July 3, 2003

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

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

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

Opening Banter and the Day's Topic

And good evening and welcome to the dividing line. My name is James White. It is. Oh it a cold front must have moved through in the past few minutes. It's dropped from 112 degrees all the way down to a measly a paltry 109 degrees.

Yes. Look at that dew point the dew point is sneaking upwards that for those of you in the Phoenix area. That that means that we're only 10 degrees south of the monsoon level. Yeah, yeah here it comes those two and a half three months of Such joyous experiences, I'll never forget that one that one year a few years ago average high for the entire month of July 111 degrees.

It was warm on and since we had a few rolling blackouts, it wasn't due to lack of supply but Stuff like blowing up which happens sometimes when it gets really really really warm. You know, you never know we could all sudden just disappear just poof gone and that's because it you know.

The lights went out and if that happens, well, I'll tell you man that temperature starts going up so fast. Anyway, eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. You better get in while the getting is good because like I said, you know the the rolling blackouts could roll right on through here and That would be the end of the program for this evening.

So please feel free to Join us on the program tonight sort of open phones and various and sundry other things. We. If I had been willing to completely readjust the timeframe of the program and do it like What what were they looking for about four or five hours earlier than right now?

If I've been willing to do that, we would have had.

Maybe.

Had a a a Roman Catholic scholar by his own profession a a TA a teacher authorized by the magisterium. To join us and maybe he will do so next Tuesday. Who knows but Gentlemen that we we know only as Aquinas you may recall back in March.

I think it was March 13th of the 20th we were going to do a debate on the Apocrypha and. Well last night we had the most interesting conversation.

On.

In in the apologetics channel. Now those of you who don't know about our channels so one of them is sort of just for debate and the other more for discussion and Fellowship and things like that, even though we have debates in there, too.

And it you know, we're sort of inconsistent as to what we do. But anyway last night. So mr. Aquinas person was in channel.

And.

Started there was a that tempted discussion at dealing with the meaning of a few passages of Scripture. Specifically John chapter 10 verse 26 and the relationship between faith and Regeneration and and issues like that and John 1026 says but you do not believe because you are not of my church.

And of course, there's a relationship there. The reason that you do not believe is because you are not of my sheep not the other way around and There is an attempt to get that conversation going. Zeke are you trying to get on the air here?

Is that is that the idea? I've got a huge Massive yellow lab is the yellow labs that what he is. Yeah, and he's he's going nuts on the floor behind me. He's really excited and happy and things like that.

So and now he's rolling over on his back. If I'm dead weight, it's sort of like Operation Rescue they can't get rid of me. That's how that's how rich gets his workout is picking Zeke up because he doesn't want to leave my office.

He's a big boy, isn't he? He's he's he's big dog big big big dog. Anyway, what in the world was I talking about? Oh. Very quickly the conversation devolved into well, how can we really know what scripture says anyway?

And I've been hearing this so much. We all hear it if you if you and if you interact with almost anyone. You hear this. Well, you know, that's just your interpretation. How how do you know that you're right?

And you know every group we talked to raises this issue. Catholics raised this issue the Mormons raised this issue. Of course, none of them can point to any allegedly infallible interpretation of a passage like John 10 26 to begin with.

But that doesn't seem to stop them from being willing to question the ability of this passage to speak and to communicate truth and So there was this a little bit of discussion. We had some philosophical discussion he claims to be trained as a philosopher and all this stuff and So it sort of died out because I just the older I get the less Time and the less Patience I have for people who just want to sit around and make up philosophical excuses for not listening To the obvious truth the Word of God.

I just I don't know if I'm just becoming a An angry old man or a grumpy old man or just you know, just what it is. But I just I just get tired of it. And so the conversation sort of died for a few minutes and then all of a sudden out of the blue somewhere came this statement about the original languages from mr. Aquinas person and The conversation very quickly intensified into a discussion of whether we can know what the New Testament originally said and He took the very unusual position unusual in the sense that Roman Catholic scholars Roman Catholic scholarship is involved in Doing textual critical studies the the text that is used By Roman Catholics and Protestants alike as far as for scholarly study is the same Greek text.

