Preparing for Ehrman

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Steve,

Your response, while true in many respects, only raises further questions with regard to the question that I put to you.

The relationship between Metzger and Ehrman is common knowledge. It seems to me that a fair reading of what I've posted would indicate that this is not news to me since it is noted in that very post! (I've also previously posted many times in this forum on this subject.) Much of the information contained in the post to which you link is contained in a book to which I refer in my previous post. Thus it can hardly be assumed that I am ignorant of its contents. I can only hope that you simply read my post in a cursory way and did not intend to insult my intelligence.

I'm not an advocate of the CT and at this point basically identify with the Byzantine priority men like Pickering and Robinson. Thus I hope it is clear that I hold no brief for Metzger or White for that matter.

I think that one can be guilty of some degree of unbelief (and in a serious way--and who can definitively say how serious?) in scholarship, teaching or otherwise and still be saved yet so as by fire. That was my point with the Machen reference. (That's not to say that those who err should not be solemnly warned, disciplined, removed from teaching positions, etc.) If you mean to say that you know that Metzger was a reprobate, it seems to me that such a statement is positively wicked and is a violation of the 9th Commandment absent some definitive evidence of him denying the faith outright.

Must you stoop to using the rhetoric and tactics of the independent fundamental legalists (who are often little more than Semi-Pelagians to boot--i.e. patently unbiblical WRT soteriology to say the least) who make KJV Only an article of faith and a test of fellowship?
 
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Jeremy, when Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) was starting his heresy, the KJB was the foremost English Bible, so there was really nothing else for him to use. With the Oneness Pentecostals, who pretty much started (as far as I know) around 1913 in California under the influence of R. E. McAlister and John G. Scheppe, there was the Revised Version of 1881 in England, and the 1901 American Standard Version (the American version of the RV 1881), so the KJV was still the old standard, and most common folks – including the cults – used the KJV. Although when the 1901 ASV came out, using “Jehovah” instead of “LORD” for the Tetragrammaton, the JW’s started using that, although they didn’t get the right to publish it themselves till I think 1944.

Hello Jeff (post 27) – in his 2005 book, Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman says that the beginning of his loss of faith was when, at Princeton Theological Seminary, he’d written a good paper on an apparent discrepancy in Mark, sincerely seeking to resolve it and gain the approval of his professor; but the paper was returned to him with this note on it by the prof, “Maybe Mark just made a mistake”, and after thinking about it he said to himself, “Hmm . . . maybe Mark did make a mistake.” He continues in the book,


”Once I made that admission, the floodgates opened. For if there could be one little, picayune mistake in Mark 2, maybe there could be mistakes in other places as well.” (p 9)​

And from there he came to doubt that God had preserved His word period, and this led him to think that “if [God] didn’t perform that miracle, there seemed to be no reason to think he performed the earlier miracle of inspiring those words.” (p 11) His fall away from faith in God continued (not that his faith was a true and saving faith to begin with, for Christ’s sheep never perish – John 10:27, 28).

It was years later, when considering the problem of human suffering, that shows how he gave up on any belief in God. In his 2008 book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer, he spells out his problem with suffering. But in the 2005 Misquoting Jesus, in supplementary material at the end of the book, he makes it clear that, “The big issue that drove me to agnosticism has to do not with the Bible, but with the pain and suffering in the world”, and he could not reconcile this with the existence of God. (p 248)

In God’s Problem, he says, thinking about his early belief in God, “I still wondered, deep down inside: could I have been right after all? What if I was right then but wrong now? Will I burn in hell forever? The fear of death gripped me for years, and there are still moments when I wake up at night in a cold sweat.” (p 127)

His fear is appropriate; he must fear that – in light of what he once believed – the damage he is doing to the minds, and the faith, of God’s children is a dark evil. For example . . . I have been over 40 years devoting myself to solve the various apparent discrepancies in the Bible – through studying books specifically written to address these, as well as commentaries, prayer, etc – and it still is very painful to my mind to come across an apparent discrepancy I cannot answer fairly quickly. Yes, I do have a faith that there are no real discrepancies in the Bible; I know that my inability to answer any reflects on my poor and feeble mind, not on God’s infallible word. But it is still painful; like the mental/spiritual equivalent of a dislocated joint or a broken bone (little wonder I have gotten so many resources to answer such things; also, being a teacher of Christians, I have taken others’ doubts and hard questions to heart to be able to help them). Consider then, when a young believer in a college or university listening to him, or picking up one of Ehrman’s provocatively titled books in a bookstore, hears his poignant, witty, learned, sometimes charming (for the devil can be a charmer, a seemingly “nice and sincere guy”) diatribes against the Holy Bible and its God, listing alleged discrepancy after discrepancy – chapter and verse – and with his dark erudition driving home the (supposed) impossibility of resolving this (supposed) blatant evidence of error after error and contradiction after contradiction in this (supposed) hoax of a holy book which talks of a fantasy god who would allow such folly, etc etc. This has to have an effect – on multitudes! I know a pastor’s son who was exposed to this kind of stuff (Ehrman has impacted faculties of multitudes of “Christian” higher educational institutions), and was troubled. After all, Bart Ehrman is one of the premier – the best of the best (as the world reckons best) – of Bible scholars on the planet. But he is in the employ of Satan. And BE has plenty of money, mucho fame, and a good life. Can the most charismatic of the world-class Bible scholars and textual critics be all wrong? Many ask this.

