rbcbob
Puritan Board Graduate
I reached a settled position on the CT-Byz debates nearly thirty years ago and have not read much on it in the past 15 years. I was surprised this year in reading RETHINKING NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM to find what appears to be a seismic shift in attitude which seems to be an application of “relative truth” to the “science” of text criticism.
Below are some quotations from the book.
Any thoughts?
Below are some quotations from the book.
Any thoughts?
“Bart Ehrman … in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture … demonstrates more than adequately that numerous textual variations were fostered by those supporting orthodox theological views (in surprising contrast to the view at the turn of the last century that only heretics could be accused of such behavior).”
“Ehrman’s book ‘demonstrates once again that the most reliable guide to the development of Christian theology is the ever changing text of the New Testament.’”
“David Parker in The Living Text of the Gospels … describes the text of the four Gospels as one that from the beginning grew freely for ‘sayings and stories continued to be developed by copyists and readers’. … leading him to describe the Gospel text ‘as a free, or perhaps as a living text.’ He says bluntly, ‘the concept of a Gospel that is fixed in shape, authoritative, and final as a piece of literature has to be abandoned.’ ”