How Badly Did Scribes Change the New Testament Bible? (Dr. Daniel B. Wallace) (Jesus, quotes)

[Michael Way]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

Actually they do - you just misrepresent their points.

Note the above two quotes:

Wallace says that they cannot produce with certainty the exact wording of the original. His point about the 110% is that what was the original is there in the mss evidence but what the original is is not certain. They have too much information and they can not know what 10% to get rid of to arrive at the original. Hello!

Bart's quote is just telling you what people like Wallace believe - it is not what he believes. Furthermore, his quote says 'reasonable probably not 100%'. When he says scholars are convinced that they can reconstruct the original that does not mean that they have done so let alone 100% accurately.

So your assertion that the original can be accurately produced with certainty is wrong by your own quotes.

No, I have not misrepresented their points. I quoted them because of what they said and I have not stated anything contrary to what they said. As I said in post #33 of this thread,'' No one has claimed that the original autographs are extant and the bolded comment therefore is a false issue. If we did have the original autographs there would be no need for Biblical Textual criticism. Through a comparison of the available manuscripts the anomalies in the manuscripts can be detected and weeded out bringing us closer to the original writings. And no one is claiming that a 100 percent restoration of the original text is likely. But we can get very close.''

And as far as Ehrman's statement goes, I had to make it clear to another poster that Ehrman was indeed referring to what other scholars believe. Simply refer to post #64.

Originally Posted by Mike555

No, I have not misrepresented their points. I quoted them because of what they said and I have not stated anything contrary to what they said. As I said in post #33 of this thread,'' No one has claimed that the original autographs are extant and the bolded comment therefore is a false issue. If we did have the original autographs there would be no need for Biblical Textual criticism. Through a comparison of the available manuscripts the anomalies in the manuscripts can be detected and weeded out bringing us closer to the original writings. And no one is claiming that a 100 percent restoration of the original text is likely. But we can get very close.''

And as far as Ehrman's statement goes, I had to make it clear to another poster that Ehrman was indeed referring to what other scholars believe. Simply refer to post #64.

You claimed that a year ago in the thread that I linked where you quoted the the same thing.

So now we have 4 points that you admit:

1) We don't have the originals.
2) The originals cannot be reconstructed with 100% accuracy.
3) There is no evidence that any of this Textual Criticism points to an inerrant text - you admit errors and variations which also has been pointed out in many texts by me and others.
4) None of this Textual Criticism points to Inspiration.

Another fact: You have used the same quotes in multiple threads to argue for numbers 2-3 but have now changed your tune.

Furthermore, you have not given us what the 'essential doctrines' were that God preserved without error nor why God, if he could preserve the 'essential doctrines', why he could not just preserve the whole text without any errors and variations? This goes to the Preservation issue!

This is a four legged stool w/out any legs. So when you say this makes the text reliable - what does that even mean - reliable in relation to what? Certainly not the originals, inspiration, or inerrantcy. To doctrine - what doctrine/s? Who cares - most people who have a problem with the Bible and the claims of fundamentalists are not concerned with that - this is just a strawman to make it look like you have something of substance to back up those other claims. It does not!

[Michael Way]

Originally Posted by Wardendresden

Very well, I've already provided one in the Genesis scribal misinterpretation of the word "sin" in Genesis. The word sin has a different connotation from the original Hebrew which is "missing the mark." It lends credence to universalist claims of salvation for all because "sinners" are not condemned, they are forgiven for "missing the mark."

Now mind you I do not believe that myself, but for reasons other than just scripture. The misinterpretation has led to all sorts of dogma against "bad" people. One of the other posters very well addressed the issue of "sin" as an improper term.

Now let's talk about some of YOUR views that are based on highly skeptical language. You have previously stated that MEN should be the only ones in the pulpit. And others have used the Corinthian language to say women should not "speak" in the church (but obviously singing isn't speaking) so an entire conservative doctrine revolves around highly suspect language.

"For it is not permitted for them to speak, but to be in subjection, just as the law says." I Cor 14:34. It is much like the passage in I Timothy 2.

Both appear to be a straightforward injunction for women to speak, let alone teach. According to Ehrman, who as Mike555 likes to point out talks about what MOST scholars think regarding scribal errors, Ehrman says MOST SCHOLARS are convinced that Paul did not write the I Timothy passage, but there is no doubt he wrote I Corinthians. BUT, and it is a huge but,


Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, under the section entitled Women and the Texts of Scripture.