As I was saying earlier, Dr. White’s evidential approach in using the Critical / Eclectic Text to refute Ehrman doesn’t work completely well because Ehrman is so familiar with it and can cast much doubt on JW’s presentation.

Let me just say as an aside here, there is nothing wrong with using evidences in the service of illustrating a presupposition. Van Till used it (see Notaro’s book, for example: Amazon.com: Van Til & the use of evidence (9780875523538): Thom Notaro: Books), and it does not mean one is an Evidentialist if one does. I use evidences often. It is the nature of JW’s evidences – and Wallace’s as well – that I think Ehrman likes to get hold of, because he can make it seem that their evidences testify in behalf of his view of the Bible’s unreliability. He is wrong, but he is good at spin – and it is hard to counter his spin using the CT / ET.

I have not seen anyone try to use the evidences that pertain to the Byzantine / TR / AV against Ehrman, so I don’t know how he would seek to respond to that. I keep on the lookout for such presentations. But this is what I am studying, and preparing for.

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Chris, sorry, I did read your post, but got caught up with the thoughts above. I would say this: whoever denies the historicity of the opening chapters of Genesis – the creation, the Fall, the proto-evangelion, the “progress” of the human race from these beginnings – denies the basic realities of the human condition as the Scripture reveals them, and the need for the salvation that only God can provide, and that through Christ. If the Biblical beginnings of humankind are only myth (this includes the accounts of the patriarchs) – not to be considered historical, but only pertaining to “religion” – then the Christian faith is nonsense. I cannot imagine a living faith in Christ as the atoning Savior from the crushing weight of the guilt and power of sin in one who promotes such views. I know I can be wrong about such things as who God saves – many such things are simply beyond my ken – however, when Paul says in Galatians 1:8-9, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” When Paul says this, I see this aimed at those who deny God’s creation, man’s fall, and his consequent need for an atoning Savior, for starts. Such, in my view, fall under the apostolic curse.

This has nothing to do with the King James Bible or the rhetoric of IFB “legalists” – all Protestant Bibles contain this teaching. It’s too bad that too often these apparently despised fundamentalist Baptists are the only ones who have the discernment or the guts to cry out that “the emperor has no clothes” – i.e., our supposed leaders have not the robe of Christ as their righteousness. We have people editing and producing our Bibles we would not let anywhere near our pulpits or at the front of our Bible Study classes. Not all IFBs are such one must stoop to give them honor; some, although they err in doctrines we hold vital and dear, are at least our equals in godliness and fervency to save the lost.

Sorry again, Chris, for overlooking your important post.
 
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Mark (GulfCoast Presbyterian), in your post #18 you said, “I truly do not comprehend the zeal for the so-called ‘TR’ ” of the KJ people. Well, for one thing, it is the Greek text which underlies their English translation. But for another, it represents the last development in a line of transmission from the apostles to the Greek-speaking churches in the Aegean area, Rome, and Palestine (note: no autographs / apostolic originals were sent to Alexandria), and which remained in a mostly pure form in the Greek churches until the Reformation, and the final compiling of the Greek edition from which the King James Bible was translated. As I indicated earlier, a clear and succinct presentation of this early history may be found in Wilbur Pickering’s chapter 5 of his, The Identity of the New Testament Text III.

The value of this is to counter Bart Ehrman’s contention that there was no continuity of text in the (as he alleges) sloppy copying of the NT manuscripts which became more and more corrupt as the centuries progressed, till the state of the NT text was mutilated beyond repair. His main song is that since God did not see fit (this before he gave up on the idea of God) to preserve the Biblical manuscripts (in effect saying we do not have them in any sort of intact form), there is no way to assert they were originally inspired by Him. But those of the TR camp do assert that God did indeed preserve His words, and they say that thus and thus He did it. They say, we do not have to futilely hunt for the preserved readings in the haystack of thousands of MSS (depending on the supposed expertise of academics to sort it out for us), but we have a Bible we can hold in our hands: and what we hold is the King James Bible – which is the reliable word of God insofar as it was faithfully translated (and it was) from the preserved Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

Now this is not to start another TR / AV vs CT / ET war or debate, it is just the delineating of the approach to countering Ehrman’s attacks. I mean, if you confiscated David's sling and stones – saying, we don’t like these stupid and old-fashioned slings among our weaponry – before he went out to meet the giant, well, the story would have ended differently. David was also despised by his brethren for his audacity in presuming to be able to do what they had not been able to do.