And there's you know, I know that Rome in the past has done its infallible version stuff. They did the Latin Vulgate thing is very embarrassing and has caused them no end of difficulties and all the rest that stuff.

But they've basically gotten back, you know past that stuff. And here's the person saying well, you don't know what the originals said. You don't you don't have any idea whatsoever and I'm like Excuse me, but have you ever studied textual criticism?

Do you have any idea? of the of the manuscript evidence we have and things like that not and I started thinking about the Article that we mentioned last week on the dividing line right toward the end Mike from New Jersey Called in and point out that article on fair on the fair website, which by the way I've been looking at and primarily draws from Clement of Alexandria now, there's a real solid source for textual studies and.

But the assertion being well, there's this perversion. There is this destruction of the text and and all the rest of stuff and Here I'm hearing it again. But this time the context of seeking to undercut The ability to for the Word of God to speak the truth concerning the gospel itself and It just reminded me how all of this stuff is tied together and how Apologists today cannot just simply sit around and do what they've done For a number of decades now and and you know read up on some surface level stuff about the basic beliefs of other groups.

There needs to be Meaningful study in our own background in our own history and our in our own disciplines first and foremost before anything else. There's just no question about it and the neat thing about doing study like in let's say some like textual criticism.

Is that when you're studying that let's say? Let's say to Respond to Such an assertion by Aquinas this fellow named Aquinas in a chat channel. Okay, he's challenged you maybe in a web board something like that.

And.

So you want to you want to give a response? Okay, the neat thing is that study that you do there will then put you in good stead to respond to the Mormon who's reading the fair website and to The King James only person who tries to split your church with stuff like that.

It in in other words the more you study Positively your own faith the wider the impact it has. And the larger number of areas that you can use it in it's it's a really good. Oh, yeah, certainly to the atheists.

That's that's the constant assertion that they're making so You know teaching in Bible study answering the questions of the kids in your Bible study class if you teach a children's Bible study or Youth Bible study they go off to college.

They run into all this stuff. You know, this is this is all very very important stuff, but I Also had to admit the vast majority of folks Probably could not have responded to Aquinas's Argumentation not that his argumentation was reflective of even the best of Roman Catholic scholarship by any means.

But still the assertion being well, you know Prove your point. How do you know and you know, he had asked well, how do I know that we have? What was originally written I said, well, there's a number of things first of all is the state of the text in its most primitive form that we can document is one that gives clear evidence of a.

Non.

Corrupted stream of transmission in fact When I use the term and it's a technical term. It's a term used By scholars in the field from every perspective. I use the term the manuscript tradition. And he said see see you're appealing to tradition and I'm just like oh my goodness.

There is Absolutely, no connection Whatsoever between the technical use the term manuscript tradition which refers to the entirety of the manuscripts In in and normally in all languages and the Roman Catholic concept of tradition.

I mean, it was just amazing this person did as far as I could tell well, they didn't want to do it positive. They didn't want to say. Oh, well, I have degrees in this area, but they basically said well, you know You don't know what I've studied you don't know what my degrees are in therefore I may well be very studied in this area.

Well, it was very clear from his comments that he wasn't but anyway, I Answered the question How do you know we have the originals by referring to the state of the manuscript tradition or the manuscript?

The stream of the transmission of the text once we can establish it say around the year 200. The nature that it has at that time in those earliest manuscripts Demonstrates a a pure transmission stream.

What I mean by that is let's let's think about this for a moment together. Because I think this is important for people to understand. One of the arguments that's made for example in that fair article we mentioned last week was since we don't have anything between 100 and 200 as far as absolute manuscripts now.

Obviously we have writings of some of the early church fathers, but obviously citations By an early church father not the same as having a manuscript. You don't know whether they are Paraphrasing you don't know what they're quoting from necessarily.