He goes on to state that if you lift the questionable verses out of I Corinthians the passage flows seamlessly as a discussion of the role of Christian prophets, and that the discussion about women is intrusive in the context, breaking the instructions Paul is giving about a different matter. In fact, it goes against what Paul already wrote in I Cor 11:2-16 where he speaks of praying and prophesying, activities always done aloud in Christian worship services. In this earlier passage Paul clearly understands that women both can and do speak in services. His only instruction was for the culture of the day, for women to wear a covering on their heads.

It is very strange indeed that three chapters later, Paul calls on women to shut up and ask their questions at home!!!

Scribal intentional errors having impact in the modern world.

Digest the above two. Later on this evening we will explore the Trinity--which I also believe--but that has definitely been influenced by scribal additions to the text.

Once again you misrepresent what I said concerning what Ehrman said. What Ehrman said was - "In spite of these remarkable differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy."

Regarding the Trinity, the Bible teaches that God is triune and so any scribal additions such as 1 John 5:7-8 (the Johannine Comma) do NOT alter or jeopardize Christian belief regarding the Trinity.

What I asked you to do in post #87 was to name just a couple dozen of those significant errors that you think endangers any essential Christian belief?

You are also making a false issue regarding the word 'sin'. The issue is not one of interpretation, but of the words which are used in the various manuscripts. Does one manuscript copy use a different word for sin than another manuscript copy for the same verse? Or does some manuscript use a word in a particular verse which doesn't mean sin at all in contrast with the other manuscripts for that verse? That is the issue. Not how you think the word should be translated. And we are talking about the New Testament manuscripts. Not the Old Testament manuscripts.

Regarding the issue of women speaking or remaining silent, you point to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. Is it authentic or is it a scribal addition? Here is what the Bible Knowledge Commentary says.

14:33b-36. Some of the verses in this section (vv. 34-35) were felt by some early copyists to be out of place at this point in the letter and so were transposed to the end of the chapter. A more drastic approach taken by some recent commentators is to regard these verses as spurious and unworthy of comment. Though the exact meaning of these verses is difficult to determine, neither expedient has much to commend it. In fact it seems that the guiding thread which prompted these comment by Paul about women was the same theme developed in the preceding verses addressed to those gifted in tongues and prophecy. The church members needed to exercise self-control on occasion, a self-control expressed by silence (vv. 28, 30, 34) in order that the assembly might be characterized by peace. [The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament, As Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary, pp. 540-541]

There's more in the Commentary on the passage, but the above is sufficient.

Daniel Wallace points out in https://bible.org/article/textual-pr...thians-1434-35

''The Textual Problem of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35''

that all the manuscript witnesses add these verses and says that evidence indicates that the words were inserted into the original document and then refers to a suggestion made by a suggestion made by E. Earle Ellis that Paul himself added the words in the margin of the letter.

[Michael Way]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

You claimed that a year ago in the thread that I linked where you quoted the the same thing.

So now we have 4 points that you admit:

1) We don't have the originals.
2) The originals cannot be reconstructed with 100% accuracy.
3) There is no evidence that any of this Textual Criticism points to an inerrant text - you admit errors and variations which also has been pointed out in many texts by me and others.
4) None of this Textual Criticism points to Inspiration.

Another fact: You have used the same quotes in multiple threads to argue for numbers 2-3 but have now changed your tune.

Furthermore, you have not given us what the 'essential doctrines' were that God preserved without error nor why God, if he could preserve the 'essential doctrines', why he could not just preserve the whole text without any errors and variations? This goes to the Preservation issue!

This is a four legged stool w/out any legs. So when you say this makes the text reliable - what does that even mean - reliable in relation to what? Certainly not the originals, inspiration, or inerrantcy. To doctrine - what doctrine/s? Who cares - most people who have a problem with the Bible and the claims of fundamentalists are not concerned with that - this is just a strawman to make it look like you have something of substance to back up those other claims. It does not!

I have used the quotes a number of times but have not 'changed my tune' about anything. Don't attempt to make this about me. The only issue which is pertinent is what have the mentioned scholars, and particularly Dan Wallace, said, since this thread is about what he discussed in the two videos at the beginning of this thread.

Regardless of your opinion on the matter, regardless of whether you agree with what he said, Dr. Wallace has stated that no essential Christian belief is jeopardized by any viable variant in the New Testament manuscripts.

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

You claimed that a year ago in the thread that I linked where you quoted the the same thing.

So now we have 4 points that you admit:

1) We don't have the originals.
2) The originals cannot be reconstructed with 100% accuracy.
3) There is no evidence that any of this Textual Criticism points to an inerrant text - you admit errors and variations which also has been pointed out in many texts by me and others.
4) None of this Textual Criticism points to Inspiration.

Another fact: You have used the same quotes in multiple threads to argue for numbers 2-3 but have now changed your tune.

