How Badly Did Scribes Change the New Testament Bible? (Dr. Daniel B. Wallace) (Gospels, beliefs)
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What biased viewpoint have I presented? I simply posted two videos in which Dr. Wallace speaks on the stated subject.
Biblical inerrancy and the issue of whether the text we have now is what was written then are two different issues. I have provided two videos in the first and second posts in which Dr. Wallace speaks on the issue of textual reliability. People who will take the time can listen to what he himself says about it and can get the WHOLE truth of what he said.
As for Ehrman, Dr. Wallace quotes what Dr. Ehrman stated in the Appendix of the paperback version of his book 'Misquoting Jesus.' Ehrman states, ''Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.'' This is the agnostic Ehrman who said that.
As it turns out, Wallace too denies that “there is a doctrine of preservation [of Scripture]” taught in the Bible (51-52). God’s Word has not been providentially “kept pure in all ages.” He agrees with his opponent that Mark 16:9-20, John 7:53-8:11, and 1 John 5:7 are not of apostolic origin. Allegedly, they are “additions of orthodox scribes…who changed the New Testament text to bring it more into conformity with their views” (28-29). Such comments from an evangelical scholar are quite disturbing.
As I just got through telling Thrillobyte in post #20, divine inspiration applies only to the original autographs. Not to the manuscript copies. Nevertheless, despite the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 variants in the extant manuscripts, as Dr. Wallace and other Biblical textual scholars have stated, we can be sure of the textual reliability of the Bible.
And I have also on this thread addressed the passages you mentioned.
Last edited by Michael Way; 07-18-2014 at 07:57 PM..
As I just got through telling Thrillobyte in post #20, divine inspiration applies only to the original autographs. Not to the manuscript copies. Nevertheless, as Dr. Wallace and other Biblical textual scholars have stated, we can be sure of the textual reliability of the Bible.
And I have also on this thread addressed the passages you mentioned.
I didn't ask what you wrote in post #20, I asked if you believed Wallace's words in MY quoted post. You either do or you don't.
And as Ehrman points out, what evidence we do have points to not many differences. But the very fact that we have no original autographs makes all of this a moot question. If you want to be an inerrantist then you can only point to the documents we DO have in our possession. And as your own source admits--they absolutely are flawed.
It is the equivalent of me claiming that God spoke personally to me, I lost the original recording, but I have friends who made copies, and, yes, the FBI has proven that certain parts of the copies have been tampered with, no two copies record exactly the same words, but, trust me, they are close to the original---and it is absolutely God speaking on the tape.
I didn't ask what you wrote in post #20, I asked if you believed Wallace's words in MY quoted post. You either do or you don't.
And as Ehrman points out, what evidence we do have points to not many differences. But the very fact that we have no original autographs makes all of this a moot question. If you want to be an inerrantist then you can only point to the documents we DO have in our possession. And as your own source admits--they absolutely are flawed.
It is the equivalent of me claiming that God spoke personally to me, I lost the original recording, but I have friends who made copies, and, yes, the FBI has proven that certain parts of the copies have been tampered with, no two copies record exactly the same words, but, trust me, they are close to the original---and it is absolutely God speaking on the tape.
Does anyone want to say "ludicrous?"
You and I are in complete agreement about this issue, Warden. Praise God.
I didn't ask what you wrote in post #20, I asked if you believed Wallace's words in MY quoted post. You either do or you don't.
And as Ehrman points out, what evidence we do have points to not many differences. But the very fact that we have no original autographs makes all of this a moot question. If you want to be an inerrantist then you can only point to the documents we DO have in our possession. And as your own source admits--they absolutely are flawed.
It is the equivalent of me claiming that God spoke personally to me, I lost the original recording, but I have friends who made copies, and, yes, the FBI has proven that certain parts of the copies have been tampered with, no two copies record exactly the same words, but, trust me, they are close to the original---and it is absolutely God speaking on the tape.
I didn't ask what you wrote in post #20, I asked if you believed Wallace's words in MY quoted post. You either do or you don't.
And as Ehrman points out, what evidence we do have points to not many differences. But the very fact that we have no original autographs makes all of this a moot question. If you want to be an inerrantist then you can only point to the documents we DO have in our possession. And as your own source admits--they absolutely are flawed.
It is the equivalent of me claiming that God spoke personally to me, I lost the original recording, but I have friends who made copies, and, yes, the FBI has proven that certain parts of the copies have been tampered with, no two copies record exactly the same words, but, trust me, they are close to the original---and it is absolutely God speaking on the tape.
Does anyone want to say "ludicrous?"
I already answered your question and it was clear. I'm not going to repeat it. And you are ignoring the fact that despite the est. 300,000 to 400,000 variants in the extant manuscript copies, Dr. Wallace states that no essential Christian belief is jeopardized by any viable variant in the New Testament manuscripts. By the way, Bart Ehrman agrees with this. At 41:47 into the video Dr. Wallace quotes what Dr. Ehrman stated in the Appendix of the paperback version of his book 'Misquoting Jesus.' Ehrman states, ''Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.''
