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Welcome to Mars Hill church.

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Jesus is using Mars Hill
to make disciples

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and plant churches
all over the world

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and this wouldn't be happening
without your help.

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Your gifts enable
what you're watching right now

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and help plant churches,
equip evangelists,

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and translate resources
and study materials

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for people who have never
had access to them before.

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Whether you're a part
of a local Mars Hill church

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or you're one of hundreds
of thousands of people

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listening and watching sermons
each and every week,

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you're a part of our global family
and I want to thank you.

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I encourage you to pray
about giving to Mars Hill.

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You make this content available
for free to anyone in the world,

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send out more pastors,
plant more churches,

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and bring the kingdom
of Jesus Christ to our world today.

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Thank you.

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All right Mars Hill,
Pastor Mark here.

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Really excited to introduce
to you one of our

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"Best Sermon Ever" preachers.

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I'm getting my summer break with
the family and we bring in

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some amazing guests.

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World-class Bible teachers
to love and serve

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and invest in you.

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Today we've got
Dr. Daniel Wallace.

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He is a professor on staff at
Dallas Theological Seminary,

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the alma mater of our very
own Pastor Dave Bruskas.

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Dr. Wallace is a great guy.

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He's been married for 40 years.

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He's got kids, he's got
grandkids, he surfs a bit,

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but he is one of the leading
Greek scholars on the earth.

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I'm really honored
that he would join us.

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One of the things that he is
working on is taking a photo

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of every page of every Greek
manuscript that there is.

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He's thorough so I'm
expecting this to be great,

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and whatever he has to share,
I'm sure it's going to help

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increase your love and trust in
the New Testament as God's word.

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So also, we always do a little
fun gag gift because he is one

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of the leading Greek scholars
on the earth, of course,

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we'll get him a DVD copy of
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

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and a gift certificate for
Greek frozen yogurt.

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Thanks Dr. Wallace.

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Well, with
an introduction like that,

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I'm sure there's one thing
on your mind:

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Is this guy gonna be boring?

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That's a question I have
on my mind too but I hope

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that won't be the case,
but we'll see.

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I wanted to introduce you to my
bride of 40 years, Pati Wallace.

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She's back there someplace.

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Can you--oh, there you are.

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Just--you can see this hand.

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Isn't that a lovely hand?

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It's a great miracle that
we are together after 40 years.

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It requires a great deal of
patience from a godly woman.

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And I'm thankful to her
and thankful to God

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that he gave her to me.

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We have a phrase that each one
of us uses about our marriage.

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I think of 40 years of being
married to her is

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"Taming of the Shrew."

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And she thinks of
"Raising Baby Huey."

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So, quite different
perspectives I guess.

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But nevertheless, we're still
together and I'm glad

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we could come back to this
part of the country.

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What I want to talk to you
about is what we have now,

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what they wrote then.

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I'm addressing the question of:
Is the Bible that we have

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in our hands today,
the New Testament in particular,

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does it go back to
where the Apostles

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and their associates wrote?

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Or has it been translated so
many times we have no idea what

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the original text said?

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To give you some perspective
on how important this issue is,

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that is the transmission and
the copies of the copies of

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the copies of the New Testament
over the centuries.

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I want to tell you a story about
a young monk

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by the name of Brother Andrew.

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He lived in Ireland
in the 8th Century

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and he had studied at what was
the equivalent of a seminary

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back in those days.

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And when he got done studying
the President of the seminary

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sent him on to a monastery where
he had spent the rest of his

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days functioning as a monk.

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Now, Brother Andrew was
the sort of fellow who was

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very detail-minded and he
wasn't given to teamwork.

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Not the kind of a guy
who was real sociable.

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In other words,
he was really anal.

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Is that okay to say here?

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This is Mars Hill, never mind.

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So, the president sent this
letter of recommendation with

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Brother Andrew, and he met
the abbot of the monastery,

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and the abbot looked
it over and said,

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"I have just the job
for you young man.

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"You're going to be copying out
the bylaws of our monastery.

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"We'll put you in
the scriptorium.

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"We've got a couple
copies of those.

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"Nobody's done this
work in decades.

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"So you just kind of compare
the manuscription and copy them

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accurately if you would."

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So, Brother Andrew was cheerful,
excited to go and do this work.

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He goes to the scriptorium,
starts copying out these

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manuscripts, and then
about 45 minutes later...

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[knocking]

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The abbot hears
a knock on his door.

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Brother Andrew opens
the door and says, "Holy Father,

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"I think there's a discrepancy
between these documents.

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Have you got some older
ones that I can look at?"

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The abbot said, "Yes, we do.

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"We haven't seen these
in a long, long time.

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"But we have some that are
a couple hundred years older

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than the ones
you're working with."

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So, the abbot showed him
where those manuscripts were,

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Brother Andrew started
copying those out.

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Again, 45 minutes later...

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[knocking]

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Another knock at the door.

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"Holy Father, there's
still some discrepancies.

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Have you got anything older
that I could look at?"

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And the Holy Father sized
him up and said,

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"Man, this guy really is anal."

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And so he said, "I'm gonna let
you do something that I've never

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"let a new monk ever do in
the history of this monastery.

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"I'm gonna take you into
the bowels of the library,

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"down a serpentine path, to
the subterranean archives room

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"where we have
the original documents.

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Nobody has seen
these in centuries."

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And so, he took him
down there and said,

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"Go ahead and start copying
out the original bylaws

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of the monastery."

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He figured he could
trust this fellow.

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About 30 minutes later,
all of a sudden,

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his door was pounded on
by 10 different hands.

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All the rest of the monks were
at his door and they said,

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"Holy Father, this new
monk has gone berserk.

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You got to come see
what's going on."

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So they all run down this
serpentine path to get to

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the bowels of the library,

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and they see Andrew
in there pounding his fist

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on the desk and weeping.

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"What's the matter young man?"

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He said, "They left
out the letter 'r.'"

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"Oh my gosh, this
guy really is anal."

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The word is supposed
to be "celebrate."

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You guys came in dead last.

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I mean, here they get
it, then they get it.

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I don't know what's wrong
with that part of the group.

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You all from Portland?

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How many people are
here from Portland?

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Okay, couple of you.

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I'll tell my jokes a little
slower for your sake.

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So--well, it is
kind of important,

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even down to the letters
sometimes when we think about

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the transmission of texts.

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Let me begin by quoting
from that famous scholar,

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Dan Brown, in his
"Da Vinci Code," where he says,

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"The Bible has evolved through
countless translations,

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"additions, and revisions.

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History has never had a
definitive version of the book."

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We all have heard that kind of
a statement: Has the Bible

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been translated and
re-translated so many times that

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we can't possibly get back
to the original?

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Well, that's gonna be a question
that we address to begin with,

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and we're gonna
look at, actually,

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four questions this hour.

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But we'll see how that
actually works out.

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But it's not just novelists who
are making this kind of claim.

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We also get atheists who
are saying the same thing.

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CJ Werleman wrote a book
called "Jesus Lied."

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Before that, he wrote
a book called, now get this,

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"God Hates You, Hate Him Back."

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This is a book written by
an atheist, "God Hates You."

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In other words, the one who
doesn't exist hates you

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so hate back the one
who doesn't exist.

