Lesson 5 - Period of Criticism and Revision (Textual Criticism)

Last night we watched the complete lecture given by Dr. Bart Ehrman at Stanford University in 2007.  It was a consolidated presentation of the essential content of his book "Misquoting Jesus".  Here is a link to the lecture and transcript for those who were unable to attend.

Lecture Link: Ehrman Lecture: Misquoting Jesus
Transcript Link: Bart Ehrman - Stanford University Lecture (Misquoting Jesus) (Special thank you to Sarah and Ronna for all the hours you put into completing the transcript!)

Before we listened to his lecture I instructed the class to make every attempt to extract his primary thesis and supporting evidences.

Thesis:

The Bible can not be inspired by the God because 1.) we do not have the New Testament autographs (original writings), and 2.) there are too many variants among the extant (existing) manuscripts to determine the original words.  Therefore, faith in Jesus is misplaced and irrational.

If we were to place this thesis in the form of a logical argument it would read something like this.

1. If the Bible is the inspired word of the God, then 1.) God will ensure the preservation of the original autographs (writings) throughout time, 2.) there will be no variants in the copies of the autographs, and 3.) there will be no apparent or actual discrepancies between their historical accounts.
2. He did not preserve the original autographs.
3. There are between 400,000 and 500,000 textual variants among the existing manuscripts.
4. There are discrepancies in the historical accounts.
5. Therefore, the Bible is not the inspired word of the God.

Evidences:

1. We do not have a copy of any of the original autographs.
2. There are between 400,00 and 500,000 textual variants in the existing manuscripts.
3. The variants can be divided into spelling and grammatical errors, as well as unintentional and intentional changes.  Spelling and grammatical variants are exactly that, misspelled words and errors in grammar.  Among other things, unintentional changes include such things as accidentally skipping words, lines and pages.  Intentional changes include changes by scribes in order to support personal theologies.

As a side note, his next logical argument is thus;

1. If the Bible is not the inspired word of the God, then we can not know if God exists.
2. The Bible is not the inspired word of the God.
3. Therefore, we can not know if God exists.

I trust all of you will be able to see the flaws in the logic for the second argument as we spent all of last year studying this very topic.

What is interesting is that Dr. Ehrman, in making his case against the inspiration of the Bible, must, by necessity, demonstrate that the gospel narratives are not historically reliability.  For example, he pointed out the apparent discrepancies between the resurrection accounts of the four gospels.  Therefore, one additional logical argument being subtly communicated (and logically heard by the uncritical listener) is as follows.

1. If the gospel accounts are historically trustworthy, then we can know that Jesus was resurrected.
2. The gospel accounts are not historically trustworthy.
3. Therefore, we can not know if Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected.

The logical conclusion, then, is that faith in Jesus as savior is misplaced and irrational.

While we, at this time, are not concerned with the topic of inspiration, we are interested in the topic of historical reliability.  Initially, we are interested in questions such as;

• Exactly what are the types of variants?
• Do the textual variants prevent historians, as well as us, from determining the words of the original letters?
• What affect do any of the variants have on essential doctrines of Christianity?

These, among others, are the questions we will be exploring over the weeks to come.  Beginning next week I will begin breaking down the variants into digestible pieces so we can understand not just their number, but their impact on content.

P.S. - I will also present some of the things Dr. Ehrman says he DOES believe based on the historical accounts given in the New Testament.  It's not as bleak a picture as he paints in his Stanford lecture.

Until then, Blessings!

Ricky

worldviewstudy@gmail.com