As I learn more in my reading, and listening to debates, I’ll communicate it here.
 
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I could not get the 1st or 2nd of the Wallace-Ehrman debates (and my budget being so tight I can’t buy them if I found them), and after searching around, I am currently listening (on Youtube) to “Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. Craig Evans debate the question ‘Does the New Testament present a reliable portrait of the historical Jesus? Part 1’ on Jan 19, 2012 at St. Mary's University.” Part 2 is to be the next night at Acadia University, both in Nova Scotia, Canada.

On the one hand it was a disappointing debate, as it was more like a demolition derby, neither of the men upholding the affirmative of the topic. Although Dr. Evans (CE) occasionally sounded like a conservative Christian, when under cross-examination by Dr. Ehrman (BE) he was forced to fly his true colors. For instance, he admitted that BE was right that the numerous “I AM” sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John were not authentic, although they did – he said – accurately reflect the theology of the Johannine community which generated this gospel. The two scholars have been friends for years, and I suppose CE is the more conservative of the two, but that isn’t saying much, from my vantage.

Here is a roughly quoted saying of Ehrman at around 1:15:00 in the debate: “virtually every scholar on the planet concurs that the gospels are not historically accurate – i.e., they ‘provide historically false information’ and do not provide a reliable account of what Jesus did and said – except for fundamentalists and very conservative evangelical Christians . . . who have some kind of inerrancy view of the Bible”.

I am sorry to foist this kind of garbage on you folks here at PB, but this is the form of the attack taking place in the world around us, and influencing many. A big part of BE’s argument pertains to apparent discrepancies in the various gospel accounts which he insists are real discrepancies. He is wrong, and men have devoted a good part of their lives laboring to solve these so-called discrepancies. I will list a few such books, as they are important to have in one’s library – especially if one is into apologetics:

New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, by Gleason Archer
Hard Sayings of the Bible, Walter Kaiser
When Critics Ask, Geisler and Howe
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Haley
Things Hard To Be Understood, David Cloud

Another favorite tack of BE is to impugn the history of the transmission of the manuscripts in the 1st and 2nd centuries by, on the one hand alleging extremely poor scribal habits to the copiers of the originals, and of the copies from then on, and on the other denying the authorship of the gospels and epistles to those to whom they are normally attributed. One good book on this – among many – would be R. Laird Harris’, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Scriptures (make sure to get the 1995 or 6 editions, not the older ones).

If anyone comes across a refutation of BE from the Byzantine/Majority Text or the Textus Receptus traditions please let me know.
 
Jerusalem Blade said:
Here is a roughly quoted saying of Ehrman at around 1:15:00 in the debate: “virtually every scholar on the planet concurs that the gospels are not historically accurate – i.e., they ‘provide historically false information’ and do not provide a reliable account of what Jesus did and said – except for fundamentalists and very conservative evangelical Christians . . . who have some kind of inerrancy view of the Bible”.

Another favorite tack of BE is to impugn the history of the transmission of the manuscripts in the 1st and 2nd centuries by, on the one hand alleging extremely poor scribal habits to the copiers of the originals, and of the copies from then on, and on the other denying the authorship of the gospels and epistles to those to whom they are normally attributed. One good book on this – among many – would be R. Laird Harris’, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Scriptures (make sure to get the 1995 or 6 editions, not the older ones).

If anyone comes across a refutation of BE from the Byzantine/Majority Text or the Textus Receptus traditions please let me know.
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The "virtually every scholar" argument is a logical fallacy. In many such instances someone is not considered a "scholar" if they don't toe the party line. "Anthropocentric Global Warming" is a good example. The scientists who don't believe in it and disagree with the party line are disparaged as not being "scholars". We see the same attitude against scientists who believe in Creationism and not Evolutionism. As to his contention that only Christians view the gospels as historically accurate, he forgets all those secular scholars of the past 100 years who also view the gospels as historically accurate and of course ignores the Roman historians who confirm the testimony of the gospels. He has done nothing but allow his prejudices to determine what is accurate information and who is a scholar. Such "reasoning" would get a failing grade in an undergraduate logic class. He knows better, but he also knows that many (majority?) Christians will not be able to shred his "argument" nor will they know the secular authors who disagree with his view. And he is relying on the inherent bias of the lost to not question his statements. His view is just another expression of the 19th century Higher/Lower Criticism view put forth that eventually culminated in the "Jesus Seminars".

