Bart Ehrman vs. James White Debate P2

okay James thank you again very lively Republic I have a number of questions some of them can be answered very quickly I think first in your opening address who says that there are only 1500 to 2,000 viable differences among our manuscripts where did you get that number I said viable there probably I said viable and meaningful where did you get that gun I got that number from a number of studies by Dan Wallace that examined both the issue of viability as far as our manuscripts behind a reading as well as those that actually changed the meaning he is estimated actually I went above his number he's estimated 1100 to 1400 at that point I went above that number just simply so as to be careful so this is Dan Wallace's opinion I think Dan Wallace is an excellent scholar and he very regularly has accurate numbers especially in the material that he just wondering how somebody knows that it's both viable and important I mean for example you don't think mark 141 is important or that Hebrews 2:9 or December so does he think those are important we would both say those are important sir so those never said otherwise those are included in the 1,500 to 2,000 they would be yes sir okay it just seems like it's a little odd to come up with a number like that that it's probably more guesswork than anything but okay you say there are 12 12 manuscripts written within a century of the books of the New Testament that's news to me what are these twelve manuscript I'm not sure why it's news to you sir dr. Wallace said the same thing to get the Greer heard for him as well in his opening statement so I'm not sure I don't understand how that can be news but if you would look for example at Phillip comforts a New Testament text translation commentary and again since that dr. Wallace presented that to you I'm asking what the manuscript are a whole list well I can look one oh wait I know P 52 yes there are a number of course partly would be the issue of when we date those that New Testament those New Testament manuscripts yes it would but for example P 32 of titus is quite possibly that early as well if you want an entire list I can look it up for you here it'll take me some time to the Dan Wallace says something doesn't really make it so I didn't say just Dan Wallace I am reading something other than Dan Wallace in front of us here P 32 s dated to the Year 200 well again there are many people who believe that the numbers that are assigned the back of nestea Holland are extremely conservative and obviously there are many for example TC skeet conservative would mean that they're dated later than normal or earlier I don't understand being dated not as early as they could be well yeah you could date anything to any date you want but the question is what grounds actually that's that's correct and are you familiar with TC Skeets a discussion of the how these variants I got a I dunno TC ski yes okay oh well and you're aware of the fact that on a number of the papyri manuscripts listed in the Nessie all in text he would actually give a TC ski when does he date p32 well again I don't believe that he addressed b32 specifically I believe that his was a manuscript of John that I was reading about but are you are you not aware of the fact that variation these questions I think you're correct that's right so I think that this number 12 is exceedingly high and is the number 200 within three hundred years and so that's why I was just wondering I'm sorry two hundred with failures you said you that there were two hundred managed I said 120 sir Oh 120 yes that's still probably high let's go to this business with the Byzantine and the Alexandrian texts which you said you weren't talking about manuscript you were talking about I believe you said printed collations is that correct yes sir can you tell me what a collation is well I was using the term there to speak of the collection of the readings of a wide family of manuscripts into one representative text such as you have in the majority text or you had in that particular instance the Westcott hork text that's different from a collation of a specific manuscript where you take a base text and then you work through a particular manuscript providing every variation from that base text historically the TR has normally been used but thankfully in recent years codex Vaticanus has frequently been used as the base text for collation things like that so there's two different ways would you know your latter definitions what a collation as the other isn't a collation it's a printed text which is which is quite different but let's let's talk about collations for a second suppose you compare two collation of a Byzantine manuscript with an Alexandria manuscript do you think you would get a 95 percent level of agreement of course not I never even intimated it's okay how high would the agreement be well again as you pointed out in your Braille compilation that you need to have about a 70% to assign a manuscript to a particular manuscript family and so Byzantine text would fall into the 50% however that's not the assertion I was making we understand your assertion but now you're telling me that if you cook all eight a Byzantine manuscript against an Alexandrian manuscript there'll be at 50% well I'm so I'm really surprised that you're not following what I'm saying sir because obviously as you know when you're talking about percentages of variation you're talking about not the word total words in the manuscript and their readings you're talking about the variations I was talking about the total words as I displayed before the people I was giving a computer ran Christian when you call a Byzantine in an Alexandrian manuscript what is the level of agreement on variants or word sir on words words and variants are two different things under centage the percentages in fact you're the one who's talking about words as being 95 percent in agreement I'm asking you if you don't call a to texts because but you call a to manuscripts what is the level of agreement in the words the words would again a collation the percentage of difference is in the variants not in the total words of the manual sir and what I was presenting that you don't know the answer no sir I think your question is comparing apples and oranges yes yes let me ask this have you ever call ated a Byzantine manuscript a Byzantine manuscript no sir I've not okay have you college it an Alexandrian manuscript I have worked on sections in in seminary yes sir have you college in Alexandria manuscript against a Byzantine manuscript using the TR if you would call that as a it's not even a Byzantine manuscript so I've never put B against a medieval minuscule no okay well the reason it matters is because you're making a statement about Byzantine and Alexandrian text yes sir but in fact when you compare the manuscripts with one another there's 95 percent agreement seems to me to be to be somewhat specious number because in fact is that a question sir I'm getting there okay isn't it a specious number no sir it's not because memory you seem to refuse to allow what I presented to these people I ask anyone in the audience go get Bible works load Westcott and Hort load the majority and majority text activate the module that compares them and see for yourself I sprinted please luckily I said that in my presentation I even stopped and said now these are not manuscripts these are printed text it's a very important distinction I don't have a timer how much time do we have 12 minutes 12 minutes oh very good okay ah let's see so um where do we want to go from there let's talk about your main point which seems to be that the original text is preserved somewhere in the manuscript tradition that we have all these variants and that in every case one of the variants is the original text is that your understanding yes I believe in the tenacity of the text that when we have a variant the reason that we can invest the time and looking into it is that one of the readings that is there is the original reading I don't believe we need to engage in conjectural and datian just simply to fill in gaps as we do with most classical works okay and why do you think this because that seems to be the conclusion of not only kurt island and extensive discussion of that i cited it in my opening statement but that also seems to bend the belief of a large majority the textual critical scholars down through the ages from Tischendorf onwards of Moises Silva Dan Wallace and others have also enunciated the exact same things so it's because authorities have told you this well and I also find it to be very consistent with my own study of the textual variations in a New Testament okay would you agree that Alden app is probably the Dean of text criticism in America today I think Eldon up yourself and DC Parker are probably the biggest names right now unfortunately I would say that the perspective that you are now pursuing and as us also said the past 10 or 15 years you've pretty much given up on on working on the original text that's sort of been done so okay so f in America and Parker he's English and maybe Keith Elliot in England is a big name how about in Germany who would be the authorities now living with the islands out of the out of the picture are we still living I'm sorry bar barbar still living yeah but I don't think she's publishing right she's retired from the from the Institute so maybe Klaus vauxhall or Gert mink or yes well I'm sorry I don't keep up with German textual criticism today how about in France I don't know anybody in France they're probably Christian burner on foo these are these are the biggest names in the field F Parker Eliot all on Votto mink and foo so far as I know none of them agree with you on this particular point about the preservation of the text Allen doesn't even though it's in the book who wrote that book Kurt and Barbara Holland yeah Court I don't know about Barbara all on but what do you think about the movement that Parker's especially driving which states in fact it no longer makes sense to talk about the original text I think it is an abandonment of I agree with Moises Silva's comments you you're familiar with us oh yeah I agree with Moises Silva's comments in response to specifically DC Parker when would you like me to to read what he says or just uh is that since you know assigned to kill go ahead sure actually he he says nor do I find it helpful when David Parker for example sanctifies his proposals by a theological appeal to divinely inspired textual diversity indeed textual confusion and contradiction that is supposed to be a greater spiritual value than apostolic Authority actually his primary exhibit that he gives in response to that is your book Orthodox corruption in Scripture where he says you cannot read a page he says there is hardly a page in that book that is not in fact mentioned such a text or assume it's accessibility that is the original I'm not sure if you've changed your viewpoint since 1993 but Moises Silva certainly would seem to feel that if you now agree with Parker that you have yeah I have changed my view a little bit but my question is really about Parker why is it that David Parker thinks we can't get back to the original text well there are a number of reasons of theological and genealogical obviously I have focused on his theological reason in that he asserts that we have made an artificial distinction between text and tradition which I certainly would strongly disagree with but as you yourself have said as far as the current state of the manuscript tradition is concerned we're as far back as we can get I think the term that you used in an SBL article a few years ago was we're now we're just tinkering as far as that is concerned and so apart from some major find a Dead Sea Scrolls level New Testament type of find there seems to be a fair amount of skepticism and being able to get far any farther back yeah I agree that could you tell me when I've got like a minute and a half left absolutely um so um yeah well let's approach this from a different angle this business with P 75 to be a lot of people have used this and I mean let me say you know I know you keep saying I don't understand things but you know the really understand them I just I don't buy them and so let me tell you let me ask you about this P 75 to B P 75 say it was copied in the Year 175 and say B was copied in the Year 350 and that 350 is not a copy of B 75 but it's very close to P 75 that's an argument for showing that there was a consistent line of tradition at least in that Alexandrian proto or the proto Alexandrian line right all right what does that so the fact that somebody in the middle of the fourth century accurately copies a text what does that tell you about somebody copying a text in the year 70 a number of things what I was attempting to explain and and you may consider it bogus and dismiss it it doesn't change the fact that what I was tempting to present was this issue of multi locality and the multiple lines of transmission that this these two manuscripts are probably closer together than any other two manuscripts from that time period in their readings and yet they are not in the same specific line of transmission no that's incorrect they are both protolith they're both proto Alexandrian manuscripts aren't they as I put on the screen sir what I meant by that was P 75 is not the direct ancestor no but there are still in the same line if there's so much in the same line of tradition that they're cousins virtually aren't they okay I'm attempting to answer but you're just arguing with my answer I I'm not really you're not seriously going to contend that OB 75 and B are not in the same line of tradition I obviously defined the term line there as direct lineal genealogical ancestor which I did in my opening statement as well what I'm saying is while they're both clearly proto Alexandrian manuscripts they are in the same stream they represent two different lines within that stream because sign a at I'm sorry Vaticanus contains readings that are older than P 75 let me ask this how many genealogical lineal manuscripts do we have related to one another jeanny I don't even understand what you just said that they're not in a lineal genealogical line with each other in other words one is not a copy of another exactly p75 of other manuscripts do we actually have all I said sir is that p75 is not what was copied to make Vaticanus i don't have any other way of expressing the statement I mean listen watch I'm asking how many copies of manuscripts do we have in other words where we have the original and the copy you mean where we absolutely know what was which one was copied from which you're saying B is not a copy of p75 because it contains different and you're made more ancient readings yes yes I got that so but I'm wondering if that's usual or unusual do we have copies of manuscripts in the tradition we don't have well I don't know if I can think of you're asking something like 1739 where we know something about the nature and the origination of what it is a copy of or or even says they or something like that but very rarely do we know the exact lineal parent of any manuscript in the first thousand years exactly I mean so the fact that they are one isn't the copy of the other is is in fact completely normal right because you don't have copies yes sir but they are so closely related that they're in the same line of tradition yeah of course yes sir okay good what then does the fact that B is close to P 75 but not a copy of P 75 be copied in the year 350 say what does that tell us about copying practices in the year 70 I said what it does is demonstrate that the onus is upon the skeptic to assert that there is corruption in the primitive period because since we have multiple lines coming out of the early period and yet it's the same New Testament that if there was some kind of primitive corruption you would have multiple corrupted lines coming out that is very massively from one another and that is not a yes oh oh that's not the case now so you said in in seminary you did some correlations of early manuscripts tell me how do the early manuscripts stack up against each other in comparison with the later manuscripts well as I've said in my published works the vast majority of meaningful and viable variants take place within the first 250 300 years of the transmission history of the New Testament that's a given yeah let me let me reword it if you compare to Byzantine late manuscripts to one another of course will they agree a lot or not very often well of course so the the variations between a 14th century Byzantine Minya schools are almost totally based upon scribes falling asleep or slapping a bug while they're writing what about the early manuscripts the early manuscripts because as I said in my opening presentation they're being done in a very different period of time we're very rarely did Christians have access to scriptorium Zoar things like that because of persecution taking place the destruction of texts and things like that there is a much wider variation between them so the earlier the manuscript the more