On Wednesday, February 1, 2012, I debated Bart Ehrman on his home turf at UNC Chapel Hill. The topic: Is the original New Testament lost? The format was a 30-minute opener from each of us (Bart, then me), followed by two rounds of 5-minute responses to the other man. Then, questions from the floor and, finally, a one-minute closing statementfrom each of us. Miles O’Neill was the moderator and the debate was sponsored by the Ehrman Project, which Miles heads up. Over 1000 people were in attendance.
Bart Ehrman is well known as a superb debater. He was on a national championship debate team in high school and has been debating ever since. This was my fifth everdebate—three now with Bart. I still have a lot to learn about debate technique. But in all three of my debates with Bart I recognized that they would either be recorded or turned into a book (the first one is now available as The Reliability of the New Testament: A Dialogue between Bart D. Ehrman and Daniel B. Wallace (Fortress Press, 2011). The second debate—the largest such debate in history with over 1400 people in attendance—was professionally filmed and edited and is available at www.csntm.org as a DVD for a modest price. I was as concerned for those who would be able to study the arguments in some detail as I was for those who attended each debate. Therefore, I geared my responses to those who would study these issues later on.
Andreas Köstenberger, an erudite professor at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, attended the debate and wrote up a review of it. You can access that here. Köstenberger offered a critique more on me than on the debate, and on the debate tactics of each of us more than on the substance of what was said. My response to him has been posted as a comment on his blogpost.
For P&P readers, I would like to summarize the debate from my perspective. If you attended the debate, your comments are especially welcome (but of course so arecomments by others!).
Bart’s opener focused on three questions:
- What do we mean by original text?
- Where are all the early manuscripts?
- Why do scholars disagree so much about the wording of the original New Testament?
He answered the first by arguing that several NT books were composite works and that it’s impossible for us to get back to the original wording of those books. His examples included 2 Corinthians, John, Acts, Mark, and Luke. Among other things, he argued thatall critical scholars recognize that 2 Corinthians was never sent out by Paul in that form, that it was originally two different letters that Paul wrote which were later fused together. But this is not true: not all critical scholars believe this (e.g., Raymond Brown argues against it, as do Carson & Moo, Ellis, Guthrie, and a host of others). Regarding John’s Gospel, Bart said that chapter 21 was added later. I argued that this is by no means a settled belief, and that a doctoral student at Dallas Seminary, Charles Cummings, is writing his dissertation on this very topic. We also discussed Mark’s Gospel, which Bart claimed has a lost original ending. He was presupposing that the text after Mark 16.8 was lost and that scribes filled it in with what they could. I agree that later scribes added to the Gospel (there are multiple endings), but that the last leaf was almost surely not lost. The reason is that Mark almost surely wrote on a scroll rather than a codex (the modern book-form with binding on one side and individual pages). The codex form was invented late in the first century, but the best scholars on the codex-form, T. C. Skeat and C. H. Roberts, in their book The Birth of the Codex, argued that Mark’s Gospel was written on a scroll. If on a scroll, then the last leaf would be the most protected. I believe that Mark intended to conclude his Gospel at 16.8, as do most scholars of the last fifty years. Bart was overstating his case.
This first question really addresses composition criticism rather than textual criticism. It struck me that Bart was using this tactic as a way to win the debate, simultaneously detouring us from the real discussion. Yet even a scholar the stature of Kurt Aland, unquestionably the finest German textual critic of the last sixty years, said that there is zero evidence in the manuscripts for such compositions and that all the variants that ever came down the pike are still to be found in the existing manuscripts. Bart did not respond to this point.
He answered the second question by saying that we really don’t have any early manuscripts. But this again is a huge overstatement. We have as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts (six of which were recently discovered and not yet catalogued) and a first-century manuscript of Mark’s Gospel! Altogether, more than 43% of the 8000 or so verses in the NT are found in these papyri. Bart had explicitly said that our earliest copy of Mark was from c. 200 CE, but this is now incorrect. It’s from the first century. I mentioned these new manuscript finds and told the audience that a book will be published by E. J. Brill in about a year that gives all the data. (In the Q & A, Bart questioned the validity of the first-century Mark fragment. I noted that a world-class paleographer, whose qualifications are unimpeachable, was my source. Bart said that even so, we don’t have thousands of manuscripts from the first century! That kind of skepticism is incomprehensible to me.)
