BuddyOfDavidClarkson
Puritan Board Freshman
As I posted several days ago, I attended the James White and Bart Ehrman debate in Ft Lauderdale on Wednesday (1/21).
The debate was very interesting and I encourage everyone to get the video once it is released.
There was soooooo much said and perhaps I am missing more substantial points,,,, anyway,,,, here is what stuck out in my mind:
1) I was dismayed to hear that Bart's Misquoting Jesus book was on the New York Times bestseller list.
Folks, folks, folks, James White says (and I completely agree with him!) that the animals are now out of the barn regarding educating the laity regarding transmission and translation of the NT. If the average person knew how we got our bibles, I think it would be shocking for them.
2) I thought (?) that James White said that Bart was nominated for Man of the Year by Time? Is that true? I could not find that on the web though.
3) Bart presented himself well and James White did a great job of defending the text of the Bible.
4) Bart essentially has 3 nuclear missiles he loves to launch:
4.1) The earliest manuscript fragments we have are 2nd and 3rd generation; "...and since we don't have the original autographs, there is no certainty regarding what they said..."
4.2) The greatest amounts of variants are in the earliest manuscripts; "...and since we don't have the original autographs, there is no certainty regarding what they said..."
4.3) "It seems to me that if God inspired the NT, he would have preserved the NT which leads me to believe that He didn't inspire the NT."
As of result of all of points and subpoints in #4, Bart and his peers around the world (he names them) have completely given up trying to ascertain what was in the original autographs and are content to try and determine what was in the 2nd and 3rd generation manuscripts. Also, as Dr. White mentions in one of his podcasts, the leaders of Higher Textual Criticism are also now exegeting the manuscript variants.
It appears that the Higher Textual Critical movement has drifted far away from the where the Alands, Metzger, Warfield, etc. once were. They were content to try and determine the content of the original autographs.
Bart certainly went after James during the cross examination. I really, really thought Dr. White did a spectacular job defending his position. I think it a gross problem that Dr. White is the only person I am aware of in the public square doing this kind of thing. As I mentioned previously, we had better get serious about defending the scriptures because if Bart and his peers undermine the Bible, it undermines everything. There needs to be a whole lot more than Dr. White out there in the public square.
Some thoughts on Bart's comments in #4 above...
Let's start with 4.3 first. If Bart wants to take that position, then we also have no idea what is in ANY document from antiquity. Let's just burn everything and quit talking about it. Also, if 4.3 applies to the NT, it certainly applies to the OT as well. The gospels don't indicate that Jesus had the original autographs in tow for the OT and He was certainly quoting it constantly and talking about every jot and tittle!
4.2/4.1 is problematic and needs the time and attention of those in Higher Textual Criticism to carefully and thoughtfully discern what was in the original autographs. As mentioned previously though, Bart and his peers have simply given up and sound disinterested in this task.
Dr. White love to tell a story of a professor (Dan Wallace? Spelling?) that asks one of his students to write a story. Then he asks 10 others to copy the story. He asks one to be sloppy, one to do it fast, and the rest to do their best to copy it. Then, he destroys the original. In his 30 years of doing this exercise with his students, they were always able to piece together the original within one word and that's usually an issue with determining if the word was "too" or "also".
Lastly, although Bart has some good points, he also constantly wants to beat the drum that changing one word in a book changes the entire meaning of a book. Hogwash. Watch the video once it comes out for particulars. I thought that was very unconvincing and struck me as an attempt to be sensational. Just to cite one example, the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7) is agreed by all (including conservatives) to be a later edition to the manuscript tradition. Bart likes to say that without that verse we can't have a doctrine of the Trinity. See what I mean? Any good bible student could build the doctrine of the Trinity from the NT without 1 John 5:7.
I'm sure I've missed commenting on a lot but I wanted to give the PB a sense of what was said to the best of my ability.
We really need to support James White and ask the Lord of the Harvest for more James Whites; Bart simply can't lecture the country and write New York Times best sellers without a rebuttal.
A good resource for everyone on the PB is Philip Comfort's New Testament Text and Translation Commentary which does a good job of commenting throughout the whole NT on the variants and manuscript fragments. Everyone should have a copy of that. You can buy it here: http://www.aomin.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=845
Also, if you're hardcore and have Logos, you can purchase the Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible (SESB) Version 2.0 which is available here: http://www.logos.com/products/details/3108
The debate was very interesting and I encourage everyone to get the video once it is released.