As to poor copying of the manuscripts during the 1st & 2nd century, the easiest refutation to such assumptions is to play the skeptic. How does he know what the copying habits of the scribes were? As to denying the authorship of certain books, this is another version of the Higher/Lower Criticism from the 19th century. There are hundreds of volumes written by Christians and secularists that refute this view. Which Ehrman should be aware of and if he is he is deliberately deceptive and if he is not, he is ignorant. Either one discredits him. I'd also point out that being Christian does not disqualify a person's work on this subject as Ehrman posits. Yet another basic fallacy on his part. To refute him, you need little more than a good logic text and perhaps knowledge of the history atheistic Bible criticism to refute him. The history is optional; his arguments are self-refuting.

I wish Dr. Bahnsen were still alive to debate him. I suspect it'd be similar to Bahnsen's debate with Stein.

Brandenburg, whom I mentioned earlier, has some refutations to Ehrman's positions. Bahnsen's lectures on Practical Apologetics, The Debate That Never Was, The Apologetic Implications of Self-Deception, Michael Martin Under the Microscope, & A Disciple of Christ also will provide enough material to refute BE. Though Bahnsen wasn't TR, he does provide enough materials in these lectures to completely refute and destroy Ehrman's "arguments" that you mentioned. And he covers how to do it in a way that leaves the unbeliever with nothing to turn to, save God himself. As you know Ted Letis also provided much information that refutes Ehrman, as did the much maligned Dr. Edward Freer Hills.
 
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Jerusalem Blade said:
I could not get the 1st or 2nd of the Wallace-Ehrman debates (and my budget being so tight I can’t buy them if I found them), and after searching around, I am currently listening (on Youtube) to “Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. Craig Evans debate the question ‘Does the New Testament present a reliable portrait of the historical Jesus? Part 1’ on Jan 19, 2012 at St. Mary's University.” Part 2 is to be the next night at Acadia University, both in Nova Scotia, Canada.

On the one hand it was a disappointing debate, as it was more like a demolition derby, neither of the men upholding the affirmative of the topic. Although Dr. Evans (CE) occasionally sounded like a conservative Christian, when under cross-examination by Dr. Ehrman (BE) he was forced to fly his true colors. For instance, he admitted that BE was right that the numerous “I AM” sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John were not authentic, although they did – he said – accurately reflect the theology of the Johannine community which generated this gospel. The two scholars have been friends for years, and I suppose CE is the more conservative of the two, but that isn’t saying much, from my vantage.

Here is a roughly quoted saying of Ehrman at around 1:15:00 in the debate: “virtually every scholar on the planet concurs that the gospels are not historically accurate – i.e., they ‘provide historically false information’ and do not provide a reliable account of what Jesus did and said – except for fundamentalists and very conservative evangelical Christians . . . who have some kind of inerrancy view of the Bible”.

I am sorry to foist this kind of garbage on you folks here at PB, but this is the form of the attack taking place in the world around us, and influencing many. A big part of BE’s argument pertains to apparent discrepancies in the various gospel accounts which he insists are real discrepancies. He is wrong, and men have devoted a good part of their lives laboring to solve these so-called discrepancies. I will list a few such books, as they are important to have in one’s library – especially if one is into apologetics:

New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, by Gleason Archer
Hard Sayings of the Bible, Walter Kaiser
When Critics Ask, Geisler and Howe
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Haley
Things Hard To Be Understood, David Cloud

Another favorite tack of BE is to impugn the history of the transmission of the manuscripts in the 1st and 2nd centuries by, on the one hand alleging extremely poor scribal habits to the copiers of the originals, and of the copies from then on, and on the other denying the authorship of the gospels and epistles to those to whom they are normally attributed. One good book on this – among many – would be R. Laird Harris’, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Scriptures (make sure to get the 1995 or 6 editions, not the older ones).

If anyone comes across a refutation of BE from the Byzantine/Majority Text or the Textus Receptus traditions please let me know.
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Steve,

As I've noted, James White has spent hours taking Ehrman apart sound bite by sound bite with many of these kinds of statements. The anti-supernatural, "Gospels aren't history because they are supernatural", skipticism of Bart is analyzed in great detail. James' Dividing Line programs are available for you to listen on this. I don't remember when he does this but you can find them if you look and they're free. His refutation of BE on these points would be very useful regardless of whether you agree with James on other aspects of the debate.
 