Further, in comparison with other ancient literature, the NT has far more early copies than any other work. In the first two hundred years after the composition of the NT thereexist today well over sixty manuscripts. That’s three times the amount of manuscripts that exist for the average classical author in two thousand years.
He answered his third question by claiming that scholars have done all they can but still can’t come to agreement over the wording of the original text. Again, this is not true. Bart had acknowledged that we don’t know the exact number of variants yet because we haven’t examined all the manuscripts in detail yet. We also don’t know the exact number of Latin, Coptic, and Syriac manuscripts (our earliest and most important translations of the NT), let alone what they all say in detail. Bart further argued that a Greek NT that came out in 2005 which claimed to have the original wording differs from other texts in over 6000 places. This is true, but he was not telling the whole story: That text is one that both Bart and I would seriously disagree with, as would most textual critics and NT scholars. It is the majority text, which is based on Greek manuscripts that for much of the NT are only from the ninth century and later. I also pointed out that Ehrman and Metzger would only disagree in about two dozen places as to what the original text said. And Metzger represents pretty much the standard view today among NT scholars.
In my opener, I raised four questions:
- How many textual variants are there?
- What is the nature of the variants?
- What theological beliefs depend on variants?
- Is the original NT lost?
On the first question, I agreed with Bart that we have a huge number of variants—my estimate is about 400,000. But we have a lot of variants because we have a lot of manuscripts: over 20,000 in various languages, and about one million quotations of the NT from the church fathers, reaching back as early as the first century. And these thousands of manuscripts come from all over the Mediterranean region, showing that noearly conspiracy to conform the manuscripts to one text-form existed. I also made comparisons with other Greco-Roman literature, noting that we have on average 1000 times more manuscripts of the NT than we do for the average classical author. If Bart was going to be skeptical about the NT manuscripts, that skepticism would have to be multiplied a thousand-fold for the average classical author. If scholars actually did this, we would immediately go back into the Dark Ages.
On the second question, I noted that the vast majority of variants can’t even be translated and that less than one percent of all variants are meaningful and have a decent chance of reflecting the original wording.
On the third question, I quoted from Bart’s Misquoting Jesus, where he says that no essential Christian belief is affected by any of these variants. This is the most crucial point for most Christians and it was an important point to make, even though it was technically not within the purview of the debate topic.
On the fourth, I gave five reasons why we can be relatively confident that we have the wording of the originals somewhere in the manuscripts today:
(1) If the early MSS exhibit wild copying practices, then we are in an excellent position for recovering the original since there was no conspiracy to make just one kind of text. Further, those that were carefully produced in Alexandria reveal a careful copying process that reaches back to the earliest times. I illustrated this with Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and P75, and noted that when all three of them agree they probably reflect the original wording. Bart did not challenge this statement. I spoke at length about P75 and B, noting that the common ancestor was older than P75 and that B actually reflected a purer stream of transmission.
(2) The standard critical text used today, the Nestle-Aland 27, only follows conjecture in ONE place, and even there the two senior editors disagreed with the rest of the committee. This shows that conjecture is not needed for the NT like it is for virtually all other Greco-Roman literature. And when the MSS display coherence, this indicates that there are not gaps in the MS tradition.
(3) Not a single new reading from any of the 134 papyri has proven to be autographic. In the last 135 years, not a single new reading of any MS has such a pedigree. This shows that the autographic wording is to be found among the MSS somewhere. I concluded this point by saying, “So, what would happen if we found MSS even earlier than our earliest papyri? They will no doubt confirm the wording that we already considered to be original. If all the NT papyri that have been discovered have not been able to introduce a single original reading, why should we think that more discoveries would be any different?” This cut into Bart’s main argument, and he did not respond directly to the point.
(4) The copy of Mark that Matthew used is a first-century Mark, and yet it differs from what scholars think the original Mark said in only a handful of non-translatable places. (One of my interns, Jason Stein, is writing his master’s thesis on this very topic.One of Bart’s doctoral students, Jared Anderson, is also writing on this same topic, and he is coming to quite different conclusions. I wrote to him and asked about what methodological controls he is using.) Bart himself had indicated (in Misquoting Jesus) that we have a first-century copy of Mark, but he concluded that Matthew and Luke were ‘just like the scribes’ in that they changed the text significantly. I argued that they were not like the scribes and that the scribes hardly changed the text at all.