differences there are between them as p72 demonstrates these men were not by and large whole p75 is different but p72 p66 these were not professional scribes one minute I'm sorry okay so let me just say so the point is is that the earlier you go the more different they are so you just extrapolate that the earliest we're probably the most different let me ask about p72 where you you resonate with this particular text you said that has second Peter and Jude in it what other what other documents are found in P 72 there are some non canonical documents in P 72 oh my recollection was at first 2nd Peter and Jude were the only canonical documents in it right so I'm just wondering about you're resonating with this document I mean do you think the scribe thought that what he was copying with scripture well I don't think that you can simply jump the conclusion that because scribes included books in a single codex that meant that they believed that everything in that codex was necessarily Scripture there are all sorts of works that were considered to be very beneficial for the reading of people that were included in codices that were not necessarily canonical yeah I just thought that was odd then that that particular management one that you resonate with because it's the earliest attestation we have with the protoevangelium yo Kobe time okay good thank you dr. airman you said in your rebuttal that p-52 contains a major I believe it was you can correct me please if I was wrong major textual variant it changes the meaning of the text do you have access to a textual variant there that is not listed in the Nessa Holland text it's it's the restoration in the lacunae as Metzger points out in his manuscripts of the New Testament of the of the absence of the words it a s-- to table before LA Luther and there are a couple of other variants I mean there's a full discussion of it in Mexico's book on the manuscript so that ends it and you would consider this to completely change the meaning of the text no okay all right you and I changes the meaning of the text okay you know I think anybody who thinks that the words of the New Testament are inspired has to think that the words matter and so if the words change that matters alright doctor dr. Ehrman uh since you disagree with evidently Curt Holland on the issue of tenacity could you list for us some variations in New Testament where you are willing to assert that none of the extant readings any main strip tradition could possibly be the original no I think there's always a possibility it's not a question of possibility it's a question of probability of course anything could be possibly have been original the original author might have written nonsense and why not it's possible and later scribes might have corrected that nonsense so one has to weigh probability it's it's interesting that Westcott and Hort the two giants in this field in the 19th century were quite insistent that that most of the text of the New Testament was preserved in a codex like codex Vaticanus and yet they they resorted to conjectural emendation on a large number of occasions if you wanted an example if you want just one example I mean I don't know how much sensible making in English but one common one that my teacher bruce metzger used to talk about as being possibly a strong case for emendation is first Peter chapter 3 verse 19 which follows a creedal statement of about Christ the Greek text well guess I've ever read it in English says Christ suffered for sins once and for all the righteous for the unrighteous in order that he might lead us lead you textual variant there to God having been put to death in the flesh but may having been made alive in the spirit and then chapter 19 then the verse next verse says and ho chí theis and fula cabe new masih paru theask hey Ruxin in which also he preached having gone to having having gone forth he preached to the spirits who are in prison boyeur and others including Harris have proposed emendations at this point because well for grammatical reasons but also because they think that in fact it might be a mistake that in fact this is talking about the old early Christian tradition about Enoch who who is preaching the preaching of Enoch according to some of the apocryphal materials so I mean it strikes me that's a plausible place where there might you might need an imitation so what what percentage do you believe of the New Testament is impacted by viable meaning textual variants I've never put a percentage on something like that because I'm not sure their percentage actually means anything I mean for example if I if I speak a sentence in a hundred words and I change only one of the words but it would the word that I change is whether I say the word not or not the entire sentence is reversed in meaning well it only a 1% change but might be really important so I don't I don't think percentages I've never really tried to calculate percentages because I don't think they matter you have often said that there are verses where variants change the meaning of an entire book could you give us some example a versatile book yeah sure I think that I actually do think that if Hebrews 2:9 said that Jesus died apart from God that there is no place in Hebrews then where Jesus is said to have died by the grace of God and that the meaning now I think a route for Hebrews means that Jesus died like a full flesh-and-blood human being without any divine comfort or support if the reading is not chorus the chorus though they died by the grace of Coyote died by the grace of God then in fact you do have the teaching that Jesus death was an act of divine grace in Hebrews which otherwise you don't have and yet when you argued that point in the Orthodox corruption of Scripture did you not argue that chorus they you is consistent with the theology of Hebrews yeah the variant changes it how can you argue that it's consistent theology of Hebrews if not said of course I'm saying that chorus if depending on which variant you have the meaning of the book changes so nowhere else in the book do you have this this idea of Jesus's death that is that would be presented Hebrews 2:9 based upon reading one 10th century manuscript and in Origins manuscripts at least some of words as manuscripts you said the majority but I don't know where Origen actually said that I'm sorry I don't understand your question so your assertion then is that the book of Hebrews would not present that view of the atonement of Jesus unless you have that reading in Hebrews 2:9 elsewhere with it it just does nowhere else does Hebrews say that Jesus died by the grace of God this is the one place I understand that but you believe that the original is chorus because that is consistent with the writing of Hebrews with a theology even this variant changes that away from it ok I understand I'm just saying on the unbelievable radio program in London you discussed the length of time that exists between the writing of Paul's letter to the Galatians and the first extant copy that being 105 years you describe this time period as enormous that's a quote could you tell us what term you would use to describe the time period between say the original writings of Suetonius or Tacitus or Pliny and their first extant manuscript copies very enormous sort of ginormous would be a good one ginormous okay oh joy I mean ginormous doesn't cover it the New Testament we have much earlier attestation than for any other book from antiquity what you can't do is then say well then you can't trust any book from antiquity okay yes right that's right so all right so it would be correct to write a book called misquoting Suetonius absolutely scholars do this and others write books all the time about how you don't know the word about what Plato actually wrote or what Homer wrote or Suetonius or Tacitus II rippity this is just what scholars do of course you of course there are scads of books on just these topics and so when you cite them in your works you will you will say according to the best sources and and will will question the reliability of Suetonius or gospel times there's no there's no scholar who's an expert in Swat Aeneas or Cicero or the Gospel of Thomas who would tell you that we absolutely know what these texts originally said so when they when you say know what these texts originally said but they will believe that we have a sufficiently clear knowledge to quote Suetonius you quote Suetonius don't you yes of course I quote the manuscript tradition of suet Onias I mean it's just understood among scholars what you're quoting and so you say in