Thanks, Rich – I'll go to the DL archives and see if I can't find James' material on this. Perhaps you do know I reckon White a valuable brother in the fight for the Faith; he is also an excellent exegete and theologian (Cf his books, The God Who Justifies, and, The Forgotten Trinity, just for starts). This may get some KJVO folks mad (that I highly esteem and like him), but remember, brethren, there are days coming – I think soon – when we must band together in mutual affection despite our relatively minor differences, for strifes and bitterness in our midst while in the furnace of persecution and affliction will grieve the presence of Christ's Spirit among us, Whom we will need in His fulness and power to be able to stand. The matter of our Bibles is important, but not moreso than our abiding in love – a thought few give much heed to these days.

Chris, thanks for your remarks – great points!

Want to get to bed early, so to be fresh for worship of our King tomorrow.
 
Steve- I am very impressed with the work that you have done so far on this important topic and I will praying for you as you proceed. Scholars such as Ehrman do much harm to the faith and it is important that believers take a stand and do battle against the deception of the world.

Rich- Good points about James White. Although we may disagree with him on certain matters, it cannot be denied that he is a true Christian brother who does daily battle in the trenches against the various and sundry enemies of God.

Keep up the good work gentlemen.
 
Hi:

Hey Steve, I have been thinking, and praying, more about your conundrum. BE, it appears to me, needs to be convinced of the existence of God and the infallibility of Holy Scripture. As you and I know one cannot "argue" another into the Kingdom of Heaven, and it takes the Spirit of God speaking through the Word of God to change the heart. But, God does use means, "We may be induced..." (WCF 1). You may want to consider defending the authenticity and inspiration of the disputed passages, the Comma, the Pericope, and/or the long ending of Mark as a point of contact with BE.

Blessings,

Rob

PS: I agree with you concerning Dr. White.

-RPW

PPS: By the way: If BE knows that there are passages that are not authentic, then it means that he does know that there are passages which are authentic.

-RPW
 
CalvinandHodges said:
PPS: By the way: If BE knows that there are passages that are not authentic, then it means that he does know that there are passages which are authentic.
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Perhaps but, for BE an "authentic" passage would just mean that we can know for sure that the human author wrote that passage. Assuming he was even convinced that we could determine, with 100% accuracy, what the original autographs contained, he would still believe they were the writings of men and men only.

Notice that Ehrman was swayed by "...what if Mark was wrong...." That's not an issue of textual criticism but whether or not God could have ever superintended His Word in such a way as to preserve the human authors from error. One is not even thinking in the same league as a believer at that point. As an example, just today the text was on Matthew 6:25-34 and part of the preaching was reminding us of the long arm of the Lord. In our humanity, we are apt to look at things as they are and conclude that millions in the wilderness cannot eat meat for a month. Even Moses was sucked into this thinking. God reminds us of His long arm and challenges our unbelief.

When Ehrman was challenged, initially, about whether Mark was wrong it had everything to do with the question of whose story we're going to accept at a fundamental level. Is the arm of the Lord too short to preserve from error even the initial report of the Gospel of His Son? It calls into basic question the existence of that God and whether or not He is or ever has been desirous that His Word be known and that none of it should fall to the ground. Ehrman bought into that lie at the fundamental level and from that point the issue of how one handles the text of mere human authors is really a moot one. Nobody really cares about textual criticism for other works of antiquity because we know they're simply the words of men.

This, to me, is the heart of the issue. At the end of the day, those that believe in the God of the Scriptures believe He has Providentially preserved His Word through the ages not because of any academic commitment but, because, fundamentally that God is a speaker. He makes Himself known and the community of faith not only reads the Word but is created and formed by that Word. That Word makes alive to create Worshipers of God and that Word hardens hearts and causes men to gnash their teeth in hatred of their Creator.

The question for the Living is not whether Providential preservation has occured but a "how" just as it is in other disciplines where we see a muddled human history (think of the major ecumenical councils) but confidence that God works through human agency to His ends. I was thinking on this the other day and was reminded of Edersheim's reports about the legendary memory of Rabbis who had committed the whole of the Law to memory such that, if even all copies were lost, a group of Rabbis could get together and re-produce the entire Law (including where every jot and tittle went). Many of these kind of men persecuted Christ or even His followers after Him but it was through the agency of their fervor to commit things to memory that is but one example of how God works through unholy vessels to accomplish holy ends.

The question for the Walking Dead never even rises above the basic question. The method of how a God they don't worship inspires a Word they don't believe in and then preserves a Word they think is just a human community's thoughts is really so much academic curiosity. From an internal critique perspective, it is strange that anyone cares about this issue. Nobody worries about the preservation of the works of Homer. The reason they care to celebrate doubt about the Scriptures transmission is because they know, deep down, they are handling holy things but not only do evil but heartily encourage others who do the same.
 