There was soooooo much said and perhaps I am missing more substantial points,,,, anyway,,,, here is what stuck out in my mind:
1) I was dismayed to hear that Bart's Misquoting Jesus book was on the New York Times bestseller list.
Folks, folks, folks, James White says (and I completely agree with him!) that the animals are now out of the barn regarding educating the laity regarding transmission and translation of the NT. If the average person knew how we got our bibles, I think it would be shocking for them.
2) I thought (?) that James White said that Bart was nominated for Man of the Year by Time? Is that true? I could not find that on the web though.
3) Bart presented himself well and James White did a great job of defending the text of the Bible.
4) Bart essentially has 3 nuclear missiles he loves to launch:
4.1) The earliest manuscript fragments we have are 2nd and 3rd generation; "...and since we don't have the original autographs, there is no certainty regarding what they said..."
4.2) The greatest amounts of variants are in the earliest manuscripts; "...and since we don't have the original autographs, there is no certainty regarding what they said..."
4.3) "It seems to me that if God inspired the NT, he would have preserved the NT which leads me to believe that He didn't inspire the NT."
As of result of all of points and subpoints in #4, Bart and his peers around the world (he names them) have completely given up trying to ascertain what was in the original autographs and are content to try and determine what was in the 2nd and 3rd generation manuscripts. Also, as Dr. White mentions in one of his podcasts, the leaders of Higher Textual Criticism are also now exegeting the manuscript variants.
It appears that the Higher Textual Critical movement has drifted far away from the where the Alands, Metzger, Warfield, etc. once were. They were content to try and determine the content of the original autographs.
Bart certainly went after James during the cross examination. I really, really thought Dr. White did a spectacular job defending his position. I think it a gross problem that Dr. White is the only person I am aware of in the public square doing this kind of thing. As I mentioned previously, we had better get serious about defending the scriptures because if Bart and his peers undermine the Bible, it undermines everything. There needs to be a whole lot more than Dr. White out there in the public square.
Some thoughts on Bart's comments in #4 above...
Let's start with 4.3 first. If Bart wants to take that position, then we also have no idea what is in ANY document from antiquity. Let's just burn everything and quit talking about it. Also, if 4.3 applies to the NT, it certainly applies to the OT as well. The gospels don't indicate that Jesus had the original autographs in tow for the OT and He was certainly quoting it constantly and talking about every jot and tittle!
4.2/4.1 is problematic and needs the time and attention of those in Higher Textual Criticism to carefully and thoughtfully discern what was in the original autographs. As mentioned previously though, Bart and his peers have simply given up and sound disinterested in this task.
Dr. White love to tell a story of a professor (Dan Wallace? Spelling?) that asks one of his students to write a story. Then he asks 10 others to copy the story. He asks one to be sloppy, one to do it fast, and the rest to do their best to copy it. Then, he destroys the original. In his 30 years of doing this exercise with his students, they were always able to piece together the original within one word and that's usually an issue with determining if the word was "too" or "also".
Lastly, although Bart has some good points, he also constantly wants to beat the drum that changing one word in a book changes the entire meaning of a book. Hogwash. Watch the video once it comes out for particulars. I thought that was very unconvincing and struck me as an attempt to be sensational. Just to cite one example, the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7) is agreed by all (including conservatives) to be a later edition to the manuscript tradition. Bart likes to say that without that verse we can't have a doctrine of the Trinity. See what I mean? Any good bible student could build the doctrine of the Trinity from the NT without 1 John 5:7.
I'm sure I've missed commenting on a lot but I wanted to give the PB a sense of what was said to the best of my ability.
We really need to support James White and ask the Lord of the Harvest for more James Whites; Bart simply can't lecture the country and write New York Times best sellers without a rebuttal.
A good resource for everyone on the PB is Philip Comfort's New Testament Text and Translation Commentary which does a good job of commenting throughout the whole NT on the variants and manuscript fragments. Everyone should have a copy of that. You can buy it here: http://www.aomin.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=845
Also, if you're hardcore and have Logos, you can purchase the Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible (SESB) Version 2.0 which is available here: http://www.logos.com/products/details/3108
Last edited: