One Christian Thought

  "Conclusion"   It feels a bit wrong to me to speak of coming to a conclusion. With this, textual critics have long had the answer, and I hardly came up with anything myself. I just analyzed, cited, and cross-examined some sources. When Wallace said only about 1 percent of the NT variants change meaning and have a plausible chance of going back to the original, Strobel realized that's still a significantly big number. Ehrman was right when he said in many places we don't know what the actual text was, albeit not relatively to the entire text. Wallace drew attention to things like Romans 5:1, and pointed out "most of these are not very significant at all"! (1) Geisler and Saleeb cite statics, and here they are in order(2): Westcott and Hort estimated accuracy of 98.33%. (They published their NT copy in 1881.) Historian Philip Schaff calculated that out of 150,000 variants he knew, only 400 affected meaning, 50, were significant, and none affected any doctrin...

What was the purpose?  Whereas some readers have gone away from Misquoting Jesus with their faith shaken, I had to ask myself, was that appropriate? I could see someone who isn't educated on evidence, and critically analyzing their faith, getting the idea we can't have the originals. But is this really what Ehrman, the famous agnostic New Testament scholar, one of Christianity's greatest critics, thinks? Because he said this paragraph, all the emphasis's his: "These are questions that plague textual critics, and that have led some to argue that we should abandon any quest for the original text--since we can't even agree on what it might  mean  to talk about the 'original' of, say, Galatians or John. For my part, however, I continue to think that even if we cannot be 100 percent certain about what we can attain to, we can at least be certain that all the surviving manuscripts were copied from other manuscripts, which were themselves copied from other man...

Confidence in the Bible In the acknowledgements, Ehrman dedicated Misquoting Jesus to Bruce M. Metzger, his "Doctor-Father." In the introduction he explained Metzger as "the world's leading expert in the field, a scholar named Bruce M. Metzger who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary." (1) Lee Strobel interviewed him when it came to the question, was Jesus's biographies accurately preserved for us? Not surprisingly, Metzger wasn't aware of any threatened doctrine (and if there were he would know)(2). At the end, Metzger said that what heavy scholarship did to his faith was "built it. I've asked questions all my life, I've dug into the text, I've studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed." Metzger took a second to look at Strobel's face, and then emphasized, " Very well placed." (3) In the next chapter was Edwin M. Yamauchi, a razor-sharp intelligent schol...

 I'm sorry if you really like the story of the woman caught in adultery. My suggestion to you is to instead immerse yourself in Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4. Like it was said, one reason the story has been seen as able to be included is because it contradicts no doctrine and fits alongside Jesus's nature.  You see, when I read the book, Wallace's statement that I have remembered, for many months since whenever I last saw it, really sunk in. "The remarkable thing is you go through his whole book and you say, Where did he actually prove anything? Ehrman didn't prove that any doctrine is jeopardized." (1) (To be fair to Ehrman, I don't think that was his intention, it was more to accurately assess this part of scholarship so important to him than criticize Christianity. And to be fair to you, reader, I have included everything I have recorded which I think could look like they attack core doctrines.) Wallace said, "Readers end up having far ...

Bart Ehrman exposed two actual passages that aren't original at all. They are the so-called ending of Mark, and the story of the woman caught in adultery (usually placed as John 7:53-8:11). The fact of the matter is that, at any rate, obviously God did not leave enough evidence to show us if He inspired the passage. And I am firmly convinced we can prove they weren't inspired at all. The forgery in Mark The first verse, after 16:8, parallels Matthew's account, and more significantly John's first resurrection appearance account. Mary might have seen Jesus by herself before the other women. She did indeed go and tell others, specifically the Disciples, and Luke specifically says in 24:11 that they didn't believe the women. Luke 8:2 says Mary Magdalene formerly had seven demons. The next two verses contain errors along with truths. Jesus never appeared in a different "form." I remember reading a book where someone said Jehovah's Witnesses once used it to ...

In the chapters "Texts of the New Testament" and "The Quest for Origins," Ehrman describes how in the past some scholars and scribes had worked hard to get back to the original New Testament. Daniel Whitby, writing in 1710, argued that in a circulating reading of the NT, there is no problem because no core doctrine or direction for Christian discourse was in question(1).  Then, the astounding Richard Bentley, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, pointed out the Protestant faith wasn't attacked by Roman Catholics (who say the church has authority shown apart from the Bible)(2). He also pointed out that the more manuscripts, inevitably the more variants -- and inevitably the greater probability of getting back to the original! Goodness, that sounds just like Josh and Sean McDowell's, "Yet one needs to realize that the large number of variants is a direct result of the extremely large number of New Testament manuscripts that we have." (3) Johann ...

You go through Ehrman's entire book, and it's just difficulty after variant reading after a problem textual critics have to surmount. Thus, when we realize no doctrine is affected, we really get a feel for how reliable our manuscript traditions are. I said it a long time ago before I read Misquoting Jesus: the only reason Ehrman can say the so-called ending of Mark and story of the adulterous woman isn't original (more in a later post) is because of all the evidence he has to go through! Ehrman, with everything, he argues what is or isn't original  because evidence .  Expanding on that, Ehrman tells the reader modern textual critics are  rational eclecticists . I really like this title, because it says they are being rational and individualizes their specific scholarly work with a big, impressive word which lay people don't learn. And he explains he and his fellow scholars fit the definition because of multiple criteria they use(1). Ehrman argues that sometimes Chri...

How challenging are the variants? Ehrman does tell us what "our current situation" (borrowed from the heading) is. He contrasts the evidence someone in antiquity had, where they evaluated only about one hundred Greek manuscripts, by 2005 we had  more than 5,700 Greek manuscripts . They vary greatly in size, from small fragments about the size of a credit card, to huge and well preserved documents that even can be in their entirety. Some only have one book, others have a collection of them, and rarely is there the entire NT. Moreover, there are "many manuscripts of the various early versions (= translations) of the New Testament." (1) Ehrman points out that, because of our "abundance of evidence," there are a LOT of variants in our surviving manuscripts. No one can name the exact number, nor can anyone be sure they are very close, "because, despite impressive development in computer technology, no one has yet been able to count them all." (2) That...

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why , is a monumental New York Times bestseller by the best-selling author Bart Ehrman. Latter-Day Saints and Muslims, whose scriptures teach the Bible doesn't support them because Christians corrupted it, have found sanctuary in Bart Ehrman's skeptical analysis. But of course also, anyone skeptical of the Bible might find it handy, like an atheist. To get a defense is the reason I actually read it.  If you haven't ran into him before, Bart Ehrman is a famous agnostic New Testament scholar. He is one of Christianity's greatest critics. While reading his Misquoting Jesus , I ran into how early church fathers, like Irenaeus and Tertullian, extensively argued against a heretic named Marcion (1). This reminds me of what I see happening with Ehrman. There is no shortage of books contradicting him, from Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible to How God Became Jesus and even the chapt...