your books I'm not really quoting Suetonius I'm just this isn't really what he said I'm saying that we don't have the original text for any writing from the ancient world the New Testament is no different just as you can't establish the original text of the New Testament because you don't have sufficient evidence you can't establish the original text of Suetonius because you don't have original evan for some of these some of these authors I mean the manuscript tradition is pathetic I mean for some very important works from antiquity we have one manuscript that's a palimpsest and so I mean yes absolutely we have exactly the same problem and when you say that well nobody goes on about the Gospel of Thomas absolutely wrong scholars of the Gospel of Thomas talked about this all the time and this is a major issue scholarship I'm sorry I didn't say that they don't discuss such things sir but anyway Peter Williams of Cambridge suggested that if you were to edit an edition of the Greek New Testament using all your own decisions regarding textual variants that it would differ less from the nestlé and ubs platform than the Textus Receptus does would you agree yes so you would say if you included all of your own readings such as depending on codex bezzie and mark 141 for the reading of anger would you would you put that in your in your text yeah I would okay and yet the resultant text would be less different than the King James is from the new American Standard if it was translated I'm sorry you lost me there because I thought we were talking about Greek well yes but I'm trying to give an illustration to people in the audience the King James is translated from the TR the numeric standards translate from the na 27 or actually any 25 and the last one was 26 but the point is that the differences in readings would be less than you have if you're sitting there with the King James versus a new American Standard would that be correct I don't know I've never I've never actually thought about it I mean it seems to me it would make a big difference whether you want to say Jesus got angry at a leper or whether he loved him I mean it seems pretty significant okay and looking at that particular particular one you you do believe that orga Stice is the original heir that's right would you comment on what has been said by dr. Parker for example where he says the more he studied codex Bezeq and apprentice the more he's become convinced that it's unique readings especially when they're alone are insignificant if you're searching for the original reading or dr. Allen's assertion that any of the readings of bez a when they do not have earlier attestation should be looked at some of the scams yeah well all on doesn't like Codex B's a Parker loves codex PSA but he does have the suspicion about it but I believe Parker agrees with me on mark 141 doesn't he I have no idea what he says well 141 you didn't comment on in codex busy in his book on it yeah yeah no it's a great book but I think that he agrees with me on mark 141 however is it not true that Scrivener Metzker in the book you have right there and commenting on bezzie they all recognize that codex bez a is incredibly free oh yeah you know I think so too I think a lot of its variants in fact are very strange indeed so shows that how early manuscripts differ so widely from one another or this is a case in point so if a codex bezzie adds all sorts of commentary the number of steps paul stepped down the time frame when he lectured at in acts all these things are added why wouldn't it be more likely given that there is no earlier manuscript support for that reading that the writer of codex d saw the very same strong language that you yourself have pointed to in your argumentation he casts him out he strongly abrade z-- him and made a change as he did in so many other places in in his writings that's that's the standard argument that's what people have said for years and I disagree with it I think that in fact on internal grounds they're their solid reasons for saying thinking that it was organized my principle readings has my principle reasoning has nothing to do with the value of codex B's a as you probably know I mean you've read my articles on it so I assume you've read my article on mark 141 I have so that isn't it it's not codex viiay is to some extent neither here nor there it provides us with the reading but it isn't the strong argument for the reading being original okay and would that be one of the readings that you that you feel changes the entire meaning of a book well no I I wouldn't put it that way with that reading I would say that that reading provides a different nuance Jesus gets angry a couple of times in the Gospel of Mark and it's it's interesting to try and see why he gets angry in the Gospel of Mark and this would be another place where he gets angry at mark I mean it strikes it struck most surprised is a little bit odd for him to get angry at this plant and this leper comes up and wants to be healed and it says Jesus got angry and so well that's a little hard to figure out no wonder they changed it to felt compassion for the man it makes sense that they would make the change but in fact it probably said he got angry and then the task of the exegete the interpreter is to try and make sense of why it is now it says that Jesus got angry when this leper approached him and so it changes the meaning of the book to the extent that it gives you a fuller understanding of why Jesus gets angry in the Gospel of Mark by the way he doesn't get angry in Matthew or Luke when you repeatedly say that we don't know what the original writings of the New Testament said given that there are entire sections of text where there is no variation basically at all would you agree that we know what those sections of the New Testament said okay let me let me explain why because I don't think it's I've explained it very well let's say Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians and they got a copy and then somebody made a copy of that original and then made a couple mistakes and then somebody copied that copy made a few mistakes and then the original was lost and the first copy was lost and that all other manuscripts ultimately derived from that third copy in other words that third copy was the original wasn't copied any more the first copy wasn't copied knowing any more when the second copy was copied twice and both of those was copy five times in each of those are copy 20 times and he said so they all go back in a genealogical line to the third copy rather than to the original all you can reconstruct is what was in the third copy and all manuscripts when they agree 95% of the time or whatever number you want to put on it when they agree 95% of the time that just shows that they all go back to that that copy it doesn't show they go back to the original and so this kind of perspective I want to make sure that we're all understanding exactly what you're saying this is why you would say that if anything was ever inspired in essence we'd have to have the original for it to be inspired now I look I told you long ago that this was not going to be a debate about my doctrine of inspiration I'm not saying anything has to be one way or the other God could have inspired the originals and then decided to allow scribes to change the originals God could have inspired all the textual variants I mean if you're saying if it's impossible then when you're talking about God nothing is impossible the church father Origen maintained that all of the textual variants were inspired by God that he inspired the scribes so well that's you know that's perfectly fine that's what you want to think I simply don't think so my view is that if God wanted us to have his words he wouldn't have allowed his words to be changed so that we don't know what the words were so the standard then that would have to exist for you to have maintained the position that you held would have been either the originals or some perfect copy thereof why would God not allow the originals to be preserved I used to ask myself that question I mean if you want if he inspired Marc to write down this book why wouldn't he let it I mean it wouldn't be impossible for it to be preserved there are other books that are preserved that long why wouldn't why wouldn't he tell Christians you know keep that book so that you have a you have something to judge the copies by but he didn't do that we don't have the original so it made me suspect that maybe God had wasn't that interested in giving us his words if he was why didn't he give