MBA 11: Are the New Testament Documents Reliable: an Introduction to Bart Ehrman

One of the most important questions that we as Christian parents can answer for our children (and for ourselves) is, “Are the New Testament documents reliable?” While this podcast in no way represents a comprehensive answer, it is a good intro to the discussion if you have never heard it before. Topics Discussed: Who is […]

The post MBA 11: Are the New Testament Documents Reliable: an Introduction to Bart Ehrman appeared first on Mama Bear Apologetics.

One of the most important questions that we as Christian parents can answer for our children (and for ourselves) is, “Are the New Testament documents reliable?” While this podcast in no way represents a comprehensive answer, it is a good intro to the discussion if you have never heard it before.

Topics Discussed:

Who is Bart Ehrman?

Very popular in skeptic community
New Testament scholar – went from Moody (conservative) to Princeton (liberal)
Rigid understanding of the Bible that got rocked when he found out about textual variants
Doesn’t agree with the Jesus Myther movement
Books – Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted, How Jesus Became God
Doesn’t believe that Jesus taught that he was God, but followers embellished over time
His modus operandi (see definition below) is basically to not look at conservative scholar’s work, or to discount it as relevant
Seemed to have gone from a hyper-fundamentalism in Christianity to a hyper-fundamentalism in atheism

Refuses to grant that we can have reasonable certainty that we have what the Gospel writers originally wrote unless we were to find something that was written within 2 weeks of the events of Jesus. See Greco-Roman time gaps below to understand why this is a ridiculous criteria for ancient manuscripts.
Admitted that there were no other texts from antiquity that met his criteria

Arguments that he made at the debate and rebuttals

John is the only one that has Jesus overtly claiming to be God, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke didn’t

Phrase “son of man” causes Caiaphus the high priest to tear garments – this is an implicit claim to deity

All disciples fled and weren’t there to hear the questioning at the Sandhedrin

Both Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea were present
There were other believers in the Sanhedrin
There were people who were servants of Caiaphus who became part of the early church (still looking for a source…)

The amount of time between when the actual events happened and when the Gospels were recorded

The largest gap is 60 years for the Bible which sounds like a lot until you look at the other Greco-Roman historians

Pliny the Elder – 700 year gap
Plutarch – 800 year gap
Josephus – 800 year gap
Polybius – 1200 year gap
Pausanias – 1400 year gap
Herodotus – 1500 year gap

We have an “embarrassment of riches” when it comes to the number of ancient manuscripts for scripture in comparison to other Greco-Roman ancient writings

4x more New Testament manuscripts in the first 200 years than in the average Greco-Roman author has in 2000 years
Average Greco-Roman author doesn’t have any manuscripts within 900 years of original writing
900 years after the New Testament, we have almost 1000 manuscripts

Errors in the copying of the manuscripts

Vast number of errors are in inconsequential words
None of the core beliefs or doctrines are affected
When people bring up “huge” number of errors, make them tell you where they are.
Dan Wallace and Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts has the best library of all the manuscripts that have been found in the ancient world, including photographs
Variants are counted by how many documents have the variation. Someone could claim “1600 variants” when it is a single word that is misspelled in 1600 copies.
THE MORE DOCUMENTS YOU HAVE TO COMPARE, THE MORE VARIANTS YOU CAN CLAIM!!!

No other ancient document can have as many “variants” because no other ancient author has as many copies of their writing.

“There are more variations in the New Testament documents than there are words in the New Testament” – Bart Ehrman

See the point above – even if all have the same variant (like a misspelling), each document is considered it’s own variant.
Theoretically, you could have a million documents all with the same misspelling, and it would be considered a million variants.

Some Gospels say that there was one angel at the tomb, another says there were 2 angels

None of them are confused about the tomb being empty! This is evidence of real eye-witness testimony, not Biblical errors
The church could have changed these discrepancies in the 2000 years of copying. The fact that the church left these discrepancies in is proof of their commitment to faithfully copying the texts as they were passed down.