So you can't utilize them the same way and I point out Those sources themselves have had to been passed down to us over time and there are very few meaningful Scholarly studies as far as the actual transmission of the text of the early church fathers and so.

They're not quite as useful to us in that way. And so aside from one little small manuscript p52, which is just a couple verses from acts or for John chapter 18 the first major Manuscripts we have like p66 p75 p46 come from around the year 200 in that area.

And I'm not getting into all discussions of whether and we found anything at Qumran or anything like that. Just the stuff that everyone agrees on here and that is being used as the foundation for modern text.

All right, so you've got a hundred years there. How do we know? That during that period of time and let's let's start with the assumption that at least what the New Testament says is true in regards to the means in which the the New Testament writers wrote and Sent letters you have Paul sending for example the letter to Ephesus and the letter the church of Colossae at the same time, okay, and so they Send these letters to these churches.

Well, we don't see the a physical manuscript of Colossians until around a papyri manuscript known as p46.

So.

How do we know that between the writing In around let's use a round number. Let's go with 60 80 60 for the writing of the letter. It could be obviously earlier than that, but let's go with that 80 60 140 years.

How do we know what took place between now and then because obviously we can establish from 200 onwards. We can establish that the text very well. How do we know that between those two periods of time there weren't these massive changes and that's the allegation being made By individuals like the like the Mormons and things like that.

How do we know? Well, let's think about it. Let's uh, let's say let's go with the theoretical argumentation here. That there has been some major changes. Let's go with the Book of Mormon here. It says many plain and precious truths have been removed and and that the Book of Colossians actually when it was was was originally written contained prophecies of Joseph Smith and Directions on the building of temples and the establishment of the Melchizedek priesthood.

How's that? I had three extra chapters that just aren't there anymore.

Now.

Let's say then That that letter arrives at Colossi. What happens that letter? Well? It is to be read publicly in the church and it was read publicly in the church and Copies were made and distributed to other church.

Remember it's even in Colossians I believe it's 416 where Paul says read the letter that's coming from Laodicea, which I believe was was Ephesians. And so very quickly. There was a distribution of these letters and so you don't just have one.

Sitting in one place, and this is extremely important because if you're going to make changes The more copies are running around the harder it gets. For example if you write an email and you send it out to a BCC list of a hundred people at your place of employment and After you hit that dreaded send button you realize that you messed up and You included in there.

All sorts of personal information you didn't want included in there. You've got a problem because it may be possible for you to run over to your neighbor's desk and quickly delete the one copy you sent there or Edit it bring it up on the screen and edit it, but it's pretty tough to do with 100 copies.

Especially that have gone all over The building or maybe even your business is Transcontinental international. That email went to Japan that email went to Russia. You're not going to get those emails back, okay?

Not going to happen and so as these manuscripts are being copied and Are moving away from the original place where they were sent so letter to the Colossians. Eventually there's in a very short period of time.

There's a copy at Ephesus and then you have a man traveling through Ephesus to Rome and he sees both the letter to the Ephesians and the letter to the Colossians and He happens to have a copy of Paul's letter to the church at Rome and So they copy these and they you know can I can I bring what Paul wrote to you?

To our fellowship at Rome and you can copy what Paul wrote to us in Rome and you can have it if you don't have it already and So you get this distribution and very very quickly over a short period of time.

No they did not have photocopiers. But the the words of the Apostles and the directions of the Apostles were considered very very seriously and therefore You have these copies going all over the known world.

Not only that. But let's say you have persecution takes place Couple decades after the letter to the Colossians is sent to the church at Colossi. Persecution breaks out locally in that area. That's how much most persecution in the early church was it was localized.

Only when we get into the third century did it become? Truly Empire wide fully and so you get local.

Persecution and.

One of the things that was a part of local persecution was finding the Christian scriptures. They wanted to destroy the Christian scriptures.

So.

