pages in it. It actually adds up to less than one variant per page if you just divide it out like that and That starts putting a little

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Context shall we say and by the way, we will be taking calls after the break It's seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three four one

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If you'd like to get online and talk about anything, but let's let's listen to Some of the material that Dan Wallace presented providing this kind of Contextualization thousand textual variants among the manuscripts now we have approximately a hundred and forty thousand words in the

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Greek New Testament Or for those of you who are anal. I'm sorry. Am I allowed to say that here Bob? It's about one hundred and thirty eight thousand one hundred and sixty two and I guess that puts me in your company

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That means that on average for every word in the Greek New Testament. There are at least two variants If this were the only piece of data we had it would discourage anyone from attempting to recover the wording of the original

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But there's more to the story Now there's two points to ponder first of all

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The reason that we have a lot of variants is that we have a lot of manuscripts

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The reason we have a lot of variants is that we have a lot of manuscripts. It's simple really

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No classical Greek or Latin text has nearly as many variants because they don't have nearly as many manuscripts With virtually every new manuscript discovery new variants are found

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If there was only one copy of the New Testament in existence, it would have zero variants yet Several ancient authors have only one copy of their writings in existence

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And sometimes that lone copy is not produced for a millennium after the time the guy wrote

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But a lone late manuscript would hardly give us confidence that that single manuscript duplicated the wording of the original in every respect

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To speak about the number of variants without also speaking about the number of manuscripts is simply an appeal to sensationalism

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Second as Samuel Clemens said there are lies damn lies and statistics.

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Sorry, Bob. I know that one's out of a little probing into these four hundred thousand variants put these

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Statistics in a context First of all in Greek alone.

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We have more than 5 ,500 manuscripts today Most of these are fragmentary, of course, or many of these are fragmentary

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Especially the older ones, but the average Greek New Testament is well over 200 pages long

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Altogether there are 1 .3 million pages of text Leaving hundreds of witnesses for every book of the

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New Testament It's not just the Greek manuscripts that count either the New Testament was early on translated into a variety of languages

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Latin Coptic Syriac Georgian Gothic Ethiopic Armenian, there are more than 10 ,000

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Latin manuscripts alone No one really knows the total number of all these other ancient versions, but the best estimates are close to 5 ,000 plus the 10 ,000 in Latin It would be safe to say that altogether we have about 20 ,000 handwritten manuscripts of the

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New Testament in various languages Now if you were to destroy all these manuscripts, we would not be left without a witness

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That's because the ancient Christian leaders known as Church Fathers who wrote comment They wrote commentaries on the

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New Testament. Now, let me skip forward past the New Testament discussion I want to see if I could find real quickly here

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It involves a line of people with the first one whispering some story to the ear of the next person. Yeah, this is good

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I want to play this. I wanted to get eventually to some further discussions He had but it is true that one of the really bothersome things for me in listening to Bart Ehrman is

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He presents the idea of how the New Testament was transmitted like the telephone game

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Where you start and you pass a story around and by the time it gets the other side you whispering it in someone's ear it's been changed greatly and Dan really takes that apart here and I think he does so quite well throughout the book but especially he repeats in interviews and in the public square is that of wholesale uncertainty about the original wording a

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View that I believe is far more radical and skeptical than he really embraces in light of comments such as these the impression that many readers get from misquoting

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Jesus is that the transmission of the New Testament Resembles the telephone game and I suspect that many of you got that impression tonight when you hear that we don't have copies of copies of copies of copies until down the line

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Well, the telephone game is a game that every child knows It involves a line of people with the first one whispering some story to the ear of the next person and that person whispers the story to the next on down the line as The tail goes from person to person it gets terribly garbled

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The whole point of the telephone game in fact is to see how garbled it can get

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There is no motivation whatsoever to get it, right? By the time it gets to the last person who repeats it out loud for the whole group.

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Everybody has a good laugh But the copying of the New Testament manuscripts is hardly like this parlor game

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First of all, the message is passed on in writing not orally That would of course make for a pretty boring telephone game or at least a pretty quiet one

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Second rather than having one line of transmission. There are multiple lines or streams of transmission

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Third Textual critics don't rely on just the last person in each line, but they can interrogate several folks who are closer to the original source

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Fourth patristic writers are comment on the text as it is going through its transmission of history and when there are

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Chronological gaps among the manuscripts these writers often fill in those gaps by telling us what the text said in that place in their day now there's just some of the points and The obviously he had a very limited amount of time but I think especially the

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Second point that I believe it was that he made is one that I emphasized a number of months ago when we posted that material

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On the subject of we had a Muslim come into channel and he was talking about the earliest decades of the existence of the

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New Testament and how could we have any confidence that was not undergoing these wholesale changes and I pointed out something and I've Now put this into some of my

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PowerPoint presentations as well In fact, I designed it specifically to use with another

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Ahmed if he was going to address any of these issues Which of course when you only take seven minutes out of 20, you don't really have time to present this kind of stuff

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Anyway where I I discuss how the books of the New Testament books plural of the

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New Testament they Come from all sorts of different places.