Furthermore, you have not given us what the 'essential doctrines' were that God preserved without error nor why God, if he could preserve the 'essential doctrines', why he could not just preserve the whole text without any errors and variations? This goes to the Preservation issue!

This is a four legged stool w/out any legs. So when you say this makes the text reliable - what does that even mean - reliable in relation to what? Certainly not the originals, inspiration, or inerrantcy. To doctrine - what doctrine/s? Who cares - most people who have a problem with the Bible and the claims of fundamentalists are not concerned with that - this is just a strawman to make it look like you have something of substance to back up those other claims. It does not!

In anticipation of being asked where he said this is, in the thread I linked too, I will cite the posts.

First, there is the point that in that thread Mike not only says that the 'word of God' is preserved but that the text is inerrant. But if one does not have the autographs and the text cannot be 100% reconstructed then how does he know what the 'word of God' was in order to come to that conclusion? And if you don't have the autographs and the texts that we do have is not inerrant then how did he come this conclusion of it being inerrant? You cannot conclude that we have the 'word of God' as was in the original.

As I stated in post 285:

'Actually, it is not that difficult to grasp. How does this person know that the original autographs were such (were 100% inerrant, accurate, authoritative, and true, under the divine promise of inspiration) other than mere assertion and wishful belief, since no one has the originals? His quotes of 2 Tim. and 2 Peter are references to the OT - the NT is not in view. It also ignores the simple fact that God in his great power and wisdom should have been capable of not just inspiring and preserving doctrinal inerrancy but copyists errors as well - you would think - he is Gawd. And if copyist errors, or any other more significant ones, were just allowed and unavoidable you would have thought God capable of coming-up with a better way to reveal 'truth...'

And as I noted in post 362:

'Glad to see you admit error in the extant mss. Once again preserving would include no errors since the originals were, as you assume, without error. Of course you are always free to manipulate that term to fit your own biases.'

Second, and to the point of preserving the originals, Mike throughout that thread implicitly states that the original can be ascertained. He does this leading up to the post where he explicitly said this in post 364:

'Again, God's Word is preserved despite errors, let me put it this way, despite errors in particular manuscript copies. By comparing manuscript with manuscript, errors can be determined and the dross removed so that what was contained in the original autographs is revealed.'

Now this gets the the point that I made about him misrepresenting Wallace's point about the 110%. Wallace was saying three things basically:

1) Textual Criticism was not about producing the autographs and
2) Textual Criticism was about figuring out what to get rid of - hence the dross reference to 110% and
3) Textual Criticism has not been able to remove that dross to ascertain the autographs with 100% accuracy.

Wallace as noted before was suggesting that they have more information than needed (110%) - so that within the mss there is the original but they don't know what info to get rid of so as to arrive at the original - hence they have not done so. Mike misrepresented this quote from Wallace, in the earlier thread, as suggesting that they were able to remove the dross but then in this thread admits that they cannot remove all the dross to ascertain the original with 100% accuracy.

PS - so yeah that is changing your tune!

Originally Posted by Mike555

I have used the quotes a number of times but have not 'changed my tune' about anything. Don't attempt to make this about me. The only issue which is pertinent is what have the mentioned scholars, and particularly Dan Wallace, said, since this thread is about what he discussed in the two videos at the beginning of this thread.

Regardless of your opinion on the matter, regardless of whether you agree with what he said, Dr. Wallace has stated that no essential Christian belief is jeopardized by any viable variant in the New Testament manuscripts.

See my above post! I knew you would deny it!

[Michael Way]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

In anticipation of being asked where he said this is, in the thread I linked too, I will cite the posts.

First, there is the point that in that thread Mike not only says that the 'word of God' is preserved but that the text is inerrant. But if one does not have the autographs and the text cannot be 100% reconstructed then how does he know what the 'word of God' was in order to come to that conclusion? And if you don't have the autographs and the texts that we do have is not inerrant then how did he come this conclusion of it being inerrant? You cannot conclude that we have the 'word of God' as was in the original.

As I stated in post 285:



And as I noted in post 362:



Second, and to the point of preserving the originals, Mike throughout that thread implicitly states that the original can be ascertained. He does this leading up to the post where he explicitly said this in post 364:



Now this gets the the point that I made about him misrepresenting Wallace's point about the 110%. Wallace was saying three things basically:

1) Textual Criticism was not about producing the autographs and
2) Textual Criticism was about figuring out what to get rid of - hence the dross reference to 110% and
3) Textual Criticism has not been able to remove that dross to ascertain the autographs with 100% accuracy.

