New Testament Textual Issues

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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 at 602 973 4602 or toll -free across the

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United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

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James white And good morning. Welcome to the dividing line. It is Tuesday one week and one day away from the debate with Bart Ehrman in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and That means actually for me it's actually just a few days before I fly out because I will have the privilege of ministering at Tom Askew Church in Florida this coming

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Sunday and Then heading to Fort Lauderdale from there. It's sort of I Don't I?

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Confess I don't know Florida geography very well, even though I've been there a number of times For me it's really hard to figure out a state where there are no mountains to look at Everything looks the same there's oh, there's a mountain over there.

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No, there's a mountain over there. But anyway we're gonna be going from one place to another and so I'm gonna be heading out earlier and Therefore have less time than it might appear to finish up the presentation

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I'm working on I was doing that until just a few moments ago literally about five minutes before the program came in here and as a result,

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I forgot to Grab the

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URL to a thread at Catholic answers. I was going to mention just briefly it was some comments by Phil por

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Vosnick now Phil por Vosnick is a Part -time sort of wannabe

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Roman Catholic apologist who will never pick up the phone and And call this program and make his claims because he knows that he would get turned inside out and wouldn't be able to answer questions but he's very brave behind a keyboard and tries to use humor to sort of you know cover the fact that he really can't handle what he's talking about, but he was commenting on the 33 ,000 denominations issue and It is truly amazing

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There there is no end to what the human mind can do to continue to believe a lie

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Even as long as you want to believe the lie As long as you want to believe it, you will find a way to continue to believe it that's just all there is to it and that's exactly what

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Phil por Vosnick has done is So what he does is he just ignores entire swaths of the information.

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He ignores the context He ignores, you know, the Steve Ray has has said these are Protestant denominations

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These are just solo scriptura that these include, you know, just the most wild group of Group of groups you can put together including

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Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and and one is Pentecostals And yeah, this is all due to solo scriptura, right ignores all that and says well, you know

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It's it's about 98 % non -catholic If that's somehow somehow relevant to rescuing himself

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And rescuing the Roman Catholics who have just simply lied to us for so many years about that particular source

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You you cannot make a person honest you cannot make a person love the truth you cannot make a person

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Reason rationally in any way shape or form it as long as they want to believe something there Don't those keep believing and that's that's what you see going on over on the

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Catholic answers board Meanwhile, I posted posted a did

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I I don't think I I just realized now I don't think I blogged it. Oops.

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Well, I'll get up there eventually I will try to blog here fairly soon the

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Video that I put up. Did I blog the video with with the Sam Gipp? I know

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I uploaded it to to the site, but I'm sitting here going did I did I blog that I don't think

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I did I'll check but I put up a video Sam Gipp had

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I don't know Sam Gipp Sam Gipp and he's King James only recommend eight and He put up a video

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Calling me a liar and saying I'm lying about the Ankerberg stuff You know, the funny thing is it's very very clear from listening to him talk

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He hasn't even kept up with the developments on that subject over the years He doesn't recognize that the

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VHS copy that the Ankerberg ministry had initially put out and which was put on the air Eventually did not have the

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Wilkin incident in it and then they reinserted it later Took out a long answer. I gave to make room for it so that they could

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You know provide the actual Video of what's it took place. There's only one incident took place

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Sam Gipp's memory is just wrong and The day, you know, you've got it You've got to choose whether you could believe me or Sam Gipp But I've told the same story from the beginning there is an article on our in our

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King James only section of websites been up there since In 95 96 97 somewhere around there.

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It's been up there for over a decade Telling the same story and when that video finally was provided by Ankerberg guess what it's exactly what

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I said it was Same spot same question everything exactly as I described it or you can accept

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Sam Gipps word Except he doesn't have any video and doesn't have stuff that was written over a decade ago

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Demonstrating that he was telling the same story. So you just sort of have to this afternoon, but it was interesting. I Didn't mention this a video but at some at one point in the video

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He says that I can shave my head and grow facial hair all I want So I don't look like the guy on the

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Ankerberg show. I Think he actually thinks that that I well he said later on I have nothing better to be doing anyways

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Which is I You know, I just follow Sam Gipp around after he debates, you know

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Bart Ehrman and and Muslims in London and you know John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong, you know, yeah, that's

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I got nothing better to do then then just follow after him But anyways, evidently he really thinks that I changed my entire look just simply so I wouldn't look like the person in Actually the reality of that is is

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Once age started catching up to me and I started looking like I was trying out for the part of Martin Luther after the taunter cut

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I Decided to Dump that real quick. So I Tell you

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Anyway, so I put the documentation back up there and if I forgot to blog it out,

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I'll get it. It's not up there Yeah, okay Sometimes when I get up on the YouTube, it's like, okay, you know, it's there

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It's great and I forget to grab the embedding code and get it to get in the blog. So we'll take care of that. Anyway Yeah, someone just mentioned in channel

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I I would really really not want to see Bart Ehrman go up against Sam Gip that would be whoo, that would be

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Mmm, that'd be bad given how badly the King James only guys did on the Ankerberg show and that was with Christians It would be

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Anyway, so I'm definitely looking forward to next week. I Would like to thank all of those who made it possible for Alan Kirshner to go to Florida.