them to that was my question so clearly that's not the perspective of the Apostles themselves who themselves did not have access to any originals of the Old Testament and yet they quoted freely from the Old Testament based upon even translations of the Old Testaments long as it was not their view I'm sorry that is not theirs not their view right so as you are thinking about this then I should say though when they quote the Old Testament it's a very interesting thing because they quoted in different forms and in the form they quoted often is not the form that we have it Matthew for example quotes the Old Testament sometimes you give a quotation of Scripture that you can't find in the Bible what why is that because he had a different form than we have so to apply your standard then how could there have been any revelation given without the ability for perfect copying down the agent I mean perfectly copied God could have just preserved the originals so if there is any claimed scripture from antiquity that does not have the originals the Quran has textual variation in it they can't possibly come from God then I'm not drawing that theological conclusion and I don't really appreciate you likening me to to a Muslim I didn't both in your speech and just now I'm not making any stand about the Quran I don't know anything about the Quran I'm simply making a very basic point and I'm not making this as a normative point for everybody I'm saying for me it doesn't make sense to say that God inspired the words because he wanted us to have his words if he didn't give us his words we don't have his words because the originals don't exist and accurate copies don't exist there are places where we don't know what the originals even said so your standard for accurate copy is perfection is it not perfection I think if I copy the word ago and instead of writing a go I write altos then in fact that is an imperfect copy a perfect copy would be a copy that the copy go as a go one of my tasks as a as a teacher to a research university is when I teach my undergraduate students I try to I try to teach them to think and I try to force them to think I try to force them to think logically I try to get them to accept points of view not because some authority has told them these points of view but because they've seen the power of the arguments themselves the arguments are much more important than the people who make them in my opinion and so it is with the the what is turned into the key argument in this this debate how do we know that we have the original text among the hundreds of thousands of variations that are found in the textual tradition of the New Testament quert and Barbara Allen's book indicated that in fact the original text is always preserved somewhere among our variants so we can rest assured that we have the original but is this a view that makes logical sense that's the question scholars have gotten away from thinking this if you do like Authority then let me tell you the authorities for the other side it's virtually every scholar who is actively pursuing this in the field except for a few evangelical scholars now why would this be a theological point of view isn't this a historical question why is it that only people of a certain theological persuasion would take a certain historical view do they have some kind of theological reason for wanting this to be true if they have a theological reason fair enough but what is the logic behind it the situation is the one that I outlined a minute ago when Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians he wrote a letter that was sent through the ancient equivalent of the ancient mail Paul did not know he was writing the Bible and the people who got the book didn't know they were receiving the Bible it was a better sent from one Christian authority to other Christians they read the letter probably some of them liked it a couple of them probably didn't like it somebody decided to copy it well they copied it and they didn't know they were copying the Bible they were just copying a letter and somebody else copied that copy and somebody else copy that copy and of course there are multiple lines of tradition absolutely I've spent a good part of my career on this talking about the multiple lines of tradition that come away from the book of Philippians and all the other books various copies are made many of them differ they all differ from one another and then those things were copied and the copies were copied all over the place the originals were lost the first copies were lost the copies of the copies were lost in the copies of the copies of the copies were lost what guarantee is it that the entire tradition goes back to some kind of original rather than to a copy what's the argument for that what's the logic behind that most scholars today simply don't see that as a tenable point of view that's why leading scholars in America England Germany France everywhere where text criticism is done that's why the leading scholars in this field by whom I mean people who go to the Society of biblical literature and read papers on the topic and who go to the International meetings and who are members of the Society of New Testament studies the people who do this for a living that's why there is a very strong movement away from even talking about the original text if you think God inspired the originals why don't you have the originals and why is it that we don't know what the originals said in places the differences in these manuscripts do matter it does matter whether the Gospel of John calls Jesus ha monoghan estas the unique God that's very different from saying that Jesus is divine if Jesus is the unique God well that's a very high statement that you find nowhere in the bible well did he say it or not it depends which manuscripts you read is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly talked about in the Bible it seems to me that should matter well it depends which manuscripts you read I know that James is dealt with these issues in his writings it doesn't though mean that they're not important issues when Jesus is going to his death in the Gospel of Luke did it become so distressed that he began to sweat began to sweat drops as if of blood the words of the passage that we get the term sweating blood from it depends which manuscript you read and it matters a lot for understanding Luke's Gospel whether Jesus went through that experience or not did the voice of Jesus baptism and Luke's Gospels say that on that day of his baptism baptism is when God adopted him to be his son you are my son today I have begotten you depends which manuscript you read and it matters a lot I understand the arguments of people like James and Dan Wallace but sometimes you know they don't make sense to me even though I intellectually understand them dan Wallace whom he keeps quoting insists that in fact differences don't matter in the manuscript well if the differences don't matter why is it that he is undertaking a major project dealing with Greek manuscripts a project that is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if the differences don't matter what does he tell these people he's trying to raise money from well we'd like you to donate $50,000 to our cause because the differences don't matter of course they matter and if they don't matter it is shameful to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on this in a world where people are starving to death if the differences don't matter well the differences do matter in my opinion one issue that has continually come up not from me is the issue of preservation and James has I think fairly asked why is it that every time I talk about textual criticism the issue of preservation comes up and my view of inspiration comes up the reason it comes up every time is for the same reason that came up this time it wasn't an issue that I raised it was an issue that James raised and when I had my interview with Peter Williams on London radio a few weeks ago is an issue that people Williams wanted to talk about and when it was an issue at the debate in New Orleans with Donna Wallace it was an issue that Dan Wallace wanted to talk about this is not an issue that that I am really all that hot and bothered about I simply talked about it at the beginning in the end of my book because it's the issue that at one time made me interested in knowing do we have the original text I wanted to know that because I was a bible-believing evangelical Christian who believed that God had given us the words of the text and I became bothered by the