Loading...I’m in the midst of a thread on the textual variants of the New Testament, and whether they matter, and thought that it might be good to give an alternative perspective. On January 3rd, 2009, Peter J. Williams and I appeared as guests on the radio show “Unbelievable,” a weekly program on UK Premier Christian Radio, moderated by Justin Brierley. For this show we discussed my book “Misquoting Jesus” (In the UK the book, for some reason, is titled is “Whose Word Is It?”). Pete Williams is a British evangelical Christian scholar — a very smart one, who knows a *lot* about the manuscripts of the NT — who believes in the reliability of the New Testament and that thinks that my position is too pessimistic and extreme. He did his PhD at Cambridge. Peter is the author of Can We Trust the Gospels? and C S Lewis vs the New Atheists. Here’s our back and forth.
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Convincing argument especially your summation Dr. Ehrman. Gris for the mental mill, a touchstone of sorts to better distill my own beliefs. Thank you.
Dr. Ehrman – What is your reaction to this statement from Pete Williams: “Scripture could be certain without humans being certain about it….The important thing with scripture is not what humans think but what God thinks.”
This would seem to make sense only if scripture is not viewed as a communication from God to humans.
My view is that Scripture could be uncertain even if humans are certain about it. The important thing with Scripture is precisely what humans think, since neither Pete nor anyone else has any access to “what God thinks” (Pete doesn’t even have access to what *I* think!)
Hello Bart,
It was a pleasure chatting briefly with you at the KCL conference. I look forward to reading your thoughts on the conference and the Life of Brian.
Hon Wai
I find Dr Williams comments amazing in at least two ways.
He accepts there are textual variances including later additions eg The woman taken in adultery but still claims the bible is God’s word and inerrant. That text is preached universally in all Christian Churches as the words of Jesus. Even though the concept of he who is without sin cast the first stone is pretty amazing stuff.
Secondly as I have argued myself re the single mention of the trinity in John’s Gospel. This is a major doctrinal issue that Dr Williams doesn’t address and that is IF Jesus was not part of any trinity ie not the divine son of even God the Son as the Church believes then lots of the words of Jesus cannot to be said to be from the mouth of God but from the mouth of a man who was a first century Jew with his own ideas about divorce and remarriage which has plagued the Christian Church for 2000 years. It is that important to know the difference.
Also as deist I still cannot understand how most Religious people belittle the God of Creation by inserting their own prejudices that God just spoke to a few Jewish prophets and yet nothing recorded that God spoke directly to Jesus or anyone overheard such a conversation and yet somehow the ONLY words we have from him are contained in a mixmatch of old testament and new testament writings. ie God seems unable to speak to us directly today or even through the holy spirit that makes the bible and textual error redundant.
Jesus seemed able to speak to Paul on the road to Damascus a few years AFTER the resurrection and yet didn’t speak to Muhammad or any other leader of any world religion to put them all on the right path? Odd that Gabriel or Angel of the Lord corrected Daniel in the OT that the number of years between the first and second temple was written incorrectly by Daniel to start with.
I wonder why Bart doesn’t use the most obvious statement in the NT where Jesus said he was coming back in that generation to judge all the elect from the four corners of the world and with all his angels and the stars would fall from the sky etc. This not AD 70. Should that not prove that Jesus was mistaken and was an Apocalyptic Preacher, just like the Baptist John and nothing happened and so were in a long line of doom sayers who come along regularly? Dr Williams will surely know that St Paul wrote that the time of Jesus’s return was less than then when they first believed.
That single verse in MHO destroys the concept of the trinity and son of God doctrine and Messiah and basically the whole of Christian doctrine that surely cannot accept today that somehow God who created the whole universe needs someone to die for our sins when all we need to do is to say sorry Lord directly? Its often said God is like a Father to us and yet how many parents would not forgive their own kids no matter what they have done in their life because they love them? Would any parent say NO, I need someone else to take that on BEFORE we can forgive you?
Do we expect God’s love to be greater than ours or not?
Frankly my dear, organised religion makes no sense whatever..
Ask them all if God approved of Slavery, genocide and stoning Gays and Kids to death and see then Bart how they all pick and choose their sermons when preaching to their congregations including I suspect Dr Williams who incidentally was brain washed as a child into Christianity as he is doing to his children nowadays. What had he be born a Muslim and to be sent to eternal hell for not believing in Jesus?
Regards as usual,
Mike
This debate reminds me of the “debates” I have with my evangelical “friend” who considers herself an authority just because she graduated from the Princeton Seminary School ( but then was rejected for a ministership because she could not pass the “final exam.”). On the one hand, these variants are significant to you ( Bart) because they indicate and inerrancy in the Bible ( and consequently, this indicates that men have written the Bible, not God). To Professor Williams, these changes are “insignificant” and have little effect on the overall doctrine of Christianity. But it appears Professor Williams misses the point: if there are variations in the Bible, then where is the inerrancy? Where is the validation that this is the Word of God if there are errors and additional stories that originate from Scribes or the people behind the Scribes? So trying to demonstrate this inerrancy is an exercise in futility; however, I understand that you ( Bart) must promote the book, and seek out the opportunities to do so. It is important to shake the tree of the foundation of Christianity because, too often, they speak out on issues that we deal with in modern times by pointing to the book as the be-all, end-all answer to all questions. The bottom line is this: If God was the writer of the book, why was he so angry in the Old Testament? And why did he say so many things that were controversial, and allow so many changes to his inerrant book?
I know what I wanted to ask Dr Erhman which is about the prophesy of Jesus that he was coming back within a generation of those still living. Its probably more to do with the subsequent first generation church fathers writings following on from the apostles. Did none of them ask why Jesus didn’t come back as he said he would and how that didn’t weaken the Christian faith as one would think it would have done?