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It's going to be nice to have Alan along he's one of the blog team on the team of Polygon But but even more so as you may recall

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Alan was on with me a few months ago and we talked about Luke 23 34 and we discussed the textual variant there and He has been for a number of years now a student at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary He studied textual criticism under Eldon Epp And so he knows the

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Epp -Ehrman -Parker triumvirate of modern textual critical scholars who Really are moving textual criticism away from its historical underpinnings that of establishing the original text of the

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New Testament to where now the focus is on the actual variants themselves and and the story that each manuscript can tell and Unfortunately a lot of folks don't realize that that's what's going on and and it is and I'll probably come out some next week

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I don't know this is such a large field and there's so many facts and figures to be thrown into it that I'm I Want to warn those who will be in attendance ahead of time.

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This will be a scholarly debate and I fully intend to be displaying manuscripts and variants and utilizing technical language

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Because you're going to have the opportunity of Then taking that material and listening to it again

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I will have of course a keynote presentation to be made so that it'll be a little bit easier to follow I think I've shown some of the illustrations

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I put one of the graphics on the on the on the well an early edition one of the graphics on the vlog yesterday

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Made some changes to that already Some of you even saw there was a textual variant in my graphic Which I found rather interesting and it was inadvertent on my part initially

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But the funny thing is it matches the exact text of Codex Sinaiticus. I'll talk about that sometime We have more time to talk about it.

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But anyway I'm gonna be illustrating these things and someone needs to someone needs to calm that man down out there and the studio audience

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He's bouncing all over the place when he was leaning up against the wall. The mirror was shaking and stuff like that It's extremely distracting so that we need to we need to calm that the the studio audience down out there

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You know, we we let these people in out of the goodness of our hearts They're standing out there in the cold. You better watch it.

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You got two of us out here now We're gonna be fighting over who grabs the mic first Yes, but it still has a studio audience so Audience doesn't imply at least one.

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But anyway, so Anyway, I'm just letting you know

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Dr. Ehrman's assertions need to be challenged on a scholarly level and we have one shot at doing this and so We want to do so in an appropriate scholarly respectful fashion and I'm really praying that that's exactly what will take place.

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I mentioned this on the apologetics comm radio program that aired over the weekend So I might as well go ahead and mention it now

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It is fully my intention and I would ask for your your prayers toward the completion of this project it's fully my intention as a result of doing these literally months of intensive study and research into The claims that Bart Ehrman makes in regards to misquoting

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Jesus and the use of his material I have been encouraged by many and I think it is absolutely appropriate

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For me to take all this information. Not only the textual information the information about the manuscripts of backgrounds

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The specific variants mark 141 Hebrews 2 9 John 1 18 that the text that he has addressed

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It is not only appropriate to take that information, but also his accusations concerning the synoptic Gospels Alleged synoptic parallel issues, which of course are always troubling to people and to put all of this into a single volume a refutation of Bart Ehrman and So that is my my intention to do so beginning when

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I get back from from the debate and the the conference and the crews To begin to put that material together and so I would

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Pray for ask for your your prayers for that project Especially in regards to who to have published it.

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I have a specific idea in mind and Hopefully they will find that that information not even close.

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No, no rich. No, no, no, no But That that's something that's a just really needs to be done and I need to dive into it as soon as I get back in The sense that it'll still be very fresh upon the mind and things like that.

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So I am excited about that It's it's been a couple of years since I wrote a book I have done two new editions by the way

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Both Potter's freedom the final galleys of the Potter's freedom second edition arrived yesterday were sent to me so that means it's gonna be heading to the

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Printer very quickly. So that should be available Fairly soon and I'm supposed to receive sometime this week great timing.

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I guess I can take them with me I'm supposed to receive the the galleys on the second edition of the King James only controversy as well and I'm not sure how it's going to work because I haven't yet worked with them in the placement of some key graphics yet So still some work to be done there.

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And of course knowing how things work for me They'll be calling and asking me to do that as I'm staying in line to get on the ship

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That's that's normally how it works for me, but anyhow, so given all of that let's get back into the program that we have been reviewing and that is the dialogue between Bart Ehrman and Reggie Finley, I believe is the name

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And he is the infidel guy. This is from October 18th 2007 and we're going to finally get into the part here fairly quickly

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Where I think some real interesting disagreements going to take place. It's going to be very illustrative

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So let's get back into the program here That seems to be important to me The most famous story in the

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Gospels is probably the story of Jesus and the woman caught in the act of adultery Where Jesus had this line, let the one without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her

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I like Monty Python's version better, but yes The thing is even though everybody knows the story and it's a terrific story it wasn't originally in the

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Gospel of John In any of the Gospels it was added later and we know this because we have older manuscripts that don't have it in there

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Yeah, well, that's one of the reasons the oldest manuscripts don't have it The the writing style of that story is very different from the writing style of the surrounding stories

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Wow There are words used in that story that occur nowhere else in the Gospel of John Well, if this isn't even a debated point,

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I mean I knew this when I was at the Moody Bible Institute Wow Catch that Wow, you knew something when you were at Moody I just The bias prejudice whatever other words you want to use here just absolutely

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Unbelievable, but yeah, everybody knows this and it's it's interesting to me I think the strongest reason to reject

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John 7 53 through 8 11 Which is one of the two largest textual variants in New Testament Mark 16 9 through 20 both have 12 verses

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The strongest reason is is not this linguistic stuff about well, there are words here

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There are not used anywhere else the Gospel of John Well, you can take almost any section of the Gospel of John find a unique word and say it's gonna be part of it

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I just don't find that kind of argumentation compelling in almost a situation there There might be some situations when something if this style is so completely different I mean if if you've got if you're bopping along in John and all of a sudden you run into a chapter that sounds like It's from Hebrews Okay with all sorts of addison's and stuff like that, okay fine that's that's understandable but Something like that.