fact that it appeared we didn't have them and so that's what got me interested it's what made it interesting to me at the time well I think it's an issue that continues to be interesting I raise it though simply as an issue I'm interested in not in something I'm that interested in debating about you can have your own view of inspiration and I'm happy to tell you mine my view is that if God wanted you to have his words he would have given you his words he didn't give you his words because his words and places are not preserved so why do you think he inspired the words in the first place that's my point of view James wants to talk about this as some kind of hard core standard that I have to apply across the board with respect to for example the Quran I don't know anything about the Quran I don't know very much at all about Islam I'm not connected with Muslim apologists that he's in contact with I do know that they use my work and I'm sorry that if people don't appreciate the fact that they they use my work but it's not really my fault I have given my work to anybody I've simply write the books and let people read the books the books in fact make very different points from points about inspiration the books make points about what whether we have the original text of the New Testament our topic of debate was does the Bible or did the Bible misquote Jesus and the answer is yes remember that for most of history the Bible was not the printed edition that you read today for most Christians throughout history the Bible was whatever manuscript happened to be available to them what manuscript was available to the Christians and their churches all of these manuscripts have mistakes in them including mistakes in the words of Jesus all Bibles misquote Jesus thank you first of all let me thank you all very much for being here this evening I would like to thank those who have made it possible for us to have this encounter Michael found of course is primarily responsible for bringing this together but there have been many others rich Pierce back in Phoenix some of you who are here Alan Kirchner down here someone who's not with us this evening Rosie Moss Corelli has been very helpful to me in preparation for this debate many have made it possible for us to be here and I hope you have found it to be a scintillating discussion I believe that people will be amazed at comparing what I specifically and clearly said and what dr. Ehrman has represented me as saying especially on specific issues this evening that's why I hope people will go back and they will listen again and again and again and check the facts for themselves we were just told that scholars getting away from this yes post-modernism is creeping in I think it is a tragedy there are many who have spoken out against it but I would like to point out to you I'm not one of those people that believes in authorities if you're in Germany back in the 1800s you would have believed on a base of authority that John was a second-century document written toward the end of second century around 170 if you had believed even what dr. Ehrman believes about the dating of John back then they would have laughed at you as being out of step with modern scholarship then this little manuscript p-52 comes along and all of a sudden we have a bit of a problem dr. Ehrman says well you know some evangelicals way about their theological reasons I would like to submit to you everybody has their theological reasons even those who call themselves happy agnostics still have a theological set of presuppositions where they know those presuppositions are there or not what is the logic of believing we have the New Testament it's the logic that Tischendorf and many others have accepted all along that is if there was that major corruption in that earlier period why do we have only one New Testament text coming out are there variants yes but is it still the same text is it still Philippians it's still Galatians is it still the presentation of the same theology yes it is no one questions that in fact in the paperback edition of Doctor Germans book he says the position I argue for in misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with professor Metzger's position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition in the New Testament what he means by that I think is that even if one or two passages that are used to argue for a belief have a different textual reading there are still other passages that could be used to argue for the same belief for the most part I think that's true and so we need to understand that when dr. Ehrman talks about changes scribes changing things we don't know what the original text was the standard that is being used is not the standard that has been used down to the centuries because to adopt that standard means that we have to become ultra skeptical about everything that happened before at least the printing press and even then I would argue into the modern era I don't think that there is any logic in that I don't think there's any logic and looking at manuscript tradition saying yeah this this extremely unified manuscript tradition going back closer than anything else we've had clearly demonstrates that we don't have any idea what it originally said that is not what the vast majority of people have come to and whether post-modernism takes us there or not I don't know I never compared dr. Airmen to a Muslim anyone who goes back and listens from know that all I was saying is this it is a documented fact that there are textual variants in the manuscripts of the Quran therefore logically if you apply dr. Ehrman standards he would have to be able to write a book called misquoting Muhammad that's all I'm saying that would be true of everyone in the ancient world so why does misquoting Jesus end up on the New York Times bestseller list I think it's because we live in an age where many people are looking for a reason not to believe that is why a few weeks ago I debated doctors l-fiqar Ali Shah an Islamic scholar and apologist at Duke University the subject was a comparison of the Bible and the Quran two of the four books on dr. Shahs desk were by Bart Ehrman at one point dr. Shah informed us that all we had for the New Testament were use of copies of copies I had to smile if you listen to men like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens you will often hear dr. Ehrman's name cited as the final authority in the scholarly demonstration of the corruption in utter unreliability of the New Testament I don't think either man really has a clue what Bart is actually talking about but that does not stop them from invoking his authority a few years ago my daughter ran into an anti Christian zealot teaching in the Phoenix area Lee Carter who in the midst of giving the highly scholarly advice to Google the authorship of the Gospels invoked dr. Ehrman's name as part of his anti-christian diatribe as well I do not believe dr. Carter has any meaningful understanding of the field of textual criticism but he is representative of many in academia today who are more than happy to blast the New Testament and smugly proclaimed 18-year olds that scholars have proven it to be an unreliable document Bart Ehrman cannot control the use of his words as far as any of these have misused his comments the responsibility lies with them but the fact is that dr. Ehrman has had many opportunities to correct these misapprehensions and strangely he doesn't I have listened to NPR interviews where the interviewer is going on and on and on and instead of correcting their many misapprehensions dr. Ehrman allows them to go on unchallenged the fact the matter is if you're going to tell people repeatedly that we don't know what the New Testament originally said but at the same time you admit that the manuscript tradition of the New Testament is earlier fuller and better than any other relevant ancient document then you need to be fair and honest and balanced and at least inform your listeners the majority of those who have studied this field believe the original readings do continue to exist at least up until post-modernism in the manuscript tradition to our day even in the relatively small number of viable meaningful variants to do otherwise is to use bearer sensationalism and such as unworthy of this important topic at the same time there is a vital need for education amongst believing Christians about the history and transmission of the text of the Bible I have been beating this drum since the mid 1980s so I can at least honestly claim consistency here the Christian ignorant