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That's--I'm not sure what
the logic there is, but anyway,

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he certainly likes
provocative titles.

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And so in this book he said, "We
don't have any of the original

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manuscripts of the Bible,
the originals are lost."

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We don't know when
and we don't know by whom.

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What we have are
copies of copies.

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In some instances the copies we
have are 20th generation copies.

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It's not just novelists and
atheists who are saying this.

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Muslims, Muslim apologists,
Muslim intellectuals are saying

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something very similar.

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M.M. Al-Azami is
a British Muslim

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and his book, "The History of
the Qur'anic Text,

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from Revelation
to Compilation,"

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has been doing quite well
in Britain.

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In that book he says,
"The Orthodox Church,

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"being the sect which eventually
established supremacy over all

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"the others, stood in fervent
opposition to various ideas

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"also known as heresies, which
were in circulation.

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"These included adoptionism,

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"the notion that Jesus was not
God but a man,

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"Docetism, the opposite view
that he was God and not man,

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"and separationism,
that the divine and human

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elements of Jesus Christ
were two separate beings."

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What M.M. Al-Azami is claiming

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is that in the second,
third, and fourth centuries

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these views were
circulating, which is true.

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But he's also claiming that in
the original New Testament these

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views were part of the text, and
the New Testament is hopelessly

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filled with contradictions,
and the Orthodox Church sorted

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all this out and changed
the text to conform it

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to one view of Christ.

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So he goes on and says,
"In each case this sect,

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"the one that would rise to
become the Orthodox Church

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"deliberately corrupted
the Scriptures so as to reflect

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"its own theological visions of
Christ while demolishing that

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of all rival sects, especially
the deity of Christ."

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In other words, he is claiming
that the deity of Christ is

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not found in the original
New Testament

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but the Orthodox Church

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added that later by
corrupting the Scriptures.

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We'll examine that
issue in particular,

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but let me go to a source that
is one of the best sources

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that these folks used.

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In other words, this is what--
a popular book by

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Dr. Bart Ehrman called,
"Misquoting Jesus:

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The Story Behind Who Changed
the Bible and Why,"

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and he is a bonafide
New Testament scholar.

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His field is Textual Criticism,
the discipline of trying to

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ascertain the wording of
the original document

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when we no longer have
that original.

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I've known Bart for over
30 years, we're good friends,

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we've debated each
other three times,

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and we've worked on
projects together as well.

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And here's what he has to say in
this very popular book that

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came out in 2005, "Not only do
we not have the originals,

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"we don't have the first
copies of the originals.

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"We don't even have copies of
the copies of the originals

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or copies of the copies of
the copies of the originals."

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Sounds like
Werleman, doesn't it?

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We're waiting until 20 copies.

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Werleman took that
out of thin air.

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We have no idea where
he got that from,

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but this is the basis
that he's really using,

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Bart Ehrman's book.

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And Ehrman goes on
and he says,

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"The more I study the manuscript
tradition of the New Testament,

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00:11:51,250 --> 00:11:54,125
"the more I realize just how
radically the text

240
00:11:54,167 --> 00:11:56,000
"had been altered
over the years

241
00:11:56,083 --> 00:11:58,083
"at the hands of the scribes.

242
00:11:58,167 --> 00:12:00,833
"It would be wrong to say,
as people sometimes do,

243
00:12:00,917 --> 00:12:04,167
"that the changes in our text
have no real bearing on what

244
00:12:04,250 --> 00:12:07,500
"the texts mean or on
the theological conclusions

245
00:12:07,542 --> 00:12:09,500
that one draws from them."

246
00:12:09,542 --> 00:12:13,042
This sounds like M.M. Al-Azami.

247
00:12:13,125 --> 00:12:16,500
The Orthodox Church has changed
the text so much, so radically,

248
00:12:16,542 --> 00:12:19,583
that it's really been difficult
to try to get back to

249
00:12:19,667 --> 00:12:21,375
the original wording.

250
00:12:21,458 --> 00:12:24,375
In fact, it's changed who
Christ is in the hands

251
00:12:24,458 --> 00:12:26,042
of these scribes.

252
00:12:26,125 --> 00:12:28,375
Well, as we start looking
at these issues there's

253
00:12:28,458 --> 00:12:32,667
two attitudes to begin with that
I want all of us to avoid.

254
00:12:32,750 --> 00:12:36,792
The first attitude, and of
those of you are non-Christians,

255
00:12:36,833 --> 00:12:39,500
this is the one that you'd
probably be more tempted to

256
00:12:39,542 --> 00:12:41,542
follow is that of
"radical skepticism."

257
00:12:41,625 --> 00:12:43,958
"We can't possibly tell
what the original text said,

258
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:47,625
it's been translated so much
we have absolutely no idea."

259
00:12:47,667 --> 00:12:51,917
I will show, historically, why
that is a naive and foolish view

260
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:53,500
to hold to.

261
00:12:53,583 --> 00:12:56,500
It's one that is only
held by the ignorant,

262
00:12:56,583 --> 00:12:59,167
this radical skepticism.

263
00:12:59,250 --> 00:13:03,500
There's a view that Christians
typically succumb to and that's

264
00:13:03,542 --> 00:13:05,833
"absolute certainty."

265
00:13:05,917 --> 00:13:08,500
"The Bible I have in
my hands, this Bible,

266
00:13:08,542 --> 00:13:12,375
is exactly the word of
God in every single word."

267
00:13:12,458 --> 00:13:16,833
Well, that's a view that is also
unsupportable by the evidence.

268
00:13:16,917 --> 00:13:18,542
Let me just give
an illustration.

269
00:13:18,625 --> 00:13:21,500
If you use the NIV, it first
came out in 1984

270
00:13:21,542 --> 00:13:25,542
as a whole Bible, maybe you're
using now the NIV 2011.

271
00:13:25,625 --> 00:13:28,167
It's not only been
updated in the language,

272
00:13:28,250 --> 00:13:30,167
but in the textual basis.

273
00:13:30,250 --> 00:13:32,792
There are a few places,
about two dozen, not many,

274
00:13:32,833 --> 00:13:36,667
but about two dozen places,
where the wording has changed

275
00:13:36,708 --> 00:13:40,875
because of either new manuscript
evidence or because the scholar

276
00:13:40,958 --> 00:13:43,750
said, "We are now convinced that
this is the original wording

277
00:13:43,833 --> 00:13:46,000
of the New Testament
rather than that."

278
00:13:46,042 --> 00:13:49,917
And so if you have
a 1984 NIV and you said,

279
00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:53,417
"I'm absolutely certain this is
the word of God in every single

280
00:13:53,500 --> 00:13:56,500
respect," and 2011 NIV
and say the same thing,

281
00:13:56,542 --> 00:13:59,292
then you are filled with
contradiction yourself.

282
00:13:59,333 --> 00:14:02,500
We don't have absolute certainty
about what is exactly

283
00:14:02,542 --> 00:14:05,042
the word of God in every place.

284
00:14:05,125 --> 00:14:08,542
But there's an attitude that is
between this radical skepticism

285
00:14:08,625 --> 00:14:11,500
and absolute certainty, and I'll
show you where we should line up

286
00:14:11,542 --> 00:14:12,958
more closely.

287
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,250
But these are two extremes
that we really need to avoid.