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That's not the strongest argumentation. Am I am I from my perspective at all? The strongest reason from my perspective

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To see John 7 53 through 8 11 as non original is is this It is found in one manuscript after John 7 36

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It's found another manuscript a couple of family of manuscripts family one after John 21 25 And here's the here's the kicker for me in family 13

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Family 13 is a group of manuscripts. We've actually found interesting You know some new members of family 13 just over the past couple of years

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The Center for the Study of New Testament manuscripts has found them. It occurs in Luke 21 38

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The whole story in family 13 is in Luke not in John And in 1333 it is found in after Luke 24 53

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It is not found in p66 p75 Sinaiticus Alexandrinus Vaticanus, etc, etc, so But when you have a story that that travels from place to place that's generally indicative of a later accretion and that really to me is the the strongest evidence on that particular one, but again as Errm, Errman has said many times himself look there's really not much new in my book, and he's right up to a point

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Because this is just general knowledge. It's the stuff. I knew in Bible college to really yeah people actually learn things about the college

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What is unusual about? Bart Ehrman's book is the application that he makes

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When he says well look we don't know what the original was what he means by that is not that the original doesn't exist in manuscript tradition

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But that we don't know with absolute Certainty photographic take a video of Paul as he wrote the words certainty

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Which of course we couldn't have for anything from the ancient world and therefore you really couldn't have anything that could meet

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Bart Ehrman's own standards for what is Inspired or supposed to be inspired according to his theory

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No, there's no not really even a debate about the woman taking an adultery, but most people have never heard of it

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Never heard of the fact that it wasn't original to right so ACF And what does that tell you that tells you that most people are ignorant of the

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Bible and that includes Christians? And you're sitting there saying you are you seriously suggesting that we should tell our people about things like this

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I'm seriously suggesting that we should have the guts to print Bibles that don't have it in there. That's what

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I'm suggesting I'm suggesting that you know Dan Wallace said at his

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ETS presentation back in November that the NET seriously considered not having

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The pericope adultery John 753 811 and the long reigning of Mark in the actual text

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What they ended up doing and I had to chuckle at this and he got a good laugh out of it Dan does

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Tell good stories is that they put the the font Much smaller and put it in brackets, and he said we made it smaller, so it'd be harder to harder to read from the pulpit

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So you got a good laugh out of that, but yeah, I'm saying yes, we do need to talk about these things Because Bart Ehrman is why why did his book explode like this well because It's not saying anything different than what we've been saying all along But it's who said it and then the spin he put on it to try to create

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Unfaith disbelief that's that's why the book did what it did so yet again. I mean

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Surely you would I don't understand. I mean I guess there's some compartmentalization But I mean if I was sitting there at the

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Moody Bible Institute I guess I had to be a fundamentalist But I mean if I heard that I'd go for the first thing to pop up my head is how many other instances are there of?

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This yeah, that is what pops into everybody's head. That's exactly what pops into everybody's head, and that's why we have to talk about it

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Because we're talking about one of two one of two major variants that in Mark 16 9 to 20

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Beyond that your variants are single verses and Then there's a small number of them and almost all of those

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Not not including the Kami Ohanian, and that's barely even that does that is a meaningful variant

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But not a viable variant, so it doesn't even enter into the meaningful category to be perfectly honest with you but Beyond that the vast majority of variations are word order phrases words spelling

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So you're looking at the biggest thing here, and so that is why Irving is bringing these things up is so that you have this

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Shock value to it That's that's what it's meant to do the only way to counteract that is to take it away

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Explain these things in the context of faith Rather than allowing for all these false presuppositions.

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Just be assumed and then act upon the false presuppositions That's what got me interested in this whole right right right and I I realized even at Moody Bible Institute that it was a

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Really important issue because if you wanted to say that the words were inspired, and you didn't have the words

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What good does it say they were inspired? So that's why

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I started devoting my life to looking into this exactly you know more than 30 years later

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I you know this you know I've changed my views about the inspiration of the Text but I haven't changed my view about the importance of looking into this kind of thing right there again, please note that that The infidel guy did not force these words out of Bart Ehrman's mouth

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This is a subject he addresses freely over and over and over again

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That this is why he questioned these things because he learned these things and what's the unspoken?

