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Daniel B. Wallace and Bart D. Ehrman Debate: Can We Trust the Text of the New Testament? — Transcript

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0:21can we trust the New Testament this
0:26question could mean a number of
0:27different things it could mean is the
0:29New Testament historically accurate it
0:32might mean is it theologically true it
0:34might mean is it internally consistent
0:36those are all important questions but
0:39they are not our focus tonight instead
0:41our focus is on a more specific question
0:44can we trust the text of the New
0:48Testament and by text we mean quite
0:50literally the words that make up the New
0:53Testament can we know the original text
0:56can we know the exact words the original
1:00authors wrote or has the text become so
1:03garbled by the mistakes and intentional
1:06changes by scribes over the centuries
1:07that we can no longer know what the
1:11texts originally were another way of
1:14thinking about this question is to ask
1:15this how badly did ancient and medieval
1:19scribes corrupt the text of the New
1:23Testament this is a crucial question for
1:27properly understanding the New Testament
1:29and as our speakers will note we do not
1:31have any of the original manuscripts
1:34that the biblical writers produced we
1:37don't have a single original not a
1:38single autograph I refer you to the
1:42glossary and your program for
1:44definitions of technical terms like
1:46autograph instead of autographs what we
1:49have or copies or rather copies of
1:51copies or even copies of copies of
1:53copies on the one hand we're fortunate
1:55and have thousands of these copies over
1:575,800 Greek manuscripts of various sizes
2:00with more still being discovered for
2:02example a team from the center led by
2:04dr. Wallace just this past spring
2:07discovered four new Greek biblical
2:10manuscripts in Athens in addition to
2:14Greek manuscripts we also have thousands
2:16more manuscripts and languages like
2:18Latin Kotlik ithi optics Slovak Georgia
2:20Armenia Syriac we also have quotes and
2:24allusions to the New Testament from
2:25various ancient writers so this is a
2:27remarkable set of data think of the
2:31skill set that scholars have to work
2:34to actually read all of these languages
2:37this is why text criticism is one of the
2:40most difficult subfields of biblical
2:42studies in which to work this abundance
2:46of data however creates its own set of
2:48problems we have all of these
2:50manuscripts but they differ from each
2:52other the cause of the text variants
2:55introduced by scribes when we compare
2:58the different readings can we determine
3:01that one reading is more likely to be
3:02original than the others if not if we
3:05can't construct the original text how
3:07far back can we push it how early can we
3:11get and if we can't determine the
3:13original text how much does it matter
3:16these are the sorts of questions that
3:18text critics tackle and we're fortunate
3:21to have two of the best-known text
3:24critics in the world Daniel B Wallace
3:26and Bart dear Minh we'll see that when
3:30they examine the evidence they find much
3:33with which to agree with each other but
3:35they find much on which they disagree
3:38herman has argued that we can't always
3:40know the original text of biblical
3:43writers while Wallace's Center is
3:45devoted to the great and noble task of
3:48determining the autographs of the New
3:50Testament that's a quote from the
3:52centers website for Armen we will always
3:55have significant gaps in our knowledge
3:57of the original text unless an autograph
4:00turns up for wallace while the task of
4:04determining the original is not complete
4:06it can be done and we are well on our
4:09way to doing it clearly they disagree
4:13and yet as you'll see despite their
4:15differences they obviously have great
4:18professional respect for each other our
4:23format for tonight is laid out in the
4:25program each scholar will present an
4:27opening argument of approximately 30
4:29minutes first outer airman then dr.
4:32Wallace after the opening arguments the
4:34two will have opportunities to respond
4:36to each other and then another round of
4:39response after that afterwards there
4:43will be time for questions from the
4:44audience and will conclude
4:46closing arguments first my daughter
4:48Erman and then by dr. Wallace you will
4:51then go home and debate who won I'll
4:56introduce each speaker before his
4:58opening argument and now I'll begin
5:01Bart Deerman is the James a gray
5:04distinguished teacher in the Department
5:06of Religious Studies at the University
5:08of North Carolina at Chapel Hill he
5:11earned his BA from Wheaton College his
5:13Master of Divinity and PhD from
5:16Princeton Theological Seminary where he
5:19worked with famed text critic Bruce
5:21Metzger after teaching for a few years
5:24at Rutgers University he arrived at the
5:26University of North Carolina in 1988
5:29herman has lectured all over the world
5:31but you don't have to leave home to
5:33listen to him he's video taped several
5:35lecture series through the teaching
5:37company you may have encountered him on
5:40his numerous radio and television
5:41appearances on CNN and on shows like
5:43fresh air with Terry Gross the Diane
5:47Rehm Show The Daily Show with Jon
5:49Stewart and even The Colbert Report
5:53twice unfortunately New Testament
5:58scholars by definition are unable to
6:00reach any level of cool so nice try
6:07Erlin has authored co-authored or edited
6:1026 books that was yesterday's count it
6:15may be outdated many of these have been
6:18enormous ly successful at least four
6:21have made it onto the New York Times
6:23bestseller list which never happens for
6:27biblical scholarship in turning biblical
6:30scholarship into bestsellers dr. Ehrman
6:33has inadvertently proven that miracles
6:35do happen
6:39[Laughter]
6:43[Music]
6:47his books range from technical studies
6:50out inscriptions and particulars to
6:53widely used introductory textbooks such
6:57as the New Testament and historical
6:59introduction to early Christian writings
7:00which just entered its fifth edition -
7:03works on historical Jesus the Lost
7:05Gospel of Judas and Peter Paul and Mary
7:08Magdalene
7:10his most recent book just out is forged
7:14writing in the name of God why the
7:17Bible's authors are not who we think
7:20they are for our purposes I would like
7:23to highlight three other books he's the
7:25co-author with the late bruce metzger of
7:27the fifth edition of the classic book
7:29the text of the New Testament which is a
7:31standard reference for students and
7:33scholars alike he also wrote the
7:35Orthodox corruption of Scripture the
7:39effect of early christological
7:41controversies on the text of the New
7:42Testament in which he argued that some
7:45of the changes scribes made to the
7:47biblical texts were theologically
7:49motivated he continues this same
7:51argument in the more popular level book
7:53misquoting Jesus the story behind who
7:57changed the Bible and why which is a
8:00very readable introduction to text
8:01criticism for those just beginning to
8:04learn about it and short he has thought
8:06quite a bit and written quite a lot on
8:09the issues under discussion tonight Bart
8:13we welcome you here tonight and we ask
8:15can we trust the text of the New
8:18Testament
8:21[Applause]
8:31well thank you very much for that
8:33generous introduction mark and thank you
8:36all for for coming out so just to get
8:40things started let me ask how many of
8:42you would consider yourselves Bible
8:44believing Christians okay how many of
8:50you were here to see me get creamed
8:55right okay all right so all I ask is
9:08that you approach it with an open mind I
9:13I have long thought about these issues
9:15as Mark was pointing out I did my PhD
9:18with Bruce Metzger who was the world's
9:21leading scholar in text criticism I was
9:24his final PhD student I did a both a
9:27master's thesis and a PhD dissertation
9:29under him and then when I when I
9:32graduated from Princeton seminary I
9:35wrote for several years nothing except
9:38for books on textual criticism I decided
9:41a number of years ago five or six years
9:44ago to try and write a book for popular
9:47audiences to explain what it is scholars
9:52have said about this field and that was
9:54the book misquoting Jesus that Mark
9:56mentioned I should I should say that
9:59when I wrote misquoting Jesus that's not
10:00the title that I wanted to give it you
10:03may not know this but but scholars who
10:05write books for popular audiences
10:06usually don't give don't give the titles
10:09to the book they're not allowed to give
10:11the titles to the book and it's not a
10:12title that I wanted actually since the
10:15book has to deal deals with how the New
10:18Testament had been transmitted over the
10:20centuries by scribes who sometimes
10:21changed the text
10:23I heard title for the book was lost in
10:26transmission which I thought was a
10:30pretty good pretty good title my my
10:33publisher though decided against it
10:35because they thought that in in places
10:37like Texas if we called it lost in
10:39transmission and somebody went to the
10:41Barnes & Noble and saw it on
10:42shelf they would assume that it was a
10:44book about NASCAR I suggested that might
10:50improve sales
10:56can we trust the text of the New
10:58Testament to get to this question I need
11:01to give a little bit of background about
11:03how we got the New Testaments when you
11:05read the New Testament today you pick up
11:07the Gospel of Mark and you read the
11:08words and you assume you're reading the
11:10words that Mark wrote of course you
11:12assume that but you're reading them in
11:15English and Mark wrote in Greek and are
11:18you reading the words that mark himself
11:20actually wrote even if they are
11:21correctly translated from Greek into
11:24English first we have to think about the
11:28original mark we don't know who mark was
11:31we don't know where he lived we don't
11:32know when he was writing it's usually
11:34thought that he was a Greek speaking
11:36Christian living writing sometime around
11:38the Year 70 so about 40 years after
11:41Jesus death and some people think he was
11:43writing in Rome I don't know where he is
11:45writing let's say he was writing in Rome
11:46let's say he's writing in Rome around
11:49the Year 70 mark wrote down an account
11:52of Jesus life death and resurrection
11:56this book that he wrote was put into
12:00circulation the way books were typically
12:02put in circulation in the ancient world
12:04he got handed around if somebody wanted
12:08a copy of the book they couldn't simply
12:10go to the Barnes & Noble there wasn't a
12:12Barnes & Noble and the book had not been
12:14mass-produced it had been written either
12:16by Mark himself or by a scribe by hand
12:19if somebody wanted to have a copy of
12:22their own they had to make a copy or to
12:25have somebody else make a copy for them
12:28and so mark was eventually copied maybe
12:33mark was copied many times maybe he's
12:36copied only a couple of times but once
12:39it was copied more copies were needed
12:42and so some people copied the copies and
12:46then some people copied the copies of
12:48the copies and some people copied the
12:50copies of the copies of the copies of
12:52the copies now I don't know if you've
12:54ever tried to write out a copy of one of
12:57the books of the New Testament like the
12:59Gospel of Mark but I can guarantee you
13:01if you do that you're going to make a
13:03mistake you might make lots of
13:07States and you are much more highly
13:12educated and literate than the vast
13:16majority of early Christians mistakes
13:19happen when people copy texts and the
13:22problem is when somebody copies a text
13:24and makes a mistake the next person who
13:27copies the copy replicates the mistakes
13:31of his predecessor and he makes mistakes
13:35of his own and then somebody comes along
13:37and copies that copy and when they copy
13:39that copy they replicate the mistakes of
13:41both of their predecessors and they make
13:43their own mistakes and then somebody
13:45copies that copy and it goes on like
13:48that for year after year after year
13:51the only time mistakes get corrected is
13:54when a scribe is copying the text and
13:55realize oh this copy has a mistake and
13:58they try to correct the mistake but they
14:01don't know what the original said
14:02they're just trying to make it right
14:04it's possible that when somebody tries
14:07to correct a mistake that they correct
14:09it incorrectly in which case you've got
14:12the original copy you've got the mistake
14:14and you've got the mistaken correction
14:16of the mistake three forms of the text
14:18and then somebody copies that form of
14:20the text and it goes on like that month
14:24after month year after year decade after
14:27decade and so you get copies of the
14:30copies of the copies we don't have the
14:34original version of mark we don't have
14:35the book erode we don't have the first
14:37copy made of mark or the any of the
14:40first copies or copies of the copies and
14:43we don't have copies of the copies of
14:45the copies of mark Mark's book was
14:48copied for very many years before we
14:51have any copy the first copy we have of
14:55mark is a manuscript that scholars have
14:57called p45 now they call it p45 because
15:00it's it's written on papyrus which was
15:03the ancient equivalent of paper it was
15:05the writing material people used to use
15:07and it's called p45 because this happens
15:10to be the 45th papyrus manuscript of the
15:13new testament that was that was
15:14cataloged and so it's called p45 this is
15:19what it looks like
15:20this is one page of p45 you can see that
15:24that it is not a complete page as you
15:27can see there there are holes in the
15:29manuscript here and here and the sum of
15:31the margin is missing here but this is
15:32this is actually one of the
15:34best-preserved pages of this manuscript
15:36P 45 P 45 is not a complete manuscript
15:41of Mark obviously there's some things
15:42missing on this particular page it's it
15:45doesn't have anything from the first
15:46three chapters it starts with chapter
15:48for this surviving fragment we have it's
15:51it's not entire just fragmentary this
15:55copy has only five verses from mark
15:58chapter four and then it has verses from
16:01following several eight chapters it goes
16:03from basically chapter forward to
16:04chapter 12 so it doesn't have the last
16:06four chapters it doesn't have the first
16:08three chapters so it's a missing the
16:09first three the last four and it has
16:11some some bits of the stuff in between
16:13this is our first copy of the Gospel of
16:17Mark that survived except for small
16:19fragments we have a small scrap or two
16:21here there but this is basically the
16:23first first copy of any use to us so
16:27it's our oldest copy and it's usually
16:28dated to around the Year 220 220 CE or
16:32ad 220 now if mark was written in the
16:35year 70 that means this copy was made a
16:38hundred and fifty years after the
16:42original and it's our first copy this
16:47kind of time gap is not unusual in the
16:50New Testament this is the kind of time
16:52gap we're talking about for most of the
16:54books of the New Testament not just a
16:56gospel mark for most of them just using
16:57mark as as an as an illustration we
17:00don't have a complete copy of the Gospel
17:03of Mark until the middle of the fourth
17:05century until about the middle of the
17:08fourth century 300 years of copying
17:13before we have a complete copy that
17:17survives there were lots of copies made
17:20before this complete copy and there were
17:22lots of copies made before P 45 P 45 is
17:27not a copy of the original mark
17:28it's a copy probably of a copy made a
17:31few years earlier which was a copy of
17:34coppy made few years earlier which was a
17:36copy of a copy made few years earlier
17:37and so on and so on there have been
17:40numerous stages between the original and
17:43our first copy how many mistakes had
17:47crept into the text before we start
17:49getting copies there's no way to know
17:55because we don't have earlier copies