(5) The first-century fragment of Mark was my final point. Not only does its existence contradict Bart’s claim that we don’t have anything from the first century of Mark, but “This papyrus fragment—just like the other new discoveries that we are preparing for publication—strongly confirms what most scholars have already said is the original text.”
In the give-and-take that followed, I failed to ask Bart to lay out what he needed to believe that we had the original text of the NT. This was asked in our debate last October, and Bart said that he would need to see ten MSS of Mark, written within a week of the autograph, and having no more than a 0.001% deviation. I called him on that skepticism in the TC-List, and he conceded that he was speaking off the cuff and that it was an exaggeration. I noted that the question asked had to do with the minimum he would need to believe, so if he gave an exaggeration he was not really answering the question. Further, I noted that since there are only 57,000 letters in Mark, to require no more than 0.001% deviation would mean half a letter at most!
I had asked in my opening statement, “How does [Bart know that these early MSS do not give us the original wording]? What criteria does he use to determine that they made mistakes? Either such errors are patently obvious—like ‘Onion’ for ‘Union’ [I used the illustration of the preamble to the Constitution in which a scribe wrote, ‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Onion…’]—or he is judging these early papyri by later MSS that have an excellent pedigree—later MSS whose wording reaches back to the time before our earliest papyri.” Bart said I pitched him a softball because he was able to determine that the MSS were defective by patristic comments from the second century. I responded that this was overstated—that is, he was using the great uncials as well as patristics to point to the autographic wording. And precisely because of the majuscules of the fourth century scholars have concluded—with Metzger—that the wording of their texts is hundreds of years older than the MSS themselves.
We each had a one-minute closing statement. Bart had said, during the Q&A from the audience, that the bloody sweat passage in Luke 22.43–44 was not part of Luke’s Gospel originally and that it changed Luke’s passion narrative significantly. I agreed. In my closing statement I pointed out that this presupposed that Bart knew what the original text of Luke was saying. I think this was perhaps my strongest point in the debate. Even Bart ultimately has to claim that the original wording is available to us. Further, I noted that the scholarship of the last two thousand years has presupposed that we have the original wording in broad strokes and even in most particulars. To assume otherwise is to be radically skeptical.
129 replies to "Ehrman vs Wallace: Round Three"
[…] this is a fragment, dated by a neutral party, older than P52. Wallace has made some comments at various blogs to assure us that he was neither the discoverer not the examiner of said document, but was […]
[…] is Wallace’s account of the exchange taken from his blog: “We have as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts (six of which were recently […]
#48 by Steven Carr
Firstly: The major media outlets are not likely to run with the story as it lacks the most important ingredients in news stories – sex, media personalities, death, and sporting heros. The importance of the fragment to biblical studies and the importance of the fragment to the media are not the same so don’t evaluate the fragment by the inaction of the media.
Secondly: If your argument is that if it isn’t on Fox/CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS then the fragment must be a forgery or wrongly identified or wrongly dated – then may I suggest to you that the media are NOT the arbitrators of what is true and are terrible when it comes to accurate reporting on biblical manuscripts.
I think the obvious reason that it’s not been in the press is because the these has not yet been published and peer review.
#50 by Nazam Guffoor
Whether a papyrus has been published or not is of little relevance to the media – and the peer review aspect is of NO relevance to the media
Consider the example of a papyrus MS found by looters in Israel and recovered by the police in 2009. It was not published, the peer reviewed publications date to a year and more later – yet it made the media immediately. Why? Firstly the “sexy” part of the story was not the papyrus, it was the conflict between Israelis who recovered the papyrus and Palestinians who had looted it. Secondly, the information about the papyrus was released to the media with colour pictures. And when the papyrus was published in peer reviewed journals the media paid no attention to it as there was nolonger any aspect to it that would attract readership or advertising revenue.
[…] reflected later on the exchange about Ehrman's skepticism: In the Q & A, Bart questioned the validity of […]
Keep things on topic. This is not a surragate blog to wax elequent about all your knowledge. Get your own blogs. They are cheap!
Read the rules. I have been having to delete posts.
NAZAM GUFFOR
I think the obvious reason that it’s not been in the press is because the these has not yet been published and peer review.
CARR
That is much better than what I was thinking! I had come up with the explanation that the media was not interested in 1st century manuscripts of the Gospels.