I would suspect that so much time and energy was placed on the newly emerged church including having an hierarchy and pecking order that they all somehow conveniently forgot those words and was self propagating for power and influence over others. Its why the second coming of Jesus was rarely preached as a doctrine in all my time going to different churches in the UK.
Even the old testament said that anyone that made prophesy and didn’t come true, none of their words should be listened to..My final point about Jesus being the divine Son or God himself makes little sense because anyone that had that purpose from the Creator God in bringing salvation to the ‘whole’ world would surely have gone to every corner of the globe incl the 5 continents. That would have truly meant a universal faith and Islam certainly could not have emerged as it did. Even so, God isn’t acting to stop it or any other faith for that matter. I wonder why IF hell awaits all those that haven’t been saved by Jesus?
On the other hand one could suggest none of is true and God doesn’t give a damn either way!
Yes, the church fathers wrestled long and hard with this problem, and came up with a variety of solutions. E.g., maybe the “end” came with the new age — so that the church represents the kingdom on earth. Or maybe God has postponed the end until more people can repent. Or maybe Jesus never actually predicted that the end would come. Etc. etc.!
Anyone find it strange that God selected a man who spoke a remote language that has to be interpreted with all the problems that entails as we have seen in this debate as well. Jesus was angry, no Jesus was compassionate. I thought lepers were not allowed anywhere near the mainstream and had to stay separated in a colony as they thought it was catching. How about God delaying salvation and the Gospel message for 2000 years and having someone like Billy Graham speaking in an almost universal tongue and videotaped as well? At least he got about a bit as well and not captive to one remote area as Jesus did.
Don’t mention demons vs epilepsy. Surely God knows the difference? 😉
No wonder Bart has become an Atheist. I can’t see how Dr Williams can say his cup runneth over with his new found textual discoveries that are clearly not error free. Oh just to say I thought Dr Williams attitude towards Bart’s books and experience in that radio programme was very condescending and poorly articulated.
Just to add what l meant by me re Dr Williams poorly articulated etc. No. they were articulated fine by Dr Williams but thought that because Bart had become an Atheist and he continued on as a Christian that he somehow had the moral intellectual high ground. At least that’s how it sounded to me.
Thanks Bart, appreciate your time in replying. Its a great honour ie if it is you and not an aid de camp etc! 😉
The same old problem is did Jesus use those words about the end of days or not and that’s questionable anyway but I guess most Christians eg 99% think the Gospels were written by the Disciples and are the ‘actual’ verbatim words of Jesus and so not sure how any serious Christian including the early Church Fathers and Dr Williams as well can then ‘reinterprete’ those words to mean anything other than in a literal way and especially when Paul believed them as did all Jesus’s disciples when he said the time of Jesus’s return was less than when they first believed and so IF these Christians read that by Paul, they would surely know it wasn’t the transfiguration nor the resurrection nor even a new age of belief.
CS Lewis said these words by Jesus were the most embarrassing ones in the whole NT apparently.
He also added that Jesus was either a madman/lunatic or whom he said he was. And therefore concluded he was the divine Son of God.
Had I been able to ask him I would have said what about him being just plain wrong? Deluded possibly as all latter day Preachers like Mormons are, when they keep renewing their end days predictions. 😉 The Preterists do think he came back in AD 70 but that did not fulfill the prophesy at all.
I think those words by Jesus started me on my skeptical journey AWAY from Christianity as well as the verse he spoke about “Ask anything in my name and God will do it to glorify both God and the Son.
Clearly wrong wrong wrong and in many ways contributed to many children dying by fundamentalist Christian parents especially Jehova’s Witnesses in withholding blood transfusions and Insulin etc. Its why its illegal to do that in the USA and UK nowadays but that’s religious text for you that’s bloody dangerous taken literally. My Wife who is still very much a Christian had a nervous breakdown believing in that very verse.
She was brought up with Christian Parents where I was not and shows the power AND danger of corrupting young minds with things that can’t be easily eliminated. Bart I think said in one of his presentations that I heard that a Scientist Friend who knew the Universe was 13bn years old was also someone who believed in a literal reading of Genesis which contradicted that view. How he reconciled that position I’m not sure?
The entire discussion misses the point: even if we did have the originals and if there were no problems in the text, that would not show that the Bible or New Testament was the Word of God. Peterson’s statement that it is not people’s certainty that counts but the certainty of God’s Word is ridiculous or, perhaps, sad. It sadly misses the existential responsibility people must take for believing in the biblical God in the first place and that He has communicated to us through the Bible. It is a circular argument and completely abstract: it doesn’t matter if God is certain or if His Word is certain if we cannot show that the Bible is indeed His Word or show any other way we can have it shown to us.
Yes, that is obviously the more important problem. But it’s important to keep issues straight: that is a *different* problem with a different set of criteria and data. He and I would disagree even *more* about that one.
Regarding the prophesy of Jesus that he was coming back within a generation of those still living, what Bible passage says this, and is this only passage in the NT which says this? I ask because I hear all Christians saying and believing this. If they did, they might consider not having too many children. Thanks in advance.
E.g., Mark 9:1 and Mark 13:30; reflected in 1 Thess 4 and 1 Cor. 15.
Look at a response to this issue:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/was-jesus-a-failed-eschatological-prophet
I find the arguments articulated in the above link by William Lane to actually to support your
argument; or at least, he’s admitting that many of the Biblical passages or words uttered by Jesus were pretty vague.
Words do not have intrinsic meaning. Words have ‘usages.’
That’s why synchronic and diachronic studies of ancient languages is important.