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They are written in different centers. They are written to different audiences so while Paul may be in one city and might write to multiple cities then he moves to another city and And writes to other cities or maybe back to the city that he was just at so you have writers plural writing from different places

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They are writing to different places and they're writing over a period of time and Then as the transcription process begins as that as these texts are copied they are then

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Collated together various the larger churches begin to collect manuscripts. We see this in some of the earliest manuscripts p46 p66 are translations or collections and So you have what

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I call multifocality there there's these this isn't happening in just one place It's happening over time in many places and that has a tremendous impact on The stability of the text over time and it's a positive impact not a negative impact

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Especially we talk about those who are making allegations that everything's just been changed I will continue with this and with your phone calls eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

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We'll be right back right after this How the pilgrims progress it's not an easy way it's a journey

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Trinity Dr. John MacArthur senior pastor of Grace Community Church says James White's lucid presentation will help layperson and pastor alike highly recommended

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You can order the Forgotten Trinity by going to our website at a omen org under the guise of tolerance modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality

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Even more disturbing some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior in Their book the same -sex controversy

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They appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people

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The same -sex controversy defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality Get your copy in the bookstore at a omen .org

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And welcome back to the dividing line on Thursday afternoon And it must be a quiet afternoon

35:50

Cuz no one has called eight seven seven seven five three three three four one I know that when we get really irregular doing the dividing line

36:00

Because I'm traveling, you know, there used to be a time when we'd actually do the dividing line even when I was traveling

36:06

I'd call in and that was really a royal bummer I remember once when those big honking phones remember what cell phones used to look like that's a big heavy things

36:14

You know, they'd flip open and you remember the time we did it in Salt Lake where I was on a cell phone Yeah, we're on a cell phone.

36:20

We're both walking around the North. That's right. That's right Wow, that was weird that yo, man, and the batteries would die real quick, too

36:28

But yes, we did we used to do that. Maybe maybe we're just getting you know, soft in our old age, you know and just not

36:36

Keep it up, but when you don't do them then people, you know, they don't get used to listening They start getting used to the archive and you know, they won't tune in the live one

36:44

One they're not calling eight seven seven seven five three three, three, four one and That's either they wait till the last, you know, 13 seconds, sir

36:54

Think if I said something about Dave Hunt Pierre would call Having saying

36:59

I I haven't said any about Dave Hunt because I have not heard The Dave Hunt should be our lead debate yet.

37:06

I searched the brain call website last week And I do not see either the names

37:15

Shabir or Ali Anywhere on there. So if someone can find Where that that debate has been posted and how you get hold of it and what format so on so forth then

37:28

I'd love to listen to it. It would be painful. I Would have to listen to it while riding or something so I could every once in a while run into a tree just to feel better a

37:38

Cactus yes. Yeah, Saguaro. Where's the Saguaro face plant? Boom feels much better.

37:43

Yes, but That's that's what I'm definitely gonna have to do so Anyhow, I I but I'm not gonna do that just to get somebody to call, you know about anything like that so anyway, we go back to the subject of Bart Ehrman's assertions and How then do you respond

38:07

To the Assertion that people make well, there's a number of things to keep in mind. I Appreciated Dan Wallace's statement that he went into he also one of the things he that I haven't played

38:19

But he was addressed is what about these earliest manuscripts. What are the earliest manuscripts that we have?

38:26

and There was some dispute I think during the course of the debate on the specifics of that But he had a very interesting discussion about for example

38:39

P75 and and Vaticanus Too many scripts that are very very similar to one another but are clearly not

38:47

Genealogically related in the sense of one being the copy of the other P75 is much earlier than Vaticanus, but but Vaticanus is not a copy of p75 and This pointed to the again this multifocality the fact you have

39:03

Multiple chains of transmission and they're not straight chains Aside from being written and not spoken and hence that whole phone game is irrelevant at that point

39:14

You're looking at something that's written on a piece of paper rather than listening to someone whose accent may be

39:20

Cause you a problem or whatever reasons might be you might misunderstand what they're saying And you don't get a chance to ask them to repeat themselves

39:28

You can ask the manuscript in front of you to repeat itself all you want So there's a clear differentiation at that point

39:35

But beyond that the the important point is that you do not have just one

39:43

Chain of narration. I remember this bothered me a lot last summer when I was listening to the debate between Airman and William Lane Craig is that Airman went off into this discussion about you know

39:57

Well, how did somebody in Rome come to believe in Jesus and it was this this one step?