With hindsight I can see how wrong I was.
BABINSKI
Dr. Wallace, It seems to me that what today’s conservative Christians are reduced to doing to “defend the Bible,” is scrounge up fragments found in Cave 7 at Qumran (the only cave featuring exclusively Greek fragments), and try to match them up via computer imagery with lines from the Gospels.
CARR
SO texts are selected for further examination if they match lines from today’s accepted text of Gospels?
Is this a statistically accurate way of seeing if any texts were produced which vary from today’s accepted text of the Gospels?
Has anybody else noticed that the fragment of Mark has provided opportunity for grenade throwers to make (ill informed) attacks on Christianity? As an example of one of these web lurkers, Steven Carr has made a number of posts on different blogs such as the one found on Exploring Our Matrix where he said “Picture 11 of 19 gives some idea of the size of these ‘manuscripts’ that are being found, and the ethical nature of Wallace claiming that these sorts of manuscripts should be accepted by Ehrman as proving that the text has not been changed”
In one short comment fragments are dismissed as they as not manuscripts, the evidence against the text of the Bible being changed as Ehrman claims is dismissed, and the ethics of a Christian scholar are questioned.
Steven failed to tell the readers of his comment that “Picture 11” is of a fragment that is NOT of the NT, is NOT in Greek, and is NOT on papyrus – it was of the OT, in Hebrew, on either parchment or leather – so the two obvious options are either Steven is unethical or Steven is ignorant.
Either way, can we expect more of the same up until the fragment is published – and perhaps even afterwards?
Regards,
Matthew Hamilton
Unfortunately until the fragment is published we can probably expect
Sorry for linking to a picture put up by the Baylor Institute showing the sorts of fragments the Green Collection put up on display as illustrating the sort of fragments they are collecting and exhibiting.
If I had known what sort of objections would be raised to publicising the exhibits the Green Collection puts on display, I would not have bothered.
Was it supposed to be a secret that the Green Collection puts tiny scraps of manuscript on display?
[…] comentário do Dr. Wallace, no terceiro encontro da série de debates com Barth Ehrman a respeito do texto do Novo Testamento, […]
Steven Carr in comment 61 is playing the martyr who was only sharing information – gosh, we should be thankful that he was “publicizing (sic) the exhibits the Green Collection puts on display” and making sure we all know that “the Green Collection puts tiny scraps of manuscript on display” – but this is NOT what he was doing. The point of his comment on Exploring the Matrix was not informative about the size of early biblical manuscripts in the Green Collection, it was (1) to dismiss manuscripts because of their size (2) which means no evidence against the claims of Ehrman (3) and at the same time question the ethics of a Christian scholar who used the evidence of the manuscripts.
Most early biblical manuscripts are small although there are exceptions such as the Bodmer Psalms Codex (parts of which are displayed in the Green Collection – or did Steven fail to inform people of that?), yet that does not stop textual critics such as Daniel Wallace (and even Bart Ehrman) from making good use of them. If Steven does not know this then he is ignorant. And if Steven does know this then he has attempted to mislead readers of his comments – which is unethical.
So Steven, are you being ignorant or unethical?
[…] Daniel Wallace spilled the beans in a recent debate with Bart Ehrman that there has now been discovered a papyrus fragment of Mark that has been dated to the 1st […]
[…] Mark Goodacre’s NT Blog: “it is worth noting that Wallace remarked that the “world-class paleographer” in question had “no religious […]
Dr. Wallace: thank you for entering the ring with Ehrman. Somebody has to.
On a related note, what is the Koine Greek word for Schadenfreude?
[…] Bart Erhman about the discovery of several New Testament papyri. Dr. Wallace has already written a summary of the debate, and below he clarifies what these papyri might […]
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The debate over whether we have the original wording of the New Testament somewhere in the manuscripts seems strange. Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that (for example) NA27 was exactly the wording of the original NT, what does that matter? The argument that it is necessary to have the original wording is silly considering that throughout probably over 90% of the history of Christianity that original wording has not been available. And probably over 90% of all Christians have never had access to that original wording. If Ehrman’s argument is that the original wording is necessary for the NT to be considered reliable, then it is a silly one and not worth debating. Although Ehrman is a skeptic, he still seems to think like a fundamentalist inerrantist. Why play his own game rather than just dismissing his underlying assumption? He admits himself that no significant theological position depends on the variants. There is more theological debate within Christianity on scriptural passages on which there is no dispute regarding their text than on the variants that seem to concern Ehrman so greatly.