the history of his sacred texts is a Christian who will be shocked at the mere presentation of historical facts and who will then easily follow false lines of reasoning to faithless conclusions the history of the Bible including a serious dose of Basic textual critical principles should be part and parcel of our most basic instruction for those new in the faith this is especially true in regards to our young people we send them off to the University with almost no foundation upon which to stand and well then they end up in bard Airmen's new testament reduction class they need to hear about John 7 53 through 811 the woman taken in adultery and the longer ending of mark in the community of faith first a Christian with a sound balanced understanding of how ancient documents were transmitted and how God preserved the text by having explode around the Mediterranean so that no one could ever control its text and alter its message will not be moved by the observation that the pericope adultery is not original the weapons used against the faith in this instance are provided by ourselves when we refuse to educate our own people on these matters as I said in my opening this evening you have heard from two men who upon studying the same materials have come to polar opposite conclusions one has seen in the lack of the original copies of the Scriptures together with his difficulties with the problem of evil and end of faith the other has found in those same materials the plain evidence of God's providence and concern for his people and the words contained in the scripture is a compelling satisfying soul anchoring assurance of his purposes in creation including the existence of evil and of redemption in Christ it is truly my hope this evening that you have been able to see that there is a consistent sound compelling answer to be offered to the skepticism of Bart Ehrman and that this evenings encounter will spur the Christian on to deeper study of the great heritage of faith found in the Christian scriptures and if you come this evening sceptical about the reliability of the New Testament I trust that you will dig deeper and ask yourself if you are really able to embrace the kind of radical skepticism that would require you to abandon any reasonable certainty of history itself to an unreasonable and unworkable standard of knowledge the bible does not misquote Jesus textual variants are not miss quotations instead we have seen that the Bible gives us every reason to believe we know what the Apostles taught what Jesus proclaimed and as a result each of us by God's grace has access to his life-giving gospel thank you for your time and for your hearing hi I'm David Wheaton from Minneapolis and I just want to thank both of you for coming and doing the bait the debate was very stimulating and so thank you for that my questions for dr. airman you talked a lot about not having the originals tonight you met that was really the crux tie think of your argument tonight and you said we can only be sure let's say if we're going back to let's say the third copy past the original so we have an original and then a copy of that and then maybe to the third the third level how do you know aren't you making a big assumption that there were mistakes from the original to that third copy how do you know that there were mistakes made between that original and the third copy that it goes back to the genesis of yes thank you it's a it's an excellent question and of course we don't actually know anything when it comes to this sort of thing which may sound like total skepticism but I'm sorry we don't know how would we know so what we have to do is extrapolate on the basis what we do know and what we do know is that as time if you go back earlier in the tradition so the earlier the manuscript the more of the mistakes the manuscript tradition is filled with more mistakes early and the reason is because the people copying the text weren't professionals and that was even more the case for the third copy than it was for the 33rd copy so that it's actually the situation is actually much bleaker than I painted it scholars for over 80 years now have been convinced that all appalls letters that we have actually are copies of a collection of Paul's letters that were made around the Year 100 in other words the they're all copies from about 40 years after the original so they weren't the third copy was much much later hey join very briefly I think the thing that must be kept in mind is that these manuscripts did not exist in some vacuum they exist within the fellowship of faith Paul's still around there are people who knew Paul they're still around there were those who knew his preaching that we're still around I think there's a real danger in isolating the manuscripts from the historical context and the continued existence of the church just as with the Gospels and the fact that as Richard Malcolm's talk about the eyewitnesses that continue to the church a long period of time very important as well thank you and your question is for dr. Ehrman my name is Robert Melanie my question is to you the Old Testament went through the same process that you said that the New Testament went to - right exactly that the copy of copy of copyright and then when they dug up the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 and the Book of Isaiah that's in this Bible was translated and it was 98 percent perfect word-for-word only two variances in prepositional variances how can the New Testament be different than that well yeah that's really Isaiah was a very the Isaiah scroll they found was very similar to the Isaiah the Masoretic text from the Year 1000 you know the the copy they found at the Dead Sea Scrolls of Jeremiah was 15 percent shorter than the Jeremiah we have 15 percent shorter so there were a lot of changes being made by Jewish scribes and what that shows us in fact is the Jewish scribes in the Middle Ages were quite meticulous with their copying would that the Christian scribes were if you compare to Christian copies from the same time period say a thousand years separate so you take a third century copy of the New Testament with a 13th century copy of the New Testament you don't have anything like that amount of agreement there are massive differences a couple of things the Old Testament transmission is not like the New Testament transmission it's much more control because it was within just the people of Israel one of the problems here is that the reason you had non-professionals copying these things is because they wanted the gospel to get out to as many as possible that's why non professionals are doing it the idea of comparing that to the Masri something like that just simply doesn't follow because it's completely different historical context that we're talking about mr. Finley's thank you gentlemen both my question is also for dr. Airmen I'm really starting to feel unloved here yeah sorry you mentioned at least twice in a debate that if God why us to know his word he would have preserved it you as an agnostic how do you know that that is what God would have done given that is what he wanted yes great question and let me reiterate I'm simply stating here a personal opinion I'm not stating something that I have any any scholar done any scholarship on it's not what I've done research on I'm just telling you my personal opinion which is why it's not what I wanted this debate to be about because it's just my own opinion and so I you know you can have a different view it's just I'm just telling you what makes sense to me which you know I've said it about it's probably more than twice I think said about twenty times but maybe you know I've got twenty seconds so I'll say it again I mean it seems to me that if God wanted us to have his words that he would have given us his words if he wanted to why wouldn't he and it wouldn't have been impossible to do he could have made sure the originals were preserved he could have made sure that they were copied accurately there'd be no more of a miracle than inspiring them and so the fact that he didn't preserve them to me indicates that he probably didn't give them in the first place it's obviously something that there's a big disagreement on obviously you've heard my response to that God did preserve his words it's the how that differs the idea of having to have the originals is simply nothing I don't think anyone in the early church even could have even begun to conceive of such a standard that dr. Airmen uses now but I would just like to point out that I would like dr. Ehrman to add to his book a