What happens is the Christians want to hide them and so let's say Persecution breaks out and at Colossi they take that letter from from Paul, which has already been copied it's already been. There are now copies of this in Palestine and in Italy and Spain and and North Africa, it's all over the place by now.

But they hide it away, but let's say they hide away so well and the people who hid it are killed. That manuscript could end up buried in the ground it could end up maybe they would bind it in together with something that was not clearly Christian and It becomes lost and it doesn't become discovered for well for how long sometimes many hundreds or even a thousand.

Years or more later.

That's what happens for example with some of the papyri manuscripts were found in the in in Egypt or in Palestine itself. Now what does all of this end up meaning well? If you have someone let's let's go back to our theory here.

That first pistol to the Colossians had all this stuff about Joseph Smith and in temple ordinances and the Mechizovic priesthood. And then for some reason Someone decided to remove many plain and precious truths, okay.

Now when did they do it? Well if they remove them after the initial copying you now have some copies of Colossians let's say in in Rome that contain three more chapters. But now you have these new copies in Colossi that have been altered and when they're copied they don't have them.

Or let's say let's change the the nature of the of the alteration. Let's say What Paul writes to Colossians? What a person doesn't like is Certain elements of the teaching of Colossians. Let's say they don't like the teaching of the deity of Christ in Colossians.

And so they make a copy of it. But they take that stuff out, and then they copy their copy and they distribute their copy. Well again if the other existed and was copied at all then now you're going to have all these conflicting Copies of the one book and there's going to be certain similarities, but then in other places there's going to be these massive massive differences and remember in Some cases you're going to have manuscripts that are simply lost they are they're no longer available to be altered or changed even if someone could gain the Ecclesiastical or political authority over a certain area and gather up all these manuscripts.

They wouldn't be able to get to those manuscripts that have already disappeared. And so if they did and this is very very common theory that for example Roman Catholicism Came along and altered the text.

That's a that's a favorite argument that a lot of cult groups will use is that Rome came along and altered the text or you've got Shirley MacLaine running around saying you know the Bible used to teach reincarnation.

But it took it out that kind of stuff the problem is even if a person gathered up all of The manuscripts that they get hold of at their particular time. They could not get to those ones that have already been hidden away and lost.

What's the result of all this well in hindsight looking from where we are if that is what happened if there were these? Massive changes.

In.

The earliest manuscripts during that first hundred years. Then when we first are able to Establish a manuscript tradition. When we're first able to see more than one manuscript from more than one area.

The papyri manuscripts that we have today. P66 p75 p46 p52 etc etc. The P standing for papyri of course. Once we establish that what are we going to see? If there has been.

Substantial.

Disruption of that transmission in the form of editing removal of massive chunks of material insertion of massive chunks of material that Initial text that we see is going to demonstrate this clearly.

We're going to have manuscripts of Colossians that are going to be fundamentally and foundationally different Than other manuscripts of Colossians and Anyone who knows anything about those about the study of textual criticism and about?

Those original manuscripts that we have today those papyri manuscripts the first unsealed manuscripts Knows one thing and That is the earliest text that we can establish. Shows no evidence of that kind of tampering at all.

The only way to explain the form and character of the earliest Obtainable manuscript tradition the text of the New Testament is to recognize that it was not the subject of that kind of massive alteration.

The only differences between The manuscripts are those that are explainable and understandable upon the basis of simple copyist error. That's it and I'm talking there about the deletion of the word and the deletion of a phrase due to what's called homo a tell utahn where you have if you're copying along and everyone has who has Ever worked on a book report or written a paper even today on computers has done the same thing.

You've got your you've got this thing over here. You're typing off of you print something out and you're quoting from it. And so you go over and you're typing away, and you type the word. Well, I'll just look at the screen here and Mr.. Sky man just said entertaining.

How non entertaining of him so you just type the word entertaining and so you go? Ing your eye goes back and the sentence that you were reading said entertaining and Then disciplining them now disciplining also ends with ing when your eye goes back.