288
00:14:16,333 --> 00:14:19,500
So there's four questions that I
want us to answer this morning.

289
00:14:19,542 --> 00:14:21,542
First is, how many textual
variants are there?

290
00:14:21,625 --> 00:14:24,292
That is, how many wording
differences do we have?

291
00:14:24,333 --> 00:14:26,500
This has to do with
the number of variants,

292
00:14:26,542 --> 00:14:28,792
number of differences.

293
00:14:28,833 --> 00:14:31,500
What kinds of textual
variants are there?

294
00:14:31,542 --> 00:14:34,375
Or the nature of variants, one
is dealing with the quantity of

295
00:14:34,458 --> 00:14:35,958
variants, the other
is the quality.

296
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:37,333
Are they important variants?

297
00:14:37,417 --> 00:14:39,542
Do they affect things
like the deity of Christ?

298
00:14:39,625 --> 00:14:42,167
If we have
100,000 textual variants,

299
00:14:42,208 --> 00:14:43,875
are they all important?

300
00:14:43,958 --> 00:14:46,208
Do they change who
Jesus Christ is?

301
00:14:46,292 --> 00:14:48,500
So, we can't possibly tell
what the original said.

302
00:14:48,542 --> 00:14:51,875
What theological beliefs depend
on textually suspect passages?

303
00:14:51,958 --> 00:14:54,167
We'll wrestle with that, which
is really dealing with

304
00:14:54,250 --> 00:14:56,417
the kinds of variants
of a particular nature.

305
00:14:56,500 --> 00:15:00,083
And finally, has the essence
of the Christian faith

306
00:15:00,167 --> 00:15:02,375
been corrupted by the scribes?

307
00:15:02,458 --> 00:15:04,542
That's really where
we want to end up.

308
00:15:04,625 --> 00:15:06,292
So you all ready?

309
00:15:06,333 --> 00:15:09,875
I'm glad to hear that because
I have a long preface,

310
00:15:09,958 --> 00:15:13,875
and then I deal with this first
question that goes about

311
00:15:13,958 --> 00:15:15,500
an hour, hour and a half.

312
00:15:15,542 --> 00:15:17,833
And then, deal with the other
three questions

313
00:15:17,917 --> 00:15:19,375
in about 20 minutes.

314
00:15:19,458 --> 00:15:21,583
So we'll be done--I'm
sure we'll be done by

315
00:15:21,667 --> 00:15:23,083
1, 1:30 p.m.,
something like that.

316
00:15:23,167 --> 00:15:24,500
So, all right.

317
00:15:24,542 --> 00:15:26,167
You guys think I'm joking.

318
00:15:26,250 --> 00:15:28,375
All right, let me begin with
a preliminary question:

319
00:15:28,458 --> 00:15:30,375
Don't we have the original
New Testament anymore?

320
00:15:30,458 --> 00:15:32,583
The answer is no, we don't.

321
00:15:32,667 --> 00:15:35,750
If we did, then the discipline
known as Textual Criticism

322
00:15:35,833 --> 00:15:37,292
would not be necessary.

323
00:15:37,333 --> 00:15:39,500
We could just look
at the original text.

324
00:15:39,542 --> 00:15:42,292
The original New Testament,
originally 27 different

325
00:15:42,333 --> 00:15:45,375
documents sent to various
churches and individuals,

326
00:15:45,458 --> 00:15:48,500
were all written on papyrus.

327
00:15:48,583 --> 00:15:50,625
Papyrus is an ancient
form of paper.

328
00:15:50,667 --> 00:15:54,708
And that papyrus would be made
from strips of papyrus reeds

329
00:15:54,792 --> 00:15:56,792
that would be
hammered so you have

330
00:15:56,833 --> 00:15:58,417
all these vertical fibers
this way.

331
00:15:58,500 --> 00:16:00,542
They'd lay it out
flat, hammer it out,

332
00:16:00,625 --> 00:16:04,583
and then they'd get some more
reeds and lay it in a diagonal,

333
00:16:04,667 --> 00:16:09,167
so you have now horizontal
fibers that would be naturally

334
00:16:09,208 --> 00:16:12,042
glued to these vertical fibers,
and then they'd cut this into

335
00:16:12,125 --> 00:16:15,333
long rolls so they could
have a papyrus scroll.

336
00:16:15,417 --> 00:16:18,667
That's how ancient books
used to be written.

337
00:16:18,708 --> 00:16:22,000
And so, they always wrote only
on the inside of the scroll,

338
00:16:22,042 --> 00:16:24,167
this is going to be
important for later on.

339
00:16:24,250 --> 00:16:25,875
They wrote only on those
horizontal fibers

340
00:16:25,958 --> 00:16:28,375
and the outside of the scroll
were the vertical ones;

341
00:16:28,458 --> 00:16:30,375
those would be too hard
to write on

342
00:16:30,458 --> 00:16:32,167
so they just wrote
on the inside.

343
00:16:32,208 --> 00:16:34,000
That's what
the New Testament documents

344
00:16:34,042 --> 00:16:35,375
were originally written on.

345
00:16:35,458 --> 00:16:38,667
We don't have New Testament
documents written on scrolls.

346
00:16:38,750 --> 00:16:42,333
All of them are written on
what's called a "codex" like

347
00:16:42,417 --> 00:16:45,333
this, where it's bound on one
side and it's got cut pages,

348
00:16:45,417 --> 00:16:46,708
you know, like this.

349
00:16:46,792 --> 00:16:50,417
Some of you have seen this kind
of a thing known as a book.

350
00:16:50,500 --> 00:16:53,417
Most of you, because I think
this is a younger audience than

351
00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:55,208
the first hour, have not.

352
00:16:55,292 --> 00:16:59,208
You're used to that retro
design known as a scroll

353
00:16:59,292 --> 00:17:01,000
on your computer.

354
00:17:01,042 --> 00:17:03,542
But this is a book; it's
actually more advanced than

355
00:17:03,625 --> 00:17:05,167
scrolling, but nevertheless.

356
00:17:05,208 --> 00:17:07,292
We don't have the original

357
00:17:07,333 --> 00:17:09,500
New Testament documents
anymore.

358
00:17:09,542 --> 00:17:11,667
Well, what about the many
Scriptures we do have?

359
00:17:11,708 --> 00:17:13,042
Don't they all agree?

360
00:17:13,125 --> 00:17:15,042
Don't they all say
exactly the same thing?

361
00:17:15,125 --> 00:17:16,542
And consequently
we can say,

362
00:17:16,625 --> 00:17:18,542
"Well, that tells us what
the original said."

363
00:17:18,625 --> 00:17:19,958
No, they don't all agree.

364
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,167
In fact, there's no
two New Testament manuscripts

365
00:17:22,208 --> 00:17:24,958
that agree exactly
and completely.

366
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,250
If you look at
the two very old, very, very

367
00:17:28,333 --> 00:17:31,875
important manuscripts,
through the first 8 centuries

368
00:17:31,958 --> 00:17:35,458
that are more closely related
to each other than any other

369
00:17:35,500 --> 00:17:38,167
manuscripts through
those first 800 years,

370
00:17:38,208 --> 00:17:43,167
they have between 6 and 10
differences per chapter.