CalvinandHodges said:
PPS: By the way: If BE knows that there are passages that are not authentic, then it means that he does know that there are passages which are authentic. -RPW
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Not necessarily - it would simply mean that the evidence on other points is inconclusive. The fact that I can definitively state that you were not in the library with Colonel Mustard doesn't mean I can assume everyone else or even anyone else was.

Semper Fidelis said:
Nobody really cares about textual criticism for other works of antiquity because we know they're simply the words of men.
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Scholars, especially those who are perfectionistic purists care. It is a far different level, of course, in part because the textual criticism of other ancient texts is far simpler (there being vastly less manuscripts to work through), and chiefly because the issues that hang upon them are of historical or poetic, rather than religious, interest.
 
Hi:

Rich and Ruben: Thank you both for your responses. I want you both to know that you two are, in my opinion (including Steve), among the godliest men I know on the Puritanboard, and I respect and admire your posts immensely.

Speaking simply on the human level, and hoping that the Spirit of God would convict BE of his errors, then I think it would be prudent to contend with BE concerning his objections to Inspiration. Rich, you have rightly pointed out that BE started his objections over a passage in Mark. If, for example, BE can be proven wrong in his supposition concerning that passage, then would it not open himself up to the idea that the Scripture is truly Inspired? The list I gave is based on a purely Byzantine understanding of the Scriptures. Clearly, Dr. White and Dr. Wallace would not contend with BE on those issues - because they agree with BE on those matters. But, if there is another passage in Scripture that may be more personal with BE, and serviceable to the apologetic method with him, then it certainly seems to me that we should use that as a means for his conversion.

Ruben: I think if we can shake his faith in his skepticism, God willing, then maybe he will be converted. Anyway, I did not do it, Mr. Plum did it with a revolver (a .45 Smith and Wesson with HydraShock ammo), in the living room! :-)

Blessings brothers!

-Rob
 
Jerusalem Blade said:
I could not get the 1st or 2nd of the Wallace-Ehrman debates (and my budget being so tight I can’t buy them if I found them)
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Steve,

This book resulted from the 2008 Greer Heard Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary aka the first Wallace/Ehrman "debate." You may be able to preview enough of the book on Amazon to be able to ascertain whether or not it would be worthwhile. The reviews are decidedly mixed.

I don't know what form the subsequent debates between Wallace and Ehrman took, but this one evidently wasn't a debate in the usual sense. The principals give a relatively brief presentation and then are questioned by several evangelical theologians. A man in the employ of the seminary who is involved in organizing this forum every year told me several years ago that "We try to avoid the White style debates." (I think I may have mentioned something about White debating Ehrman soon or something like that.) I could probably find out what the cost would be for the audio, but I think you're quite right with regard to the expense, unless something has changed in the past several years. (The reader will draw his own conclusions regarding the choice of publisher as well as the format.)

Your statements about Dr. Evans are consistent with what I have heard from other sources. It sounded like he may make Dr. Wallace look like a fighting fundy by comparison! One acquaintance who is not given to hyperbole in such things told me last year that he was present at a talk in which Evans basically undercut the case for inerrancy.

When Critics Ask appears to be available online here. (Whether or not posting that PDF is authorized is another question.)
 
CalvinandHodges said:
Rich and Ruben: Thank you both for your responses. I want you both to know that you two are, in my opinion (including Steve), among the godliest men I know on the Puritanboard, and I respect and admire your posts immensely.
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While I appreciate the confidence, I really have too much sin that you do not see and do not share your opinion about myself.


CalvinandHodges said:
Speaking simply on the human level, and hoping that the Spirit of God would convict BE of his errors, then I think it would be prudent to contend with BE concerning his objections to Inspiration. Rich, you have rightly pointed out that BE started his objections over a passage in Mark. If, for example, BE can be proven wrong in his supposition concerning that passage, then would it not open himself up to the idea that the Scripture is truly Inspired? The list I gave is based on a purely Byzantine understanding of the Scriptures. Clearly, Dr. White and Dr. Wallace would not contend with BE on those issues - because they agree with BE on those matters. But, if there is another passage in Scripture that may be more personal with BE, and serviceable to the apologetic method with him, then it certainly seems to me that we should use that as a means for his conversion.
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I'm sorry but I don't understand the question. Note that what I said was Ehrman was challenged to consider that Mark was wrong. That's in the autograph itself. Even if Ehrman was convinced he had the original copy of the Gospel of Mark then it does not follow he will believe in inspiration if, at a basic level, he denies inspiration. This he did when he considered the notion that Mark could be wrong as plausible.