Instead of catching the ing at the end of entertaining you catch the ing at the end of disciplining. And you continue going from there as a result inadvertently you delete an entire phrase. It's not that you disagreed with the phrase or anything like it.

The simple fact the matter is it's a common error of sight. I can give you numerous examples first John 3 1 Contains a clear example of homo a tell utahn where certain manuscripts later manuscripts Accidentally delete a phrase, and it's it's purely accidental that's called an error of sight that happens in every single handwritten manuscript tradition of every book of Of antiquity that there is and it is easily detected, and it does not affect The final outcome because you can recognize when it has taken place and so the manuscript tradition as we establish it when we get the first documentary evidence and remember over the past couple of hundred years.

We have seen the earliest Text of the New Testament pushed back and back and back and back. We you know what in the 18? Late 1800s we saw the date pushed back to the time of the Council of Nicaea then in the 1930s pushed back to the beginning of the third century around the year 200 and.

So.

When that has happened that has not resulted in some Copernican Revolution concerning the text New Testament. All it has done has been in fact to increase our confidence in the text of the New Testament.

Now these are basic things. This is this is not. This isn't rocket science in any way shape or form. But it is stuff that I think folks need to know. I've addressed a lot of this in The King James only controversy one of the books.

I'm going to be Writing before the end of the year. We'll have a whole section on this. I'm going to expand on some of the thoughts. I had in the King James only controversy. I'm going to expand on what we were talking about right right now during this this period so people understand how we got hold of the text of the Bibles we have it today and.

So.

This isn't rocket science, but it is something that we need to understand because so many people Attack the sufficiency of scripture on this basis. There's another way in which they attack the sufficiency of scripture.

We'll talk about that possibly and take your phone calls at eight seven seven seven five three thirty three forty one. We'll be right back after this break.

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But you're ready today mister. Strong and true.

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What is dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book chosen, but free. A new cult. Secularism. False prophecy scenarios. No, dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism.

He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent Philosophically insufficient and morally repugnant. In his book the potter's freedom James White replies to dr. Geisler, but the potter's freedom is much more than just a reply.

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed it is a defense of the very gospel itself in a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate.

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The potter's freedom a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's chosen. But free you'll find it in the reformed theology section of our bookstore at a omen org.

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

The software crashed. The software crashed. I just was like hey, you know, you know, I think I've just said just about enough and that's it.

I'm not.

Happen last time that happened. Well, actually that was last night. Was my fault this time.

It just kind of went, you know, I've had enough. Goodnight and and and and. What test did you run on it since. Since Tuesday?

Hello. Hello.

Well, you know we every program we have to demonstrate our professional skills and capacities in some way shape or form and. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. I can guarantee you one thing.

Even though someone didn't have time to check the software Someone had time to play with the phones. I can guarantee you that that is a reality. Let's go ahead and see if those same phones are still working and can let us talk to Steve in the the great liberal bastion that home of socialism and all sorts of other social experimentation.

Known as New Jersey. Hello Steve. How are you? Dr. White? I'm doing well.

I'm doing well to it. 80 degrees blows you busy.

Enjoying New Jersey right now. It's a hundred and ten. You said that that it's low humidity there right now. Yeah, not too bad that that'll that will change. Oh, I'm sure it will.

Yes, sir, what can we do for you? Well just a couple of things. First a question on you. Just contextual criticism of ancient Documents isn't there first of all chief for doing that. And when you apply that methodology documents that have Let's say copies eight hundred a thousand years from the event.

I think it's Homer and some of the others. And yet don't apply that same standard to the ancient documents of the scriptures.

Well, yes, certainly. There's no question that secular scholars look at New Testament scholars and and scoff in the sense that we have such a huge amount of.

Of.

Documentary evidence that that goes to such a period so close to the original. That in comparison to most secular scholars who are working on secular sources and secular texts. That that we have an embarrassingly large amount of information from which to draw.

But of course since we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God Obviously there's a little higher standard that we have to live up to in that particular context. But but you're exactly right.