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Statement beyond that and once you learn about these things you should question these things, too that is the very essence

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Yourself you're now you know agnostic Okay, well good, and then that works because the believers will still think you have a chance

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They still think they have a chance of saving you Yes, so that's at least they'll listen to you then because at least you're you're not agnostic now, but I was about to call it a number

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I'm so used to doing that again if you have any questions type those in red please in the IRC room and the stick cam chat room

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I know we had someone earlier type of question, but I think I just missed it. Oh here. We go job He's asking do you believe in the historical

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Jesus? That's a good question Yeah, you know I was thinking about writing a book about this because I get the question a lot and I I unfortunately get quoted

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As someone who thinks that Jesus didn't exist Which I think it's really very strange because I've written an entire book on what

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Jesus said and did now Here's here's where we get into the fun part Because quite obviously the infidel guy is a promoter of Bob Price and all these

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Way out in in the ozone layer writers Who actually promote the idea that that Jesus never existed?

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and he's obviously had him on the program and you know they You know the infidel guy any fact

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Has no context the all the context of all facts is to substantiate his rebellion against God and his unbelief and so You know he'll grab hold of anything so Obviously, and you're gonna.

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You can tell this by the end of the program obviously He is taken aback that Bart Ehrman Believes Jesus existed.

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He somehow assumed if you're an atheist that you don't you don't believe Jesus existed and So now what's what is fascinating about this to me is?

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To listen to the argumentation because now Ehrman's gonna be facing a guy who is more liberal than he is more unbelieving than he is

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What kind of arguments is he going to make to stand his ground where he is and I think you'll find the form of argumentation to be both obvious and highly instructive

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I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money

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Who say Jesus didn't exist, but I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus and so absolutely

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Or so we say a Jesus Well, I mean because some ideas about this to write like a Jesus Christ itself

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I just means in what it was it means like the anointed one or something Christ is the Greek word for anointed one

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It's the same. It's the Greek equivalent of the word Mashiach in Hebrew we get

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Messiah from right so basically so so any you know Jewish sect that believe that they had that Jesus Christ then

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Then that entity would exist so to speak so it means so I mean I guess what I'm saying here I guess I'm going with the maybe the multiple

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Jesus hypothesis that there might have been a variety of different Which is why I have so many different stories. I don't think there was more than one person

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I mean, I think really was it I think there was a historical person Jesus and that we can say some things historically about him

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But what happened was after his death so many people told stories and so many different parts of the

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Roman Empire That different portraits of Jesus emerged and some of these portraits show up in the gospel so that in fact now

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That's not where the infidel guy is coming from okay. Just so you know You know the multiple

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Jesus saying well This is just a composite story about this mythical person that mythical see and airmen ain't going there because that is

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Really way out there. I mean when John Dominic crossing can look at that and go that's a pretty weird idea

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Where'd you get that from then? It's pretty weird It involves a completely biased

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Imbalanced historiography, there's no question about that at all and so you can see that the infidel guy is starting to go

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What what what what and it's gonna get real interesting portrait of Jesus in Luke's gospel is different from the portrait

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Mark and and different from the one in John and different from the one in the gospel Peter right for the gospel of Judas I mean these are all different portraits

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Okay, what sounds like to me well me there's people in a chat right now disagreeing of course But they're saying that there really isn't any hard core evidence though that there's any any

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Evidence really that Jesus did exist except what people are saying about him I think I disagree with that really what

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I mean what hard core evidence is there that Julius Caesar existed Well, this is this the same kind of argument apologies used by the way for the existence of Jesus by the way

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Oh, no Apologists ask the same question how how can this be?

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And of course this is you know the people in this guy's chat room are gonna be your your standard hard core radical atheists who you know

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Again have no real connection with history or anything like that at all and so here here here it comes

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They they like to say the same thing you just said just then about well What can ever be evident for a Jew? I mean, it's just a typical.

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I mean, it's a historical point I mean how to establish the historical existence right well I guess in the past I guess it depends on the claims

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I get right it depends on the claims that people have made During that particular time about a particular person and their influence at the client society there are

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One has to look at historical evidence, and if you if you say that historical evidence doesn't count

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Then I think you get into huge trouble because then how do you I mean? Then why not just deny the

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Holocaust or you know? Abraham Lincoln lived or why not and I I mean just deny

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I Think I think these things matter you know I think it matters what happened in history right well

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Well, what do I like to say the world like the word it this way because I mean really I think we do have more

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Evidence for those things you mentioned there we probably do Jesus Christ, but I like to tell people well What harm would it do because especially the information that you have just now about?

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Even even if there was a Jesus the book of Mark shows us that there was an embellishment way after anyway

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I Want to know what Jesus really did say right and You know that that assumes that he really existed and that we can't know you have to look at the evidence

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But what and what is the evidence because even that we cannot know for sure, but I guess you would say look at looking We can look at the earliest manuscript now notice is going on here.

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We cannot know for sure I Don't know I shouldn't laugh, but but these these radical atheists

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Basically unless you have mp3 recordings videotape from circling satellites or some kind of time machine

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Then nobody existed in the past and even airmen is going to get somewhat frustrated and say well

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Dude, we don't have that kind of evidence for anybody in the past what? We were pretty sure they existed, but we don't have that kind of evidence for them

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And of course that happens to be the case and so we'll continue Listening to this or rather And it's gonna the real interesting parts coming up here because airmen is going to make an argument

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Regarding Paul, and you're gonna see how this all fleshes out, but we'll continue that right after our break.

