Scripture/The Bible is God's Inspired, Inerrant, Infallible Word of Truth. (Harry Potter, church)
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Theologians recognize that the terms 'inspiration' and 'inerrancy' properly refer to the original autographs only, and not to the manuscript copies, or to translations. But that to the extent that copies and translations are faithful to the originals they are the Word of God. And our better translations are very faithful to the originals. Neither the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls are the original autographs. They are translations.
Article Ten of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states the following.
Article X.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Inerrancy simply means that the Bible is truthful in what it says. Inerrancy allows for such things as approximations, free and loose quotations from the Old Testament by the New Testament writers, language of appearances, non contradictory variations in different accounts of the same event and choice of selection of details on the part of the gospel writers to include in the different gospel accounts, and thematic rather than chronological arrangement of material in the different gospel accounts.
As for the Dead Sea Scrolls;
One manuscript from cave 4 is Exodus from the Samaritan Pentateuch. One of the oldest scrolls is 4Q17, which was copied towards 250 B.C. and contains Exodus 38 to Leviticus 2. It is practically identical to the Masoretic texts, which Jews today use. The Isaiah scroll has the complete text of Isaiah. It and the other copy in cave 1 were identical with the standard Hebrew Bible in 95% of the text according to A Survey of Old Testament Introduction p.25.
There are many small variations in the Masoretic vs. Qumran texts, but few have any significance. Here are a few of the more notable ones.
Exodus 1:5 in the Masoretic text says 70 people went into Egypt. When Stephen said 75 in Acts 7:14, one could assume scripture was (inerrantly) recording Stephen reciting from a Septuagint error, which said 75. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls also say 75, so perhaps Stephen and the Septuagint were correct here.
Deuteronomy 32:43 has "let all God’s angels worship him" while the Masoretic text does not. Hebrews 1:6 quotes this.
The Masoretic 1 Samuel 17:4 says Goliath was 6 cubits and a span, or roughly 9 feet 9 inches. However, the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls say 4 cubits and a span, or about 6 feet, 9 inches.
In the Masoretic text Psalm 145 is an acrostic, except that it missing the verse fo the letter nun (n). The Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud claims it was originally that way because that was the letter that started with Isreal's enemies. However, the verse is in both the [Septuagint / Dead Sea Scroll 11Qps(a). The have: "[The Lord/God] is faithful, [all his/his] words, and and gracious in all his deeds." [Bolding Mine]
While we do not agree on many things, the last comment should include: But not through those who want to claim equality with the prophets and apostles by saying the "I have God's spirit" and that spirits revelations to them are superior to those in the written word, which was written by ignorant barbarians, goat herders, etc.
Self exaltation.
You can pretend that the intellectual acumen and knowledge possessed today is not light years beyond what was the norm in the 1st century or before Christ . . . but that will in no way make it true. There is no question whatsoever that they were indeed "ignorant barbarians, goat herders, etc." That does NOT mean they were not godly or righteous men . . . but they were wrong about so many things that it is ludicrous to pretend that they could EVER have recorded infallible and inerrant truth no matter the source of the inspirations. They simply were not capable of recording their interpretations accurately given their lack of knowledge and understanding coupled with their primitive and savage beliefs and superstitions.
So one can see that from LXX to MT there were significant changes, usually additions by later scribes and copyists.
This is not a problem for one who understands scripture as a witness to the faith of a people about their interaction with God. However, this challenges EVERYTHING fundamentalists have been taught to think about the Bible--because, by their own admission, if one book crumbles so does the whole cult.
Therefore here is my prophesy. Many fundamentalists will begin looking for "explanations" that can leave their idol, the Bible, on the throne of their lives. But unless the can produce MT texts predating LXX, they must continue to lie to themselves as well as to others.
Totally agree with you. Some people are so stiff-necked and unteachable that it seems like they fell into a bucket of superglue. Fear whispers in their ears "these bible haters are of the devil and are trying to take us to hell". That is what they are sticking to - end of story.
Totally agree with you. Some people are so stiff-necked and unteachable that it seems like they fell into a bucket of superglue. Fear whispers in their ears "these bible haters are of the devil and are trying to take us to hell". That is what they are sticking to - end of story.