17:59these are the earliest the first
18:02complete copy 300 years after how many
18:05intervening stages of copying was we
18:07don't we simply don't know we can't know
18:11because we don't have we don't have the
18:12manuscripts to tell us this again is not
18:16simply true for the gospel mark it's
18:18true for all of the books of the New
18:19Testament it seems like when you buy the
18:22New Testament that we know what's in it
18:23because you go to the bookstore and you
18:25buy a New Testament and you know you go
18:28to another book store you buy the new 10
18:29it's the same thing but not in the
18:33ancient world if you lived in Rome and
18:35you read a copy of mark and then you
18:38went to Ephesus and read a copy of mark
18:41you might be reading two different
18:43copies with two different wordings of
18:46this passage or that passage these
18:51copies are circulating throughout the
18:53Roman world wherever Christians were
18:55they wanted of course they wanted copies
18:57of the Gospels if you wanted a copy of
19:00the gospel and you lived in Ephesus but
19:02it was made in Rome you had to make a
19:03copy in Rome and take it to Ephesus and
19:05then you made a copy that was maybe a
19:07copy of the copy of the copy so maybe
19:08you're making a copy of a copy that in
19:10fact had a lot of mistakes in it but
19:12that's the copy you have now in Ephesus
19:14and suppose somebody from callosity
19:16wants a copy so they come to Ephesus and
19:18they make a copy of this mistaken copy
19:20and that's the gospel they haven't in
19:22callosity and then somebody posed
19:24somebody from Antioch wants a copy well
19:26they come to colossi and they make a
19:27copy there of this errant copy that's
19:29based on copies of the copies of the cup
19:30and it circulates around the Roman world
19:32like this with everybody making mistakes
19:35and no way for us to know what mistakes
19:39had been made at the early stages that's
19:43the problem we're confronted with with
19:45the text of the New Testament
19:47so what can we say about our surviving
19:49copies well the good news is we have
19:51lots of copies of the New Testament we
19:54have lots more copies of the New
19:55Testament than for any other book in the
19:57ancient world we have so many more
20:00copies than we have a Plato or of your
20:02Rippa DS or Homer or of Aeschylus name
20:05your author we have far more copies of
20:07the New Testament than any so that's
20:09that's the good news
20:11the bad news is we don't have any of the
20:14early copies it's nice that we have
20:17copies from later centuries but we don't
20:21have the copies that we want which are
20:23the copies from the early centuries what
20:26can we say about the ages of these
20:28copies
20:28well the oldest copy of Mark is p45
20:31which we looked as from the Year 220 we
20:34have a fragment of a piece of the New
20:36Testament from almost a hundred years
20:37earlier maybe a hundred years it's hard
20:39to date these things the way they date
20:41manuscripts is on the basis of
20:42handwriting analysis basically I mean to
20:45simplify things it's on the basis of
20:47handwriting analysis there are scholars
20:49who are or called paleography
20:51who are able to look at a Greek
20:53manuscript and and on the basis of the
20:55style of the handwriting tell you when
20:57it was written within about 50 years
20:59well so we have this scrap called P 50
21:03to the fifty second papyrus catalog
21:06which is a tiny scrap probably from the
21:09early second century so maybe a hundred
21:11eighty years or a hundred years before
21:13p45 it's a little credit card sized
21:16fragment it's about the size of the
21:18quilt of a credit card written on both
21:20front and back that contains some part
21:24the parts of some verses from John
21:27chapter 18 the trial of Jesus before
21:30Pilate it doesn't contain any complete
21:32verses it's it is a triangular-shaped of
21:35fragment that was discovered in the
21:37basement of the john rylands library in
21:39in english where scholars realized what
21:41it was it was discovered some place in
21:43Egypt as all these papyri were so he
21:45gives us a few verse which is great I
21:47mean it's great to know that you had a
21:48copy of of John floating around in the
21:51early second century but you did it's
21:53just it's just a few lines it isn't very
21:55much the vast majority of our
21:58manuscripts that survived are
22:01after the ninth century from after the
22:04ninth century so if these books of all
22:07the books of the New Testament are
22:08written in the first century as almost
22:12everybody thinks then we don't really
22:14start getting lots of copies until the
22:16ninth century these 9th century
22:19manuscripts we have are abundant we have
22:22thousands of manuscripts from the 9th
22:24century the 10th century 11th century
22:2612th century it's so forth but that's
22:28not the problem it's nice that we have
22:31these later manuscripts but they're
22:32based on earlier manuscripts which were
22:34based on earlier manuscripts which were
22:35based on earlier manuscripts and we
22:37don't know how good those manuscripts
22:39were that's the problem as a result of
22:44the copying practices there are lots of
22:47mistakes found in our surviving copies
22:54lots of mistakes in the year 1707 so
23:01long time ago in the year 1707 there was
23:06a scholar at oxford whose name was john
23:08mill who decided to publish a edition of
23:12the greek new testament in which he he
23:15had studied some greek manuscripts that
23:17were available to him of the greek new
23:19testament studied a hundred manuscripts
23:20and he made a note of wherever these
23:24manuscripts had differences where they
23:26disagreed with one another and how to
23:27word a sentence he didn't note all the
23:29differences just the ones that he
23:31thought were important and so he made a
23:33note of all the what he thought were the
23:34important differences in the manuscript
23:36and he then produced an edition of the
23:39Greek New Testament at the top of the
23:40page he wrote out a line or two or three
23:42or five of the Greek New Testament and
23:44at the bottom of the page he listed the
23:47places where he had found different
23:49readings what we call variant readings
23:51and so he did this page after page with
23:54the entire New Testament where among the
23:57hundred manuscripts he examined he had
23:59found differences to the shock and
24:00dismay of many of his readers John Mills
24:03Greek New Testament contained thirty
24:06thousand places of variation among the
24:09manuscripts that he had examined thirty
24:12thousand places where the man
24:14scripts differed from one another this
24:17really upset some people there were
24:21people who claimed that John Mill was
24:23trying to render the text of the New
24:26Testament uncertain his supporters
24:29pointed out he didn't invent these
24:31thirty thousand places he just noted
24:33that they exist well that was three
24:39hundred years ago and it was based on
24:42the study of a hundred manuscripts now
24:46we have fifty six hundred manuscripts
24:49how many differences do we know about
24:52today the reality is nobody knows nobody
24:58has been able to count all the
25:00differences in our manuscripts some
25:03scholars say there are two hundred
25:05thousand differences some say there are
25:07three hundred thousand differences some
25:09say there are four hundred thousand
25:10differences we don't know even with the
25:13advances of computer technology we don't
25:15know one thing we can say for certain is
25:18that there are more differences in our
25:20manuscripts than there are words in the
25:24New Testament there are a lot of
25:27differences in the manuscripts and those
25:29are just the manuscripts we have how
25:31many differences were there earlier we
25:34don't know now what kind of mistakes do
25:37we have in these manuscripts
25:38so just to be quite clear about this
25:42most of these three hundred thousand
25:45four hundred thousand differences are
25:48completely immaterial insignificant and
25:52don't matter for a thing other than to
25:55show that scribes in the ancient world
25:57could spell no better than my students
26:00can today and you know I they didn't
26:05they didn't have dictionaries they
26:07certainly didn't have spellcheck I mean
26:09these students today how can you
26:12possibly misspell a word the computer
26:14puts a red line under it I mean how how
26:17dumb do you have to be to misspell a
26:19word scribes didn't have that and so you
26:24know the majority of differences I mean
26:26if you just count them up
26:28probably misspelling words these are
26:30what I would call an accidental kind of
26:33change scribes just couldn't spell and
26:35you know the scribes actually didn't
26:36care how they spelled become sometimes
26:38you'll have the same word like two lines
26:41later spelled differently they didn't
26:45you know it wasn't an issue for that
26:46well those are differences and so uh who
26:49cares about spelling differences oh you
26:51know most of us don't care that much
26:53there actually are some spelling
26:54differences that matter but most
26:57spelling differences don't matter for
26:59anything there are other kinds of
27:01accidental mistakes that you find in man
27:03you see scribes often were incompetent
27:06or they were sleepy or they were
27:09inattentive and so they made mistakes
27:12scribes sometimes would leave out a
27:15letter sometimes they leave out a word
27:18they would often leave out an entire
27:20line there I would skip from one line to
27:23the next line and so they would leave
27:24out a line there are some manuscripts
27:26where scribes have left out a page well
27:30that's yeah that's an inattentive scribe
27:32there are other places where scribes
27:34accidentally copy the same word twice or
27:37the same line twice I don't know many
27:39instances of copying the same page twice
27:41so these are these are what I would call
27:44accidental changes they they are by far
27:49the majority of the menu of the
27:51variations that we have in our
27:53manuscripts and the thing is these
27:55accidental mistakes are usually pretty
27:57easy if you're trained they're pretty
27:59easy to catch and you can see where it's
28:02happened and so they're not they're not
28:04all that they're not all that
28:05significant for trying to know what the
28:07what the authors said but I do have to
28:10say this about the accidental changes
28:13there probably were even more accidental
28:18changes in the years before we have
28:21surviving manuscripts now my reason for
28:24thinking that is this by the time you
28:26get to say the Middle Ages who is
28:30copying manuscripts the people copying
28:33manuscripts in the Middle Ages are the
28:35highly educated literate people who are
28:39monks in
28:40monasteries who are trained to copy
28:42manuscripts those are the people who
28:45copied manuscripts in the Middle Ages
28:47well you didn't have monks in the fourth
28:49century so when it's when we first start
28:52getting complete management who was
28:53copying the man if you don't have monks
28:55in monasteries yet well then the people
28:57copying them in the fourth century the
28:58least the fourth century manuscripts we
29:00have are pretty good so they're they're
29:02written by by highly literate people who
29:05appear to be trained to copy manuscripts
29:07in the fourth century but things start
29:09changing when you start getting earlier
29:11the manuscripts in the third century
29:14aren't nearly as good as the manuscripts
29:16in the fourth century the scribes don't
29:18appear to be trained when you get to the
29:21second century many of the manuscripts
29:24we don't have much we just have
29:25fragments here and there from the second
29:27century but they're they're not nearly
29:28as good as those fourth century
29:30manuscripts who was copying the
29:32manuscripts to begin with the reality is
29:36that most people in the ancient world
29:38were illiterate this seems strange to us
29:41today because almost everybody we know
29:43is basically literate I mean literacy is
29:45still a big problem in this country but
29:46but 99% of the population in the United
29:49States can at least read the sports page
29:51in the ancient world maybe 10% of the
29:55population could read the sports page
29:57they didn't have sports pages but it
30:00could in theory have read the sports
30:01page most people couldn't read most
30:06people couldn't write who copied the
30:08manuscripts in the early Christian
30:10churches probably whoever the guy was in
30:13the church who at least could read
30:14something was the person who copied the
30:16manuscript was he trained as a scribe no
30:20well then how good was he probably not
30:24very good he probably made accidental
30:27mistakes that got replicated and
30:29replicated and replicated until her
30:31surviving manually probably I mean I
30:32don't know nobody knows Dan doesn't know
30:35now he's gonna tell you he knows but I'm
30:37telling you he doesn't know in addition
30:43to the accidental mistakes there are
30:46intentional mistakes which are by far
30:49the most interesting kinds of mistakes
30:50and I'm going to give you several
30:52examples of ones
30:53strike me is rather significant changes
30:56where a scribe will it looks like he's
31:00intentionally changing something now we
31:02don't have the scribes around to
31:03interview so we don't know that they
31:05intentionally changed I mean we can't
31:07ask them did you do this on purpose or
31:09not but you're gonna see from these
31:10examples it looks like somebody's doing
31:12this on purpose probably if not it's
31:15just a massive accident but they still
31:17are important changes and so we'll look
31:20at those before I just want to make one
31:21final point that the earliest scribes
31:24were much worse than the later scribes
31:26they certainly made a lot more
31:29accidental changes they may have made a
31:32lot more intentional changes and there's
31:35no way for us to know let me tell you
31:41about some of the intentional changes
31:42I'll just just give you a list of ones
31:44that these will be passages that if you
31:46if you know your Bibles well which I
31:49have a strange feeling you do unlike my
31:54students to Chapel Hill these will be
32:00passages that you probably know about in
32:05the King James Bible first John chapter
32:075 verses 7 and 8 provides us with the
32:11only place in the entire New Testament
32:13where the doctrine of the Trinity is
32:14explicitly taught the doctrine of the
32:17Trinity is that there are three persons
32:19in the Godhead the Father the Son and
32:21the Holy Spirit and those are not three
32:23gods the three are one first John
32:27chapter 5 verses 7 and 8 in in the King
32:31James Bible refers to there are three in
32:34heaven the father the word and the
32:36spirit and these three are one
32:41that's in the King James Bible but is
32:44not in the Greek manuscript you get it
32:46it's actually a few Greek manuscripts
32:48and it's in Latin manuscripts which was
32:50at the heart of the Latin Vulgate
32:52it's an important verse because as I
32:55said you you can into it or you can you
32:57can reason towards the Trinity from
33:00other passages in the New Testament this
33:02is the only passage that explicitly
33:03teaches it and it wasn't originally in
33:05the news
33:07dan and I do not disagree on this point
33:09this verse was not originally in the New
33:12Testament is it an important verse well
33:14it was for my grandfather when the
33:16Revised Standard Version came out in
33:181952 he went through the roof because it
33:21didn't have the teaching of the Trinity
33:23they took out the Trinity
33:24this was a huge offense not nearly as
33:29offensive is I would be to him but it
33:33was a it was a it was a huge offense
33:37well it's a rather important matter
33:39whether this verses in there or not is
33:43Jesus ever called the unique God in the
33:48New Testament it depends which
33:50manuscript you trust for John chapter 1
33:53verse 18 some of our manuscripts the
33:57manuscripts that some textual scholars
33:59prefer and others don't prefer some in
34:01this verse talk about Jesus as the
34:05unique God no one has seen the father at