Hath God really said?

For liberals (and sadly most Christians today), they consider the Scriptures to be the words of men who were bound to a 1st Century culture (at least for the NT). Whether it be a Moltmann looking for the kernel of truth inside the husks of myth or the "limited inerrancy" of a Fuller Seminary, the problem is not at the point of transmission of the autographs but the penning of the autographs themselves. Is Paul just a misogynistic homophobe with the occasional gems of truth mixed in with his backwater shortcomings or did the God who formed the heavens and the earth breath out the Words that he penned?

You see, I don't find the fundamental problem to be at the point of transmission in today's Church but at the issue of original authorship. Most people I know don't even question whether the texts represent the original but it simply doesn't matter because they don't treat it like the Word of God anyway. Ehrman's departure from the faith did not begin with doubt about transmission but a fundamental disbelief in God that He could even inspire the Scriptures to begin with.

Now, is it immaterial to the Church as to how the Scriptures are transmitted? Of course not. Fools like Ehrman make money off of stuff that we've known about for centuries but he presents it as so much sensational new material and makes a good racket off the ignorant. Unsuspecting members of the Church who have never considered how the text was transmitted are sometimes shaken by the idea that variants come into the text but I've never met a man or woman who was Christ's who did not seek answers to these problems. The people that walk away for these surface level attacks on the confidence of the text (or for that matter how one harmonizes the Synoptics) are not truly striving to enter the narrow door. We need to pursue them of course but let's not pretend that textual transmission issues, any more than the question of whether there was one angel or two at the tomb, is the reason that people are leaving the faith. BE is just a huckster that exposes the weakness of our Churches in the equipping of the Saints.
 
JB,

Providentially, this crossed my desk this morning:

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF/Review%20307%20Erhman%20Wallace%20Review%20-%20Crampton.pdf

"But even though we do not
possess the autographic codex (i.e., the physical
document), it is a non sequitur to assume that we
do not have the autographic text (i.e., the words) in
the apographa. The good copies which we have, as
a whole can and do retain the latter without the
autographic text."

Citing: Greg L. Bahnsen, “The Inerrancy of the Autographa,”
Inerrancy, edited by Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1980), 172.

"The church of today needs to do its duty. It needs
to recognize the hand of God’s providence and
confess the Byzantine text to be the canonical text
just as the Reformers did in the Helvetic Formula
Consensus, the Westminster Confession of Faith,
the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith,
and the Savoy Declaration. Just as the church has
made a definitive statement regarding the authentic
27 books of the New Testament, it must also make
a definitive statement on the authentic New Testa-
ment text. True and full canonicity calls for both."

"...The Ehrman—Wallace interaction, in particular, demonstrates the degree to which
mainstream evangelical text critics, like
Wallace, have embraced ‘reasoned eclecticism.’ The two men appear to agree more
than they disagree when it comes to specific
disputed New Testament texts…. Despite
Wallace’s protests, one wonders if evangelical text critics will also eventually follow
the trend toward abandoning the reconstruction of the text of Scripture in its
original form as the goal of text criticism.
What impact will this shift have down the
line on the way of evangelical Christian
scholars, who have embraced the modern
critical text of reasoned eclecticism, view
the reliability of Scripture, the doctrine of
inerrancy, and the authority of Scripture in
general? (23-24)."

AMR
 
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Thanks for that, Patrick – Gary Crampton writes some good stuff!

Chris, thanks for that additional info – much appreciated!

Rob, I'd have to agree with Rich – knowing the wretchedness of my own heart I would not vaunt my godliness in the least. One of the paradoxes of the Way is that when a person seeks godliness they discover how ungodly they really are and how much they live by sheer grace – truly undeserved favor, and how transforming and joyous that is!

I'm getting a lot of good information both contra Ehrman, and also learning about Ehrman's style, both his strengths and weaknesses. It's an old maxim, one should study one's adversary carefully (if one can), as it is written, "The righteous man wisely considereth the house of the wicked . . . A wise man scaleth the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof" (Prov 21:12a, 22). Much like a fighter studies the moves of his opponent before tangling with him.

I'll post, at some point, some of the more excellent refutations of Ehrman's pitch – URLs, books, articles, etc. Thanks all, for all the input – it's appreciated!
 
Something else that comes to mind, particularly as above there is the 2d quote from C&H, 1st line, praying for the man's salvation, it strikes me that you might add to your preparation a study of the debate between Francis Schaeffer and Bishop Pike.

As I remember, in that debate, Schaeffer was clearly not concerned with winning a debate but decidedly concerned for the man's eternal soul.
 