The greater the divide, the more difficult to cross.
And there are those on both sides who have reason, albeit selfish, to keep the distance vast.
Theologians recognize that the terms 'inspiration' and 'inerrancy' properly refer to the original autographs only, and not to the manuscript copies, or to translations. But that to the extent that copies and translations are faithful to the originals they are the Word of God. And our better translations are very faithful to the originals. Neither the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls are the original autographs. They are translations.
Article Ten of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states the following.
Article X.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Inerrancy simply means that the Bible is truthful in what it says. Inerrancy allows for such things as approximations, free and loose quotations from the Old Testament by the New Testament writers, language of appearances, non contradictory variations in different accounts of the same event and choice of selection of details on the part of the gospel writers to include in the different gospel accounts, and thematic rather than chronological arrangement of material in the different gospel accounts.
As for the Dead Sea Scrolls;
One manuscript from cave 4 is Exodus from the Samaritan Pentateuch. One of the oldest scrolls is 4Q17, which was copied towards 250 B.C. and contains Exodus 38 to Leviticus 2. It is practically identical to the Masoretic texts, which Jews today use. The Isaiah scroll has the complete text of Isaiah. It and the other copy in cave 1 were identical with the standard Hebrew Bible in 95% of the text according to A Survey of Old Testament Introduction p.25.
There are many small variations in the Masoretic vs. Qumran texts, but few have any significance. Here are a few of the more notable ones.
Exodus 1:5 in the Masoretic text says 70 people went into Egypt. When Stephen said 75 in Acts 7:14, one could assume scripture was (inerrantly) recording Stephen reciting from a Septuagint error, which said 75. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls also say 75, so perhaps Stephen and the Septuagint were correct here.
Deuteronomy 32:43 has "let all God’s angels worship him" while the Masoretic text does not. Hebrews 1:6 quotes this.
The Masoretic 1 Samuel 17:4 says Goliath was 6 cubits and a span, or roughly 9 feet 9 inches. However, the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls say 4 cubits and a span, or about 6 feet, 9 inches.
In the Masoretic text Psalm 145 is an acrostic, except that it missing the verse fo the letter nun (n). The Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud claims it was originally that way because that was the letter that started with Isreal's enemies. However, the verse is in both the [Septuagint / Dead Sea Scroll 11Qps(a). The have: "[The Lord/God] is faithful, [all his/his] words, and and gracious in all his deeds." [Bolding Mine]
This nice explanation is unable to dismiss the information in posts 101, 103, 104 , nor 105. And in post 101, in the interests of the WHOLE truth, my excerpt indicated that Isaiah was almost verbatim.
Posting where texts DO agree does not nullify where they have proven quite different.
In addition, the ubiquitous "original autographs" argument is used consistently by fundamentalists who then apply the same level of "holiness" to translations that were from texts centuries later. And as already PROVEN, the oldest texts have less material than the newer texts. To hold to verbal, word by word infallible inspiration means you must go to the earliest copies available. Even Dr. Daniel Wallace agrees with that--that's why he knows that the Johnine comma is incorrect, that Mark 16:9-20 is ADDED like in all those OT books, that the woman caught in adultery in the gospel of John, in his words, "is the greatest story not in the Bible."
So there is no way any intelligent person can conclude the English Bible we are reading is anywhere close to those "original autographs." What is irrefutable is that we can be absolutely certain that verses were added to both Old and New Testaments. Do you wish to mount an argument about how God decided to whisper in the ears of copyists why they should add additional material? And why God didn't get it right from the start?
I already know the answer. God didn't stand over ANYBODY telling them what to write. The authors may have been inspired--no Christian doubts that. But those writers also reflect their cultural prejudices.