I have not seen the debate, so maybe Dr. Wallace focused on the irrelevance of Ehrman’s argument for all I know. His comment about Ehrman’s skepticism and the Dark Ages seems quite apt. If we need the kind of evidence that Ehrman seems to want in order to accept something as true, then we can believe nothing we have learned of history. In fact, there is really nothing we can believe at all. Life is not a carefully controlled, double blind, scientific experiment.
[…] Dan Wallace recaps his recent debate with Bart Ehrman. This post mentioned the discovery of what is believed to be the earliest manuscript of the Gospel […]
[…] http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2012/02/wallace-vs-erhman-round-three/ […]
Recently, on another blogpost, some unsavory things were said about me regarding this Mark fragment. Here’s what I wrote in response:
I have to take issue with you how you’ve represented things, XCNTRIK. First you said, “This experience is a good example of the difference between Biblical Studies and Christian Apologetics.” The implication is that I’m an apologist, not a biblical scholar–and you explicitly called me an apologist later. No, I’m not an apologist. I take offense at that term being used of me. My realm is biblical studies.
Second, you said, “It is not fantastic when a Christian apologist makes an empty claim as an attempt to rebut a factual statement made by a credible scholar. Without evidence, Wallace has debunked himself instead, and now his credibility in question.” Really? I think I would be debunked if it was demonstrated that what I said was NOT based on good authority; that’s what debunking means–that I was definitely speaking with hollow words. But as I said in the debate, the book on this manuscript and other new finds will appear in about a year. And it’s to be published by E. J. Brill, a scholarly publisher with an exceptionally good reputation.
You also quoted someone who said, “It is really frustrating when people spill ‘news’ of a manuscript discovery to score a point for themselves (e.g., in a debate) but then can only say, ‘Trust me. I got my info from a ‘world-class paleographer; and oh, by the way, he’s entirely unbiased because he’s not a fundamentalist.” Here’s the situation: I learned about the MS a couple of weeks before the debate. I got it from a good source. I was told not only that the paleographer was sure that it was from the first century but also that this fragment, along with the other six fragments, all confirm the general stability of the New Testament. Are you saying that it would be right for me not to mention this in the debate? I know the paleographer and consider him to be an excellent scholar. But I was also asked not to reveal his name yet, and I kept my word on that. And I explicitly added in the Q&A time that we will all have to wait to see what the evidence is for this in the book next year. Now, how is that scoring a point for myself?
As for backpedaling, here’s what I said at Chapel Hill: “The oldest fragment of the NT is now a fragment from Mark’s Gospel that is from the first century! How accurate is the dating? Well, my source is a papyrologist who worked on this MS—a man whose reputation is unimpeachable. Many consider him to be the best papyrologist on the planet. His reputation is on the line with this dating, and he knows it. But he is certain that this MS was from the first century. This papyrus fragment—just like the other new discoveries that we are preparing for publication—strongly confirms what most scholars have already said is the original text.” A careful reader will note that I am hinging the date on the paleographer’s reputation, not mine. But since some did not see it that way, I have softened the language subsequently because I’m just the messenger, not the paleographer. I will make comments on the date of the MS when it is published, but for now–as I said in the debate–we will all have to wait and see. I really don’t think that that’s overstatement, nor did I backpedal.
It may be enjoyable to some to poke holes at a scholar who offers information that would be relevant for biblical studies–with the caveat that the book is not yet out but will be. Others have dismissed what I’ve had to say by linking it to the fantastic claims of Carsten Peter Thiede on the identification of 7Q5 as from Mark’s Gospel or his dating of P64+67, or to claims by Young Kyu Kim that P46 was written before the reign of Domitian. These manuscripts are not what I am talking about. I have gone into print about 7Q5 and P46, and argued that the former was not from Mark and the latter’s date should still considered to be c. 200 CE. That some would think that I was resurrecting a minority position that has been soundly rejected by biblical scholars is incredible to me, especially since I published TWO articles against Thiede’s identification!