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We'll be right back But your red today

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So many stars strong and true Quickly fall answering those who claim that only the

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King James Version is the Word of God James White in his book the King James only controversy examines allegations that modern translators

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Conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith in a readable and responsible style author

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James White traces the development of Bible translations old and new and Investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611

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You can order your copy of James White's book the King James only controversy by going to our website at www .a

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Omin org the history of the Christian Church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith

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Once the core of the Reformation the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine in his book the

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God who justifies theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of Understanding of and dedication to the great doctrine of justification and then provides an exegesis of the key scripture texts on this theme

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Justification is the heart of the gospel in today's culture where tolerance is the new absolute

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James White proclaims with passion the truth and centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith

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Dr. J. Adams says I lost sleep over this book. I simply couldn't put it down James White writes the way an exegetically and Theologically oriented pastor appreciates.

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This is no book for casual reading There is solid meat throughout an outstanding contribution in every sense of the words

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The God who justifies by dr. James White get your copy today at a omen org

31:58

Hello everyone. This is Rich Pierce in a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program

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The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every

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Sunday yet. They have never been confronted with their sin Alpha Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses

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Man is sinful and God is holy That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior?

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We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well

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Support Alpha and Omega ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

32:49

Thank you And welcome back to the dividing line we're listening to the infidel guy who gets a lot of people's nerves

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I've noticed it does me too and it's all because it's just this this breathless. Oh, ah, yeah

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Oh anything that can can lead you to unbelief. Oh That's what drives people nuts.

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You know, there's there's not the slightest bit of discernment or Understanding is just Anything to help me.

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I believe yes Great And that drives a lot of people crazy. But anyway

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Gary we'll get to you in just a moment. I've got some information for you, but I wanted to get to I want you to hear

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This portion because here it's coming up where we finally get to what happens when

33:57

Bart Ehrman Runs into a real atheist that date to right around when he should have existed or something or what?

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What do we have because we don't have anything that exists right until after he died allegedly, right? I Guess so, but I thought that there are some

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Contemporary that there are some writers who write about CNN was around. They maybe have been recording some of those guys

34:22

People as they existed like with Jesus Caesar right there, but we don't have I mean We don't have anybody from that time talking to us now or we have our ancient record, right?

34:31

But again for Jesus our ancient record, but we don't have any ancient records of anyone who wrote about Jesus while he was alive

34:37

No Absolutely not which of course

34:43

I would to contest We don't have four billions of people lived in the past that were pretty sure existed. I mean just I mean

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We have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period So, I mean, you know,

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I'm not saying as a believer. I'm not a believer. But as a historian, I'm just saying that That you you can't just kind of dismiss it and say well, you know

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Now, you know what this demonstrates to me is that airmen has not really spent any time looking into these radical atheists

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That's not his thing. He he's not looking he wasn't looking to you know become their

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Big star. He certainly wouldn't be talking like this. He was But can you can you hear in the laughter in his voice?

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That's what happens when you encounter a position that you just find to be so ridiculous and so beyond belief

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You've never actually even formulated a response to it You're actually trying to come up with something on the fly and generally that's how we respond that kind of thing

35:41

We don't know. I mean you have to look at the evidence. So there is hard evidence. I think I'm okay

35:46

I mean, okay. I mean, I would look for archaeological evidence and as well for example How many people exist in the past that leave archaeological evidence of their specific individual existence?

35:59

I mean It's just this this kind of standard that they try to use is just so absurd

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But evidently they live in their own little world and and they don't they don't recognize we have one author who actually knew

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Jesus relatives and knew his Disciples and who's that Paul?

36:20

to catch that I Was interested about that. I thought he was gonna say something about Luke or something like that, but Paul Paul and now now remember give you let me give you some background here

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Ahriman in his the great courses Series on the New Testament. It's a class that he videotaped that I've listened to it a number of times

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Takes a position that there are only seven genuine Pauline epistles The pastorals are out

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Ephesians is out Colossians is out. There are only seven genuine Pauline epistles

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So he doesn't even take the 10, you know, just to get rid of the pastorals Certain doesn't take the the 13 view.

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So keeping that in mind that he rejects part of the

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Pauline corpus he Takes this seven letters position. Now, how does that work against someone who thinks no letters?

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I Mean you've got 13 to claim you've got seven that you think are real but on what basis

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Do you defend that against someone who says no number Pauline? Or is it just a subjective thing?

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Listen to how he argues. How do we know that because we have Paul's letters? How do we know he didn't lie about it?

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Why would he lie about it? Well, you know the point but there are people there are there are people but Says things about Jesus as off -the -cuff comments where he's not making a point

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And see that's very important to historians in other words a historian wants to find disinterested

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Comments, right and Paul has disinterested comments where he says things for example about James the brother of the

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Lord Which is just an off -the -cuff calm because everybody that he's writing to knows who he's talking about So he just makes the off -the -cuff comment.