All scripture can only be interpreted in light of the example of Jesus. Using Paul to justify Leviticus is simply giving Satan reign over the holy book. Fundamentalism relies on Scottish Common Sense philosophy and "natural order" to justify treating their neighbors as sub-human or subservient. It's that philosophy which was use to justify slavery (the children of Ham have the sins of their father visited upon them, that's why they are enslaved AND the Bible doesn't specifically say it's wrong). It's how fundamentalists did, and in some cases still do, treat women as less important than men (women brought sin in the world, God said in Genesis they would be subservient to their husbands--kept from voting for decades because of fundamentalism). And fundamentalists who somehow CHANGED their views about slavery and women (the Bible didn't change) use the exact same flawed logic in dealing with homosexuals today. They got it wrong then by "sticking" with the literal Bible and they are getting it wrong now for all the same reasons.
You may know the Bible by heart but it's far more important to know the heart of the Bible. The heart of the Bible is displayed in the life of Jesus, who knew what it really meant and was willing to point that out when those fundamentalist Pharisees valued the Bible and their knowledge of it more than they valued their neighbors.
The original autographs only needed a quarter of a page and Jesus said them in capital letters:
LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART AND MIND, and the second is like it, LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF. On this hangs all the law and prophets.
So did He say not one jot or tittle of the LAW would pass away until He returned?
You betcha. He knew that fundamentalists would be messing with His simple message for the next few thousand years. The LAW won't disappear until Fundamentalists do. THEN we can get down to serving Christ in spirit and in truth. And the Good News will resound with all people and not be the proprietary property of those who claim to love the Bible while rarely displaying any love for Christ in their acceptance (or rejection) of others.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 03-13-2015 at 10:58 PM..
This nice explanation is unable to dismiss the information in posts 101, 103, 104 , nor 105. And in post 101, in the interests of the WHOLE truth, my excerpt indicated that Isaiah was almost verbatim.
Posting where texts DO agree does not nullify where they have proven quite different.
In addition, the ubiquitous "original autographs" argument is used consistently by fundamentalists who then apply the same level of "holiness" to translations that were from texts centuries later. And as already PROVEN, the oldest texts have less material than the newer texts. To hold to verbal, word by word infallible inspiration means you must go to the earliest copies available. Even Dr. Daniel Wallace agrees with that--that's why he knows that the Johnine comma is incorrect, that Mark 16:9-20 is ADDED like in all those OT books, that the woman caught in adultery in the gospel of John, in his words, "is the greatest story not in the Bible."
So there is no way any intelligent person can conclude the English Bible we are reading is anywhere close to those "original autographs." What is irrefutable is that we can be absolutely certain that verses were added to both Old and New Testaments. Do you wish to mount an argument about how God decided to whisper in the ears of copyists why they should add additional material? And why God didn't get it right from the start?
You just implied that the following Biblical textual critics who are experts in the field and who disagree with you are unintelligent.
F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. He stated...
Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice. [The New Testament Documents; Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce, pgs. 14-15.]
Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was one of the most highly regarded scholars of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism. He served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies and was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He commented...
But the amount of evidence for the text of the New Testament , whether derived from manuscripts, early versions, or patristic quotations is so much greater than that available for any ancient classical author that the necessity of resorting to emendation is reduced to the smallest dimensions. [The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, pg. 230]
Daniel B. Wallace (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is professor of New Testament Studies. He is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies, the Institute for Biblical Research, and has consulted on several Bible translations. He made these comments...
To sum up the evidence on the number of variants, there are a lot of variants because there are a lot of manuscripts. Even in the early centuries, the text of the NT is found in a sufficient number of MSS, versions, and writings of the church fathers to give us the essentials of the original text. [Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament, Daniel B. Wallace, pg. 40]
Even Bart D. Ehrman who puts a skeptical spin on things when writing for the general public made the following statement in a college textbook as quoted by Dan Wallace in 'Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament' on pg. 24...
"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."
Ehrman wrote that in a college textbook called 'The New Testament: A Historical Introduction To the Early Christian Writings', 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pg. 481.
In an article by Dan Wallace, he wrote...
'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
Even Ehrman, though he is now an agnostic acknowledged that scholars are convinced that the original wording of the New Testament can be reconstructed with reasonable accuracy. The fact that Ehrman is now an agnostic doesn't change what he said about other scholars confidence concerning the matter.
Daniel Wallace states that all of the original text is present but that the spurious simply needs to be discarded.