371
00:17:43,208 --> 00:17:45,792
Well, if you were to multiply
that out by the whole

372
00:17:45,833 --> 00:17:48,167
New Testament, 260 chapters,
you'd have about

373
00:17:48,250 --> 00:17:52,333
2,000 differences between
the two most closely related

374
00:17:52,375 --> 00:17:53,833
early manuscripts.

375
00:17:53,875 --> 00:17:56,333
Now, what happens when we have
all these other manuscripts

376
00:17:56,375 --> 00:17:58,292
that are not nearly as
closely related?

377
00:17:58,333 --> 00:18:01,292
We have thousands upon
thousands of differences

378
00:18:01,333 --> 00:18:03,042
in these manuscripts.

379
00:18:03,125 --> 00:18:05,375
Precisely because of the
disappearance of the originals

380
00:18:05,458 --> 00:18:09,375
and because of the differences
among the manuscripts,

381
00:18:09,458 --> 00:18:12,500
we have to try to compare these
manuscripts and do what's called

382
00:18:12,542 --> 00:18:16,250
textual criticism to get back
to the original New Testament.

383
00:18:16,333 --> 00:18:18,667
So, we're ready for
that first question,

384
00:18:18,750 --> 00:18:20,958
the number of variants,
and let me just define

385
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:22,583
what a variant is again.

386
00:18:22,667 --> 00:18:25,083
It's any place among the
manuscripts in which there is

387
00:18:25,167 --> 00:18:28,083
variation in wording including:
word order, omission,

388
00:18:28,167 --> 00:18:30,792
or addition of words,
even spelling differences.

389
00:18:30,833 --> 00:18:35,000
The minor spelling differences
that can't even be translated;

390
00:18:35,042 --> 00:18:39,000
those all count as a textual
difference or a textual variant.

391
00:18:39,042 --> 00:18:41,667
So, how many
variants do we have?

392
00:18:41,750 --> 00:18:45,292
There's a way to put this in
perspective and we can start by

393
00:18:45,333 --> 00:18:49,167
counting how many words we have
in the Greek New Testament.

394
00:18:49,250 --> 00:18:52,542
There's approximately
140,000 words

395
00:18:52,625 --> 00:18:54,375
in the Greek New Testament.

396
00:18:54,458 --> 00:18:59,792
To be more precise,
there's 138,162.

397
00:18:59,833 --> 00:19:02,333
That'll be a bonus
question on the quiz.

398
00:19:02,417 --> 00:19:04,917
Don't ask me how I
know that number,

399
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,042
but I have some affinity
with Brother Andrew.

400
00:19:08,125 --> 00:19:12,250
So, how many
variants do we have?

401
00:19:12,333 --> 00:19:17,000
Well the number
is about 400,000.

402
00:19:17,083 --> 00:19:19,333
So we have approximately
two and a half variants

403
00:19:19,417 --> 00:19:21,833
for every word in
the New Testament on average.

404
00:19:21,917 --> 00:19:23,250
Well that's great news.

405
00:19:23,333 --> 00:19:25,917
Let's close with
prayer, shall we?

406
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:27,917
If this is
all the evidence we had,

407
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:29,417
we'd all be
Chicken Littles saying,

408
00:19:29,500 --> 00:19:31,417
"We can't possibly get
back to the original."

409
00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:33,042
We'd all hold to
radical skepticism,

410
00:19:33,125 --> 00:19:36,042
and that's what these radical
skeptics want you to see.

411
00:19:36,125 --> 00:19:38,542
They don't want to tell
you, as Paul Harvey says,

412
00:19:38,625 --> 00:19:39,958
"The rest of the story."

413
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:41,833
But that's where we'll go here.

414
00:19:41,917 --> 00:19:45,458
The reason that we have a lot of
textual variants is very simple.

415
00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:50,375
We have a lot of manuscripts,
a lot of manuscripts.

416
00:19:50,458 --> 00:19:53,083
Back in the year 1713,

417
00:19:53,167 --> 00:19:55,500
Richard Bentley
wrote a book called,

418
00:19:55,542 --> 00:19:58,167
"Remarks on a Discourse
of Free-Thinking."

419
00:19:58,250 --> 00:20:01,250
He was an Oxford-trained scholar
who worked in New Testament

420
00:20:01,333 --> 00:20:04,875
manuscripts and he was talking
about a book that had just been

421
00:20:04,958 --> 00:20:10,542
published in 1707 by John Mill,
a man who spent 30 years

422
00:20:10,625 --> 00:20:14,250
of his life looking at as many
manuscripts of the New Testament

423
00:20:14,333 --> 00:20:16,458
as he possibly could.

424
00:20:16,500 --> 00:20:20,167
And also looking at ancient
translations and quotations by

425
00:20:20,250 --> 00:20:23,583
the church fathers, Mill spent
30 years and produced

426
00:20:23,667 --> 00:20:28,292
30,000 textual variants that he
put into the footnotes of this

427
00:20:28,333 --> 00:20:31,167
Greek New Testament,
2-volume Greek New Testament.

428
00:20:31,208 --> 00:20:35,833
When that got published in 1707,
Romans Catholics looked at that

429
00:20:35,917 --> 00:20:38,042
and they scorned him.

430
00:20:38,125 --> 00:20:41,542
They said, "Look, you guys
have a Protestant Pope,

431
00:20:41,625 --> 00:20:43,250
"it's called
the Greek New Testament,

432
00:20:43,333 --> 00:20:44,750
"but your Pope has footnotes.

433
00:20:44,833 --> 00:20:47,708
"He has--well maybe I said
this instead of this.

434
00:20:47,792 --> 00:20:49,625
Our Pope doesn't do that."

435
00:20:49,667 --> 00:20:52,625
And Protestants looked at
John Mills work and they said,

436
00:20:52,667 --> 00:20:55,667
"This is the work of the
devil, to show these variants."

437
00:20:55,750 --> 00:20:58,625
Mill was looking at
historical data--

438
00:20:58,667 --> 00:21:00,792
that's never the work
of the devil.

439
00:21:00,833 --> 00:21:04,167
Pursuing truth is never
the work of the devil.

440
00:21:04,250 --> 00:21:08,583
But Mill did not defend himself,
he didn't even spend a word

441
00:21:08,667 --> 00:21:12,000
in defense because 2 weeks
after he got his volume,

442
00:21:12,042 --> 00:21:13,667
his magnum opus,
published, he died.

443
00:21:13,708 --> 00:21:15,583
So he avoided all
the critics that way.

444
00:21:15,667 --> 00:21:18,583
That's exactly the timing I
want to have for my last book,

445
00:21:18,667 --> 00:21:21,375
is die 2 weeks later.

446
00:21:21,458 --> 00:21:24,458
But Richard Bentley took
up the mantle and he said,

447
00:21:24,500 --> 00:21:26,167
"If there had been
but one manuscript

448
00:21:26,250 --> 00:21:28,542
"of the Greek Testament
at the restoration of learning

449
00:21:28,625 --> 00:21:30,000
"about 2 centuries ago,

450
00:21:30,042 --> 00:21:33,250
then we would have had
no various readings at all."