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That's a very important information And that is Ripples now

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Comment about the twelve disciples if if in fact I mean, so the whole point is that you've got a disinterested comment from somebody who

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Actually knew these people if he even wrote that though, correct because isn't there some some there's no doubt about Paul writing

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Galatians Are there some are there some theories that suggest that okay now there's no doubt that Paul wrote

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Galatians How do you demonstrate that? I mean, I agree there isn't any doubt that Paul wrote

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Galatians but I think that there really isn't any meaningful serious doubt that he wrote first Timothy either and I know exactly how

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Ehrman denies that the pot the pastoral epistles or Pauline, you know, he'll he'll try to say well

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You know There's terms that are used in them that are not used as often in the other Pauline letters of death But the fact is if you isolated

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Galatians and set it against the other six You could make a case that it isn't

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Pauline by using them as the standard see at all it's it's it's a very subjective thing and he's bought into a very subjective thing and so now he's getting challenged on the subjectivism of his of his position and What's gonna be fascinating is the form of argumentation.

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He uses this fancy. Maybe Paul himself Had scribe that wrote for him And every every person who wrote epistles in the ancient world

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Dictated them to scribe. Right. So how do we know then that but you know Cicero wrote his letters.

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I Don't I'm not a historian so I don't know much about Cicero, but I am a historian I'm telling you but there are some but but there are many historians who disagree with you

39:58

I think none that I've ever heard of this and I really said well not serious historians not serious historians

40:04

Thousands of scholars of the ancient world and I don't know any one of these scholars who doubts that Paul wrote

40:12

Galatians Okay So these are people who've devoted their lives to this and a lot of them are like me

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It's not that I've got personal investment in Paul. I mean, I'm not even a Christian. I'm just saying as a historian

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There's no doubt Paul wrote Galatians What was the basis of that?

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Because I'm a historian This is the a thought this is the authority argument and in just a moment

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He's gonna say I've been doing this for 30 years and I'm telling you I'm a historian.

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Believe me That's the argument. The argument is I know

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I go to all the SPL meetings and I go to all this stuff and I meet with all these people And I know who they are and so I've been doing this for 30 years.

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So believe me. It's the argument from authority He doesn't he doesn't provide anything more than that now maybe he now one of the problems here is that he and the infidel guy are going back and forth and part of the problem here is that the infidel guy already has a great investment in the scholarship of people like Robert Price of like that and he's wanting to get back to the historical

41:20

Jesus stuff and You know airmen just doesn't know this stuff that well. This isn't his area

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And so he sometimes they sort of talk past each other But I'm finding I found it fascinating that his primary defense of his position was well, believe me.

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I've been doing this for 30 years I read this stuff in the original languages Well, there have been people who read this stuff in the original language did it for 50 years the thing

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Paul wrote all of those? Epistles, does that make them right? Of course not the argument for Thor doesn't doesn't doesn't wash but it's a fascinating listen.

41:50

Hmm. I Mean, I mean, I'm right with you people. I wrote some things. I'm just saying if Because you if you're already we are as you can see that already that we know that there has been embellishment people adding things as But see you can't just take that and and just assume that everything is an embellishment

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You have to do this serious historical work and figure out what's an embellishment and what's not and that isn't just a matter of just Guessing or we're saying everything.

42:20

I was saying just be skeptical to that too. That's all I'm just saying Absolutely, you have to be skeptical about it, but once you could approach it skeptically and you look at the up I mean, but you are more skeptical than I am therefore

42:36

It does seem to me what we're hearing here, I've spent 30 years looking at this is what I do for a living So it is kind of an off -the -cuff kind of comment

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This is you know, I've been examining this evidence for 30 years reading the like this stuff in the original languages

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So it's not like some crazy person who just wants to make money out of book now I can tell the infidel guy really did not like this he really did not like this because after he hangs after airmen hangs up he goes on and He's he's like I'm not into this authority stuff man.

43:08

When you start saying that everybody believes this is a I'm just not into this stuff Man, you know and I'm sorry if this wasn't what you all were expecting

43:15

They're expecting I guess they expect as long as you aren't a Christian then you're a Robert Price level atheist or something

43:23

I guess I don't know but You can just tell he really chafed under this

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I mean, this is what I do for a living and I can tell you that that everybody who's looked at this thing.

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Seriously Nobody doubts this. Well, I wouldn't say nobody has this

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Now if I use that kind of argumentation next week, would he buy it? If I said everyone who's looked at this seriously agrees with me, is he gonna buy that?

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Because what the infidel guy is gonna do here is you can say well, wait a minute there, right? So you're saying the people who?

43:59

Totally mythologize Paul or totally mythologize Jesus just aren't serious. Well, what's your definition of serious?

44:06

Somebody that's an absolute claim though, isn't it? I mean Name one name one New Testament scholar who doubts the power of Galatians.

44:14

Oh, no, no No, I remember you keep going back to that. I didn't deny that. He wrote Galatians I already

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I think I agree at least twice so far. I agree with you. You probably could have for all I know Got the feeling that he did deny that didn't you

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I think I sort of heard him saying things like well how do you know he wrote any of that and blah blah blah and Now we're we're doing the backpedal thing here really fast

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And the scary thing is is a camera right on him and all of his devoted followers are watching him He could not have enjoyed this whatsoever

44:47

But I was saying well, well, yeah fine, but I'm simply saying but but it's but actual content

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How do we know that there aren't? Just complete lies or embellishments and then you went back to well because he just said something off the cuff

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I'm agreeing that there are but you have to know which things are the embellishments It's not an embellishment

45:05

Paul met with James in Jerusalem Mm -hmm. I mean, I don't you know, you can systematically doubt anything sure

45:13

But I'm that's not that's not how you do history. You do history by looking at evidence That needs to be turned into its own sound clip

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Because obviously One of the primary criticisms that have been made has been made of dr.