Regardless of your opinion, the Bible is the Word of God and the original autographs are inspired and infallible. And though we don't have the originals, the textual experts say that our Bibles come close to the original wording.
Last edited by Michael Way; 03-13-2015 at 11:22 PM..
You just implied that the following Biblical textual critics who are experts in the field and who disagree with you are unintelligent.
F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. He stated...
Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice. [The New Testament Documents; Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce, pgs. 14-15.]
Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was one of the most highly regarded scholars of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism. He served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies and was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He commented...
But the amount of evidence for the text of the New Testament , whether derived from manuscripts, early versions, or patristic quotations is so much greater than that available for any ancient classical author that the necessity of resorting to emendation is reduced to the smallest dimensions. [The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, pg. 230]
Daniel B. Wallace (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is professor of New Testament Studies. He is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies, the Institute for Biblical Research, and has consulted on several Bible translations. He made these comments...
To sum up the evidence on the number of variants, there are a lot of variants because there are a lot of manuscripts. Even in the early centuries, the text of the NT is found in a sufficient number of MSS, versions, and writings of the church fathers to give us the essentials of the original text. [Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament, Daniel B. Wallace, pg. 40]
Even Bart D. Ehrman who puts a skeptical spin on things when writing for the general public made the following statement in a college textbook as quoted by Dan Wallace in 'Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament' on pg. 24...
"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."
Ehrman wrote that in a college textbook called 'The New Testament: A Historical Introduction To the Early Christian Writings', 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pg. 481.
In an article by Dan Wallace, he wrote...
'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
Even Ehrman, though he is now an agnostic acknowledged that scholars are convinced that the original wording of the New Testament can be reconstructed with reasonable accuracy. The fact that Ehrman is now an agnostic doesn't change what he said about other scholars confidence concerning the matter.
Daniel Wallace states that all of the original text is present but that the spurious simply needs to be discarded.
Regardless of your opinion, the Bible is the Word of God and the original autographs are inspired and infallible. And though we don't have the originals, the textual experts say that our Bibles come close to the original wording.
Once again you have resorted to deception by failing to report the WHOLE truth. I said I would continue to call you out for your insistence on being less than frank with your readers.
Ehrman was NOT an agnostic when he wrote the words you quoted. He was still a Christian. Since that time he has engaged in numerous debates with conservatives and has consistently pointed out in those debates what he and I consider a false conclusion by fundamentalists--we don't HAVE the original manuscripts, but we do have numerous error filled manuscripts. Concluding that the error filled manuscripts are correct is like 19th century fundamentalists concluding blacks should be slaves because slavery isn't mentioned negatively in the Bible we have. You start with an unsupportable premise and reach the conclusion that what you have as a result is good.
Now let's clear up some very easy conclusions from Dr. Wallace's writing.
Has Dr. Wallace stated that Mark 16:9-20 are not part of the earliest manuscripts we have and those verses can be adjudged to be different because of stylistic writing differences from the rest of Mark? Yes or no?
Has Dr. Wallace not written an essay on the his "favorite story not found in the "original" gospel of John--the woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus? Yes or no?
Has Dr. Wallace not uneqivicotably stated the Johnine comma as written in the KJV and some other translations is incorrect? And is this not the STRONGEST (not the only according to Wallace but the strongest) support for the Trinity in the NT?
The answer to all thes questions about Dr. Wallace's stance is a resounding yes. That alone removes him from being a genuine, every word in the English Bible was written by God fundamentalist. And where there is a crack in the egg no one can be sure of the purity of the contents without sticking their head in the sand like an ostrich.
With regard to Bruce Metzger, a few years before his death Dr. Wallace brought him to speak at Dallas Theological Seminary where seminary students (in Wallace's opinion) grilled him thoroughly about why he didn't see the Bible as inerrant. When you brought up the same quotes by these men before, I posted Dr. Wallace's statement about Metzger of whom he had high regard DESPITE the fact that he was not an inerrantist.
But here you are resorting to the same MISLEADING tactics to make these men appear different from the works they have published. You are being called on it again.
