In view of the large number of ancient New Testament Greek
texts and fragments – roughly 5800 – it is inevitable that there would be many
textual variants or differences among them. Bible skeptics insinuate that,
because of the many variants, that the teachings of the New Testament are
uncertain.
However, New Testament scholar, Daniel Wallace, is undaunted
by the variants:
·
“On the contrary, it [scholarship] has built it
[my faith]. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve
studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in
Jesus has been well placed…very well placed.”
Atheist/agnostic and head of the Religion Department of the
University of North Carolina, Bart Ehrman, may be the leading New Testament
critic today. He has made so much of the textual variants that he has become
very popular among his fellow atheists who proudly cite his many books.
However, even Ehrman admits:
·
“Even though we [the late New Testament scholar
and Princeton icon, Bruce Metzger, who had been Ehrman’s beloved mentor] may
disagree on important religious questions – he is a formerly committed
Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very
important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and
asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of
the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of
disagreement…The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually
stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian
beliefs are not affected by the textual variants in the manuscript tradition of
the New Testament.” (Misquoting Jesus,
252)
Metzger had stated:
·
“The modern New Testament is 99.5% free from
textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrines in doubt.”
However, Ehrman had wrongly named his book Misquoting Jesus, suggesting that the
Gospels must have misquoted Him. However, his above confession contradicts his
chosen title.
No comments:
Post a Comment