34:07any time the unique son or the unique
34:12God who is in the bosom the father that
34:14one has made him known is Jesus actually
34:17the unique God himself
34:21where is he the Son of God both are
34:24important but I mean it does matter
34:25whether Jesus is called God the God in
34:29the New Testament depends what you do
34:32with John chapter 1 verse 18 does the
34:36Gospel of Luke teach a doctrine of
34:39atonement the doctrine of atonement is
34:43that Christ's death is the death for
34:45sins Luke interestingly changes a number
34:52of verses it found in his predecessor
34:54the Gospel of Mark which talked about
34:56Jesus as an atonement for sins okay so
34:58there's a little bit complicated but
35:00everybody most Bible scholars I don't
35:03know I think most Bible scholars agree
35:05that Mark was the first gospel written
35:07in that Luke copied mark for some of his
35:10stories and he got stories from other
35:12sources one of the verses in mark is
35:14very famous verse from Mark chapter 10
35:17the Son of Man
35:18came not to be served but to serve and
35:21to give his life as a ransom for many
35:24this is a verse that Luke excluded when
35:28he gave his account of Jesus life he
35:30doesn't include that first for for
35:32whatever reason it is striking that the
35:35only place where Luke's ideas about
35:40Jesus death indicate that his death was
35:45an atonement for sins is in the passage
35:49Luke 22 verses 19 and 20 where Jesus
35:51gives it's at the Last Supper Jesus in
35:55in Luke's Gospel Jesus first gives the
35:57cup before he gives the bread this is
35:59the cup of the New Covenant etc then it
36:01gives the gives the bread this is my
36:03body broken and then in some manuscripts
36:08it doesn't just say this is my body
36:10that's been broken it says this is my
36:12body that has been broken for you and
36:15then it goes on to say this cup is the
36:18Covenant of my blood which is shed for
36:20you the death of Jesus for the sake of
36:25others which is otherwise missing in
36:28Luke and you say well so if it's missing
36:29in Luke it's in Matthew okay but doesn't
36:31matter what Luke says or not say no it
36:35doesn't matter just matters what Matthew
36:36says really Luke doesn't have a doctrine
36:39of atonement depending on which
36:41manuscripts you trust for chapter 22 the
36:46favorite story of many Bible readers of
36:48Jesus is the story Jesus and the woman
36:51taken in adultery Jesus is teaching in
36:55the temple you all know the story it's
36:57in all the Jesus movies this story is so
36:59good you can't leave it out of a Jesus
37:00movie when Mel Gibson made the Passion
37:03of the Christ even though it's about
37:04Jesus last hours he had to include the
37:06story so he included it as a flashback
37:08right chief jesus was remembering this
37:11happened because you can't make a Jesus
37:12movie without the woman taken in
37:13adultery let the one without sin among
37:15you be the first to cast a stone at her
37:17it's found in manuscripts of the Gospel
37:19of John but it's not originally in the
37:21Gospel of John probably because it's not
37:24in the earliest manuscripts of John it's
37:27a story that was added later after our
37:30earliest
37:31any scrips how many what stories were
37:33added before our earliest manuscripts we
37:36have no way of knowing they may have
37:39been some of our favorite stories how
37:40would we know we can't know we don't
37:42have any evidence the last 12 verses of
37:46mark where Jesus appears to his
37:47disciples and tells them that anyone
37:49that who converts and believes in Him
37:51will be able to speak in foreign tongues
37:53will be able to handle deadly snakes
37:56will drink poison it won't hurt them
37:57those verses are not found in the oldest
37:59and best manuscripts of mark these are
38:02the verses used by the Appalachian snake
38:04handlers in my part of the world I've
38:06always thought that on the way to the
38:08hospital somebody should tell one of
38:09these people actually know those verses
38:11aren't in the original copy of anything
38:15did Jesus pray Father forgive them for
38:18they don't know what they're doing it's
38:20found only in Luke but it may not be in
38:23Luke because some manuscripts lacking
38:26you can see these are pretty important
38:27verses so even though most of the
38:30changes are accidental some of the
38:32intentional ones really matter is the
38:36text of the New Testament reliable the
38:38short answer is there is no way to tell
38:42how can we possibly know given the kinds
38:46of evidence we have there are passages
38:49that scholars continue to debate
38:52scholars disagree on this verse or that
38:55verse sometimes important verses they
38:59debate because we can't know there are
39:02passages where we will never know what
39:06the original wording was does it matter
39:09in my view the answer is absolutely yes
39:13thank you very much
39:19thank you very much dr. Ehrman our
39:23second speaker is dr. Daniel B Wallace
39:25as I noted earlier dr. Wallace is a
39:28professor of New Testament studies at
39:30Dallas Theological Seminary and the
39:31founder and executive director of the
39:34Center for the Study of New Testament
39:35manuscripts he earned a BA at Biola
39:39University and a THM and PhD at Dallas
39:43Theological Seminary an ordained Baptist
39:45minister who has held several ministry
39:47positions he has served on the Faculty
39:50of DTS since 1987 dr. Wallace has
39:54traveled around the world study and
39:56photograph biblical manuscripts he's
39:58examined biblical manuscripts at the
40:00ecumenical Patriarchate of
40:01Constantinople the monastery of st. John
40:04the theologian on the island of Patmos
40:06the vatican saint catherine's monastery
40:09at mount sinai and many other sites he
40:15is frequently consulted by the media
40:16he's appeared on television shows such
40:18as day as day of discovery and CBN News
40:21and has been a source for stories in
40:23publications such as The Wall Street
40:24Journal the Boston Globe and US News and
40:27World Report he's given over a hundred
40:29radio interviews in the scholarly world
40:33he's best known for his extensive work
40:35in the areas of biblical Greek grammar
40:37and text criticism his highly acclaimed
40:41textbook Greek grammar beyond the basics
40:44an exegetical syntax of the New
40:46Testament is used in by one estimate two
40:50thirds of the biblical Greek classrooms
40:53across the country and places like Yale
40:55Divinity School Princeton Theological
40:57Seminary and abroad in Cambridge
40:59University his textbook on ancient Greek
41:03is so good that it's being translated
41:04into modern Greek think about that
41:11it's already been translated into
41:13Portuguese Russian and Spanish he's the
41:17senior editor of the net Bible or the
41:19new English translation this is the
41:22first biblical translation to ever be
41:25beta tested on the Internet
41:27when a preliminary version was posted
41:30online for comment over a million people
41:33looked at it if it had been on Facebook
41:36they would have said like the net Bible
41:41has nearly 60 1000 footnotes the most of
41:46any one volume Bible translation ever
41:48published dr. Wallace is the author or
41:52co-author of several other books such as
41:54who's afraid of the Holy Spirit and
41:56investigation of the Ministry of the
41:58Spirit of God today reinventing Jesus
42:02how contemporary skeptics missed the
42:05real Jesus and mislead popular culture
42:08dethroning Jesus with Darrell Bock and
42:11the basics of New Testament syntax I was
42:16going to say that he's written eight
42:17books but that's yesterday's count and
42:19it's out of date his newest book is
42:23being released for the first time
42:24tonight revisiting the corruption of the
42:28New Testament that title sounds familiar
42:32revisiting the corruption of the New
42:34Testament manuscript patristic and
42:37apocryphal evidence released for the
42:39first time tonight in short dr. Wallace
42:42has thought quite a bit and written
42:45quite a lot about the issues under
42:48discussion tonight dan welcome to SMU
42:51and let me ask can we trust the text of
42:55the New Testament
43:01Bart and I have known each other for
43:04nearly 30 years he's had a stellar
43:07career in New Testament studies
43:08especially in the field of textual
43:10criticism I've had that I have the
43:12highest respect for his scholarship and
43:14more than that I've come to marvel at
43:16his quick wit his impressive rhetoric
43:18and clear communication skills so I want
43:21to begin by saying that I'm deeply
43:22honored to share the stage with him
43:24tonight in the appendix to his immensely
43:27popular book misquoting Jesus Bart
43:30declares the facts that I explained
43:32about the New Testament in misquoting
43:34Jesus are not at all news to biblical
43:36scholars they are what scholars have
43:38known and said for many many years
43:41he's right so at the outset I want to
43:44discuss our common ground there are
43:46basically five things that we agree on
43:50first of all the handwritten copies of
43:53the New Testament contain a lot of
43:55differences we really are not sure what
43:57the number is but I agree with Bart that
43:59there are certainly more differences in
44:01the manuscripts than there are words in
44:03the New Testament secondly the
44:05overwhelming majority of these
44:07differences affects virtually nothing
44:10third we agree in what we think the
44:13wording of the earliest form of the text
44:14is what I will call the autographic
44:16or less accurately but more familiar to
44:19you the original text we agree on this
44:22almost all the time
44:24fourth our agreement is even over
44:27several well-known and controversial
44:29passages some of which Bart has already
44:31mentioned mark 16 nine through twenty
44:34for example where Jesus tells his
44:36disciples that they can drink poison and
44:38handle snakes and not get hurt
44:39I agree with Bart that this passage is
44:42not part of the text that Mark wrote and
44:44my apologies to anyone who has traveled
44:46to this Bay debate from West Virginia
44:50[Applause]
44:52we both agree that the story of the
44:55woman caught in adultery was not part of
44:57the authentic text of John this passage
44:59has more emotional baggage for it than
45:02any other but it has been the pursuit of
45:04truth that has led scholars to the near
45:07consensus that these 12 verses have no
45:10places in the autographic texts of John
45:13or of any of the four Gospels put simply
45:16it's my favorite passage that's not in
45:18the Bible these two passages are far and
45:22away the longest disputed texts in our
45:24manuscripts they've been considered
45:26inauthentic in virtually all modern
45:28translations of the Bible we both agree
45:32on 1st John 5:7 in the King James Bible
45:34it reads for there are three that bear
45:37record in heaven the father the word and
45:39the Holy Ghost and these three are one
45:41as Bart said this would be the most
45:43explicit statement about the Trinity in
45:45the Bible but it is definitely not part
45:48of the original text and this fact has
45:51been known by scholars for half a
45:53millennium and finally we both agree
45:56that Orthodox scribes occasionally
45:57changed the New Testament text to bring
46:00it more into conformity with their views
46:02so what's the issue then the text is not
46:06the issue rather our disagreement is
46:08over two things how significant these
46:10textual variants are and whether we can
46:13have any confidence about recovering the
46:15wording of the original I take the
46:18position that we can be relatively
46:19confident I believe that the wording of
46:22the originals is not lost but can be
46:23located in the manuscripts but the
46:26question about how certain we can be
46:27that we have found it is an entirely
46:29different matter
46:30I will also argue that although scribes
46:33changed the wording of the text for all
46:34sorts of reasons they were unsuccessful
46:36in eradicating the wording of the
46:38original it was both Orthodox scribes
46:41and unorthodox who tampered with a text
46:44but how can we be sure that the original
46:46wording has not been erased from history
46:48obliterated from all records Exhibit A
46:52is Bart Ehrman's magnificent scholarly
46:54tome the Orthodox corruption of
46:55Scripture in order for him to locate
46:58scribal tampering with the text he has
47:00to know what text has been tampered with
47:03and nowhere in the book does he say the
47:05original wording is gone or we don't
47:06have a clue what the autographs say just
47:09the opposite virtually every one of the
47:12300 pages in this book assumes that the
47:14autographic wording can be found among
47:16the manuscripts and what's more that
47:18bart has found it well let me begin with
47:22a couple of attitudes that rational
47:24people need to avoid the first is
47:26absolute certainty and the second is
47:30total despair or complete skepticism on
47:33the one side our King James only
47:36advocates they're absolutely certain
47:38that the King James Bible in every place
47:40exactly represents the original text
47:42I've actually heard them say if the King
47:45James Bible was good enough for st. Paul
47:46it's good enough for me and I think that
47:50was a with the West Virginia accent too
47:56but this attitude is also one that many
47:58church-going Bible believing Christians
48:00embrace without realizing that their
48:02modern translations change with each new
48:05addition on the other side are a few
48:09radical scholars who are so skeptical
48:11that no piece of data no hard fact is
48:13safe in their hands it all turns to
48:15putty because all views are created
48:18equal if everything is equally possible
48:20the no view is more probable than any
48:22other and their mantra is we really
48:25don't know what the New Testament
48:26originally said since we no longer
48:28possess the originals and since there
48:30could have been tremendous tampering
48:32with the text before our existing copies
48:35were produced such skepticism over
48:38recovering the original wording of the
48:40New Testament flies in the face of both
48:42reason and empirical evidence these two
48:45attitudes absolute certainty and radical
48:48skepticism are like driving on the
48:50mountain roads in Greece which I have
48:52done plenty of times
48:54drive too far to the left and you'll
48:56have a head-on collision with a tourist
48:57bus drive too far to the right and you
49:00will end up flying over the cliff where
49:02the guardrail should have been rational
49:06people recognize that both extremes
49:08result in disaster and that the only
49:10proper course is one of moderation there
49:14are also four questions that we need to
49:16address tonight
49:17how many scribal changes are there for
49:19example what kinds of textual variants
49:22are there what theological beliefs
49:25depend on textually suspect passages and
49:28finally the bottom line is can we
49:30recover the wording of the original text
49:32I'm going to spend the majority of my
49:35time on the first question the number of
49:37differences but you'll see that this
49:39significantly relates to the last
49:41question as well so let me begin with
49:43the number of variants and I want to
49:45start with a definition of a textual
49:46variant it's anyplace among the
49:49manuscripts in which there is variation
49:51in wording including word order omission
49:54or addition of words even spelling
49:56differences the most trivial changes
49:58count and even when all the manuscripts
50:00except one say the same thing that lone
50:02manuscript readings counts as a textual
50:05variant and if a thousand manuscripts
50:08read Jesus in one place and another
50:10thousand read instead Christ that also
50:13counts as only one variant the best
50:17estimate is that there are between
50:20300,000 and 400,000 textual variants
50:24among the manuscripts and yet there are
50:26only about a hundred and forty thousand
50:28words in the New Testament now if this
50:30were the only piece of data we had it
50:32would discourage anyone from attempting
50:33to recover the wording of the autographs
50:35but that's not the whole story the