40:03

Very similar interestingly enough to Richard Dawkins blind watchmaker neo -darwinian

40:09

Micromutational evolutionary theory idea of one small mutation followed by one small mutation small but followed by one small mutation

40:18

Same kind of argumentation going on here, and that's just not how it happened

40:23

It couldn't have been how it happened given the complexity of the situation That the early church was facing because the early church was a persecuted church during that formative period up until 313 so for about 200 you know person when this persecution began some people look at well look at happening

40:45

Jerusalem Well if you start if you look at Imperial persecution if you look at the

40:50

Roman Empire and its persecution probably around 50 to 55 you you get the

40:58

Jews and the Christians kicked out of Rome and and then slowly the differentiation between the two takes place and and you've got the the

41:05

Imperial persecution of of The Christians at least beginning in 60 64 that the period around there, so you're talking

41:14

Up to 313 AD with the peace of the church, and it's not as intense at every point in every place

41:23

But it is Imperial Persecution it still means that during this period of time

41:28

Rome's trying to destroy the Christian scriptures Christians are having to move around They're having to try to protect their scriptures

41:37

And this is a completely different context than you have and I and I was ecstatic

41:42

I was very very ecstatic When Dan Wallace raised the issue of the othmanic revision of the

41:50

Quran I? Was so happy to hear that and But you believe you me

41:57

I'm gonna raise it in January too because I would love to get some comments from Dr.. Herman on that particular subject

42:04

Just just simply because there's so many people who promote the Quran who think that he himself You know

42:11

Would be supportive of their their supporting of the Quran, but anyway he raised that issue, and he contrasted it

42:17

With that which you have in the New Testament and the transmission methodologies are completely different So let's say just for just off top of our heads.

42:26

Let's say we we go with it with the big number of 400 ,000 textual variants and you divide that by 5 ,500

42:34

Greek manuscripts that comes out to 72 let's round it up to 75 75 some nice round number.

42:44

Let's go to 75 variants per Greek manuscript now there's actually be less than that in some of the earlier manuscripts because they're not that big and Obviously more in later manuscripts because they are rather big now if we were then to if we have 75 variants per Greek manuscript and you have

43:12

Let's let's go with a low number. Let's let's let's keep using the numbers here that are going to be bad for our case

43:18

Let's say these Greek manuscripts average about 200 pages in Length remember there was 1 .3

43:26

million pages that Dan mentioned that comes out to one variant per every two point two and two -thirds pages two and two -thirds pages

43:39

All right Now what I would do is if I was in a conversation, let's let's say it's not in a well

43:46

Okay, I can even do it in a public context, too but Let's say just for the fun of it that You're in What context you're gonna be in you're you're you're on an airplane and Someone has seen that you're you're reading a

44:04

Bible and so this conversation has started. Maybe some other people are sort of listening in It's not so unusual I'll never forget flying back from Salt Lake City Me and my son

44:15

Josh were flying back from Salt Lake City from General Conference the Mormon Church a number of years ago and we got on a

44:22

America West flight coming out of a Salt Lake to Phoenix on I think it was Sunday morning and There had to have been 50

44:30

Mormon missionaries on this flight Just fresh out of the missionary training center and guess what happens but this

44:38

Mormon missionary gets the window and Josh and I get the middle and the aisle

44:47

Let me tell you something that was the most interesting flight that fellow had ever had Actually is the first airplane flight he had ever had he almost blew an entire roll of film on takeoff out the window

44:59

I mean this poor kid. Oh, we had a great conversation. So anyways, it can actually it can actually happen.

45:04

So you're on a plane and Someone has read Bart Ehrman and loud enough for people around to hear yeah, but as Bart Ehrman has proved there's 400 ,000 variants in the

45:18

New Testament and That's more than there are words in the

45:23

New Testament. What do you think about that? and you come back and say well,

45:31

I think we need to hear the rest of the story and That is the reason there are so many variants is because we have more manuscripts than any other ancient document in antiquity we have about 5 ,500 of them and if you take that 400 ,000 and Divide them amongst those 5 ,500 manuscripts and you look at the average length of those manuscripts.