If I were to tell a very, unflattering story about Billy Graham in his youth and never mention his decades of preaching nor the thousands that made professions of faith (some of them perhaps sincere) would that be giving a proper view of Graham and his work? No it wouldn't.
Neither have you provided a proper view of these three men's work? You make it sound like they are inerrantists when none of them are. Previously I posted several inerrantist critics thoughts of Dr, Wallace, one of whom claimed (as I recall) that he is a liberal disguising himself as an inerrantist. And Wallace himself views inerrancy in different terms from you and the other fundamentalists on this thread. He does NOT see Scripture in the unbending way you do. He sees it more in the Weslyan tradition of being an inerrant guide to knowledge about how God has dealt with man. I don't think he is in the six thousand year old earth group that uneducated fundamentalists flock to.
Failure to provide ALL the facts and truth appears to be a hallmark of your posts, and that is your problem with me and Daniel McClellan. We are capable and willing to call your posts to task.
And, by the way, I subscribe to blogs by both Wallace and Ehrman. While I disagree with Wallace over some of his biblical conclusions and I disagree with Ehrman over his inability to reconcile his faith with his learning, both men offer far more than the same old "the Bible says it and I believe it" (without even thinking about it) rhetoric of fundamentalists either too lazy or too afraid to make a scholarly study of scripture.
I thank God every day for young evangelicals who are waking up to this nonsense and departing in droves never to return. (Conservative Christian George Barna's research if you care to try to learn something). Some of those young people may stand a chance to find Christ in their hearts rather than an idol in their souls.
From Dr. Wallace's essay August, 2006 defending himself from attacks by inerrantists:
Before I discuss the particular accusations against me regarding inerrancy, I would like to preface my remarks with notes about my methodological approach to this issue. This preface is actually the heart of this paper because it is where the confusion has come. Here goes: The center of all theology, of the entirety of the Christian faith, is Christ himself. The cross is the center of time: all before leads up to it; all after it is shaped by it. If Christ were not God in the flesh, he would not have been raised from the dead. And if he were not raised from the dead, none of us would have any hope. My theology grows out from Christ, is based on Christ, and focuses on Christ.
Years ago, I would have naively believed that all Christians could give their hearty amens to the previous paragraph. Sadly, this is not the case. There are many whose starting point and foundation is bibliology. They begin with the assumption that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God, and that the way one must define inerrancy is in twentieth-century philosophical terms. I won’t get into the details of how inerrancy (in America at least) has been filtered through the grid of Scottish Common Sense Realism, as that would take us far afield from the main objective here. Suffice it to say that many evangelicals believe that without an inerrant Bible we can’t know anything about Jesus Christ. They often ask the question, “How can we be sure that anything in the Bible is true? How can we be sure that Jesus Christ is who he said he was, or even that he existed, if the Bible is not inerrant?”
Dr. Wallace's Christological approach is the same as mine. It doesn't start with the Bible, it starts with Christ. The fundamentalists on this thread are exactly those Dr. Wallace describes in his second paragraph. Wallace has to defend himself precisely BECAUSE he has found not everything in the bible is true.
As a subscriber to Wallace's blog I can get this information. I don't believe I can link it directly so non-subscribers can get it. This is part of a long essay and includes Dr. Wallace's statements concerning Bruce Metzger (I think). If anyone is interested they might try googling "does Dr. Daniel Wallace think the Bible is inerrant." I believe it will at least give a few introductory paragraphs and then an option to subscribe. I don't remember if I had to pay to get his blog, but I recall forking out $25 to get Ehrman's. As an agnostic Ehrman gives every dollar received through blog subscriptions to food pantries and homeless shelters.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 03-14-2015 at 02:41 AM..
Too often modern evangelicals take a hands-off attitude toward the Bible because of a prior commitment to inerrancy. But it is precisely because I ground my bibliology in Christology rather than the other way around that I cannot do that. I believe it is disrespectful to my Lord to not ask the Bible the tough questions that every thinking non-Christian is already asking it.
Once again you have resorted to deception by failing to report the WHOLE truth. I said I would continue to call you out for your insistence on being less than frank with your readers.