50:39reason that we have a lot of variants is
50:42that we have a lot of manuscripts it's
50:45simple really
50:45no classical Greek or Latin text has
50:48nearly as many variants because they
50:50don't have nearly as many manuscripts if
50:52there were only one copy of the New
50:55Testament in existence it would have
50:56zero variants yet several ancient
50:59authors have only one copy of the
51:01writings in existence and sometimes that
51:03lone copy is not produced for more than
51:06a millennium but a lone late manuscript
51:09would hardly give us confidence that
51:10that single manuscript duplicated the
51:13awarding of the original in every
51:14respect this was recognized 300 years
51:18ago by the brilliant textual scholar
51:20rinche Richard Bentley in his works in
51:22his work remarks upon a discourse of
51:24free thinking which was dealing with
51:27John Mills Greek New Testament with
51:2930,000 very
51:30and what he said was that if there had
51:34been a manuscript but one manuscript to
51:37the Greek Testament at the restoration
51:38of learning about two centuries ago then
51:41we would have had no various readings at
51:44all and with the text be in a better
51:46condition than than now that we have
51:48thirty thousand variant readings it's
51:50good therefore to have more anchors than
51:52one and another manuscript to join the
51:54first would give more authority as well
51:56as security
51:58Bentley pinned those comments in 1713
52:01when only a hundred Greek New Testament
52:03manuscripts had been examined today in
52:06Greek alone we have more than 5,600
52:09manuscripts now many of these are
52:11fragmentary especially the older ones
52:13but the average Greek New Testament
52:15manuscript is over four hundred and
52:17fifty pages long altogether there are
52:20more than two and a half million pages
52:22of text which we know quite well at C s
52:26NT m because we're trying to photograph
52:27all of them leaving hundreds of
52:30witnesses for every book of the New
52:32Testament and Bentley was right the
52:36Greek New Testament of his day has about
52:385000 differences from the critically
52:41reconstructed New Testament of today as
52:43more and more manuscripts have come to
52:45light we were getting closer and closer
52:47to the wording of the autographs now
52:51it's not just the Greek manuscripts that
52:52count the New Testament was early on
52:54translated into a variety of languages
52:56Latin Coptic Syriac Old Church Slavonic
52:58the list goes on there are about 10,000
53:03Latin manuscripts of the New Testament
53:05alone no one really knows the number of
53:07all these ancient versions but the best
53:09estimates are certainly more than 5000
53:12plus the 10,000 or so in Latin
53:15altogether we have at least 20,000
53:19handwritten manuscripts of the New
53:20Testament in various languages now if
53:23someone or destroy all those manuscripts
53:25we would still not be left without a
53:27witness and that's because church
53:28fathers wrote commentaries on the New
53:31Testament and they did not have the gift
53:33of brevity to date approximately 1
53:37million quotations of the New Testament
53:40by the fathers have been recorded
53:43if all other sources for our knowledge
53:46of the text of the New Testament were
53:47destroyed the patristic quotations would
53:50be sufficient alone for reconstruction
53:52of practically the entire New Testament
53:55wrote Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman far
53:59more important in the numbers is the
54:01date of the manuscripts
54:02how many manuscripts do we have in the
54:04first century after the completion of
54:05the New Testament how many in the second
54:07the third although the numbers are
54:09significantly lower I think they're
54:11still rather impressive we have today as
54:14many as a dozen manuscripts from the
54:16second century 64 from the third and 48
54:19from the fourth that's a total of 124
54:23manage groups within 300 years of the
54:26composition of the New Testament now
54:29most of these are fragmentary but
54:31collectively the whole New Testament is
54:33found in them multiple times how does
54:36the average classical author stack up if
54:39we're comparing the same period 300
54:41years after composition the average
54:43classical author has no literary remains
54:47zero none nada but if we compare all the
54:52manuscripts of a particular classical
54:53author regardless of when they were
54:55written the total would still average
54:58less than 20 and usually less than a
55:01dozen stack them all up and they're
55:05about four feet high so how high would
55:08the stack of New Testament manuscripts
55:10be by comparison well let's take a look
55:12would that be enough no I think we have
55:15a few more that's getting better that's
55:19probably not enough we need to add some
55:20more New Testament manuscripts that's
55:23getting better but it's still not even
55:25close to enough that's still not really
55:28there that's as much as I could do on
55:31PowerPoint
55:34that's one-fourth the amount if you were
55:37to put that New Testament stack in one
55:40stack not the ten that I've got across
55:41there and make it go up as high as it
55:43was supposed to we have over a mile of
55:46manuscripts compared to four feet now
55:51perhaps this seems a little bit abstract
55:52let's use money as an analogy that you
55:55can all relate to if the average ancient
55:58author makes twenty thousand dollars a
56:00year which is below the poverty level
56:01today that is the New Testament earns
56:04twenty million dollars a year
56:07skeptics repeatedly note that the vast
56:10majority of New Testament manuscripts
56:11come from at least 800 years after the
56:14completion of the New Testament the
56:16implication they draw from this is that
56:18none of these manuscripts are
56:19trustworthy that the New Testament is in
56:21no better shape than any other ancient
56:23literature what they don't tell you is
56:25that these later manuscripts add only 2%
56:28material to the text if you can envision
56:31and the New Testament is a snow ball
56:33rolling down a hill picking up alien
56:35elements through the centuries it's
56:36remarkable that it only picks up 2% more
56:39material over 14 centuries and they
56:43don't tell you how this compares to
56:44other ancient writers for many important
56:46authors we only have partial works
56:48Libyan Tacitus were two of the most
56:50important Roman historians of the 1st
56:53century CE II we based an awful lot of
56:55our understanding of Rome on these two
56:57writers
56:58Livy wrote a hundred and forty-two
57:00volumes on the history of Rome only 25%
57:04of them survived today only a third of
57:06Tacitus writings are still with us but
57:09we have 200 copies of plenty of the
57:11Elders writings but we're waiting 700
57:14years for the first one Plutarch's lives
57:17are found in manuscripts no earlier than
57:20800 years after he wrote Josephus
57:23antiquities of the Jews is found in more
57:25than 20 copies none earlier than the
57:28ninth century the earliest copy of
57:31polybius the historian was written
57:33twelve hundred years after he wrote
57:35there are massive gaps in copies of pal
57:38sanyasis description of greece all of
57:42them coming more than fourteen hundred
57:45years later Herodotus history
57:47has 26 copies the earliest coming half a
57:50millennium later but we're waiting 1,500
57:53years for the first substantial copy
57:55we are waiting 18 centuries for any
57:59substantial copies of Xenophon's
58:01hellenic a-- now these are not obscure
58:05authors there are some of the most
58:07important historians and biographers of
58:09the greco-roman world and for some of
58:12the better preserved rewritings that are
58:14gaps galore
58:15one scholar complained that the
58:16surviving copies of some of these
58:18writings are filled with gaps corrupt
58:20dislocated and interpolated he then
58:23proceeds to lay out principles to fill
58:26the gaps with nothing but his own reason
58:28it's because he can't find the original
58:30wording in any manuscript another
58:33scholar notes that for the manuscripts
58:35of his author the chief blemishes are
58:37gaps in the text where the manuscript
58:39tradition fails us entirely the task of
58:44filling the gaps without manuscript
58:45testimony is absolutely necessary for
58:48most of greco-roman literature and
58:51almost entirely unknown for the New
58:54Testament let me repeat that the task of
58:58filling the gaps without manuscript
59:00testimony is absolutely necessary for
59:03most of greco-roman literature and
59:05almost entirely unknown for the New
59:07Testament skeptics also don't tell you
59:12how many New Testament manuscripts we
59:13have in those earlier centuries I've
59:16already mentioned the data on the first
59:17three centuries here are the statistics
59:19through 900 C e we have here the
59:25statistics for the 900 C e we have at
59:28least three times more New Testament
59:30manuscripts today within the first 200
59:32years then the average greco-roman
59:34author has in two thousand years
59:37although only 10% of the Greek New
59:40Testament manuscripts were copied before
59:42900 that's still more than 500
59:47manuscripts to argue that we don't have
59:50very many New Testament manuscripts from
59:52the early centuries is only true in
59:53relation to later New Testament
59:56manuscripts not to anything else in the
59:59ancient world
1:00:00even JK Elliott a meticulous New
1:00:03Testament textual critic who happens to
1:00:05be a non-christian correctly notes we
1:00:08have many manuscripts you noted some
1:00:11other things too but not that mark I
1:00:18lost a battery
1:00:21never shoulda quoted Elliott I knew that
1:00:24was risk
1:00:29well Bart is right however that New
1:00:31Testament scholars have a serious
1:00:33problem on their hands but it's not the
1:00:35problem that plagues greco-roman
1:00:37scholars New Testament scholars are
1:00:40confronted with an embarrassment of
1:00:42riches if we have doubts about what the
1:00:45original New Testament said those doubts
1:00:46would have to be multiplied at least a
1:00:49thousandfold for the average classical
1:00:52author now think about that are the
1:00:55skeptics really going to say that they
1:00:56have no idea what Plato or demosthenes
1:00:58or Suetonius wrote if they apply their
1:01:00skepticism of the New Testament text to
1:01:02the rest of greco-roman literature then
1:01:04we might as well kiss all our ancient
1:01:06history books goodbye because we would
1:01:08know next to nothing about the Caesars
1:01:10Alexander the Great Cicero Plato the
1:01:13glory was that was Rome or millions of
1:01:16other facts that these ancient
1:01:17manuscripts tell us our modern democracy
1:01:20medical ethics mathematics would all be
1:01:22eradicated and most importantly Russell
1:01:25Crowe could never have played the lead
1:01:27role in Gladiator this kind of
1:01:34skepticism would thrust us right back
1:01:36into the dark ages where ignorance was
1:01:39anything but bliss put simply the New
1:01:43Testament is far and away the best
1:01:44attested work of the ancient world and
1:01:47precisely because we have hundreds of
1:01:49thousands of variants and hundreds of
1:01:51early manuscripts we're in an excellent
1:01:54position for recovering the wording of
1:01:55the original to speak about the number
1:01:57of variants without also speaking about
1:01:59the number of manuscripts is an
1:02:01irresponsible appeal to sensationalism
1:02:03now we get to the second section the
1:02:06nature of the variance what kinds of
1:02:08variants are there in the manuscripts
1:02:10well more than 99% make virtually no
1:02:14difference at all for example the most
1:02:17common variant involves spelling and
1:02:20this is
1:02:24sorry about that
1:02:28spend a little time at ECU today
1:02:33[Applause]
1:02:37the absolutely most common textual
1:02:40variant is what's called a movable new
1:02:41that's n at the end of a word when the
1:02:43next word starts with a vowel like our
1:02:45word a book and Apple same kind of
1:02:48principle or at ECU they say and book a
1:02:51Apple well then there's alterations that
1:02:57cannot be translated they can't be
1:03:00translated because Greek is a highly
1:03:02inflected language you can put three
1:03:04words Jesus loves Paul in any order you
1:03:07want in a sentence and it can mean
1:03:09exactly the same thing word order has to
1:03:11do with emphasis but not meaning because
1:03:13of the inflections on the ends of the
1:03:14words but not only does Greek have a
1:03:17highly inflected language it also uses
1:03:19the definite article the word the in
1:03:21ways that we don't use it in English you
1:03:23could say the Joseph and the Mary went
1:03:26to Jerusalem as Luke does in chapter
1:03:28three of his gospel we would say Joseph
1:03:31and Mary not the Joseph and the Mary
1:03:33that sounds like a doofus but that's
1:03:35ancient Greek and that's how it was now
1:03:37I wrote my master's thesis on when the
1:03:40article does not occur in the Greek New
1:03:42Testament
1:03:43I wrote my doctoral dissertation on when
1:03:45the definite article does occur in the
1:03:47Greek New Testament these two works
1:03:49could cure the most hopeless insomniac
1:03:54and I still don't know why the is used
1:03:59with proper names it may be significant
1:04:02and it's a lot of textural problems that
1:04:04have that but it's not that significant
1:04:06so here's how many ways you can say
1:04:08Jesus loves Paul and Greek please write
1:04:10this down because it will be on the test
1:04:12eight different ways you can say it oh
1:04:15here's another eight ways you can say it
1:04:17now if you factor in different spellings
1:04:19for these words or what's called nomina
1:04:21sacra or particles that typically are
1:04:24not translated there are literally
1:04:25hundreds of ways to say Jesus loves Paul
1:04:29in Greek where every single time is
1:04:32translated exactly the same in English
1:04:35now if a three word sentence like this
1:04:37could potentially be expressed by
1:04:39hundreds of Greek constructions how
1:04:42should we view the number of actual
1:04:43variants in the New Testament
1:04:45manuscripts that there are only three
1:04:47variants for every word in the New
1:04:48Testament when the potential is almost
1:04:50infinitely greater seems trivial
1:04:53especially when we consider how many
1:04:55thousands of manuscripts there are the
1:04:58smallest group of variants are those
1:05:00that are both meaningful and viable less
1:05:04than 1% of all textual variants fit this
1:05:06group let me just give you a couple
1:05:08examples Bart went over some major ones
1:05:10that we both would agree on mark chapter
1:05:139 verse 29 Jesus is talking to his
1:05:16disciples after they tried to exorcise a
1:05:19demon and they came back and utter
1:05:21failure
1:05:21and he said this kind cannot come out
1:05:24except by prayer well some manuscripts
1:05:28including some very early manuscripts
1:05:30say and fasting so here's a significant
1:05:36issue if you are in the business of
1:05:37demon exorcism you want to know some of
1:05:40these stubborn demons do you have to
1:05:42cast them out with just prayer or is
1:05:44fasting also necessary now you can tell
1:05:47just by looking at me that I go with a
1:05:48shorter reading
1:05:52[Applause]
1:05:58then there's Revelation chapter 13 verse
1:06:0118 this is a verse everybody knows we
1:06:04all know that the number of the beast is
1:06:056 6 6 X ask anybody to SMU what's the
1:06:08number of the Antichrist 666 they don't
1:06:10even need to wake up to tell you that
1:06:12well not so fast in the 1840s a German
1:06:16scholar went to Paris to decipher a
1:06:19manuscript that it was extraordinarily
1:06:20difficult to read and it took him almost
1:06:23two years to work through the entire
1:06:24thing but he got to revelation 13:18 and
1:06:28he noticed that in this manuscript it
1:06:29said six one six was the number of the
1:06:33beast
1:06:33now most scholars think that 666 is the
1:06:37number of the beast and six one six is
1:06:39the number neighbor of the beast he just
1:06:41lives a few doors down I guess but then
1:06:45at the end of the 20th century at Oxford
1:06:47University they discovered another