451
00:21:33,333 --> 00:21:37,458
Back when the first Greek
New Testament was published

452
00:21:37,500 --> 00:21:40,542
on a printing press in 1516,
that's what he's referring to,

453
00:21:40,625 --> 00:21:44,583
it was based on 7 manuscripts
but they only printed the text,

454
00:21:44,667 --> 00:21:46,833
they didn't talk
about the variants.

455
00:21:46,875 --> 00:21:49,333
There weren't that many
variants, but he basically said,

456
00:21:49,375 --> 00:21:52,500
"Would the text be in a better
condition then than it is now

457
00:21:52,583 --> 00:21:55,000
"that we have
30,000 variant readings

458
00:21:55,083 --> 00:21:57,292
that Mill has discovered?"

459
00:21:57,333 --> 00:22:00,167
His argument is, "No, if you
have just one manuscript

460
00:22:00,250 --> 00:22:01,750
"you have no variants.

461
00:22:01,833 --> 00:22:03,167
"You have another manuscript,

462
00:22:03,208 --> 00:22:05,333
"you can compare these
things and you start seeing

463
00:22:05,417 --> 00:22:07,333
"the differences, and you can
start thinking about

464
00:22:07,417 --> 00:22:11,917
which reading gave
rise to the other."

465
00:22:13,333 --> 00:22:16,500
There's so many examples I could
use but I'm just gonna use one

466
00:22:16,542 --> 00:22:17,875
very, very quickly.

467
00:22:17,958 --> 00:22:20,667
In Romans chapter 8, verse 1,
our earliest manuscripts have

468
00:22:20,750 --> 00:22:24,667
this wording, "There's therefore
now no condemnation for those

469
00:22:24,708 --> 00:22:26,292
who are in Christ Jesus."

470
00:22:26,333 --> 00:22:27,750
Period.

471
00:22:27,833 --> 00:22:29,167
End of story.

472
00:22:29,208 --> 00:22:30,542
Isn't that great news?

473
00:22:30,625 --> 00:22:32,583
If you're in Christ
you're not waiting for

474
00:22:32,667 --> 00:22:34,000
the other shoe to drop.

475
00:22:34,042 --> 00:22:35,667
You're not under
the wrath of God.

476
00:22:35,750 --> 00:22:38,292
He poured all of his
wrath out on his Son

477
00:22:38,333 --> 00:22:41,167
so that we could live with him.

478
00:22:41,250 --> 00:22:44,875
But if you're not in Christ then
God's wrath still abides on you.

479
00:22:44,958 --> 00:22:49,583
And so, scribes were concerned
about how people would react to

480
00:22:49,667 --> 00:22:52,625
that and thought, "Maybe they're
going to try to live

481
00:22:52,667 --> 00:22:55,125
a certain way that
we don't appreciate."

482
00:22:55,167 --> 00:22:58,500
So, they added something
about 3 centuries later.

483
00:22:58,542 --> 00:23:01,042
And so now the text read
in these later manuscripts,

484
00:23:01,125 --> 00:23:03,667
"There's therefore now no
condemnation for those who are

485
00:23:03,708 --> 00:23:07,958
in Christ Jesus who do not
walk according to the flesh."

486
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:09,875
And then later scribes
said, "That's not enough.

487
00:23:09,958 --> 00:23:12,375
We have to have a positive
statement in there too."

488
00:23:12,458 --> 00:23:15,083
And so the fullest version,
which by the way we find

489
00:23:15,167 --> 00:23:16,792
in the King James Bible is,

490
00:23:16,833 --> 00:23:18,583
"There's therefore
now no condemnation

491
00:23:18,667 --> 00:23:21,333
"for those who do not walk
according to the flesh

492
00:23:21,417 --> 00:23:23,875
but do walk according
to the spirit."

493
00:23:23,958 --> 00:23:27,292
So those last two phrases
were added centuries later.

494
00:23:27,333 --> 00:23:30,667
Bentley said, "When you compare
these manuscripts you can look

495
00:23:30,708 --> 00:23:33,292
"at the date of the manuscripts,
the wording of the manuscripts,

496
00:23:33,333 --> 00:23:36,500
you can determine which wording
gave rise to the others."

497
00:23:36,542 --> 00:23:39,000
And it's pretty obvious that
scribes wanted to add

498
00:23:39,042 --> 00:23:42,250
those things to
the free grace of God,

499
00:23:42,333 --> 00:23:45,583
and Paul originally
did not say it.

500
00:23:45,667 --> 00:23:48,667
So, Bentley goes and says, "It's
good therefore to have more

501
00:23:48,750 --> 00:23:51,208
"anchors than one and another
manuscript to join the first

502
00:23:51,292 --> 00:23:54,917
would give more authority
as well as security."

503
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,083
Well how many manuscripts have
we discovered since that day?

504
00:23:58,167 --> 00:24:00,167
How many textual
variants do we have?

505
00:24:00,250 --> 00:24:06,500
We had 30,000 in Mill's day, now
300 years later we have 400,000.

506
00:24:06,542 --> 00:24:10,000
Let me talk to you about the
number of manuscripts we've got.

507
00:24:10,042 --> 00:24:17,000
We have officially 5,839 Greek
New Testament manuscripts.

508
00:24:17,042 --> 00:24:19,667
Folks, that is a huge number,

509
00:24:19,750 --> 00:24:22,333
and they're not all
tiny fragments either.

510
00:24:22,417 --> 00:24:24,583
The average sized Greek
New Testament manuscript,

511
00:24:24,667 --> 00:24:27,042
we're talking about a document
handwritten before the time of

512
00:24:27,125 --> 00:24:31,792
the printing press,
is 459 pages long.

513
00:24:31,833 --> 00:24:36,292
There are more than 2.6 million
pages of these manuscripts,

514
00:24:36,333 --> 00:24:38,750
and I know this not
because I counted them up,

515
00:24:38,833 --> 00:24:43,083
but I asked my wife to
when we were on Sabbatical

516
00:24:43,167 --> 00:24:44,542
in Germany for a year.

517
00:24:44,625 --> 00:24:46,042
And she said, "I am bored."

518
00:24:46,125 --> 00:24:48,500
So I said, "Okay, here's
a little job for you."

519
00:24:48,583 --> 00:24:51,208
And so she went through this
catalog of all the known

520
00:24:51,292 --> 00:24:53,792
Greek New Testament manuscripts
and keyed in all the data,

521
00:24:53,833 --> 00:24:56,500
so now I can talk about how
many manuscripts there are.

522
00:24:56,583 --> 00:24:58,208
And I look really impressive
that way

523
00:24:58,292 --> 00:25:00,042
when I did none of the work.

524
00:25:00,125 --> 00:25:04,583
But 5,839 manuscripts,
459 pages for the average size,

525
00:25:04,667 --> 00:25:07,167
2.6 million pages
of manuscripts.

526
00:25:07,250 --> 00:25:09,083
My institute,
The Center for the Study

527
00:25:09,167 --> 00:25:12,167
of New Testament Manuscripts,
CSNTM,

528
00:25:12,250 --> 00:25:14,667
is trying to digitize
these manuscripts.

529
00:25:14,750 --> 00:25:18,333
We have photographed
so far 300,000 pages.

530
00:25:18,417 --> 00:25:20,875
There's 2.6 million pages
all together.

531
00:25:20,958 --> 00:25:24,375
And what that means is
it is great job security.

532
00:25:24,458 --> 00:25:28,375
Now, the New Testament
was, early on,

533
00:25:28,458 --> 00:25:30,583
translated into other languages.

534
00:25:30,667 --> 00:25:33,375
The first one was Latin,
and then Coptic, and Syriac,

535
00:25:33,458 --> 00:25:36,292
and Georgian,
and Ethioptican, Armenian,

536
00:25:36,333 --> 00:25:38,375
and Old Church Slavonic.

537
00:25:38,458 --> 00:25:41,792
Latin manuscripts we have today,
handwritten manuscripts

538
00:25:41,833 --> 00:25:45,000
of the New Testament,
more than 10,000.

539
00:25:45,042 --> 00:25:48,208
Why do we have more in
Latin than we have in Greek?

540
00:25:48,292 --> 00:25:51,625
Because Western Europe started
to use Latin

541
00:25:51,667 --> 00:25:54,125
as the lingua franca starting in
the 4th century.

542
00:25:54,167 --> 00:25:58,708
At that point, Greek started to
have far less control because

543
00:25:58,792 --> 00:26:02,375
the emperor, Constantine,
moved the empire, the capital,

544
00:26:02,458 --> 00:26:06,375
from Rome to Constantinople,
or today's Istanbul.

545
00:26:06,458 --> 00:26:08,375
And Greek started to have
a shrinking influence,

546
00:26:08,458 --> 00:26:10,042
Latin had
a broadening influence,

547
00:26:10,125 --> 00:26:13,292
and so we have more manuscripts
in Latin than we do in Greek.

548
00:26:13,333 --> 00:26:15,458
And when you think about
other ancient versions

549
00:26:15,500 --> 00:26:18,167
or translations, we have between
5,000 and 10,000 of those,

550
00:26:18,250 --> 00:26:21,000
nobody knows the exact number;
it's probably a lot higher than

551
00:26:21,042 --> 00:26:24,167
that but these are conservative
estimates that I have used

552
00:26:24,250 --> 00:26:26,000
in debates with skeptics

553
00:26:26,042 --> 00:26:28,167
and they have not
been able to refute them.

554
00:26:28,250 --> 00:26:30,375
This means we have 20,000
to 25,000 manuscripts

555
00:26:30,458 --> 00:26:33,750
of the New Testament
that all are important

556
00:26:33,833 --> 00:26:36,958
for us to try to get back to
the wording of the original.

557
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:38,583
That's a lot of
manuscripts, folks.

558
00:26:38,667 --> 00:26:42,500
And yet if I had a magic wand
that could wipe all those out in

559
00:26:42,542 --> 00:26:47,583
one fell swoop, we would still
not be left without a witness.

560
00:26:47,667 --> 00:26:50,500
And that's because of people
known as "The Church Fathers,"

561
00:26:50,583 --> 00:26:52,333
patristic writers.

562
00:26:52,375 --> 00:26:55,417
People like Jerome,
and Origin, and Christensen,

563
00:26:55,500 --> 00:26:59,708
and others who wrote
commentaries, and homilies,

564
00:26:59,792 --> 00:27:01,875
and theological treatises.

565
00:27:01,958 --> 00:27:05,083
And these folks did not
have the gift of brevity.

566
00:27:05,167 --> 00:27:07,792
They would quote a verse of
Scripture and then go on

567
00:27:07,833 --> 00:27:12,000
for two pages commenting on
what that text meant.

568
00:27:12,042 --> 00:27:15,167
If we wiped out all
of these manuscripts,

569
00:27:15,208 --> 00:27:17,667
we would still be able to
produce virtually

570
00:27:17,708 --> 00:27:20,833
the entire New Testament
many, many times over

571
00:27:20,917 --> 00:27:24,083
just from the quotations
of the Church Fathers,

572
00:27:24,167 --> 00:27:27,500
because we have
over a million quotations

573
00:27:27,542 --> 00:27:30,583
of the New Testament from
these Church Fathers today.

574
00:27:30,667 --> 00:27:32,000
That's astounding.

575
00:27:32,042 --> 00:27:35,167
I don't know how many times
we could reproduce

576
00:27:35,208 --> 00:27:37,667
the New Testament from their
writings because we have

577
00:27:37,708 --> 00:27:41,167
7,941 verses
in the New Testament

578
00:27:41,250 --> 00:27:44,875
and we see that they were
quoting from it a million times.

579
00:27:44,958 --> 00:27:48,375
I don't know what it comes
out to, but it's a lot.

580
00:27:48,458 --> 00:27:50,375
So let's think about
comparing--

581
00:27:50,458 --> 00:27:52,125
here's the data for
the New Testament.

582
00:27:52,167 --> 00:27:55,917
Let's compare this to
the average classical work,

583
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,667
the average Greek or
Latin scholar, author.

584
00:27:59,750 --> 00:28:05,667
And we have at most about
20 copies of the average

585
00:28:05,708 --> 00:28:08,583
classical Greek authors
still in existence.

586
00:28:08,667 --> 00:28:11,083
In other words,
some ancient author.

587
00:28:11,167 --> 00:28:13,792
You get Plato, we may have
20 copies of his writings,

588
00:28:13,833 --> 00:28:15,167
that's it.

589
00:28:15,250 --> 00:28:17,667
We stack it up, it'd
be about 4 feet high.

590
00:28:17,750 --> 00:28:19,292
Now actually, that's
a generous estimate.

591
00:28:19,333 --> 00:28:21,792
Usually we have two to three
copies from these authors,

592
00:28:21,833 --> 00:28:23,167
from the average.

593
00:28:23,250 --> 00:28:24,583
The greatest is Homer.

594
00:28:24,667 --> 00:28:26,833
We have about
almost 2,000 copies

595
00:28:26,917 --> 00:28:28,333
of Homer's writings,

596
00:28:28,417 --> 00:28:32,750
and so Homer comes in at less
than 10% of what we have

597
00:28:32,833 --> 00:28:34,542
for the New Testament.

598
00:28:34,625 --> 00:28:37,167
But he has a 900-year head start
on the New Testament.

599
00:28:37,250 --> 00:28:38,583
It's remarkable.

600
00:28:38,667 --> 00:28:40,792
It just doesn't matter
how you look at this.

601
00:28:40,833 --> 00:28:44,000
The New Testament, far and away,
is the best attested

602
00:28:44,042 --> 00:28:47,500
ancient document
from the Greco-Roman world.

603
00:28:47,542 --> 00:28:50,583
Well let's just compare these
two a little bit, if you would.

604
00:28:50,667 --> 00:28:54,000
And let's think about how high
this stack would be of just

605
00:28:54,042 --> 00:28:57,167
average classical text
versus the New Testament.

606
00:28:57,208 --> 00:29:01,708
Yeah, we need to make
it a little higher.

607
00:29:05,208 --> 00:29:07,625
That's as much as I wanted
to do in PowerPoint.

608
00:29:07,667 --> 00:29:10,542
I was getting tired.

609
00:29:10,625 --> 00:29:12,917
That stack of New Testament
documents is still not

610
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:14,833
the total number.