But I understand the natural skepticism of some who are unfortunately tempted to turn their skepticism into potshots instead of taking the sober position that “We need to see the manuscript. The paleographers have to do their work. The text needs to be subjected to stringent tests. And most of all, the provenance of the manuscript has to be fully disclosed. In these days when frauds and fakes flood the market and claims of authenticity are bantered about with ease and aplomb, everyone should be especially cautious.” I agree with that assessment fully. All I can say is, “wait and see.” Is that too much to ask?
The reputation of an anonymous person is on the line, so people have to take Daniel’s word for it that this fragment confirms the reliability of the text, without asking to see it or know how big it is.
That’s fair. After all, people in other fields have to rely on expert opinion without ever being told who this expert is, and to accept new evidence without ever seeing it.
Out of interest, does this fragment of the Gospel known as Mark have the word ‘Jesus’ written on it anywhere?
Are we allowed to know that?
Steven, you’ve really misrepresented what I said. I can’t stop you from doing that, but I would hope that you would read my comments more carefully. I ended with a paragraph emphasizing that we all should wait and see. Again, is that too much to ask?
We should all wait and see.
No, no, we should use this evidence as debating points against Ehrman as though it had all been settled.
Then we can tell everybody to wait and see.
That is the correct course of action.
I wonder why we are not allowed to know if the word ‘Jesus’ appears on this fragment.
Steven, talk about scoring a debating point! Once again, you’ve glossed over what I said. I’m afraid I’m going to be out of pocket for awhile, but I would ask you to read much more carefully people you are criticizing.
Again, I said, “i learned about the MS a couple of weeks before the debate. I got it from a good source. I was told not only that the paleographer was sure that it was from the first century but also that this fragment, along with the other six fragments, all confirm the general stability of the New Testament. Are you saying that it would be right for me not to mention this in the debate? I know the paleographer and consider him to be an excellent scholar. But I was also asked not to reveal his name yet, and I kept my word on that. And I explicitly added in the Q&A time that we will all have to wait to see what the evidence is for this in the book next year. Now, how is that scoring a point for myself?”
Are you saying that if you had some reliable information that could not YET be verified, but would be in a year, you would simply sweep it under the rug without comment? I thought we were supposed to be seekers of truth.
DANIEL
‘Are you saying that it would be right for me not to mention this in the debate? ‘
DANIEL
‘I ended with a paragraph emphasizing that we all should wait and see. Again, is that too much to ask?’
CARR
Is it too much to ask that you wait and see?
I wonder why we are not allowed to know if the word ‘Jesus’ appears on this fragment.
Steven, did you see the debate?
‘Steven, did you see the debate?’
No, but I rely on Mr. Wallace to give an accurate account of events, and I’m sure he has.
[…] Link to Dr. Wallace’s summation (with 82 comments) […]
Directed at #36 Daniel B. Wallace:
The case I am speaking about had nothing to do with Mark or Cave 7. It had to do with a different cave and a fragment that was claimed to be from Matthew:
Bible Review 19:02, Apr 2003
That’s No Gospel, It’s Enoch!
Identification of Dead Sea Scrolls challenged
By Peter W. Flint
In 1972 the Spanish scholar José O’Callaghan startled the world of biblical scholarship when he announced that he had identified nine New Testament fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls.1 In the 30 years since, O’Callaghan’s findings have annoyed many scholars, excited a few and left most scratching their heads—wondering if they will ever know for sure what these tiny fragments contain.
But now, thanks to the painstaking research of two European scholars and one Disney World carpenter, all this has changed. It seems certain that two of the nine fragments are definitely not New Testament texts, that the same likely holds true for the other seven, and that at least some of these fragments and several other unidentified pieces from the same cave can now be positively identified: They come from the First Book of Enoch!
As for Theide and his rummaging through cave 7 scraps in Greek, it’s the same Theide who wrote a book claiming to have found a piece of the true cross.
So the fact remains there is one cave in particular with lots of Greek fragments that some scholars, notably Theide, continue rummaging through hoping to discover a “match” with some words in a Greek Gospel, any Gospel, though I suppose they have concentrated their efforts on Matthew and Mark, the ostensibly earliest two Gospels. But such a search among a cave of scroll fragments seems to amount to seeing faces in clouds.
Based on the relative futility of the search outlined above I certainly suspect an infinite Being could have provided (and preserved) FAR clearer and more enduring evidence from the first century of a host of items pertaining to Jesus’ sayings and doings if that Being’s purpose was to prove a particular religion was true — as so many of today’s Evangelical apologists are attempting to prove. Alas, the preservation of evidence for a crazy first century apocalyptic sect remains far better than for the Gospels of the one true faith.