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Ehrman is well as Gordon Fee put it. He he takes Possibilities and turns them into probabilities and then he takes probabilities and turns them into certainties

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And that is exactly how how that works and there is an inconsistency there, right?

45:47

What do you think about dr. Bob price dr. Bob prices are on don't know. No, no, dr.

45:53

Robert M. Price Denied Jesus existed. No, I think he's pretty much leaning more toward that.

45:59

Yes. Yeah, I Don't think he I mean, he's not I don't really know him.

46:06

No Hmm interesting. Why would I why would I memo me? He's He's a theologian as well

46:16

You can look him up he has too many to mention right now he's got lots of them they're all from Prometheus though and Deconstructing Jesus.

46:25

Have you heard that one? And Yeah, he's actually communicated with me and he's told me some of his doubts and I've been puzzled by it because I Don't really understand.

46:39

I haven't seen any evidence that he's a deuce Hmm. Okay. Well, I'm not there you go

46:45

But I would suggest maybe you maybe you want to recently this stuff But again, you're so busy if I read I just like me.

46:50

I have a hundred books on the shelf I think I still haven't got a chance to read you because I get books every week, but Okay, but yeah,

46:55

I mean he's quite a bit people opposing them all in the room the colossal apostle the shrinking son of man But as you know Yeah, okay, okay

47:04

That guy. Yeah Yeah, so yeah, so I mean there so there are some people who've been researching even longer than you have and they also have

47:11

You know doctors double doctors. They've been researching this some I think he's even a professor at it. You know, he's not

47:17

Teaching at what was he? He doesn't have a teaching job I can't remember he was actually he did or does

47:24

I can't remember now. I don't keep up with him right now, but Well, he was at some place instructing on I can't remember now, but too bad.

47:33

He's not here Maybe maybe one of the fans a call up and give him give us a call in here But anyway, but anyway, my point was though I guess

47:39

I mean for me I would consider myself pretty rational guy and I try to stay away from Absolutes as much as possible whenever someone says nobody this can't be or this is impossible

47:50

Things like that New Testament scholars, I know nobody doubts that Paul of Galatians, that's what

47:56

I said and That's not an absolute statement. I mean you well, okay, I'm sorry

48:01

I guess I misunderstood you earlier sound like you didn't sound like you kind of qualified it just now But before just like you say anybody you just said nobody thinks there's nobody thinks that and I said, well,

48:09

I'm sure some Nobody of the thousands of scholars. I know doubts it Right, right okay, none of the ones, you know granted and And I know just I know all the leading figures in the field

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I'm you know, I'm I'm very active in the Society of Biblical Literature and You know,

48:29

I I know I know all the professors in the major universities in the country who teach this I mean again,

48:41

I mean, I'm not Don't Right and He doubts it

48:51

Well somebody said he doubts that Jesus existed Let me see he said that Can you hear the laughter in his voice?

48:59

He's hardly controlling himself. Oh, he's not I'm waiting for him to qualify with statements here.

49:05

I mean for Nick give more information in here, but he's not Giving us more information. But anyway, why would you think the

49:12

Hector Alvarez doubts that Jesus existed? Yeah, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for somebody Said so that's what he said about the topic the history of Jesus.

49:22

Okay. I Tell you that was fascinating I They eventually got back to you know back and forth stuff and we'll listen to that too

49:32

But I want to get to our phone caller, but that was fascinating to me It really really was to listen to Erman run into someone who is more radical than he is and his response

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The argumentation I got was believe me because I've been doing this for 30 years That was the argumentation.

49:54

I mean you got to know what the additions are. Well, yeah you do. That's true I mean you have to be able to make a case You can't just simply go radical with it

50:00

You know what what are the foundations for making the kinds of conclusions he's made and When those are challenged, especially by someone way off to his left.

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He's not used to as used to defending himself from the right not from the left and That was that was truly truly

50:17

Interesting. Anyway, I want to make sure that we can get to Gary here And if we can get back to the program depends on how long the question is, let's talk to Gary.

50:25

Hi Gary Yes. Hello, dr. White. Hi Take my call. Yes, sir. Yeah. Sure.