1:06:48fragment a papyrus that happens to be
1:06:51the oldest fragment of this particular
1:06:53passage the one that Constantine Fon
1:06:56Tischendorf discovered or deciphered in
1:06:58Paris was our second most important
1:07:00manuscript for Revelation the one at
1:07:02Oxford our oldest for this particular
1:07:04chapter those two manuscripts may well
1:07:07tell us what the original wording is for
1:07:10this particular passage now is it
1:07:12important yes I think it's
1:07:14extraordinarily important especially if
1:07:17it gets into modern English translations
1:07:19because if you start having six one six
1:07:21is the number of the beast it will send
1:07:23about seven tons of popular Christian
1:07:26literature to the flames
1:07:34although the quantity of textual
1:07:36variants among the New Testament
1:07:37manuscripts numbers in the hundreds of
1:07:39thousands those that change the meaning
1:07:41pale in comparison less than one percent
1:07:44of the differences are both meaningful
1:07:46and viable there are still hundreds of
1:07:49texts that are in dispute I don't want
1:07:51to give the impression that textual
1:07:53criticism is merely a mopping up job
1:07:55nowadays that all but a handful of
1:07:57problems have been resolved that's not
1:07:59the case there are hundreds of passages
1:08:01whose interpretation depends to some
1:08:04degree on which reading is followed well
1:08:08finally or next to last we ask the
1:08:10question what theological beliefs depend
1:08:12on textually suspect passages in the
1:08:16appendix to misquoting Jesus there is a
1:08:18Q&A section the most telling question
1:08:20asked to Bart is this why do you believe
1:08:23that the these core tenets of Christian
1:08:26orthodoxy to be in jeopardy based on the
1:08:28scribal errors you discovered in the
1:08:30biblical manuscripts now Bart's response
1:08:33may surprise you essential Christian
1:08:37beliefs are not affected by textual
1:08:39variants in the manuscript tradition of
1:08:40the New Testament suffice it to say that
1:08:43viable textual variants that disturb
1:08:45essential Christian beliefs found in the
1:08:48New Testament have not yet been produced
1:08:50and finally the bottom line can we
1:08:53recover the wording of the autographs
1:08:55I offer four arguments briefly that we
1:08:57can be relatively certain relatively
1:09:00certain that we can recover the wording
1:09:01of the autographs and first is a nice
1:09:04little quotation from Bart that I want
1:09:06to begin with which he's mentioned
1:09:07already not only do we not have the
1:09:09originals we don't have the first copies
1:09:11of the originals we don't even have
1:09:13copies of the copies of the originals or
1:09:15copies of the copies of the copies of
1:09:16the original set that could you could
1:09:18probably put that to a tune I like it
1:09:21well first of all this is probably true
1:09:24but we really can't be certain about it
1:09:27it can't be dogmatic if that's the case
1:09:29but let's assume that it's true but if
1:09:31it is it's not the whole truth the
1:09:33impression one gets from the statement
1:09:35is that the transmission of the New
1:09:36Testament is like the telephone game
1:09:38it's a game that every child knows you
1:09:40whisper something into somebody's ear it
1:09:42goes down through ten or twelve people
1:09:43and then that last person spits it out
1:09:45to the whole crowd and everybody laughs
1:09:47because
1:09:48message got totally garbled there's
1:09:50absolutely no motivation to get it right
1:09:53but copying of New Testament manuscripts
1:09:55is hardly like this parlor game first of
1:09:59all the message is passed on in writing
1:10:01not just orally secondly textual critics
1:10:05do not rely on just the last person but
1:10:08can examine the work of several scribes
1:10:10who are closer to the original source
1:10:13third patristic writers are commenting
1:10:15on the text as it's going through its
1:10:17transmission Aliss turi and when there
1:10:19are chronological gaps among the
1:10:21manuscripts and we have quite a few
1:10:23these writers often fill in those gaps
1:10:25by telling us what the text said in that
1:10:28place in their day and finally in the
1:10:33telephone game once the story is told by
1:10:34one person that individual has nothing
1:10:37else to do with it it's out of his or
1:10:39her hands but the original New Testament
1:10:41books were almost surely copied more
1:10:43than once and probably several times and
1:10:45they were probably consulted even after
1:10:48a few generations of copies had already
1:10:50been produced my second argument is that
1:10:54Bart speaks of the first 200 years of
1:10:56copying is uncontrolled giving the
1:10:58impression that all manuscripts of this
1:11:00era were riddled with mistakes both
1:11:02unintentional and intentional the
1:11:05scribes it seems were undisciplined and
1:11:07wild freely adding or subtracting words
1:11:10whenever they wanted to but this is not
1:11:13the whole story the standard
1:11:15introduction to New Testament textual
1:11:17criticism puts things in perspective it
1:11:20would be a mistake to think that the
1:11:21uncontrolled copying practices that led
1:11:23to the formation of the Western textual
1:11:25tradition were followed everywhere that
1:11:28texts were reproduced in the Roman
1:11:29Empire in particular there's solid
1:11:32evidence that in at least one major C of
1:11:34early christened him the city of
1:11:36Alexandria there was conscious and
1:11:38conscientious control exercised in the
1:11:41copying of the books of the New
1:11:42Testament textual witnesses connected to
1:11:45Alexandria attest a high quality of
1:11:47textual transmission from the earliest
1:11:50times it was there that a very ancient
1:11:53line of text was copied and preserved
1:11:57these words are found in the fourth
1:11:59edition of the text of the New Testament
1:12:01by Bruce
1:12:01Metzger and Bart Ehrman and we can
1:12:04illustrate the quality of the Alexander
1:12:06II manuscripts with two manuscripts that
1:12:08Bart and I would both agree are two of
1:12:10the very best New Testament ministers we
1:12:12have if not the two best papyrus 75 and
1:12:15codex Vaticanus also known as be their
1:12:19agreement is higher than that of any
1:12:20other two early manuscripts P 75 is a
1:12:23hundred to 150 years older than B and
1:12:25yet it is not an ancestor of B instead
1:12:29be copied from an earlier common
1:12:30ancestor that both B and P 75 were
1:12:33related to the combination of both of
1:12:35these manuscripts in a particular
1:12:37reading goes back most likely too early
1:12:39in the second century and third the
1:12:43standard Greek New Testament in use
1:12:45today is known as the nestle all on text
1:12:47it not only produces what the editors
1:12:49believe is the wording of the original
1:12:51New Testament but also lists tens of
1:12:53thousands of variants here's a picture
1:12:56of the text they list a hundred and
1:12:59sixteen places where scholars over the
1:13:01centuries have thought that none of the
1:13:03Greek manuscripts have the original
1:13:05wording if the manuscripts were so
1:13:07corrupt from very on from very early
1:13:09times then we would have a terribly
1:13:11corrupt text where we wouldn't have a
1:13:13clue what the original wording was in
1:13:15hundreds and hundreds of places there's
1:13:18a hundred and sixteen that the editors
1:13:19list they accept only one the addition
1:13:23of a single letter to the end of a word
1:13:25in acts 1612 and yet two of the editors
1:13:28court Elan and Bruce Metzger felt that
1:13:31even in that one place the original
1:13:33wording was to be found among the
1:13:35manuscripts what all on in Mexico were
1:13:38arguing is that when it comes to the
1:13:39wording of the New Testament it can be
1:13:42found either above the line or bolt or
1:13:44below the line in the Nestle Ahlan text
1:13:46in other words the autograph ik text is
1:13:48found in a B or C never none of the
1:13:52above finally we can save and more the
1:13:57vast majority of New Testament scholars
1:13:58believe that the wording of the
1:13:59autographs is not only recoverable but
1:14:02that we have recovered it in most places
1:14:05total skepticism is uncalled for and
1:14:09Exhibit A are Bart's many books on the
1:14:11New Testament in these books he
1:14:14presupposes knowledge of the wording
1:14:15of the autographs here are just some of
1:14:17the titles that you can see notice
1:14:21Orthodox corruption of Scripture
1:14:22misquoting Jesus the text of the New
1:14:25Testament
1:14:26it's transmission corruption and
1:14:28restoration and forged writing in the
1:14:32name of God why the Bible's authors are
1:14:34not who we think they are take just the
1:14:37last book published earlier this year as
1:14:39an illustration in forged Bart argues
1:14:42that Paul did not write first Timothy
1:14:43second Timothy or Titus collectively
1:14:46known as the pastoral epistles one of
1:14:48his arguments is that the vocabulary of
1:14:50these letters is not the same as what we
1:14:52find in Paul's authentic letters now in
1:14:55order for him to make that claim he has
1:14:56to know what the words are in Paul's
1:14:58other letters as well as what the words
1:15:00are in the pastoral letters regardless
1:15:03of what some of us may think about his
1:15:05argument in forged this book simply
1:15:07could not have been written unless Bart
1:15:09was sure about the wording of the
1:15:11original text in almost every place and
1:15:13the same is true for all his books on
1:15:16the New Testament is what we have now
1:15:20what the New Testament authors wrote
1:15:21nearly 2,000 years ago it almost
1:15:24certainly is in all essentials even in
1:15:28most particulars we can be relatively
1:15:30sure to be over skeptical about this in
1:15:33the face of the mountain of evidence is
1:15:36to take a leap of faith
1:15:37where the guardrail should have been it
1:15:42is far more reasonable to be relatively
1:15:44sure that we can recover the wording of
1:15:45the original New Testament text then be
1:15:48then to be radically skeptical about the
1:15:50entire endeavor thank you for your
1:15:52attention
1:16:06thank you very much
1:16:09at this point we'll have two rounds of
1:16:13response professor
1:16:14ermine will not a chance to respond and
1:16:17raise questions followed by dr. Wallace
1:16:19followed by dr. Ehrman and followed by
1:16:22dr. Wallace each round of response will
1:16:24last for approximately five or six
1:16:27minutes and Bart will begin with you
1:16:34thank you very much and thank you Dan
1:16:36for the very informative and hilarious
1:16:40presentation it's very impressive
1:16:45statement I think Dallas is is well
1:16:49served to have such a competent textual
1:16:51critic and in its midst two things
1:16:56struck me about Dan's presentation one
1:17:01was lost in my notes one was how much we
1:17:09agree on many important points the other
1:17:12was how little it seems to me he's
1:17:15addressed the real problem one of the
1:17:19strategies the Dan is used is to quote
1:17:21some of my earlier books some of which
1:17:24were written nearly 20 years ago
1:17:26claiming that I obviously do believe
1:17:29that the we can achieve the original
1:17:32text I've changed my mind on that
1:17:35question I simply for the reason that
1:17:38I've given you we don't have evidence
1:17:40that can tell us whether we know about
1:17:43the original New Testament and I was a
1:17:46little bit disappointed and seeing that
1:17:48Dan didn't provide any evidence I'll
1:17:52bring that up again at the very end of
1:17:53my closing remarks here first I want to
1:17:55make a couple of comments about things
1:17:57that he really stressed that struck me
1:17:59as really irrelevant first Dan wants to
1:18:03stress that reason we have so many
1:18:05variants is because we have so many
1:18:07manuscripts and we have all of these
1:18:09patristic authors who quote the New
1:18:11Testament we have lots and lots of
1:18:12witnesses I agree but that's not
1:18:15relevant yes that's why we have so many
1:18:17variant readings but what about the man
1:18:19we don't have from the early centuries
1:18:23he says we have a hundred and twenty
1:18:25four manuscripts within the first three
1:18:27hundred years and the New Testament is
1:18:28replicated many times in those
1:18:30manuscripts I'd like to see the evidence
1:18:32of that actually that we have the entire
1:18:34New Testament replicated many times in
1:18:36those manuscripts but even if it's true
1:18:39what are our earliest witnesses how many
1:18:43do we have before p45 in the Year 224
1:18:47the Gospel of Mark it's a hundred and
1:18:49fifty years after mark was originally
1:18:51produced what manuscripts do we have
1:18:53before that Dan stresses that we have
1:18:57many more manuscripts of the New
1:19:00Testament than we do have for classical
1:19:02authors and that if we reject the idea
1:19:04that we can achieve the original text
1:19:06for the New Testament and how much more
1:19:07for the classical authors so we may not
1:19:09know what Plato said or Cicero or Swit
1:19:12Aeneas or Tacitus and he's absolutely
1:19:15right
1:19:16we may not know but how does that mean
1:19:20that we do know about the New Testament
1:19:22it doesn't address the question dan
1:19:29argued that only one percent of our
1:19:32surviving variants matter for anything
1:19:34only one percent are meaningful and
1:19:36viable i I don't know if that's true it
1:19:40might be one percent suppose it is one
1:19:43percent my question does not pertain to
1:19:45the one percent my question pertains to
1:19:48the textual variants that were
1:19:50introduced into the manuscript tradition
1:19:53before our surviving manuscripts
1:19:56how many editions were there before our
1:19:59manuscripts how many omissions were
1:20:01there before our manuscripts and he
1:20:04tells us that we know the answer then
1:20:07I'd like to know how we know the answer
1:20:09how does he know that the manuscripts
1:20:13were not changed he agrees with me that
1:20:17there are hundreds of passages that
1:20:19really matter but then he wants to
1:20:22stress that no essential Christian
1:20:24beliefs are affected and he quotes me to
1:20:26that effect that is absolutely true I
1:20:29don't think that Dan's theology will
1:20:32change
1:20:33no matter which variants he looks at but
1:20:37is that how we gauge significance does
1:20:41the problem not matter because none of
1:20:45our theological doctrines are changed
1:20:47let me give you an analogy suppose
1:20:50tomorrow morning we woke up and it
1:20:53turned out that in every Bible
1:20:54throughout the entire world there was no
1:20:57longer to be found the Gospel of Mark
1:20:59Paul's letter to the Philippians or the
1:21:02book of first Peter which doctrines of
1:21:05the Christian faith would be affected by
1:21:07the loss of those three books
1:21:09not a single doctrine would it be
1:21:13significant yes it'd be significant it'd
1:21:17be hugely significant significance does
1:21:21not ride on whether essential beliefs
1:21:23are affected dan closed his talk by
1:21:28talking about whether we can recover the
1:21:31autographs and to my thinking he has not
1:21:34satisfactorily answered the question and
1:21:37so I'd like him to try again how do we
1:21:40know that the text was not changed
1:21:42significantly before our earliest
1:21:46surviving manuscripts what is our basis
1:21:50of knowledge for that I would like him
1:21:53to address that question and let me make
1:21:55it more specific how do we know that our
1:21:58surviving manuscripts were copied from
1:22:00accurate copies instead of thoroughly
1:22:03erroneous ones I'm not asking whether
1:22:05the later manuscripts after the Year 900
1:22:08were accurately copying their
1:22:10predecessors how do we know that our
1:22:12earliest copies were preserving accurate
1:22:15copies of accurate copies how do we know
1:22:18that Dan also says that 99% of our
1:22:23surviving variant readings are
1:22:24insignificant and so my question is how
1:22:26many significant variants were created
1:22:30before our surviving manuscripts and how
1:22:34do you know if you don't know then how
