Lesson 6 - Period of Criticism and Revision (Lower Textual Criticism)

I'm writing this after a long couple of days.  Please understand if it isn't very coherent.

Here is the PowerPoint from class. Lesson 6 (Lower Textual Criticism)

Last Thursday night we did a couple of things.  We;

1. Discussed the logical arguments presented by Dr. Ehrman in his Stanford lecture on his book Misquoting Jesus.
2. Read through just some of the things Dr. Ehrmas says he does believe based on the accounts given in the New Testament.
3. Began a cursory consideration of the purpose of Inspiration.
4. Did a high-level run through of the quantity, types and significance of the manuscript variances.

In short, we saw that;

1. Dr. Ehrman's conclusion that we can not know if God exists based on the failure of the New Testament to meet his imposed definition of inspiration is fallacious.
2. Dr. Ehrman's abandonment of the trustworthiness of the accounts in the New Testament is limited.  He does trust at least some of the historical accounts given, and speaks very confidently about them.  We have yet to determine the source of his agnosticism.
3. Inspiration might not be defined so narrowly by God as to require the preservation of the autographs, nor prevent human hands from influencing its transmission. (I.e. Was God able to communicate his Revelation successfully while allowing human interaction in the process?)
4. The number of variants is great.  However, so is the amount of textual sources.  (I.e. More manuscripts = more variants)  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as we should see in the coming weeks.

This Thursday night we we review some of what was presented last Thursday night in preparation for more in-depth study.

Over the next two weeks we will watch a series of video's over the content thus far.  Here are the links. Daniel Wallace 1, Daniel Wallace 2, Daniel Wallace and Darrel Bock on John Ankerberg Show

God bless you all!

Ricky Chapman
worldviewstudy@gmail.com