45:53

That's exactly one error including Spelling errors in two and two -thirds pages of handwriting using a quill

46:07

Sometimes on papyrus or sometimes on leather. Let me ask you if we took everybody in this airplane and We asked them to do nothing more than to copy five pages out of the

46:21

SkyMall catalog Would we get anywhere near that level of accuracy in a modern context

46:31

That we have with the New Testament in an ancient context over time at that point

46:40

You would hear the roar of the engines the whistling of the wind over the wings

46:46

The hiss of the air coming out of the vent above you The snoring of miss of the big guy and it's three seats back

46:54

Yes, but you wouldn't hear much else Because that's not what they normally would hear.

47:03

Yeah, so That's what I would do. But anyways is all this relevant to the debate

47:09

We're gonna be having in January. You better believe it is and it's gonna come back up then but but There's gonna be more of a theological element in our discussion.

47:17

Of course, because he's saying that these by vast majority

47:23

Irrelevant the vast bulk and Dan Wallace said 99 % of all the variations irrelevant

47:34

And I think airmen would have to agree that That that 1 % left precludes inspiration

47:43

But if God wanted to have us then and of course, I hope we will have the opportunity of getting into his favorite textual variants

47:51

Excuse me his favorite textual variants have to do with like Matthew 24 and did

47:56

Jesus know the day in the hour and Then for some reason he just really focused on whether Jesus had anger in healing a leper

48:07

Even though Mark elsewhere says that Jesus had anger in other contexts for some reason. That's just He always goes after that one and maybe

48:15

John 1 18 2 We'll be looking at some of those variants those things will be will be coming up as we have opportunity of looking at them so 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 is the phone number and Let's start off with some of our callers with Stephen.

48:32

Hi Stephen. How you doing? Hey, dr. White. How are you? I'm doing All right. Well, I listen I got I got a break from the script orium and I can ask one question

48:42

I wasn't talking about you No, I'm a Bart, you know, yeah

48:48

You were talking about a guy with poor eyesight. Well, you know what? Okay, I got

48:53

I In my mind, I was thinking about Bart Ehrman, but hey, you know what? I think you fit a little bit better So we'll we'll go with that.

49:01

Okay Manuscript manuscripts that you would copy would be really really interesting

49:06

It Would be it would be a challenge for anybody I would hate to be the guy who is copying the manuscript after you've got finished copying

49:16

Well, you said you can actually translate what I put into channel But that's only because I ordered the universal translator from the

49:23

Star Trek online place. And so that's Okay, the other thing too is you don't want to listen to the

49:30

Dave Hunt Shabir Ali debate. Yes, I do. Yes, I do I can't promise but maybe

49:38

Neil and I can find something for you I will I'll mention it to him and maybe we can contact some of the guys and see if they have a copy of it

49:45

Well, I'm I'm just waiting to isn't isn't bringing call gonna make it available. I you know what he did such a terrible job

49:53

I don't think you'll ever put it up. Hmm. I mean, I mean it was You know,

49:58

I'll just have to put the call out I know that the folks to bring call do listen to the program.

50:04

So I'm just gonna put the call out Maybe some of the folks listen program can contact the brain call and say hey Are you gonna make those debates available?

50:10

And if so, when do you expect them to be available? It was brutal now. Well, I know that's what you said when you called in right afterwards.

50:18

Well, actually your your friend called in and gave the report and I Understand that it was but I still think it would be worthwhile to listen to just to just to hear how it went

50:29

Okay. Well, listen, I don't want to keep you the reason for my phone call is basically

50:35

I'm reading the arguments that Muslims use about Deuteronomy 18 where Moses and Muhammad are the same you know that Muhammad is the prophet like Like Moses and I was wondering what was the expectation of the first century?

50:53

Jews when they asked whether Jesus was the prophet Well, when you say when they asked was

50:59

Jesus the prophet basically make in reference to To the

51:05

Deuteronomy 18 passage of you read about it in John where they say when Jesus speeds 5 ,000 could this be the prophet

51:13

When they were when they saw John the Baptist they were asking are you the prophet he denies it Yeah, a lot of that is connected in Intertestamental literature to the return of Elijah as well, which comes up, but sometimes it is differentiated

51:31

As well, some say the prophet some say Elijah some say Which I found was really odd Jeremiah when the

51:39

Apostles answer the question in Matthew chapter 16 who to men say that I am They came up with some very interesting responses

51:46

There there wasn't any one singular consistent Intertestamental picture of of the

51:54

Messiah obviously different groups Painted with different colors in essence. The zealots would have one particular emphasis and and other people would have others and of course there was great great confusion because of The the suffering servant passages and things like that and that didn't fit with the idea of a conquering

52:15

Hero, and then how does profit how does how does the Deuteronomy 18? Text fit in with that some as I recall