1:22:38can you say that we can trust the text
1:22:41of the New Testament thank you very much
1:22:51thank you Dan again Bart I thank you for
1:23:04your great questions which I will
1:23:07perhaps try to answer maybe later
1:23:11because I had questions about your
1:23:13presentation as well you said for
1:23:17example maybe Marc was copied only a
1:23:20couple of times that kind of a scenario
1:23:24for the copying of these manuscripts is
1:23:26absolutely vital for you to come up with
1:23:28the idea that the the manuscripts could
1:23:30have been changed multiple times before
1:23:33we get to any of our copies at all and
1:23:35yet we see that Paul asks that his
1:23:38letters get circulated to various
1:23:40churches and so people were making
1:23:42copies of his letters we see that
1:23:44Matthew and Luke both used mark and
1:23:48consequently it must have been copied a
1:23:50couple of times at least just for them
1:23:52to use it it's rather doubtful to
1:23:56suppose that these books most of them
1:24:00probably even some of them were not
1:24:02copied multiple times from the original
1:24:05manuscript itself in your book
1:24:09misquoting Jesus you said that first
1:24:13thessalonians may have been read so many
1:24:15times that it simply wore out and
1:24:18deteriorated you didn't say that it
1:24:20should have been read and copied so many
1:24:23times that it wore out and deteriorated
1:24:26so I give my evidence again it is not
1:24:28proof and I'm not the one who says that
1:24:31I know something you're the one who says
1:24:32that you know that you can't know I'm
1:24:34the one who's saying I think we have
1:24:37probability on our side and we have good
1:24:39reason to come to grips with this and
1:24:41you can compare this with the
1:24:43greco-roman literature and recognize
1:24:44that the New Testament itself is in much
1:24:47much better shape than those other
1:24:49documents in terms of giving us what the
1:24:51text of the church believed in and then
1:24:53you have the early church apostolic
1:24:55fathers and other groups that write
1:24:57about this stuff and the patristic
1:24:58writers that are commenting on the text
1:25:00early versions some of which go back to
1:25:02the second or third century and then
1:25:04they take on a life of the
1:25:05it's no longer an intersection with the
1:25:07Greek text those reference ence an early
1:25:11manuscript that we can look at one of
1:25:14the problems you've got in your
1:25:15presentation I think is you want to say
1:25:17we don't know what what the errors were
1:25:19that were created it went all over the
1:25:21map well it went all over the map we
1:25:23would have such incredible chaos how in
1:25:26the world could those manuscripts have
1:25:28been utterly destroyed so that we all we
1:25:30have left are those that seem to fit
1:25:32into orthodoxy as far as what you even
1:25:35confessed that no essential belief of
1:25:37the Christian faith is affected by any
1:25:40of our extant manuscripts he also said
1:25:45the earliest scribes made a number of
1:25:49mistakes in their copies and that they
1:25:51were in fact the worst scribes we have
1:25:54I'd like to ask you how you know that
1:25:56our earliest scribes we have as many as
1:26:0012 manuscripts from the second century
1:26:03and by the way you asked about how many
1:26:06we haven't in terms of a multiplicity of
1:26:08that and you've asked before
1:26:10what's my basis for that information the
1:26:13curt's go fasta lista says that there
1:26:14are 10 manuscripts from the second
1:26:16century or on the cusp of the 2nd and
1:26:193rd century and Elden up and one of his
1:26:22recent articles actually added one more
1:26:24he went to 11 I've looked at what tsetse
1:26:27eat has said about some of these things
1:26:29comfort and Barratt I think they go way
1:26:31too liberal in terms of giving an early
1:26:32date for the manuscripts but I've added
1:26:35one more my number is less than what
1:26:37many people would have it's one more
1:26:39than what Elden f has and it's 13 more
1:26:43than what he has through the for the 4th
1:26:45century 124 manuscripts I've got he's
1:26:48got 111 now you talk about these early
1:26:51scribes not being literary scribes not
1:26:55being trained scribes and then you talk
1:26:57about the ones who are trained which are
1:26:59in the Middle Ages that is certainly
1:27:00true but so is the scribe of Sinaiticus
1:27:03in the fourth century so is the scribe
1:27:05of Vaticanus in the 4th century in fact
1:27:08so is the scribe of p66 in the 2nd
1:27:12century and that scribe did his work
1:27:15according to EC call well in a
1:27:17scriptorium where his primary
1:27:19concern was to make pretty letters he
1:27:23made a lot of mistakes there's another
1:27:26manuscript that's almost as old as that
1:27:28piece 75 that we know was not produced
1:27:31in a scriptorium not by a professional
1:27:33scribe it's it looks like chicken
1:27:37scratches almost it's legible but it's
1:27:39certainly not pretty but that scribe
1:27:41copied out his manuscript one letter at
1:27:44a time and you and dr. Metzker both said
1:27:48that piece 75 and B together
1:27:51attest to a very early tradition of very
1:27:54ancient tradition so what I am saying
1:27:56about what I probably know not certainly
1:27:59know is what you and dr. Metzker said in
1:28:012005 in the fourth edition of the text
1:28:03of the New Testament the other thing
1:28:07though on these early scribes is that P
1:28:1075 was written in what's called a
1:28:11documentary hand a scribe who writes in
1:28:14a documentary hand means that he's not
1:28:16trained to be a literary scribe copying
1:28:20literature but he is trained to be a
1:28:24bureaucrat a CPA a bean-counter those
1:28:27scribes were meticulous and one of the
1:28:30great pieces of evidence to demonstrate
1:28:32that our manuscripts come back from
1:28:35these documentary hands is the use of
1:28:37numbers in the manuscripts we don't see
1:28:40this in the more literary manuscripts
1:28:42what we see is the numbers spelled out
1:28:46well as in the documentary hands they
1:28:48are not spelled out P 75 was written
1:28:50with a documentary hand he was an
1:28:52untrained scribed scribe and yet Bart
1:28:55agrees that that's one of the very best
1:28:57manuscripts we have of the New Testament
1:28:59the last question is when you speak
1:29:01about these manuscripts and the mistakes
1:29:04that they made what kinds of mistakes
1:29:07are you talking about in those early
1:29:08centuries you said that the mistakes
1:29:11that they made were mistakes that were
1:29:13accidental not intentional those are the
1:29:16easiest mistakes you you mentioned too
1:29:19to discern let me give one example as I
1:29:22wrap up and that is in one manuscript at
1:29:25John 1:30 it says has John the Baptist
1:29:28say after me comes air well that doesn't
1:29:32make
1:29:32much since the Greek word that he missed
1:29:34to miss wrote was on there which means
1:29:38man after me comes a man now that's a
1:29:41nonsense reading but I think the next
1:29:43scribe would know hey this must mean an
1:29:45error after me comes a man speaking
1:29:47about Jesus now if you don't believe
1:29:49that Jesus ever existed you would not
1:29:51call that a nonsense error after me
1:29:54comes error Jesus didn't exist as far as
1:29:55you're concerned but I think it is a
1:29:57nonsense error and easily corrected by
1:29:59the next scribe thank you thank you
1:30:08well this is getting good we'll have one
1:30:12more round of debate Bart it's your turn
1:30:15okay thank you very much so I'm looking
1:30:26forward to Dan's answers to my questions
1:30:36Dan raised several questions for me that
1:30:38are they're very good questions and I
1:30:40certainly want to to deal with them
1:30:42dan raises the question how do I know
1:30:45that Marc was only copied a couple of
1:30:46times that's his first question to me
1:30:49and I don't know I don't know whether it
1:30:51was copied twice or five times or 500
1:30:54times I don't know and neither does dan
1:30:59were the first copies accurate I don't
1:31:06know
1:31:06and either does dan were the copies of
1:31:11those copies accurate I don't know and
1:31:14either does dan how do we know that the
1:31:18earliest copyists were accurately
1:31:21representing the text that they had in
1:31:23front of them there is simply no way to
1:31:26know Dan once again reverts to the fact
1:31:31that our manuscript evidence for the new
1:31:35testament is so much better than for the
1:31:38greco-roman other greco-roman literature
1:31:41and once again we're in agreement on
1:31:43this yes we have far more manuscripts
1:31:46for the New Testament than for any other
1:31:48book from the ancient world yes is that
1:31:52relevant to the question we're talking
1:31:54about tonight no the question is can we
1:31:58trust that we really know what was in
1:32:00the original copies of Mark and the
1:32:03other books of the New Testament dan
1:32:06wants to label me as a radical skeptic
1:32:09and I'm simply saying that we have no
1:32:13evidence if he thinks that there is
1:32:16evidence I want to know what the
1:32:18evidence is and so why doesn't
1:32:21he tell us the evidence that the
1:32:24earliest scribes on which our later
1:32:27scribes depended copied their text
1:32:30accurately how do we know that the
1:32:33earliest copies of mark did not take out
1:32:36a verse or two they didn't like or add a
1:32:40verse or two that they thought should be
1:32:42in there how do we know that they didn't
1:32:46do that we have no way of knowing that
1:32:48and so I'd like to know why Dan thinks
1:32:52that we do know Dan does ask a very good
1:32:55question how do we know that our
1:32:56earliest scribes were the worst scribes
1:32:58and so it works like this if you take
1:33:02two manuscripts from the 12th century
1:33:05and carefully compare them with one
1:33:08another word for word they very often
1:33:11will agree in the vast majority of cases
1:33:15if you take two if you take a manuscript
1:33:19from the second century or the third
1:33:22century and compare it with an 11th
1:33:25century manuscript there will be
1:33:27enormous differences tons of differences
1:33:32why because the later scribes were
1:33:35trained to copy things accurately the
1:33:38earlier scribes were not and not only of
1:33:40the early manuscripts more different
1:33:43than the later ones than the later ones
1:33:46are from one another the early
1:33:48manuscripts when you compare them
1:33:50carefully with one another word for what
1:33:52word are greatly different from one
1:33:55another and so dan mentioned for example
1:33:58two manuscripts P 66 and P 75 they're
1:34:02closely related with hundreds and
1:34:05hundreds of differences between them
1:34:07he really does not want to use P 66 as
1:34:11an example of a manuscript that is done
1:34:13by a competent scribe yes he makes
1:34:16pretty letters and he makes hundreds of
1:34:19mistakes as detailed in the thorough
1:34:23examination of Gordon fee which has been
1:34:26published as a book and that Dan knows
1:34:28all about this is an example of a scribe
1:34:31who made tons of mistakes
1:34:33now our early
1:34:35scribes clearly show that they're not
1:34:38trained to copy manuscripts the way
1:34:40monks were in later monasteries when you
1:34:43go back to the fourth century he
1:34:45mentions codex sinaiticus and codex bee
1:34:47and he says these are very good
1:34:49manuscripts which is of course what I
1:34:51myself said and that I agree with by the
1:34:534th century you start getting good
1:34:55manuscripts but you start looking at the
1:34:57earlier manuscripts and they're not
1:34:59nearly as good the earlier manuscripts
1:35:02are copied as by scribes who are not
1:35:03trained what about the manuscripts that
1:35:06preceded those manuscripts what about
1:35:09the scribes who were copying the text
1:35:11not in the year 350 but in the year 80
1:35:17what assurance do we have that those
1:35:20scribes were good when the trend is that
1:35:23the earlier you go the worse the scribes
1:35:26are what happens when you go to a period
1:35:29earlier than our surviving manuscripts
1:35:31to a period where scribes are copying
1:35:34before our surviving scribes are copying
1:35:36are you telling me that those earlier
1:35:38scribes are more likely to be accurate
1:35:41than the third and fourth century
1:35:43scribes on what grounds do we say that
1:35:47what is the evidence that's what I'm
1:35:50asking for is the evidence
1:35:54let me try once more with my questions
1:35:59how do we know or rather how does Dan
1:36:02know that our surviving manuscripts were
1:36:05copied from accurate copies instead of
1:36:08thoroughly erroneous ones how does he
1:36:10know that and when Dan says that 99% of
1:36:15our surviving variant readings are
1:36:16insignificant my question my second
1:36:19question is how many variants were
1:36:22created before our surviving manuscripts
1:36:24and how many of those variant readings
1:36:28were significant if he says he doesn't
1:36:32know then I want to know how he can say
1:36:36that he can trust the text of the New
1:36:39Testament thank you
1:36:49will conclude our round of responses
1:36:51with Dan again lively questions Bart
1:37:02while still skirting the issues that I
1:37:03raised with you but that seems to be the
1:37:06way we're doing this tonight we don't
1:37:09have hard evidence that you're asking
1:37:11for that's what we both agree on we do
1:37:14not have the hard evidence but we have a
1:37:16great deal of soft evidence that in all
1:37:20probability leads to the conviction that
1:37:23what we have in our hands is in all
1:37:25essential respects what the New
1:37:27Testament writers actually wrote I could
1:37:31illustrate it this way Bart keeps
1:37:32talking about these early scribes that
1:37:34made mistakes left and right and we have
1:37:37no idea if they were accurate copies or
1:37:38not well let's just suppose I took 20 of
1:37:41you and we met in a room and I read out
1:37:44to you the text of the Gospel of Mark
1:37:48many of you would make some very
1:37:51egregious errors all of you would make
1:37:55mistakes how in the world could anybody
1:37:58get back to the text that I read to you
1:38:01well that's what Bart and I both know
1:38:04very well how to do it's known as
1:38:07textual criticism we examine these
1:38:08manuscripts we can compare the
1:38:10manuscripts so that we can see this
1:38:12reading came from this it's an errant
1:38:15reading that was due to this kind of
1:38:16mistake we can compare the manuscripts
1:38:18in terms of which ones are sloppier
1:38:20which ones tend to be more accurate and
1:38:22the basis that they have we can do it
1:38:24through several generations of copies in
1:38:26fact I do an exercise that I've done now
1:38:3070 times in churches all over the
1:38:33country and in fact in the world it's
1:38:35called the Gospel according to Snoopy
1:38:37its I wanted to use a mild name so that
1:38:40we could play it pretty well we get
1:38:43fifty people twenty two of whom are
1:38:46scribes I give them a passage to copy
1:38:51out in English and each scribe has
1:38:54instructions one scribe has the
1:38:56instructions you're making theological
1:38:58changes another one you have bad hearing
1:39:00and you're hearing this
1:39:01the scriptorium another one you're a
1:39:03terrible speller another one you have no
1:39:05idea how to write so that anybody could
1:39:07even read what you're saying I have done
1:39:09this exercise 70 times over the last 35
1:39:13years with laypeople with people who
1:39:16know nothing about textual criticism and
1:39:17accept what I tell them the hour on
1:39:20Friday night when we begin the scribes
1:39:23copy out the text Saturday morning
1:39:25everybody else comes together and on the
1:39:27basis of thinking through the issues of
1:39:29the external evidence and the internal
1:39:31evidence and the relationship that these
1:39:34scribes have to each other with the
1:39:35earliest manuscripts all gone they
1:39:41worked through that to try to get back
1:39:42to the original wording of the Gospel
1:39:44according to Snoopy over the years
1:39:49almost every single time we've done this
1:39:52there have been no more than one or two
1:39:54mistakes there has never been a serious