50:30

I have just finished reading through lost Christianity's by dr Erman and he brings up the issue of 1st

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Corinthians chapter 14 verses 34 through 35 Let the women be silent in the churches for they know they are not permitted to speak and he he brings for several arguments

50:53

Why he doesn't believe that Paul originally wrote that but but to sum up his the major thrust of his argument

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Is that he said in some of our manuscripts, which unfortunately doesn't name But he says in several of our manuscripts that we have that that these two verses appear in different places

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So and so he he theorizes that because of that that that might indicate to us that it appeared as a marginal note

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Originally and scribes would insert it where they they judge best and so Given that I was just kind of wondering what

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Christian scholarship is Has said maybe in response or just by themselves that if they've addressed that issue

51:34

It's interesting because when he first addresses this in an article called the text as window which first The text is window

51:44

New Testament manuscripts in the social history of early Christianity, which first appeared in 1995 he's not nearly as Firm on that, but he has undergone a lot of change over time as far as Asserting that the text is non -original

52:01

Actually interestingly enough one of the primary people that you will hear cited in defense of that position today is

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Gordon Fee And in fact again Dan Wallace in his Evangelical Theological Society talk this past November specifically mentioned how

52:19

Gordon Fee Has in essence argued that against the biblical evidence that what is the biblical evidence?

52:26

all the manuscripts contain the text in DFG a couple manuscripts the

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Vulgate in a couple citations of Ambrosiaster The the verses appear after verse 40 instead of after verse 33 so DFG Are are this is only found what's called the

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Western manuscripts. There's no Foundation for this in the

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Alexandrian or Byzantine Manuscripts and generally when a variant is only found within just one family.

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That's not necessarily a good thing In the sense of it having any originality. What's more is

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D is particularly idiosyncratic as I'll be discussing next week in my discussion my paper before the debate on the utilization of D as the foundation for the reading of Mark 141, but Other than that that that is the only evidence that there is is some

53:31

Western witnesses fifth century and beyond that that have a transposition there and so while you can theorize that it was some sort of a

53:41

Marginal note that's rather rather odd marginal note. There are much earlier Witnesses to the text of first Corinthians that contain this

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The vast majority of manuscripts do including the earlier witnesses that do the interesting thing is that while fee does make notice of that His argumentation against the originality of the terms is primarily based upon the idea that they these words are directly contradictory first Corinthians chapter 11

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And therefore since they're contradictory and you have that slight textual issue

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Then he jettisons them on that basis and Wallace takes him to task for that in his talk and if you're interested

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I linked to an offering of the DVDs of Dan Wallace's talk about a week and a half ago to two weeks ago on my blog

54:30

So if you'll just do a search on the blog for Dan Wallace It should pull it up and I would encourage folks to get hold of that because it was excellent information

54:40

And there is a whole discussion Well as much of a discussion as you get into in an ETS presentation of Dan's concern about the argumentation that Gordon Fee used at that point

54:51

Okay. Well, thank you very much. Dr. White. Yeah, that's that pretty much sums up. Yeah, the argumentation he uses especially yeah, like you mentioned the well, he mentions other the other his other other arguments seem to be that it's

55:03

It kind of interrupts the flow and once it's once it's taken out Yeah, there's one major there's one major problem with that and that is you go almost anywhere in Paul and You could make an argument against texts that are clearly original

55:19

There's no textual issue with them whatsoever. But sometimes Paul just all of a sudden

55:25

Goes someplace else for a while I mean, I mean look at Romans and when there's a whole section inserted then you come back to the argument

55:31

So, I mean, I I really get concerned when people Use that kind of argumentation willy -nilly especially when you you are

55:41

What what you're seeing what we need to understand today is what you're seeing in Ermin Epp and Parker DC Parker out of out of England is a post modernist movement away from a concern about the establishment of the original text to a higher emphasis upon what the variants themselves can tell you and So what

56:04

Ermin is saying and what others are saying is well, this is reflective of the early anti -woman attitude

56:10

Developing in Christianity and so entire, you know books are now being written on where you're exegeting the variant

56:19

Rather than attempting to establish the original words. There are people like DC Parker said we don't need the original words

56:26

We have we have the tradition See and so, you know just a total overthrow of the

56:32

Reformation principles and things like that and and They're bringing a lot of extraneous stuff in and so a lot of people still read them as if they're just doing text critical stuff but they're not they're they're putting a lot of emphasis upon the nature of the variants and My biggest problem with that is and this is my one of my main problems with with Ehrman's Approach in Toto is you can't mind read scribes

56:58

You can theorize until the cows come home that well, you know, this was developing that time

57:04

Maybe that influenced him maybe but I know people today Who really seem to be completely untouched?

57:12

Like the world going by around them And so if they were making if they were copying stuff in the

57:18

New Testament, there might be great theological battles going on around They wouldn't know it. They're there.

57:23

They're in their own world. How do you know that scribe wasn't like that? You just you can't mind read Ancient scribes in the way that some modern scholars would like to you can publish lots of papers where you theorize about stuff

57:34

But what good really is that in the final analysis other than the number of trees that get killed in the process?

57:39

Sorry, Katie So anyway, that's just something else to keep in to keep in mind.

57:45

Okay, right, right, right Thank you for your call god bless okay

57:50

All right One more dividing line before we head off to Florida and we will attempt to arrange some dividing lines while I am gone

57:59

Certainly a debate report would be in line. Obviously, we'll do our best even though Thursday's gonna be really rough to try to do something

58:07

Like that, but we'll see how we can work out. But this Thursday will still be here. We might be able to wrap up the infidel guy

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Bart Ehrman program and So on and so forth I obviously very focused about what's going on hoping that you're praying for next week because I think it could be a

58:24

Tremendously useful encounter for the body of Christ. We'll see you on Thursday. God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

59:34

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59:46

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