52:23

Fit that together with Elijah others kept it separate You know, obviously small

52:31

Apocalyptic groups like the Essenes could read into any number of texts all sorts of modern

52:37

Fulfillments in their particular day, especially when they were cast out from the mainstream of Judaism It'd be very easy for them to see in the evil prophets of various parallels to Old Testament texts and things like that But yeah, there was a discussion about the prophet which could either be

52:54

Elijah or the Deuteronomy 18 alone fulfillment and The the idea that's

53:03

You know that that somehow Would have something to do with a non -jewish

53:08

Arabic speaking person From Saudi Arabia in modern in the modern area

53:17

Would have left any Jewish person the first century looking at you just a little bit oddly

53:23

Had you suggested that that was going to be fulfilled by a non -jew? Who had no connection whatsoever not even a knowledge of the

53:30

Torah? in any in any sense outside of quoting the lex talionis and and a few things like that, so Certainly that would have been something they would have looked at you and gone.

53:43

What what are you possibly talking about? What about what's that Peter and his sermon?

53:50

When he seems to refer to Christ as being the prophet. Yeah, well he the New Testament writers themselves then pick up on All of these messianic prophecies including the

54:02

Deuteronomy 18 text and they they make application to Christ and I would imagine that that time period where Jesus is ministering for example to the

54:13

The men on the road and then to the disciples during that period before his ascension to heaven where he opens the scriptures to their minds would be a time period where these

54:26

Initial Understandings of these texts are are presented now today of course the the skeptic and the

54:33

Muslim ironically hand -in -hand Look at any kind of text like that and just go well.

54:39

That's just later Generations scouring the Old Testament to find anything they can dig up To and then creating the stories of Jesus in light of those things backwards engineering in essence is what

54:54

John Dominic Crossan would say or Individuals along those lines and unfortunately evidently the the

55:00

Muslims join hand in hand with that themselves try to get rid of them Okay, okay.

55:06

Well. Thank you so much. Thank you very much David. Thanks for Let's continue on and talk with Cory hi

55:15

Cory Yes, hello. How are you doing sir? Okay, this is a phonies from the channel.

55:22

Yes, sir How are you? Pretty good pretty good Actually my question is regarding your translation of Philippians 2 6 basically kind of that whole passage

55:33

I read your article that you had on the Christian soldiers ministry Where you explain that I was wondering

55:42

Firstly in your translation of let me grab it of Pogmon is

55:49

You you translate it as I'm all three to first so the illustration of what we're talking about It says who although he eternally existed in the very form of God did not consider that equality

56:00

He had with God the Father something to be held on to at all costs. I was wondering

56:05

Personally on if you see the second phrase where he's referring to that equality with hat he had with God the same way of saying that When he refers earlier saying that he eternally existed in the very form of God you see those as being

56:21

Synonymous or is it describing two different things? Well, if they were synonymous there wouldn't really be any reason to repeat them

56:29

The first phrase is is in reference to the the form of existence

56:35

That is going to then be contrasted with taking the form of a bondservant and I would say that the the equality with God that is not grasped is the result of the fact that he has

56:51

Existed and has been existing in the more faith a you in the form of God, but What what's really being emphasized is the very nature that was his and as I explained in the article the the point here,

57:07

I think the overriding contextual consideration and in that article interestingly enough,

57:12

I Reviewed Dan Wallace's interpretation, which is different than mine and respond to some of the things that he says about this very issue, but The the overriding consideration of this text has to be the fact that it is functioning in a particular way and that is that Paul is exhorting the

57:36

Christian believers to humility of mind tapinas a frune is is the is the attitude and he is now providing the classic example of what humility is and if existing in the form of God Does not result in having equality with God so if there is a an essential subordination in the nature of the

58:00

Godhead at this particular point in time, then the illustration itself does not Function in such a way as to be supportive of what

58:08

Paul is saying Because it would not be humility on Christ's part to not grasp at an equality.

58:15

That was not actually his that's no one would say that when a angel

58:23

Abides its first estate rather than rebelling and trying to become equal with God. That means that they're humble

58:28

No, they're just not committing and committing blasphemy And oh, we are out of completely out of time.

58:35

I apologize that Corey but Hopefully that's provided at least at least some of the information there and I totally lost track of the time there

58:44

So I apologize that thank you for your phone call today, sir, and we will Have to put a clock right in front of me next time because as I start talking about Philippians 2 5 through 11

58:54

I lose track of all time completely. So thanks for listening to the violent day I hope you caught a lot of what we were trying to say because honestly this really is the key

59:05

Apologetics issue today. So I hope it was helpful to you We will see you Lord willing next

59:10

Tuesday regular time here on the dividing line. God bless We need

59:38

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