1:39:58change in the text something like two
1:40:00verses also those kinds of changes these
1:40:04are people who don't know anything about
1:40:06textual criticism they have the same
1:40:09kind of a situation that New Testament
1:40:11scholars are facing and we are trying to
1:40:13put this together on the basis of
1:40:15probability I give them an hour
1:40:18instruction on Friday night and then I
1:40:19let them decide how to go about getting
1:40:22back to the original with no instruction
1:40:24they have to do it on their own and they
1:40:26debate in groups they get back together
1:40:28it's about a four or five hour project
1:40:30over a dozen times they have exactly
1:40:33duplicated the wording of the original
1:40:35text the worst group I ever had was
1:40:37Dallas seminary doctoral students but I
1:40:39don't want to talk about them
1:40:41I think they missed it by four words
1:40:45Bart you talk about the worst scribes
1:40:50and you say it's the earliest scribes
1:40:53that are the worst and the way you can
1:40:54tell is because you can compare them to
1:40:55an 11th century scribe that's very
1:40:58accurate I don't think that you're
1:41:01trying to say in fact I know you're not
1:41:03trying to say that the text of the 11th
1:41:06century manuscript which is almost
1:41:07surely going to be Byzantine is better
1:41:09than the early Alexandrian manuscripts
1:41:11what you're trying to say I think is
1:41:13that these manuscripts that you consider
1:41:15to be the worst manuscripts are that
1:41:17they are not done by professional
1:41:19scribes and consequently they they have
1:41:23mistakes in them but even then I have to
1:41:26ask what manuscripts are you talking
1:41:28about
1:41:29I don't think it's the second century
1:41:32manuscripts we have for fragments of the
1:41:36book of Acts and elsewhere in Western
1:41:39manuscripts in the third century we have
1:41:41part of a gospel in the fitt in the
1:41:44fourth late 4th century that has the
1:41:46western text and then we have a Gospels
1:41:48manuscript in the 5th century that's
1:41:50Western that would be the wild copying
1:41:53texts but the Alexandrian manuscripts do
1:41:56not greatly differ from one another as
1:41:59you suggest except in those incidental
1:42:01errors my evidence for this is dr. Tim
1:42:05Finney's doctoral dissertation on
1:42:07Hebrews
1:42:08he's from Perth Australia and he
1:42:11demonstrated that the early manuscripts
1:42:12have incidental errors for the book of
1:42:15Hebrews and Barbara all on the former
1:42:17director of the Institute for annoyed
1:42:19Testament look at text for shoeing and
1:42:20muenster the flagship Institute for
1:42:23Texas critical studies recently wrote an
1:42:25article in which he looked at the early
1:42:26manuscripts for John and she said they
1:42:29really are very similar to each other
1:42:31except for the kinds of mistakes that we
1:42:33can determine what's going on I think
1:42:38that you're trying to suggest Bart that
1:42:40out of chaos we get this order when the
1:42:43chaos actually of all these manuscripts
1:42:46we possibly could start with would only
1:42:48end up in us having variants where we
1:42:50could get back to the originals just
1:42:52exactly as we do today
1:42:53thank you
1:43:03thank you very much thanks to both of
1:43:05you now I know that many of you have
1:43:07been looking forward to a time when you
1:43:09could ask your own questions and will
1:43:11now move into a time for about 30
1:43:13minutes so the unspoken premise of the
1:43:16debate question is the New Testament
1:43:19itself how is that constructed I'm
1:43:20talking of the Canon of the New
1:43:22Testament sort of us assuming that what
1:43:24we know of today as you know that as the
1:43:26New Testament was what was sort of in
1:43:28circulation by the original Christian
1:43:30Church we've since found a number of
1:43:33other documents and other other writings
1:43:35that were sort of in circulation but
1:43:37didn't make it into the final cut of the
1:43:39Canon is there anything that we can
1:43:40learn by textual criticism of those
1:43:43works that would help to inform
1:43:44understanding of what we consider now
1:43:46that the canonical New Testament yeah I
1:43:49can deal that quickly go ahead I'll
1:43:51follow up yeah yeah it's just we don't
1:43:54have as many manuscripts as most of
1:43:56these for most of these other non
1:43:57canonical works but there's some that we
1:43:59have a lot I mean the protean vangelia
1:44:01Maccoby
1:44:01the the proto Gospel of James is a was a
1:44:04very popular book through the Middle
1:44:06Ages and we have 500 some manuscripts of
1:44:08it in the various vernaculars of Europe
1:44:10and what we find in the case of these
1:44:13non canonical books is exactly what we
1:44:15find in the case of the canonical books
1:44:17scribes made a lot of changes sometimes
1:44:19intentionally and sometimes
1:44:20unintentionally so they didn't they
1:44:22didn't copy the New Testament manuscript
1:44:24any better than they copied the others
1:44:27I'd say they copied them worse we have
1:44:31some evidence that's been done by Martin
1:44:33Haida
1:44:34on the Shepherd Shepherd of hermas and
1:44:37it's copying history he said it's much
1:44:39worse than the text of the New Testament
1:44:41and we have evidence on the Gospel of
1:44:46Thomas in this new book that has just
1:44:48come out today that have edited
1:44:49revisiting the corruption of the New
1:44:51Testament mr. timmreck oudy wrote a
1:44:53chapter comparing the coptic text of the
1:44:56Gospel of Thomas with the three Greek
1:44:58fragments that we have a text critical
1:45:00comparison and what he noticed is that
1:45:02there are pretty radical differences
1:45:04within a hundred year period of time and
1:45:07the extrapolation is that it's much
1:45:09worse than what we seem to have for New
1:45:10Testament manuscripts thank you over
1:45:13here a question for Dan or for both
1:45:15dr. yerman I'm wondering if we can't get
1:45:19back to an auto graphic reading of the
1:45:23New Testament then how do you envision
1:45:25the aims of textual criticism in the
1:45:28first place what's the point of textual
1:45:29criticism we can't get back to an auto
1:45:31graphic reading thank you it's a great
1:45:33question and this is where I'm going to
1:45:36disagree strongly with something that
1:45:38Dan said when Dan said that the vast
1:45:40majority of textual critics think that
1:45:43we can get back to the originals as Dan
1:45:46knows full well the term original text
1:45:49is generally not used anymore
1:45:50by textual critics if you go to the SPL
1:45:53the society biblical literature section
1:45:55on textual criticism where scholars from
1:45:58around the world come together scholars
1:46:00have gotten away from using the term
1:46:03original text for many of the reasons
1:46:05that I've laid out for you the very
1:46:08center of textual research at Muenster
1:46:11Germany which is one of the there are
1:46:13two major centers of sexual research in
1:46:16Europe one is in Muenster Germany one is
1:46:18in Birmingham England and both of them
1:46:21have gotten away from talking about the
1:46:22original text so what they tend to talk
1:46:25about instead is geez how do you
1:46:29translate it down house calls text exit
1:46:32exit text yes thank you it's what they
1:46:37tried it what we try to reconstruct is
1:46:39the text from which the surviving
1:46:42witnesses descend and we don't know
1:46:46whether that text if we reconstruct is
1:46:48the original or not that's all we can do
1:46:50we can only reconstruct the earliest
1:46:53form of the text and whether it's the
1:46:55original or not you know dan says yes
1:46:57and I say I don't know let me respond to
1:47:02that to what I did not say is that the
1:47:05vast majority of textual critics are
1:47:06trying to get back to or think they can
1:47:09get back to the original text what I
1:47:11said is the vast majority of New
1:47:12Testament scholars think that it has
1:47:14been largely recovered you know it's
1:47:17based on all the writings that they do
1:47:19when you talk about redaction criticism
1:47:21in the synoptic Gospels it's assuming
1:47:23you know that that what mark says what
1:47:26Matthew says those kinds of
1:47:27yeah virtually all New Testament
1:47:29scholarship for the last 2,000 years has
1:47:31assumed that we can recover it in all
1:47:34essentials and I think even in the most
1:47:36corrupt text we have it in its
1:47:37essentials yeah okay no I agree we
1:47:39probably have it in it probably it's a
1:47:41probability judgment but it's not true
1:47:44I mean it's true that for 2,000 years
1:47:45people have thought that but the last 20
1:47:47years you won't find text critics
1:47:48talking about the original text will you
1:47:51you actually will they where they will
1:47:54talk about it in terms of using the out
1:47:56songs text initial text autographic text
1:47:59that kind of terminology because of
1:48:01Eldon Epps article that says there's
1:48:03problems with using the term original
1:48:05text but JK Elliot still thinks it were
1:48:08going back to the original text even
1:48:10though he doesn't call it that you said
1:48:11in a debate with somebody else that it's
1:48:13only evangelicals who are speaking about
1:48:15it that's not true
1:48:16holger stripped off the director of the
1:48:18Institute and minister says that we are
1:48:20trying to get back to the original text
1:48:22Garrett made Munster also said there's
1:48:24no difference between the initial text
1:48:26and the autographing text this just
1:48:29isn't right it's not true the initial
1:48:32text is not the original text that's why
1:48:34they started talking about the initial
1:48:35text because we can't get to the
1:48:37original text that's why you're saying
1:48:39otherwise they would not have changed
1:48:40the language you know full well when the
1:48:42orleans first published their book on
1:48:44the text of the new testament they used
1:48:46the term original text and the orleans
1:48:49changed they don't talk about the
1:48:51original text anymore and either did
1:48:53people at birmingham or their successors
1:48:55in Munster
1:48:56they might for practical purposes say
1:48:58well you know it's it's as close as we
1:49:01get to the original but we don't know
1:49:02whether it's the original that's why
1:49:04they don't use the term you if you read
1:49:06what Holy Spirit has said about this of
1:49:07course he's not a textual critic is he
1:49:09he's the director of the center though
1:49:10yes he's the director of Center but he's
1:49:12not a trained textual critic and he he
1:49:14explicitly uses the term a sconce text
1:49:17he doesn't use original text but he is
1:49:19still assuming that that is the same as
1:49:21what we used to refer to as the original
1:49:24text and Jared makes said the same thing
1:49:26in the colloquium two years ago two
1:49:28textual critics we're not able to be at
1:49:30what gentlemen I'm going to ask you to
1:49:31put this in the form of a question
1:49:34[Applause]
1:49:36no this is why I came tonight honestly
1:49:39you will have an opportunity to return
1:49:42to this and your closing statements so
1:49:45in the meantime let's now switch back
1:49:46over to to our questioners in the
1:49:49audience yes sir so kind of along the
1:49:53same lines if it's not the case that
1:49:54there was this massive recession at some
1:49:58point trying to get all the manuscripts
1:50:00on the same track and it's also the case
1:50:02that there was wild copying going on
1:50:05especially the earlier the more wild why
1:50:08is there so much verbal agreement
1:50:10between Matthew Mark and Luke and lino
1:50:13leading to the synoptic problem are you
1:50:17asking me or Dan either's fine either
1:50:21both Wow right go ahead and uh oh okay
1:50:29so yeah you know one of the problems is
1:50:33that Matthew and Mark and Luke often
1:50:37disagree as well as often they agree and
1:50:42one of the questions that have been
1:50:44thrown out in in scholarship is whether
1:50:47Matthew and Luke actually had the same
1:50:49form of mark in front of them or not are
1:50:51the differences sometimes Mark and Luke
1:50:55sometimes mark and Matthew will agree
1:50:57against Luke sometimes Mark and Luke
1:51:00will agree against Matthew and so and
1:51:05there are times when all three of them
1:51:06disagree and so there are are scholars
1:51:08who think that one of the reason way you
1:51:10can explain this this part of the
1:51:12so-called synoptic problem is that
1:51:14Matthew and Luke had different forms of
1:51:16mark in front of them which is also what
1:51:20I think yeah let me answer it as well I
1:51:25think there is a method and you told me
1:51:28bard at dinner last night about a
1:51:29doctoral student who's doing trying to
1:51:32figure out what Matthew's form of would
1:51:35be I think there is a way actually to do
1:51:37that it takes a lot of time and I don't
1:51:39know if it could be done in just a
1:51:40doctoral dissertation what you do is you
1:51:43look at the text that Matthew has a
1:51:46mark where you've got the double
1:51:47tradition and where the text that he
1:51:50follows does not fit in line with his
1:51:52redaction 'el it seems to go against
1:51:55that then that must almost surely have
1:51:58come from an intermediate text that was
1:52:00corrupt now I do not believe that the
1:52:03text that Matthew and Luke each had of
1:52:06Mark was absolutely pristine every
1:52:08single thing we know about the copying
1:52:10of manuscripts is that they made
1:52:11mistakes but I have been spending the
1:52:13last several years trying to find where
1:52:15there's something in Matthew that would
1:52:18not go along with his redaction Alyssa's
1:52:20in his change of mark I can't find it
1:52:22that tells me that it wasn't the scribe
1:52:24before him who corrupted the text but he
1:52:27because he's doing it for theological
1:52:28reasons and historical reasons is
1:52:30changing it so I don't think Matthew and
1:52:32Luke are at all like the earlier scribes
1:52:34that we have before them or the scribes
1:52:36that come later can I just ask real
1:52:39quick between what we have the strong
1:52:41the strong evidence that we have that's
1:52:43been presented and the original
1:52:44autographs what would it be in between
1:52:46that that would convince you that is
1:52:48trustworthy
1:52:49other than the autographs well if we had
1:52:52early copies if we had copies of Mark
1:52:54it's supposed to suppose next week there
1:52:57there's a archeological find in each and
1:52:59say it's in Rome an archeological find
1:53:01in Rome and we can we have reason to
1:53:05think that these ten manuscripts that
1:53:07are discovered we're all copied within a
1:53:10week of the original copy of mark and
1:53:13they disagree in point zero zero one
1:53:17percent of their textual variation then
1:53:19then I would say that's good evidence
1:53:21and that's precisely what we don't have
1:53:26yes evening dr. Ehrman there was one
1:53:30argument that dr. Wallace represented
1:53:34that was not addressed and not
1:53:36specifically he mentioned that the New
1:53:38Testament has more manuscripts than any
1:53:40average classical piece of work that we
1:53:42have today
1:53:44with following the question at the young
1:53:47man in front of me asked what type of
1:53:49evidence would convince you and you
1:53:50answer that
1:53:51so with that type of standard of
1:53:53requirement for evidence how then in
1:53:55your opinion should we regard classical
1:53:57pieces of work today of which we don't
1:53:59have original autographs or even not
1:54:03even half near the number of manuscripts
1:54:06for them like the Odyssey and things
1:54:08like that then we were required to read
1:54:10in high school yes right yeah so you
1:54:12wasted your time I'm sorry so no I tried
1:54:18to address that I'm sorry if it didn't
1:54:20come through clearly but I certainly
1:54:21wanted to address and try to address it
1:54:23is that it's absolutely true we have far
1:54:27more manuscripts of the New Testament
1:54:28than we have of Homer or Plato or you
1:54:31Rippa DS or Aeschylus or Sophocles or
1:54:33any of these authors absolutely
1:54:34absolutely true what that mean that does