disclaimer this conclusion which atheists and Muslims and everybody else thinks is the conclusion of my scholarship is just my personal opinion it's not actually scholarship I think I think in my book you'll see that in fact I don't state as a result of scholarship in your question is for dr. Ehrman of course as everybody else no actually I do want to say this on the part of dr. Airmen I have read your books and I am a Christian and it actually has strengthened my faith I know dr. white was talking about people quickly take your works and and use it to promote atheism Islam and so forth but the thing is is that okay okay Tom about double standards somebody would try to espouse the Jesus myth you that Jesus never existed you are an authority in the historical Jesus here's here's my question with the knowledge we have with the Gospels how much can be deduced regarding how much we know about Jesus yeah that's a very good question and I think that historians can only establish levels of probability you know what is really almost certain you what is what is less certain but highly probable what's fairly probable what's kind of probable what's possible as a what's unlikely I mean you have a level that's what historians do they love social levels of probability and I think with some things with historical Jesus you can establish very high levels of probability I mean it's it's virtually certain that Jesus existed that he was a Jew lived in in Palestine who was crucified under Pontius Pilate I mean all those are very high levels of probability so there have been people who've wanted to argue that I that I think that Jesus never existed which is quite remarkable since I wrote a book saying what I think you can say Jesus said and did let's hope so I think but it's all based on levels of probability so well one thing I find interesting I played on my webcast dr. Herman's encounter with the infidel guy because the first time I ever heard dr. him and dialoguing was someone who was more radical than he was in skepticism on those issues and it was fascinating to listen to that dialogue dr. Herman earlier said I'm not all that hot and bothered about the subject of the preservation of the text and yet even in the dialogue with Reggie Finley the the infidel guy still raised the issue and presented it to him in that context that's why I think we we've been discussing it this evening your question is for dr. white Hey I'm so excited Thank You great debate I've enjoyed it very much thank you gentlemen my question concerns John 8 passage and as dr. Aaron even mentioned that it's a powerful story it is rich in biblical wisdom and my question is is there a defense that can be made of that passage as authentic in the event in the life of Jesus since it since its wisdom does have a biblical flavor to it and it there can be made a defense what would that be well I'm sure that someone certainly Byzantine priority people would would raise a defense but it would be a fundamental defense the Byzantine manuscript tradition the reality is not only do the earliest manuscripts not contain it the first to contain is cosette codex Bezeq Canterbury Genesis but the thing that to me is the clearest evidence that it's not original is that it sort of wanders around in the text in other words in like the 4-hour group it's in Luke once in Luke 21 when it's Luke 24 and so when you have a story that appears in two different Gospels and and moves around like that then clearly it's it's not an original part of the text itself and so I would think that there are many who would say that it has a Dominical flavor that is it maybe it goes back to the Lord but others would point out it actually syntactically and linguistically is much more Lucan than it is johani as well so I don't know what kind of argument be made outside of simply defending the Byzantine manuscript tradition as a whole I will respond by saying this this is a moment I want everybody to take note of I completely agree but we're not going to be hugging ok last two questions for the evening thank you both for the debate it was incredibly inspiring to see your scholarship this is for dr. Ehrman would you consider yourself to be a good person person wait a second that's the wrong question now I have a question for you considering what you made the statement on your first or Buttle you asked and almost kind of pleaded that we would keep an open mind that we would listen to you and have an open mind and I'm checking your personal consistency of your convictions or do you have an open mind to the possibility that you might be wrong absolutely I you know I had a friend in seminary who used to say I believe in my right to convert and to be converted and that's that's my view the thing is on this particular topic I mean we've talked about a lot of topics tonight and most of these topics are things that I've thought about for 30 years and on a number of these issues in fact I've had an open mind and I've changed my mind and so I'm completely open to be persuaded by argument absolutely I mean for example just one example this might seem minor to you all but I mean it's fairly major I think we would agree is that I have become less and less convinced that we can talk about the original text when I wrote the Orthodox corruption of Scripture in 1993 I thought basically you talk about the original tech and over the years I've started to change my mind about that because I think that the evidence suggests otherwise if somebody comes up with a powerful argument that we can talk about it I'm absolutely open to it that was sort of a personal question to dr. Ehrman so I'm going to do something personal here myself I actually brought something for dr. Ehrman and I decided to do this almost a year ago it's probably the single most worthless thing that you could ever give to Bart Ehrman and once I tell you why what it is it's the necktie that I'm wearing sorry about that and dr. Ehrman it is p50 to both sides Faline thank you probably a Monty Python fan as well so anyway okay a last question of the evening hello I wanted to thank you both for the lively debate I I believe from a theological perspective that the Bible is addressed it Oh dr. white actually one ask you a question I believe from a theological perspective that the Bible in its original forms is the inerrant Word of God and if we for the sake of argument ignore inspiration because we've already covered that can what do you do you believe the Bible as we have it now is inerrant or or the originals or what is your perspective on just inerrancy if we just neglect the inspiration portion of it yeah I I would hold to the Chicago statement a biblical inerrancy which makes a very clear distinction between the original and copies thereof I do believe the tenacity the text and so therefore I do believe as we've put it that it's like having a jigsaw puzzle we've got one thousand and ten pieces instead of one thousand it's not a matter of having lost anything and so yes obviously as as Pete Williams like to put it in the radio program they did a few weeks ago Bart tends to see the glass is half-empty in others tend to see it is half-full and I really do believe that when a person begins to dig into these issues that you discover that there is really no question about what the New Testament teaches about the role of Jesus and things like that that these textual variants especially things like the Kombi ohon 'i'm doctoring kept saying they're saying they're not important I've never said they're not important I've said they do not alter the message and that we should study them but that we can know what the New Testament originally taught yeah so you know when I started out in this study I was a firm believer in the inerrancy of the original text that I thought it had been copied and made changes by human hands and I that view of inerrancy started crumbling as soon as I started saying that in fact talking about the inerrant originals doesn't make sense if you don't have originals so I think that was the first step away for me from the view of inerrancy okay thank you would you please thank them again folks and thank you for coming out tonight it's a great demonstration that you care about such matters and that certainly is a start

Channel: Bart D. Ehrman

Views: 229,939

Rating: 4.7224407 out of 5

Keywords: Misquoting Jesus, James White, Agnostic, Atheism, Bart Ehrman, Christianity, James R. White, Bart D. Ehrman (Author), Jesus Christ, God

Id: K2Mp4v8VQwQ

Length: 74min 17sec (4457 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 26 2014