Sorry, that previous post was over 1000 characters. Here’s a broken down version.
Directed at #36 Daniel B. Wallace:
The case I am speaking about had nothing to do with Mark or Cave 7. It had to do with a different cave and a fragment that was claimed to be from Matthew:
“That’s No Gospel, It’s Enoch! Identification of Dead Sea Scrolls challenged,” by Peter W. Flint, Bible Review 19:02, Apr 2003- – “In 1972 the Spanish scholar José O’Callaghan announced that he had identified nine New Testament fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls. His claim left most scratching their heads—wondering if they will ever know for sure what these tiny fragments contain. But thanks to the painstaking research of two European scholars and one carpenter, It seems certain that two of the nine fragments are definitely not New Testament texts, and the same likely holds true for the other seven, and that at least some of these fragments and several other unidentified pieces from the same cave can now be positively identified: They come from the First Book of Enoch.”
As for Theide and his rummaging through cave 7 scraps in Greek, it’s the same Theide who wrote a book claiming to have found a piece of the true cross.
So the fact remains there is one cave in particular with lots of Greek fragments that some scholars, notably Theide, continue rummaging through hoping to discover a “match” with some words in a Greek Gospel, any Gospel, though I suppose they have concentrated their efforts on Matthew and Mark, the ostensibly earliest two Gospels. But such a search among a cave of scroll fragments seems to amount to seeing faces in clouds.
Directed at #36 Daniel B. Wallace:
The case I am speaking about had nothing to do with Mark or Cave 7. It had to do with a different cave and a fragment that was claimed to be from Matthew:
“That’s No Gospel, It’s Enoch! Identification of Dead Sea Scrolls challenged,” by Peter W. Flint, Bible Review 19:02, Apr 2003- – “In 1972 the Spanish scholar José O’Callaghan announced that he had identified nine New Testament fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls. His claim left most scratching their heads—wondering if they will ever know for sure what these tiny fragments contain. But thanks to the painstaking research of two European scholars and one carpenter, It seems certain that two of the nine fragments are definitely not New Testament texts, and the same likely holds true for the other seven, and that at least some of these fragments and several other unidentified pieces from the same cave can now be positively identified: They come from the First Book of Enoch.”
That last comment should be less than 1000 characters, including spaces.
As for Theide and his rummaging through cave 7 scraps in Greek, it’s the same Theide who wrote a book claiming to have found a piece of the true cross.
So the fact remains there is one cave in particular with lots of Greek fragments that some scholars, notably Theide, continue rummaging through hoping to discover a “match” with some words in a Greek Gospel, any Gospel, though I suppose they have concentrated their efforts on Matthew and Mark, the ostensibly earliest two Gospels. But such a search among a cave of scroll fragments seems to amount to seeing faces in clouds.
Based on the relative futility of the search outlined above I certainly suspect an infinite Being could have provided (and preserved) FAR clearer and more enduring evidence from the first century of a host of items pertaining to Jesus’ sayings and doings if that Being’s purpose was to prove a particular religion was true — as so many of today’s Evangelical apologists are attempting to prove. Alas, the preservation of evidence for a crazy first century apocalyptic sect remains far better than for the Gospels of the one true faith.
[…] 1 February 2012, I debated Bart Ehrman at UNC Chapel Hill on whether we have the wording of the original New Testament today. This was our […]
I’m glad i became a catholic. My life now revolves around trying to live the faith instead of debating whether the Bible is reliable or not. My Mother has already told me that it is. Just as the Father told her through the Son.
All this textual argumentation ignores a single basic but paramount fact, a point made by Benedict XVI in his Jesus of Nazareth. When we approach the new testament we come face to face with two dimensions 1) the text and it integrity and its authority but 2) more importantly we come face to face with Christ Jesus who reaches across time to meet each of us and we must ask with the Apostle the same question that all men past present and future will ask and answer “Who do you say that I am?” there is no escaping the faith dimension of the New Testament and critical textual analysis really misses the whole in focusing on iota’s and miss-spellings, etc.