611
00:29:14,917 --> 00:29:21,250
You multiply that size by 10,
and what we have is a stack of

612
00:29:21,333 --> 00:29:26,542
New Testament manuscripts that
goes up more than a mile high;

613
00:29:26,625 --> 00:29:30,208
6,600 feet high for
New Testament manuscripts,

614
00:29:30,292 --> 00:29:33,208
4 feet high for
the average classical author.

615
00:29:33,292 --> 00:29:35,208
Do we have
an embarrassment of riches?

616
00:29:35,292 --> 00:29:36,958
Oh, we sure do.

617
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,750
In fact, on the basis of
manuscript evidence we can say

618
00:29:39,833 --> 00:29:43,833
that we have 1,000 times more
evidence that Jesus Christ

619
00:29:43,875 --> 00:29:48,750
existed than we do that
Alexander the Great existed.

620
00:29:48,833 --> 00:29:51,500
In fact, were waiting
almost 1,000 years before

621
00:29:51,542 --> 00:29:53,667
we get our earliest
manuscripts that tell us

622
00:29:53,750 --> 00:29:56,667
that Alexander the Great
existed and did things.

623
00:29:56,750 --> 00:29:59,375
How long are we waiting before
we see the earliest manuscripts

624
00:29:59,458 --> 00:30:00,792
of the New Testament?

625
00:30:00,833 --> 00:30:02,833
Well, not quite 1,000 years.

626
00:30:02,917 --> 00:30:05,000
It's a little bit
shorter than that.

627
00:30:05,042 --> 00:30:07,667
Let me just compare this
to some specific authors.

628
00:30:07,750 --> 00:30:10,167
Pliny the Elder, we're waiting
700 years before we get

629
00:30:10,250 --> 00:30:13,292
a single copy, and then we get
very few of these.

630
00:30:13,333 --> 00:30:16,583
Plutarch, I think we have
200 copies of Plutarch,

631
00:30:16,667 --> 00:30:19,667
which is very, very high
for a classical author.

632
00:30:19,708 --> 00:30:22,333
But we're waiting 800 years
after Plutarch wrote

633
00:30:22,417 --> 00:30:24,875
before we get any copies at all.

634
00:30:24,958 --> 00:30:28,792
Josephus, we have five books of
his: "Antiquities of the Jews,"

635
00:30:28,833 --> 00:30:31,667
where he speaks about
this guy named Jesus,

636
00:30:31,750 --> 00:30:33,583
and his brother James,

637
00:30:33,667 --> 00:30:35,333
and a fellow named
John the Baptist.

638
00:30:35,417 --> 00:30:37,167
Why do we have five books?

639
00:30:37,250 --> 00:30:40,583
Because that's the most popular
work by Josephus because of

640
00:30:40,667 --> 00:30:42,500
those three people.

641
00:30:42,542 --> 00:30:44,250
Christians copied out the text.

642
00:30:44,333 --> 00:30:47,708
We're waiting 800 years before
we see the first copy of

643
00:30:47,792 --> 00:30:49,500
"Antiquities of the Jews."

644
00:30:49,542 --> 00:30:51,833
Polybius, 1,200 years;
Pausanias, 1,400;

645
00:30:51,875 --> 00:30:54,125
Herodotus, we're waiting--

646
00:30:54,167 --> 00:30:56,292
He's one of the two great
ancient historians writing

647
00:30:56,333 --> 00:31:01,042
in the 5th century B.C.,
and really set the path

648
00:31:01,125 --> 00:31:03,500
on how history needs to be done.

649
00:31:03,542 --> 00:31:07,167
We're waiting 1,500 years before
we get a copy of any

650
00:31:07,250 --> 00:31:09,875
substantial size, more than just
a tiny fragment.

651
00:31:09,958 --> 00:31:13,000
Fifteen-hundred years.

652
00:31:13,042 --> 00:31:17,333
Herodotus scholars though, say,
"What we've got tells us

653
00:31:17,417 --> 00:31:19,083
"pretty much
what Herodotus said.

654
00:31:19,167 --> 00:31:22,292
"It may not be exact but we're
not going to be so skeptical

655
00:31:22,333 --> 00:31:24,792
as to think we don't
know what he said."

656
00:31:24,833 --> 00:31:29,167
Xenophon's "Hellenica,"
another ancient Greek writer,

657
00:31:29,250 --> 00:31:32,833
we're waiting 1,800 years
before we get something.

658
00:31:32,917 --> 00:31:36,875
More than just a tiny scrap
from Xenophon's "Hellenica."

659
00:31:36,958 --> 00:31:39,875
Now let's just compare
apples with apples.

660
00:31:39,958 --> 00:31:43,000
What if we were waiting
1,800 years

661
00:31:43,042 --> 00:31:45,042
after the completion of
the New Testament

662
00:31:45,125 --> 00:31:48,625
before we got anything more
than just some tiny fragments?

663
00:31:48,667 --> 00:31:52,125
That would be like saying,
"The earliest copy we had of

664
00:31:52,167 --> 00:31:55,000
"the New Testament would have
been written about the time

665
00:31:55,083 --> 00:31:58,917
that the Wright Brothers
invented the airplane."

666
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,875
Would we say, "Oh yeah, but
that certainly goes back to

667
00:32:01,958 --> 00:32:03,667
the New Testament"?

668
00:32:03,708 --> 00:32:07,667
Think how skeptical people
would be if that were the case.

669
00:32:07,708 --> 00:32:09,792
Yet, that's what classical
authors are dealing with

670
00:32:09,833 --> 00:32:12,875
all the time, manuscripts that
come so much later

671
00:32:12,958 --> 00:32:15,292
that's all they've got
to go on.

672
00:32:15,333 --> 00:32:17,667
Well, how earliest
is the earliest

673
00:32:17,750 --> 00:32:19,583
New Testament manuscript?

674
00:32:19,667 --> 00:32:23,750
The earliest one we
have is known as "P52."

675
00:32:23,833 --> 00:32:26,667
This is not the follow-up
to P-51 Mustang,

676
00:32:26,708 --> 00:32:28,792
the fighter plane
in World War II,

677
00:32:28,833 --> 00:32:30,958
this stands for
"Papyrus Number 2."

678
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,000
And P52, here's
a picture of it.

679
00:32:34,042 --> 00:32:36,167
Let me give you a little
background about this.

680
00:32:36,250 --> 00:32:41,542
It was discovered in 1934—
and 90 years earlier than that...

681
00:32:41,625 --> 00:32:43,458
This is about John's gospel.

682
00:32:43,500 --> 00:32:45,500
It's got six verses
from John's gospel.

683
00:32:45,542 --> 00:32:48,667
On this side that you see it's
John 18, verses 31 through 33.

684
00:32:48,750 --> 00:32:52,167
On the back side, which
is very significant,

685
00:32:52,250 --> 00:32:54,708
and you'll have to think
through what I said earlier.

686
00:32:54,792 --> 00:32:57,375
You know, take a look at your
notes because this will

687
00:32:57,458 --> 00:32:58,875
all show up on the test,

688
00:32:58,958 --> 00:33:01,167
and you can see what
I said earlier about

689
00:33:01,208 --> 00:33:02,542
the back side of manuscripts.

690
00:33:02,625 --> 00:33:05,542
When do you have writing on
the back side of a manuscript

691
00:33:05,625 --> 00:33:06,958
and when don't you?

692
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,667
We'll get to that in a minute.