I've heard many atheists.

Utilize.

Argumentation that from any secular standpoint would be considered absolutely ridiculous. But they they they apply a separate standard to the New Testament anyway even even if you said well.

Let's let's forget about the miracles and what's better forget about whether you believe what it says. It did say it it was written at that time based on your own standard. Exactly. Mm-hmm. The other thing is I'd like you to comment on Versus.

I guess it's at the end of mark. I'm picking up snakes and all that other stuff right. That's the one which.

In my opinion. I don't think was yeah, actually I just got back from doing a little snake handling myself, but no.

The.

Tambourines and the the poison stuff. Yeah, it's that's great. Yeah, I addressed the the lot of the what's called the longer ending of Mark fairly fully in the we use yeah I was just informed we use scorpions here in the in the desert and rattlesnakes, but The longer ending of mark I addressed rather fully in the King James only controversy there's a whole section Discussing the the textual evidence and and issues related to it to make a long story short.

I would agree with you Certainly the vast majority of manuscripts contain the longer ending of mark however the fact that there are a number of Of the most ancient manuscripts that and here's the key issue Either do not contain it or and here's where I focus my attention Contain it with marks indicating that it is an insertion or contain it and Other endings there's a there's a middle length ending to the gospel of mark as well there would be no reason for the development of a Middle length ending if the longer ending was original with the gospel of mark now.

We're talking here about the Largest textual variants in the New Testament as far as number of words go the second one would be John 753 through 811 and the last one would probably be well probably well not first on five seven, but maybe an axe eight or something like that, but this is the largest textual variant the the ending of mark and From my perspective there the the most telling arguments, and this is the argument that AT Robertson Presented as well the most telling argument against the longer ending is the existence of manuscripts that either contain the longer ending And the middle ending the existence of markings indicating.

This is not original in ancient manuscripts, which is extremely unusual. As well as the the nature of the longer ending being very different than the rest of the gospel of mark itself seemingly drawing from Apocryphal stories that were prevalent during the second century and So this is actually an example of what I've what I was talking about and that is when we can establish the text of the gospel of mark There at the beginning of the third century in the early 200s we are immediately able to detect The largest variants in the Gospels at the end of the gospel of mark.

And we have a number of different ways of doing it. It's not just one manuscript someplace and like that. There are a number of things that leap up and and grab our attention.

So there's a preponderance of evidence or preponderance of things you could use to deduce what you need to deduce from it.

Well, unless of course you end up Giving to a particular form of the text a a kind of religious authority. Which is what many people do with what's called the textus receptus the TR. Which is the basis of the King James Version and the New King James Version of that matter.

And so your King James only advocates your TR only advocates those who promote what's called the ecclesiastical text. You know, we'll all have to in essence accept this. Certainly majority text people will have to accept it as well.

But it does illustrate I think very well the fact that modern textual critical work is very much on target in Considering all the facts of each issue as they as they arise. All right. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much, sir.

You take care. You enjoy that nice cool weather out there for a while.

Do.

Bye-bye Steve in New Jersey. Remember Steve it's going to it's going to snow on you someday and it's not ever ever ever going to snow. Well, okay. All right. I'll take that back that I have seen.

Some.

Little teeny tiny Snowflakes in my headlights in Phoenix, but that was they didn't stick once they hit the ground they're gone. You know that reminds me as we are waiting for the the phones to explode with all of you callers who've just been waiting to get in.

I Was listening to the Bible answer man broadcast in the hour before we did this. And I was driving around I had to go get some dog food. Actually, you know my dog well, she's hungry and Let's go get some one of those big old 60-pound bags of dog food because she's she's a big dog and.

So I was coming back and I was listening and I was pretty amazed that yeah, it does hail in Phoenix doesn't Theo.

That.

Way the call. I heard this guy call in and you know what you listen to these programs long enough. And I've been on the Bible answer man a number of times you listen these programs long enough and you can sort of tell when someone calls in and They're trying to sound like they've got a question.