Wallace as noted before was suggesting that they have more information than needed (110%) - so that within the mss there is the original but they don't know what info to get rid of so as to arrive at the original - hence they have not done so. Mike misrepresented this quote from Wallace, in the earlier thread, as suggesting that they were able to remove the dross but then in this thread admits that they cannot remove all the dross to ascertain the original with 100% accuracy.

PS - so yeah that is changing your tune!

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

See my above post! I knew you would deny it!

Your attempt to start a fight needs to stop. I have told you what the subject of this thread is.

And no, I have not misrepresented anything regarding what Wallace said. I never claimed that the original writings could be recovered 100 percent, and this comment, ''By comparing manuscript with manuscript, errors can be determined and the dross removed so that what was contained in the original autographs is revealed.'', was not intended to suggest a 100 percent recovery.

This is Wallace's comment.

'Though textual criticism cannot yet produce certainty about the exact wording of the original, this uncertainty affects only about two percent of the text. And in that two percent support always exists for what the original said--never is one left with mere conjecture. In other words it is not that only 90 percent of the original text exists in the extant Greek manuscripts--rather, 110 percent exists. Textual criticism is not involved in reinventing the original; it is involved in discarding the spurious, in burning the dross to get to the gold.' [The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?
Study By: Daniel B. Wallace The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical? | Bible.org - Worlds Largest Bible Study Site

[Wardendresden]

Originally Posted by Mike555

Once again you misrepresent what I said concerning what Ehrman said. What Ehrman said was - "In spite of these remarkable differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy."

Regarding the Trinity, the Bible teaches that God is triune and so any scribal additions such as 1 John 5:7-8 (the Johannine Comma) do NOT alter or jeopardize Christian belief regarding the Trinity.

What I asked you to do in post #87 was to name just a couple dozen of those significant errors that you think endangers any essential Christian belief?

You are also making a false issue regarding the word 'sin'. The issue is not one of interpretation, but of the words which are used in the various manuscripts. Does one manuscript copy use a different word for sin than another manuscript copy for the same verse? Or does some manuscript use a word in a particular verse which doesn't mean sin at all in contrast with the other manuscripts for that verse? That is the issue. Not how you think the word should be translated. And we are talking about the New Testament manuscripts. Not the Old Testament manuscripts.

Regarding the issue of women speaking or remaining silent, you point to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. Is it authentic or is it a scribal addition? Here is what the Bible Knowledge Commentary says.

14:33b-36. Some of the verses in this section (vv. 34-35) were felt by some early copyists to be out of place at this point in the letter and so were transposed to the end of the chapter. A more drastic approach taken by some recent commentators is to regard these verses as spurious and unworthy of comment. Though the exact meaning of these verses is difficult to determine, neither expedient has much to commend it. In fact it seems that the guiding thread which prompted these comment by Paul about women was the same theme developed in the preceding verses addressed to those gifted in tongues and prophecy. The church members needed to exercise self-control on occasion, a self-control expressed by silence (vv. 28, 30, 34) in order that the assembly might be characterized by peace. [The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament, As Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary, pp. 540-541]

There's more in the Commentary on the passage, but the above is sufficient.

Daniel Wallace points out in https://bible.org/article/textual-pr...thians-1434-35

''The Textual Problem of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35''

that all the manuscript witnesses add these verses and says that evidence indicates that the words were inserted into the original document and then refers to a suggestion made by a suggestion made by E. Earle Ellis that Paul himself added the words in the margin of the letter.

With regard to the Bible Knowledge Commentary---it is a spurious viewpoint. They don't speak about the dichotomy between chapters 11 and chapter 14. Did Paul, in the space of three short chapters completely alter his first viewpoint? I don't think so. The lying pen of scribes wanted to shut women up. They just were not wise enough to notice the conflict with the previous writing. vv. 34-35 were obviously a marginal note that got adopted into the text making Paul look even more idiotic than he sometimes does.

In the midst of 400,000 errors in the transcripts, additions such as I John 5:7-8 WHICH YOUR SOURCE, DANIEL WALLACE, has stated is an addition, you maintain a halo over a foolish acceptance of that which has been proven false.

Lee Strobel in his book, The Case for the Real Jesus, quotes his interviewee, Daniel Wallace as saying these verses are "obviously" inauthentic. (www.hermeneutics.stackexchange.com)

If something is obviously inauthentic and it involves the Trinity, then the case is made that scribes have effectively changed the New Testament toward what they, themselves. believed.

More to follow

[Wardendresden]

So there are numerous textual reasons for removing a text that was placed in I John for the purpose of "selling" people on the adoption of the dogma of the Trinity.