What is a more balanced way to look at some of the textual variants

Realize that the Bible is the best, most well documented book in ancient history. If we discount or discredit it, we have to ignore ALL of ancient history

People/Resources mentioned:

Justin Bass – did the debate with Bart Ehrman See it here
Daryl Bock – Dallas Theological Seminary professor; wrote Truth in a Culture of Doubt (see Rebekah’s book review here)
Truth in a Culture of Doubt – book by Daryl Bock, a critique of Bart Ehrman’s textual criticism
Dan Wallace – Dallas Theological Professor – Head of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (www.csntm.org)
Dan Wallace/Bart Ehrman debate video – this looks like it’s 3 hours, but it’s really under 2. Whoever uploaded it accidentally duplicated it. This is not the one where Justin asked his question. That debate is only available via purchase here.
Dan Barker – Freedom From Religion Foundation – admitted that even if Jesus had been raised from the dead, he would sooner go to hell than be with Him (during Q and A of the Bible and Beer Consortium debate with Justin Bass)
Upcoming podcast on memory, how memories are recorded, and whether or not it matches the way the New Testament documents were recorded

Unfamiliar vocabulary

Hubris – excessive pride or self-confidence
Ethnocentrism – evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture.
Modus operandi (MO) – a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is characteristic or well-established.
Fundamentalism – there is no one definition, but it is essentially a form of belief where one holds dogmatically to both major and minor tenets of the faith and rejects any diversity of opinion aside from the in-group’s established interpretation.
Skeptical fundamentalist – questioning everything except one’s own questions. Doubting everything except one’s own doubts. Refusing to admit any truth to a claim unless it meets an unreasonable level of “evidence” which one would not apply to normal claims. This unreasonable expectation of evidence only applies to claims that one wants to be skeptical of.
Volitional doubt – an unwillingness to believe

Quotes:

“Democracy is the worst form of government in the world… except for all the other ones.” – Hillary’s Dad (who was probably quoting someone else)
“If your criteria for judging history rules out all of history, you need to reevaluate your criteria… especially if you are a historical scholar.” – Hillary
“10% of people think, 10% think they think, and the other 80% would rather die than think.” – Rock Bryant, my old small group leader

Recommended reading for follow up:

Rebekah and I both believe that the place to learn about these discrepancies is from you!! Don’t let them discover these discrepancies on their own, and especially not as late as college. Otherwise they begin to ask “what else have you been hiding from me?” Some great lay level recommended reading is:

Books

Cold Case Christianity – this is a great entry-level introduction to many of the classic Christian Apologetics arguments, including the reliability of the New Testament.
Cold Case Christianity now comes in a Children’s volume as well, so you and your kids can do each chapter together.
Teaching Others to Defend Christianity by Cathryn Buse – this is also a good overall apologetics book which includes sections on reliability of the New Testament. I would rank this book just slightly above entry-level. It is a good read for anyone who appreciates a very methodical, yet accessible approach. 
Truth in a Culture of Doubt – by Daryl Bock. In this intermediate-level book, Dr. Bock goes through the most common objections to the validity of the New Testament, most specifically Bart Ehrman.

Articles

Interview with Dan Wallace on New Testament Manuscripts – This will help explain what textual criticism is and how it applies to the New Testament
Is the New Testament Reliable – an intermediate level article by a great ministry called, “Stand to Reason”.

YouTubes

Intro to textual criticism – a rather lengthy YouTube packed with awesomeness by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace (2 hr 12 min)
Debate between Dr. Wallace and Dr. Ehrman – same as listed above (1 hr 50 min)
New Testament Biblical Reliability – this is a shorter YouTube of Dr. Wallace’s research (about 35 minutes)
Did the Early Scribes Corrupt the New Testament – also by Dr Wallace (because he’s THE most authoritative guy out there on the subject)

Recommended scholars – these are scholars that Rebekah and I know to be reliabile, authoritative, and we highly recommend them. However, we may not be able to speak to all their books as having read them ourselves. In general, I would categorize them as intermediate to advanced level.

Anything by Daniel B. Wallace of course
F.F. Bruce
Bruce Metzger 
Craig A. Evans

Hillary Morgan Ferrer

Hillary Morgan Ferrer is the founder of Mama Bear Apologetics. She is the chief author and editor of Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies and Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design. Hillary has her masters in Biology and has been married to her husband, Dr. John D. Ferrer, for 15 years. Don’t let her cook for you. She’ll burn your house straight to the ground.

www.mamabearapologetics.com

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