1:54:37not mean though that that we have the
1:54:39original New Testament what it means is
1:54:41that we have more manuscripts of the New
1:54:43Testament than these other works and
1:54:45it's harder to reconstruct these other
1:54:47works even than it is of the New
1:54:49Testament and this isn't a disputed
1:54:51point I mean classicists agree that in
1:54:54many places we we are where we have
1:54:57problems one one difference is that the
1:55:01most of these most of these classical
1:55:04author scribes did not make intentional
1:55:06changes for because of their particular
1:55:08beliefs so there are more intentional
1:55:10changes in the New Testament manuscripts
1:55:12because people wanted to make sure it
1:55:14said what they wanted it to say and so
1:55:16they changed in places and that simply
1:55:18didn't happen all that much in Homer and
1:55:19stuff but scholars have known about
1:55:22problems in Homer since the back in you
1:55:25know for over 2,000 years there there
1:55:27were scholars who were devoted to the
1:55:28problem of trying to reconstruct the
1:55:30text of Homer realizing that in fact
1:55:32ultimately was an impossible task so yes
1:55:35I mean it's an impossible task with the
1:55:37classics but that doesn't mean that
1:55:38therefore it's possible with the New
1:55:41Testament thank you very much I'm sorry
1:55:43we don't have time for all of these
1:55:44questions but thanks to all of you who
1:55:46participated at this point we're going
1:55:47to move to closing statements we'll
1:55:50begin with with Bart and then we will
1:55:54allow Dan to get his closing statement
1:56:01well thank you all very much again for
1:56:04being here this has been a very lively
1:56:06back-and-forth I've enjoyed it very much
1:56:09i I want to say that I am NOT a at the
1:56:14end of the day I'm not a complete
1:56:16skeptic about the New Testament
1:56:19I think historians have to weigh
1:56:21probabilities is it probable that the
1:56:24Gospel of Mark that we have today is
1:56:26completely unlike anything that Mark
1:56:28really wrote no it's not probable
1:56:31do we know that it's exactly what Mark
1:56:33wrote no we don't know that either
1:56:36it's we just don't know how different is
1:56:41Mark from the original mark we don't
1:56:43know what if it's only three or four
1:56:45percent different isn't that isn't that
1:56:47good enough well it might be good enough
1:56:49for some people but you know what if you
1:56:52knew that you could trust your spouse
1:56:55ninety-seven percent of the time is that
1:56:59good enough with the New Testament we're
1:57:03often talking about more than 3% or 4%
1:57:06for example there are two forms of the
1:57:08book of Acts in the manuscript tradition
1:57:11we have two forms of the book of Acts
1:57:13one manuscript tradition is 12.5% longer
1:57:18than the other 12.5% longer we're not
1:57:23talking about three or four percent in
1:57:25every instance Dan himself admits that
1:57:28there are hundreds of places where we
1:57:31don't know and that's with the evidence
1:57:34that we do have what do we have with the
1:57:35evidence we don't have I don't know and
1:57:38neither does Dan and you will note that
1:57:41he hasn't answered my questions let me
1:57:46let me try and give an analogy the topic
1:57:50has to do with whether we can trust the
1:57:52text of the New Testament and in my view
1:57:54when it comes to matters of trust the
1:57:57person the the burden of proof resides
1:58:00with the person who says that we can
1:58:03trust give you an analogy there's a
1:58:07bridge that that's built over a
1:58:09mile-high ravine and a debate is going
1:58:13on over whether a passenger train should
1:58:17pass over the bridge whether it can in
1:58:19fact bear the weight of a passenger
1:58:22train that has a hundred people on board
1:58:24do both sides of that debate share the
1:58:29burden of proof no in that case the
1:58:33train's engineer will not take the train
1:58:36onto the bridge until he's convinced
1:58:39that he can trust the weight in issues
1:58:42of trust it's the person who says that
1:58:44you can trust who bears the burden of
1:58:47proof how can we know that the earliest
1:58:51copyist in the first 200 years of
1:58:53copying the New Testament were skilled
1:58:55and careful or good at all how do we
1:59:00know that our earliest manuscripts are
1:59:03based on high-quality exemplars in other
1:59:06words that the manuscript is based on
1:59:08the manuscript that's accurate how do we
1:59:10know that especially given the fact that
1:59:12in our earliest manuscripts we have more
1:59:15mistakes than we have in our later
1:59:17manuscript the early scribes were not as
1:59:20trained and not as skillful how about
1:59:23the earlier ones they may be they were
1:59:27as good maybe they weren't how do we
1:59:31know is this a bridge you want to trust
1:59:35is this a bridge you're willing to take
1:59:38the train on well I think it's a bona
1:59:41fide question let me conclude with a
1:59:43final illustration of the problem my
1:59:47professor bruce metzger told the story
1:59:48of a of his own teacher at princeton
1:59:51university a man named paul Coleman
1:59:54Norton who was stationed in North Africa
1:59:56during the second world war and after
1:59:58the war wrote an article that got
2:00:00published in a scholarly journal about a
2:00:02manuscript that he happened to discover
2:00:04while he was in North Africa in the Army
2:00:06during the Second World War there was
2:00:08some downtime and he went into a mosque
2:00:11and the the the leaders of the mosque
2:00:14told him they had a very ancient book
2:00:16once they found out that he was a
2:00:17professor of ancient history and so he
2:00:19looked at this ancient book it was a
2:00:20copy it was an Arabic copy of
2:00:23Quran but he he found inside the book he
2:00:25later indicated in this article he found
2:00:27a page that was written in Greek and as
2:00:31he as he read this page two realized
2:00:33this was a commentary on the Gospel of
2:00:35Matthew is just fragment it was just the
2:00:37one page was stuck in this old Maggie's
2:00:38room and so he wrote this article about
2:00:40it in the scholarly journal and the
2:00:41interesting thing was that it included
2:00:44an important textual variant for the
2:00:45Gospel of Matthew you know that in the
2:00:48Gospel of Matthew there's this passage
2:00:50where Jesus is talking about people who
2:00:52will be cast into the art of dark outer
2:00:54darkness where there's weeping and
2:00:55gnashing of teeth well in this
2:00:57commentary this ancient commentary on
2:01:00the Gospel of Matthew there was an
2:01:02additional line
2:01:04Jesus says they'll be cast into the
2:01:07outer darkness where there's weeping and
2:01:09gnashing of teeth and the disciples
2:01:12replied but master what of those who
2:01:14have no teeth jesus said teeth will be
2:01:20provided thank you very much
2:01:32thank you bar will allow Dan to have his
2:01:36concluding comments that was a great
2:01:40hoax
2:01:42Greg fake manuscript that was produced
2:01:46Bart gives the illustration of a train
2:01:48and that the person who argues that you
2:01:51need to trust has the burden of proof I
2:01:55would argue that all of us are on the
2:01:59mountain road when it comes to thinking
2:02:02about ancient texts not just the text of
2:02:06the New Testament but all of greco-roman
2:02:07literature and if we are going to be
2:02:10extremely skeptical and say we just
2:02:12don't know
2:02:13then we truly are going back to the dark
2:02:15ages where we know next to nothing about
2:02:18the ancient world and therefore have no
2:02:20background to understand our modern
2:02:22world I think a radical position moves
2:02:25to the left or to the right and either
2:02:28way you get creamed only a moderate
2:02:31position is going to say we don't
2:02:33absolutely know we definitely don't
2:02:35absolutely know we're dealing with
2:02:37historical issues here there's no such
2:02:41thing as absolute certainty about these
2:02:43kinds of things at least not on a
2:02:45historical level but what there is is
2:02:48probability if does it matter if Jesus
2:02:54forgave a woman caught in adultery of
2:02:56course it matters in Bart and I both
2:02:59agree that we are pretty darn sure John
2:03:01didn't write that story does it matter
2:03:04if Jesus was angry when he healed a
2:03:06leper of course that matters and Bart
2:03:09and I again are both in agreement that
2:03:11most likely Mark wrote that when Jesus
2:03:13did this he was angry rather than being
2:03:16compassionate does it matter if the New
2:03:19Testament explicitly speaks of the
2:03:20Trinity of course that matters and yet
2:03:24we both agree that that was a verse that
2:03:26was added centuries over a millennium
2:03:29later than the original New Testament
2:03:31was penned we do have a sense of what
2:03:34those earlier documents say and we do
2:03:36have a sense of what the original or
2:03:39autographic or initial or out Gong's
2:03:41text says these things matter too
2:03:45me not because I think any essential
2:03:48teaching of Christianity is at stake but
2:03:51because I am a historian who wants to
2:03:54get back to that wording as early as we
2:03:57possibly can of what Paul actually wrote
2:03:59what the Gospels actually were about
2:04:02what the book of Acts really was
2:04:03speaking of what the rest of the letters
2:04:05in the book of Revelation originally
2:04:07said from the pen of the author as it
2:04:10was dispatched to his readers this is
2:04:13why I founded the Center for the Study
2:04:14of New Testament manuscripts so that we
2:04:16could photograph these manuscripts and
2:04:18analyze them and help the rest of the
2:04:20world of scholars to think through what
2:04:22they're all about
2:04:24bart said that historians always base
2:04:27their judgment on probabilities I would
2:04:29say that's exactly right
2:04:31we don't do it on the basis of
2:04:33certainties we don't have those kinds of
2:04:34certainties but he continues to speak of
2:04:38my view as one of certainty but that's
2:04:42not true I have relative certainty about
2:04:45these things but he seems to be
2:04:47absolutely unsure about them and yet at
2:04:51the same time in his book forged not
2:04:54written twenty years ago but written
2:04:56this year he seems to presuppose that he
2:04:59knows what Paul's authentic letters down
2:05:01to the vocabulary was about now I'm not
2:05:04judging him for that I'm simply saying
2:05:06any work that we do outside of textual
2:05:09criticism presupposes when we're working
2:05:11in the New Testament it presupposes that
2:05:13we have a pretty darn good idea where
2:05:16the original text actually said and even
2:05:19in his book forged as well as the rest
2:05:21of his books in the New Testament he
2:05:24presupposes the same thing whether he
2:05:25says that or not I think our task here
2:05:30in the task for all of you is to pursue
2:05:32truth at all costs
2:05:34and I think Bart and I are both
2:05:36sincerely on that pursuit and I want to
2:05:39thank you for a marvelous lively and
2:05:41even very fun evening thank you very
2:05:44much
2:05:57thank you Dan let's give both of them
2:05:59one more round of applause
2:06:21if we can only speak in terms of
2:06:23probability I think it's highly probable
2:06:25that most people found this to be an
2:06:27extremely stimulating debate thank you
2:06:30to both of you for coming for being a
2:06:31part of this for organizing it thank you
2:06:33for your attendance as an audience let
2:06:36me remind you to put your contact
2:06:38information in the baskets as you leave
2:06:40let me remind you of the dinner at
2:06:42abacus next week I will ask that you
2:06:44clear out of the auditorium as quickly
2:06:46as possible because our time is limited
2:06:47but that you linger at the book tables
2:06:50thank you very much for coming have a
2:06:53good night I think I would base the
2:06:56strength of winning and losing off of
2:06:58kind of like they did with high
2:07:01probability of manuscripts and low
2:07:02probability of meeting scripts I would
2:07:04base it on weak conduction and strong
2:07:06induction in that regard and I would say
2:07:08that the strongest conclusion that
2:07:10someone came to tonight was dr. Wallace
2:07:13and then I would say the person had the
2:07:15strongest strongest induction for those
2:07:18conclusions was dr. Wallace for sure I
2:07:21think that the entire debate definitely
2:07:23gave some insight into the New Testament
2:07:26and just how much we do know I mean how
2:07:29how long all of these texts have been
2:07:31around how many times it's been you know
2:07:33we copied just it's amazing to me that
2:07:37we still have so many texts with the
2:07:41original integrity of the manuscripts
2:07:44and I mean I really think it's amazing
2:07:46that we do have all the truth that we do
2:07:48for the manuscripts that we still are
2:07:50able to look at today
2:07:52I really think dr. Wallace won the
2:07:55debate just because of the ocean of
2:07:59evidence that he presented for the
2:08:03trustworthiness of the New Testament I
2:08:05mean that the topic they were debating
2:08:06is can we trust the text right well I
2:08:09just think the overwhelming amount of
2:08:11evidence that was presented for the
2:08:13trustworthiness of the New Testament
2:08:15really went to dr. Wallace or dr. Airmen
2:08:19just over and over kept saying we can't
2:08:21know we can't know we can't know and he
2:08:24was kind of like that beach ball
2:08:25floating on top of the ocean you know as
2:08:27the evidence was being more and more
2:08:29presented the beach ball just kept
2:08:31getting higher and higher and higher so
2:08:32I really think dr. Wallace won hands
2:08:34down and you know it's really
2:08:36interesting to see two scholars great
2:08:38scholars wonderful men being able to
2:08:40talk about this in a professional way at
2:08:42a scholarly level I really think it
2:08:44opens people's eyes to the deeper debate
2:08:47that's going on here about the
2:08:50trustworthiness of the text I think it
2:08:52was good that way it's worthwhile to
2:08:54debate because people base their entire
2:08:57lives on the answer to this question and
2:09:01people have done millions of people have
2:09:04died over the centuries because of this
2:09:06document that alone should tell us it's
2:09:09a very important document because we
2:09:12have so much evidence should tell us
2:09:14that it's more important than any
2:09:16document in a into a tick WA T and we
2:09:19should ask the question why even even if
2:09:22we can't construct it fully in its
2:09:24original autograph we should still ask
2:09:26the question why is there this function
2:09:28of evidence I don't say anybody one to
2:09:30me Wallace gave somewhat more compelling
2:09:33backup for his position I think it's the
2:09:37first I've ever seen where the person
2:09:39representing the what you might say the
2:09:40conservative side was a relativist but
2:09:42the liberal was the absolutist not
2:09:46really I mean I think what Wallace said
2:09:49was pretty compelling about the the
2:09:53relative amount of manuscripts we have
2:09:55for extra biblical literature and
2:09:57greco-roman world I'd like to know if
2:10:01greco-roman classical scholars have the
2:10:04same standard of proof that airman has
2:10:07for the New Testament manuscripts are
2:10:10they going to set that same standard for
2:10:11Homer in living and plenty in these
2:10:14other ancient historians I suspect they
2:10:16don't but
2:10:17if anybody won this debate I think hands
2:10:20down Dan Wallace did well he seemed to
2:10:24address the questions in my opinion more
2:10:27fully and I think the questions that he
2:10:29asked to dr. Ehrman he never really
2:10:32fully responded in my opinion I really
2:10:35want to go back and look at the argument
2:10:37that Airmen made about the second and
2:10:39third century you know copyists that
2:10:41they weren't professional that they were
2:10:43illiterate and to me it seemed like an
2:10:44argument from silence which I've always
2:10:46understood is a very poor form of
2:10:48argumentation but nonetheless I still
2:10:49want to look into it

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