You are also ignoring the quotations of the Biblical textual scholars given in post #12.
I provided two videos concerning what Dr. Wallace said in his speech. You can listen to what he said or not. I really don't care.
And frankly, I really don't care what you think about the issue.
--- they are “additions of orthodox scribes…who changed the New Testament text to bring it more into conformity with their views” (28-29)
Nobody is denying that there have been scribal alterations. This has already been addressed. But, again, the point that Wallace and the other textual scholars who have been quoted are making is that no essential Christian belief is jeopardized by any viable variant in the New Testament manuscripts. That is what Dr. Wallace is discussing in the two videos presented in this thread.
From Daniel Wallace, Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism:
Quote:
--preservation proceeds from and is a necessary consequence of inspiration. Or, in the words of Jasper James Ray, “the writing of the Word of God by inspiration is no greater miracle than the miracle of its preservation …” Ehrman has ably pointed out the logical consequences of such linkage:
Any claim that God preserved the New Testament text intact, giving His church actual, not theoretical, possession of it, must mean one of three things—either 1) God preserved it in all the extant manuscripts so that none of them contain any textual corruptions, or 2) He preserved it in a group of manuscripts, none of which contain any corruptions, or 3) He preserved it in a solitary manuscript which alone contains no corruptions.
The problem with these first and second possibilities is that neither one of them is true: no two NT manuscripts agree completely—in fact, there are between six and ten variations per chapter for the closest two manuscripts.Is it possible that the NT text was preserved intact in a single manuscript? No one argues this particular point, because it is easily demonstrable that every manuscript has scribal errors in it.
Now you are faced with creating still another doctrine, which many have, including Wallace---God is able to preserve that which He wrote (even if it has been preserved imperfectly).
And the proof that we have no original manuscripts is overwhelming. Anyone who claims that we, therefore have EXACTLY what God wrote down is a liar. And because there is doubt, we cannot be overwhelmingly assured that every DOCTRINE is as it was originally presented.
Quote:
Textual criticism has no application except in regard to a work whose original does not exist; for, if extant, it could easily be reproduced in photogravure, or published, once it had been correctly deciphered. But no autograph of the inspired writings has been transmitted to us, any more than have the originals of profane works of the same era. The ancients had not that superstitious veneration for original manuscripts which we have today. In very early times the Jews were wont to destroy the sacred books no longer in use, either by burying them with the remains of holy personages or by hiding them in what was called a ghenizah. This explains why the Hebrew Bibles are, comparatively speaking, not very ancient, although the Jews always made a practice of writing the Holy Books on skin or parchment. In the first centuries of the Christian era the Greeks and Latins generally used papyrus, a material that quickly wears out and falls to pieces. It was not until the fourth century that parchment was commonly used, and it is also from that time that our oldest manuscripts of the Septuagint and the New Testament date. Nothing short of a continuous miracle could have brought the text of the inspired writers down to us without alteration or corruption, and Divine Providence, who exercises, as it were, an economy of the supernatural, and never needlessly multiplies prodigies, did not will such a miracle.
Indeed it is a material impossibility to transcribe absolutely without error the whole of a long work; and a priori one may be sure, that no two copies of the same original will be alike in every detail. A typical example of this is furnished by the Augsburg Confession, presented to the Emperor Charles V on the evening of June 25, 1530, in both Latin and German. It was printed in September of the same year and published two months later by its author, Melanchthon; thirty-five copies of it are known to have been made in the second half of the year 1530, nine of them by signers of the Confession. But, as the two originals are lost, and the copies do not agree either with one another or with the first editions, we are not sure of having the authentic text in its minutest details. From which example it is easy to appreciate the necessity of textual criticism in the case of works so ancient and so often transcribed as the books of the Bible.
The OP is simply barking up a tree long dead. While the New Testament may say ALL scripture is God-breathed, what it does not say is ALL COPIES of scripture are God-breathed. And those copies, good people, are what we have.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 07-18-2014 at 09:01 PM..
Reason: formatting
Nobody is denying that there have been scribal alterations. This has already been addressed. But, again, the point that Wallace and the other textual scholars who have been quoted are making is that no essential Christian belief is jeopardized by any viable variant in the New Testament manuscripts. That is what Dr. Wallace is discussing in the two videos presented in this thread.
That can NOT ever be verified because we do not have and never did have the original manuscripts to compare them to.
It has already been shown here that Jeremiah 8:8 does not claim the text was errant, but that the scribes were being hypocrites for not following the commands they were copying, which is why Judah was being chastised by God.
well I beg to differ and have shown time and again where Jesus exposed the lying pen of the scribes.
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