Ehrman was NOT an agnostic when he wrote the words you quoted. He was still a Christian. Since that time he has engaged in numerous debates with conservatives and has consistently pointed out in those debates what he and I consider a false conclusion by fundamentalists--we don't HAVE the original manuscripts, but we do have numerous error filled manuscripts. Concluding that the error filled manuscripts are correct is like 19th century fundamentalists concluding blacks should be slaves because slavery isn't mentioned negatively in the Bible we have. You start with an unsupportable premise and reach the conclusion that what you have as a result is good.
Now let's clear up some very easy conclusions from Dr. Wallace's writing.
Has Dr. Wallace stated that Mark 16:9-20 are not part of the earliest manuscripts we have and those verses can be adjudged to be different because of stylistic writing differences from the rest of Mark? Yes or no?
Has Dr. Wallace not written an essay on the his "favorite story not found in the "original" gospel of John--the woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus? Yes or no?
Has Dr. Wallace not uneqivicotably stated the Johnine comma as written in the KJV and some other translations is incorrect? And is this not the STRONGEST (not the only according to Wallace but the strongest) support for the Trinity in the NT?
The answer to all thes questions about Dr. Wallace's stance is a resounding yes. That alone removes him from being a genuine, every word in the English Bible was written by God fundamentalist. And where there is a crack in the egg no one can be sure of the purity of the contents without sticking their head in the sand like an ostrich.
With regard to Bruce Metzger, a few years before his death Dr. Wallace brought him to speak at Dallas Theological Seminary where seminary students (in Wallace's opinion) grilled him thoroughly about why he didn't see the Bible as inerrant. When you brought up the same quotes by these men before, I posted Dr. Wallace's statement about Metzger of whom he had high regard DESPITE the fact that he was not an inerrantist.
But here you are resorting to the same MISLEADING tactics to make these men appear different from the works they have published. You are being called on it again.
If I were to tell a very, unflattering story about Billy Graham in his youth and never mention his decades of preaching nor the thousands that made professions of faith (some of them perhaps sincere) would that be giving a proper view of Graham and his work? No it wouldn't.
Neither have you provided a proper view of these three men's work? You make it sound like they are inerrantists when none of them are. Previously I posted several inerrantist critics thoughts of Dr, Wallace, one of whom claimed (as I recall) that he is a liberal disguising himself as an inerrantist. And Wallace himself views inerrancy in different terms from you and the other fundamentalists on this thread. He does NOT see Scripture in the unbending way you do. He sees it more in the Weslyan tradition of being an inerrant guide to knowledge about how God has dealt with man. I don't think he is in the six thousand year old earth group that uneducated fundamentalists flock to.
Failure to provide ALL the facts and truth appears to be a hallmark of your posts, and that is your problem with me and Daniel McClellan. We are capable and willing to call your posts to task.
And, by the way, I subscribe to blogs by both Wallace and Ehrman. While I disagree with Wallace over some of his biblical conclusions and I disagree with Ehrman over his inability to reconcile his faith with his learning, both men offer far more than the same old "the Bible says it and I believe it" (without even thinking about it) rhetoric of fundamentalists either too lazy or too afraid to make a scholarly study of scripture.
I thank God every day for young evangelicals who are waking up to this nonsense and departing in droves never to return. (Conservative Christian George Barna's research if you care to try to learn something). Some of those young people may stand a chance to find Christ in their hearts rather than an idol in their souls.
From Dr. Wallace's essay August, 2006 defending himself from attacks by inerrantists:
Before I discuss the particular accusations against me regarding inerrancy, I would like to preface my remarks with notes about my methodological approach to this issue. This preface is actually the heart of this paper because it is where the confusion has come. Here goes: The center of all theology, of the entirety of the Christian faith, is Christ himself. The cross is the center of time: all before leads up to it; all after it is shaped by it. If Christ were not God in the flesh, he would not have been raised from the dead. And if he were not raised from the dead, none of us would have any hope. My theology grows out from Christ, is based on Christ, and focuses on Christ.