After μαρτυροῦντες the Textus Receptus adds the following: ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἔν εἰσι. 8 καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ. That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the following considerations.

(A) External Evidence.

(1) The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except eight, and these contain the passage in what appears to be a translation from a late recension of the Latin Vulgate. Four of the eight manuscripts contain the passage as a variant reading written in the margin as a later addition to the manuscript. The eight manuscripts are as follows:

61: codex Montfortianus, dating from the early sixteenth century.
88: a variant reading in a sixteenth century hand, added to the fourteenth-century codex Regius of Naples.
221: a variant reading added to a tenth-century manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
429: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Wolfenbüttel.
629: a fourteenth or fifteenth century manuscript in the Vatican.
636: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Naples.
918: a sixteenth-century manuscript at the Escorial, Spain.
2318: an eighteenth-century manuscript, influenced by the Clementine Vulgate, at Bucharest, Rumania.

(2) The passage is quoted by none of the Greek Fathers, who, had they known it, would most certainly have employed it in the Trinitarian controversies (Sabellian and Arian). Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek version of the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215.

(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustine), or in the Vulgate (b) as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541-46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716]) or (c) as revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).

The Johannine Comma

Other conservative scholars also doubt the authenticity of I John 5:7-8

Even conservative scholars such as David Bernard, admit the doubtfulness of this passage. In The Oneness of God, 1983, page 141, fn.

Bro. David Bernard states: "...there is practically unanimous agreement among Bible scholars that this verse is not really part of the Bible at all! All major translations since the King James Version have omitted it..."

Again Bro. Bernard writes in God's Infallible Word, 1992

"The three most important differences between the Received Text and the Critical Text are Mark 16:9-20; John 7:53-8:1-11; and I John 5:7-8. The first two are the longest passages to be affected, and the last is the most significant doctrinal statement to be affected." Page 131

http://godglorified.com/1_john_57.htm
So let's see what our OP's commentator, Daniel Wallace, writes about these passages:

Not only the ancient orthodox writers, but also modern orthodox scholars would of course be delighted if this reading were the original one. But the fact is that the evidence simply does not support the Trinitarian formula here—and these orthodox scholars just happen to hold to the reasonable position that it is essential to affirm what the Bible affirms where it affirms it, rather than create such affirmations ex nihilo.

https://bible.org/article/textual-problem-1-john-57-8
I'm afraid that using I John 5:7-8 as a foundation for the Trinity is like the man building his house on sand. While I believe in the Trinity, it is not from any specific scripture that points one to it. It can only be arrived at utilizing both textual criticism and a brain. The dogma is just that--a creation by the early Roman Church fostered by scribal additions.

I rest the case for scribal additions and/or deletions having gutted certain central dogmas as preached by the church today. The OP may resort to citing his original videos again, but even Dan Wallace has been shown to not be a complete dunce with regard to his scholarship in textual criticism. Would to God that could be said of us all.

[Michael Way]

Originally Posted by Wardendresden

With regard to the Bible Knowledge Commentary---it is a spurious viewpoint. They don't speak about the dichotomy between chapters 11 and chapter 14. Did Paul, in the space of three short chapters completely alter his first viewpoint? I don't think so. The lying pen of scribes wanted to shut women up. They just were not wise enough to notice the conflict with the previous writing. vv. 34-35 were obviously a marginal note that got adopted into the text making Paul look even more idiotic than he sometimes does.

In the midst of 400,000 errors in the transcripts, additions such as I John 5:7-8 WHICH YOUR SOURCE, DANIEL WALLACE, has stated is an addition, you maintain a halo over a foolish acceptance of that which has been proven false.

Lee Strobel in his book, The Case for the Real Jesus, quotes his interviewee, Daniel Wallace as saying these verses are "obviously" inauthentic. (www.hermeneutics.stackexchange.com)

If something is obviously inauthentic and it involves the Trinity, then the case is made that scribes have effectively changed the New Testament toward what they, themselves. believed.

More to follow

Your claim that it is a spurious viewpoint is simply your unqualified opinion. As stated in the Commentary, the meaning of those verses is difficult to determine. And your reference to the lying pen of scribes is obviously aimed at the apostle Paul and is another false accusation on your part.

Dr. Wallace wrote this article on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. https://bible.org/article/textual-pr...thians-1434-35 and his conclusion is ''We are thus compelled to regard the words as original, and as belonging where they are in the text above.''

And again, you miss the point. The addition of a verse such as the Johannine comma (1 John 5:7-8) does not change what the Bible teaches. The doctrine of the Trinity is not dependent on that passage.

Your claim that textual reliability is false is itself false as has been stated by the quoted textual scholars.