When reading Mark 16:1-8 and comparing to verses 9-20 it is obviously clear that 9-20 contradict 1-8. That’s a textual given that’s independent of any “1st century newly found manuscripts”. It is clear that a redactor provided a lengthier ending so as to provide a resurrection appearance and more. I can live with that….but don’t tell me that 9-20 was connected to 1-8 from the outset. Unless of course the author couldn’t see the glaring problems of such a connection. It’s o.k. to accept scripture by faith….faith and a certain uncertainty seem to naturally go hand and hand!
[…] It’s also interesting that the announcement was made during a debate with Bart Ehrman in which Bart claimed that the earliest manuscripts of the NT were from the second century. Au contraire, Daniel Wallace was able to answer. It seems that we now have a first century fragment. Bart was apparently unimpressed by this news. (Credo House) […]
[…] [Over the last couple of days have appeared numerous postings on reports that fragments of several early NT manuscripts have been identified (e.g., http://sheffieldbiblicalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/first-century-fragment-of-mark/). A statement by Dan Wallace in a recent debate with Bart Ehrman seems to be the source of these reports. In the debate, Wallace says that he referred to a fragment identified as part of a first-century copy of the Gospel of Mark (http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2012/02/wallace-vs-erhman-round-three/). […]
@Tom Zelaney
First of all, I want to agree with you that the text of the New Testament brings you face-to-face with Christ. But I would like to point out a couple of problems with your comment. First of all, is that the bible demands of us thorough critical and historical research; text criticism being no exception to this. Our faith must not be purely blind faith, but a reasoned faith. Secondly, very few text critics spend all that much time “focusing on iota’s and miss-spellings, etc” where I assume you mean other meaningless variants with “etc.” While it is good to recognize these types of variants, I don’t think anyone loses sleep over John spelling the same word three different ways in a handful of verses, and the like. Text critics are far more concerned with variants that are meaningful and viable. If you watch the debate(s), you will see this in the rhetoric of both Dr. Ehrman and Dr. Wallace.
And finally, I think you lack an understanding of the shoulders you stand on when you pick up your English Bible. It did not just pop into existence, but rather depends on the work of text critics. The real question you must ask yourself is this: “Do I trust the words that are in my Bible just because they are in my Bible, or do I trust them because they are found in and supported by the best manuscripts?” If it is the former, I think you need to reevaluate your understanding of Scripture, and what it means to be the Word of God.
Ed Babinski:
Your most recent diatribe has only demonstrated that you are completely confusing the issue. Dr. Wallace will be the first person to tell you that he is most certainly not an apologist. As one in the field of biblical studies, his purpose is not to prove something right but rather to investigate it thoroughly and properly.
Furthermore, rummaging in caves to “match” manuscripts has never had anything to do with Dr. Wallace’s research or argumentation, so I’m curious as to why you find that to be (continually) relevant to the conversation. When Dr. Wallace and his organization photograph and examine manuscripts, they do so in order to contribute to the field of biblical studies, not so they can prove something about the Bible. No one disagrees that there have been (and continue to be) mistakes made by some Evangelical apologists in their over-zealous attempts to defend the Bible, but that is not the issue here.
James, I certainly respect your use of Scripture and agree whole-heartedly with most of what you stated. We all need to realize someone’s salvation is ultimately not dependent upon our wisdom or logic. For this reason we must accompany all our actions with prayer and love for those with whom we speak.
James
I have been to multiple areas of the world where Christianity and proselytizing is prohibited. Though we do not see similar outward pressures upon our faith we must realize there is a war going on here in America. It is won and lost on the college campuses as the next generation of leaders have their views molded and shaped. Unfortunately, because believers have not responded, a majority today believe Dan Brown’s fictional writing is an intellectual pursuit. When there is no intellectual voice for Christ many believe the church ultimately has no answers. This is false and Christians have too often propagated this deception. The church has responded to Kantian modernism on multiple levels that have discolored the truth. Fundamentalism has rejected modern liberalism and turned its back on the world and intellectual responses to it. Existentialism has responded to modernism with a blind leap of faith that is in no need of rational and is, in some cases, viewed as irrational by nature (i.e. Kierkegaard’s view of Abraham). Though many will not believe because their hearts are hardened (c.f. John 12.10), many in the world desire a view of Christ that transcends the authority of a pastor. The announcement of a manuscript penned before the canon was closed, as well as a plethora of other early manuscripts has begun to shape history. If we love the lost we will humbly seek to answer them in a manner they can best receive. God’s grace does not move independently of the mind.