Something else that comes to mind, particularly as above in the 2d quote from C&H, 1st line, praying for the man's salvation, it strikes me that you might add to your preparation a study of the debate between Francis Schaeffer and Bishop Pike.

As I remember, in that debate, Schaeffer was clearly not concerned with winning a debate but decidedly concerned for the man's eternal soul.
 
Chris, I think this article you linked to – Public Debate with Bart Ehrman in Seminaries: A Bad Decision – is right. It is contrary to the interests of the church, and seminaries, to bring a false teacher into their midst to air his views, as it does more damage than good.

Myself, I do not think to have such a debate with Erhman, and that would be one reason, and another is that I’m slow on my feet with repartee, and better at writing and careful research. Of course if it were a matter of being confronted publicly, that would be different, and I would go into a different mode than formal debate.

The article you referenced gives examples of the harm done souls – even believing Christians – when the likes of Ehrman are let loose in the precincts of the godly. I remember reading of the harm done by Charles G. Finney, who – being an eloquent and powerful orator – overwhelmed godly and learned pastors with his fiery bombast, even to the point of getting them removed from their pulpits by deceived congregations. Biblical truth is not always served well by debates, as those in the wrong may be the better debaters.

I but hope to give a succinct (I will really try to keep it brief) written presentation such as will give a person understanding to dismiss Ehrman’s false claims.

Another aspect of Ehrman’s influence on text criticism is that men are rising up to deal with his false assertions (it has ever been so in the history of the church: defenders of the Faith coming forth to contend with false teachers); two examples: Michael Spotts posted a couple of links here – http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/dr-williams-criticizes-dr-erhman-provides-new-evidence-75170/ – where Dr. Peter Williams brings good information to the issue; and also Richard Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, along with some Youtube clips of him on this same topic: A brief clip here, and a longer one: The Gospels as Historical Biography. I was familiar with Bauckham's work on Revelation, but not on this subject.
 
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Jerusalem Blade said:
I could not get the 1st or 2nd of the Wallace-Ehrman debates (and my budget being so tight I can’t buy them if I found them),
Click to expand...
As noted here, the DVD for the second debate on sale here:
http://kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00ZCAJ99

The first debate is in book and Kindle form here:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800697731

If budget is an issue, Steve, PM me with your mailing address and I will buy the items and have them shipped to you as my small contribution to your endeavor to glorify God.

AMR
 
Patrick, that’s generous and gracious of you! I will PM you.

I have Paul Ferguson’s paper, Wallace’s "The Gospel According to Bart", and the Craig-Ehrman debate. I have amassed what material I could find (and there's always Interlibrary Loan – but one's gotta read quickly and there are no renewals).

I don’t think further studying Wallace and Ehrman will be that profitable to me, as Wallace does not confront BE properly in my view; a while back I interacted at length with an essay of Wallace here: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/what-authentic-new-testament-text-15134/#post198366. I think, for the same price (I’d be very happy with used copies), these might be more on target:

The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Kostenburger and Kruger

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, by Richard Bauckham

------

Wayne, you bring up a good point re desiring the man’s conversion. Giving a worldly example: if there is shooter taking people out, task #1 is to neutralize him – no use talking sense to him at this juncture. The Scripture says this in a similar spiritual situation: Titus 1:10-11, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers . . . whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.”

I don’t imagine myself doing this, but I can play my small part, Lord willing, and perchance when he is humbled he may be given grace to repent. We can pray to that end.
 
Jerusalem Blade said:
Patrick, that’s generous and gracious of you! I will PM you.

I have Paul Ferguson’s paper, Wallace’s "The Gospel According to Bart", and the Craig-Ehrman debate. I have amassed what material I could find (and there's always Interlibrary Loan – but one's gotta read quickly and there are no renewals).

I don’t think further studying Wallace and Ehrman will be that profitable to me, as Wallace does not confront BE properly in my view; a while back I interacted at length with an essay of Wallace here: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/what-authentic-new-testament-text-15134/#post198366. I think, for the same price (I’d be very happy with used copies), these might be more on target:

The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Kostenburger and Kruger

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, by Richard Bauckham

------

Wayne, you bring up a good point re desiring the man’s conversion. Giving a worldly example: if there is shooter taking people out, task #1 is to neutralize him – no use talking sense to him at this juncture. The Scripture says this in a similar spiritual situation: Titus 1:10-11, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers . . . whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.”

I don’t imagine myself doing this, but I can play my small part, Lord willing, and perchance when he is humbled he may be given grace to repent. We can pray to that end.
Click to expand...
No problem, Steve. Send me the shipping info and I will have them sent to you. Better yet, just need a email address that you would use at Amazon.com and I will get you a gift card and you can do your own shopping, brother!

AMR
 
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