Years ago, I would have naively believed that all Christians could give their hearty amens to the previous paragraph. Sadly, this is not the case. There are many whose starting point and foundation is bibliology. They begin with the assumption that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God, and that the way one must define inerrancy is in twentieth-century philosophical terms. I won’t get into the details of how inerrancy (in America at least) has been filtered through the grid of Scottish Common Sense Realism, as that would take us far afield from the main objective here. Suffice it to say that many evangelicals believe that without an inerrant Bible we can’t know anything about Jesus Christ. They often ask the question, “How can we be sure that anything in the Bible is true? How can we be sure that Jesus Christ is who he said he was, or even that he existed, if the Bible is not inerrant?”
Dr. Wallace's Christological approach is the same as mine. It doesn't start with the Bible, it starts with Christ. The fundamentalists on this thread are exactly those Dr. Wallace describes in his second paragraph. Wallace has to defend himself precisely BECAUSE he has found not everything in the bible is true.
As a subscriber to Wallace's blog I can get this information. I don't believe I can link it directly so non-subscribers can get it. This is part of a long essay and includes Dr. Wallace's statements concerning Bruce Metzger (I think). If anyone is interested they might try googling "does Dr. Daniel Wallace think the Bible is inerrant." I believe it will at least give a few introductory paragraphs and then an option to subscribe. I don't remember if I had to pay to get his blog, but I recall forking out $25 to get Ehrman's. As an agnostic Ehrman gives every dollar received through blog subscriptions to food pantries and homeless shelters.
No, I have not resorted to deception. Regarding Ehrman, I even went out of my way to say, ''Even Ehrman, though he is now an agnostic acknowledged that scholars are convinced that the original wording of the New Testament can be reconstructed with reasonable accuracy. The fact that Ehrman is now an agnostic doesn't change what he said about other scholars confidence concerning the matter.''
You seem unable to comprehend the fact that Ehrman's statement concerns what OTHER SCHOLARS believe. Ehrman's beliefs then or now are not the issue. And as I stated, I got Ehrman's statement from Dr. Wallace's book, ''Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament.'' Perhaps you would like to accuse Dr. Wallace of being misleading and deceptive as well.
I gave you direct statements by Wallace in which in the first quote he said that we have the essentials of the original text , and in the second quote he stated that we have the original text within the manuscript copies plus some spurious material. And that textual criticism involves discarding the spurious, in burning the dross to get to the gold. And yet you choose to focus on the dross, on the spurious with your ''Has Dr. Wallace stated'' comments in an attempt to shift focus away from the fact that he stated that we have the essentials of the original text.
Daniel B. Wallace (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is professor of New Testament Studies. He is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies, the Institute for Biblical Research, and has consulted on several Bible translations. He made these comments...
To sum up the evidence on the number of variants, there are a lot of variants because there are a lot of manuscripts. Even in the early centuries, the text of the NT is found in a sufficient number of MSS, versions, and writings of the church fathers to give us the essentials of the original text. [Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament, Daniel B. Wallace, pg. 40]
In an article by Dan Wallace, he wrote...
'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
Regarding Dr. Metzger, the quote concerns his statement with regard textual reliability. The quote does not concern his views on Biblical infallibility. They are two different things.
You seriously need to work on your comprehension skills because they are very poor.
And by the way, contrary to your claim, Dr. Wallace has stated that he does believe that the Bible is inerrant.
''Now, I must quickly add: I am an inerrantist. But I may construct my approach to inerrancy differently than some others would. Dallas Seminary is not so paranoid that it would lynch me (or many others on the faculty with a similar approach) for arriving at inerrancy inductively rather than deductively. I am grateful to be at such a school, for its faculty are truly interested in engaging in dialog and wrestling seriously with the text of scripture.''
And before you yet again accuse me of trying to mislead people and of not giving the entire truth, I posted the link concerning what Dr. Wallace said with the expectation that people READ the article (and this is not the first time I've posted this article on this forum) so they can see for themselves everything that he said. And also, in that article Dr. Wallace states that Dr. Metzger did not believe in Biblical inerrancy. But he himself does.
And if people are interested in what Dr. Wallace has to say about things, they can follow his posts on his website Daniel B. Wallace.
Last edited by Michael Way; 03-14-2015 at 07:09 AM..
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From "A bibliology Founde in Christology"