693
00:33:08,750 --> 00:33:11,375
Well the back side has
John 18, verses 37 and 38.

694
00:33:11,458 --> 00:33:14,083
So 90 years earlier than
the discovery of this in 1934,

695
00:33:14,167 --> 00:33:17,458
in the year 1844, a German
professor by the name of

696
00:33:17,500 --> 00:33:19,667
F.C. Bauer at
the University of Tubingen

697
00:33:19,750 --> 00:33:23,583
did some philosophical
fancy footwork

698
00:33:23,667 --> 00:33:27,583
and came up with
the argument that John's gospel

699
00:33:27,667 --> 00:33:30,875
has to be dated
after A.D. 160,

700
00:33:30,958 --> 00:33:34,000
and the preferred date
is about A.D. 170.

701
00:33:34,042 --> 00:33:37,750
And Bauer was a towering figure
who convinced most of

702
00:33:37,833 --> 00:33:40,250
European scholarship
that he was right.

703
00:33:40,333 --> 00:33:41,667
Well if that's the case,

704
00:33:41,750 --> 00:33:43,292
John's gospel is
certainly not written

705
00:33:43,333 --> 00:33:44,667
by an eyewitness.

706
00:33:44,750 --> 00:33:48,167
Therefore, probably doesn't have
much of historical credibility.

707
00:33:48,250 --> 00:33:50,417
That's how much of European
scholarship thought about

708
00:33:50,500 --> 00:33:53,708
John's gospel
for the next 90 years.

709
00:33:53,792 --> 00:33:57,125
Until a fellow by
the name of C.H. Roberts,

710
00:33:57,167 --> 00:33:59,708
working at
the University of Manchester

711
00:33:59,792 --> 00:34:02,875
in the John Rylands Library,
going through a box of papyri

712
00:34:02,958 --> 00:34:05,000
came across this one.

713
00:34:05,042 --> 00:34:07,875
This thing is
the size of a credit card.

714
00:34:07,958 --> 00:34:10,083
It's 3 1/2 inches tall,
2 1/2 inches wide,

715
00:34:10,167 --> 00:34:12,375
smaller than
the palm of my hand.

716
00:34:12,458 --> 00:34:15,083
And when Roberts looked at
this he said, "Oh my gosh,

717
00:34:15,167 --> 00:34:17,042
this is written on both sides."

718
00:34:17,125 --> 00:34:19,250
What he realized
when he saw that was,

719
00:34:19,333 --> 00:34:21,667
"This is almost surely
a Christian manuscript."

720
00:34:21,750 --> 00:34:23,250
Why?

721
00:34:23,333 --> 00:34:26,083
Because all Christian
manuscripts that he had seen,

722
00:34:26,167 --> 00:34:28,792
at least of the New Testament,
were written on both sides.

723
00:34:28,833 --> 00:34:31,500
They had come from a codex.

724
00:34:31,542 --> 00:34:34,500
Now, some of you may think
the codex was not invented until

725
00:34:34,542 --> 00:34:37,875
the Middle Ages, but the codex
actually was invented by the end

726
00:34:37,958 --> 00:34:40,250
of the 1st century A.D.

727
00:34:40,333 --> 00:34:42,458
Christians, as far as we
know, didn't invent it.

728
00:34:42,500 --> 00:34:45,167
But they were
the first to popularize it.

729
00:34:45,250 --> 00:34:47,708
For the first 5 centuries
of the Christian era,

730
00:34:47,792 --> 00:34:50,708
80% of all Christian books
were written on a codex.

731
00:34:50,792 --> 00:34:52,667
All of our New Testament
manuscripts

732
00:34:52,750 --> 00:34:54,375
are written on a codex.

733
00:34:54,458 --> 00:34:57,583
Only 20% of non-Christian books
were written on a codex during

734
00:34:57,667 --> 00:34:59,375
those first 5 centuries.

735
00:34:59,458 --> 00:35:00,833
By A.D. 500,

736
00:35:00,917 --> 00:35:03,333
now the whole rest of
the world caught up with

737
00:35:03,417 --> 00:35:06,000
the Christian form of the book
and decided to adopt that

738
00:35:06,042 --> 00:35:07,500
for how they would go forward.

739
00:35:07,542 --> 00:35:09,500
So for the first time
in our history,

740
00:35:09,542 --> 00:35:12,167
and frankly the only time in
the history of the church,

741
00:35:12,250 --> 00:35:14,167
we were ahead of
the technological curve.

742
00:35:14,250 --> 00:35:16,375
Now, if you want
to see how people

743
00:35:16,458 --> 00:35:18,000
used to live 50 years ago,

744
00:35:18,042 --> 00:35:20,500
as Howard Hendricks, one
of the profs at Dallas Seminary

745
00:35:20,542 --> 00:35:23,167
some time back, used to say,
"Come and visit Dallas Seminary

746
00:35:23,250 --> 00:35:25,833
and you'll see how people
used to live in the '50s."

747
00:35:25,917 --> 00:35:28,167
It's a little bit dated,
you know, but nevertheless,

748
00:35:28,250 --> 00:35:31,792
once we were ahead of
the technological curve.

749
00:35:31,833 --> 00:35:34,250
C.H. Roberts looked at this
manuscript and he said,

750
00:35:34,333 --> 00:35:36,250
"You know, this is from
the New Testament."

751
00:35:36,333 --> 00:35:38,458
He was able to figure
that out pretty quickly,

752
00:35:38,500 --> 00:35:41,667
and at the same time he said,
"I think this is very early,

753
00:35:41,708 --> 00:35:44,583
but I'm gonna send it to the
three leading Papyrologists,"

754
00:35:44,667 --> 00:35:47,500
the folks who study these
ancient papyri for a living,

755
00:35:47,583 --> 00:35:51,000
and get their
estimates on the date.

756
00:35:51,083 --> 00:35:53,083
So he sent photographs
to these three guys.

757
00:35:53,167 --> 00:35:55,417
Each one, independently,
wrote back to him and said,

758
00:35:55,500 --> 00:35:59,833
"This manuscript should be
dated no later than A.D. 150

759
00:35:59,875 --> 00:36:02,458
and as early as A.D. 100."

760
00:36:02,500 --> 00:36:04,833
All three of them
preferred the earlier date.

761
00:36:04,917 --> 00:36:06,750
A fourth one
demurred and he said,

762
00:36:06,833 --> 00:36:11,292
"I think it may have been
written as early as the '90s."

763
00:36:11,333 --> 00:36:15,042
Now most New Testament
scholars nowadays,

764
00:36:15,125 --> 00:36:17,375
in part because of this
discovery but other reasons

765
00:36:17,458 --> 00:36:20,500
as well, would date
John's gospel in the '90s.

766
00:36:20,542 --> 00:36:22,250
That's when
the original was written.

767
00:36:22,333 --> 00:36:25,750
It's possible then that this
manuscript, P52, was written,

768
00:36:25,833 --> 00:36:29,875
was a copy of John's gospel when
the ink was barely dry

769
00:36:29,958 --> 00:36:31,750
on the original document.

770
00:36:31,833 --> 00:36:35,875
Here's the thing though:
until this discovery,

771
00:36:35,958 --> 00:36:39,333
almost all European
scholarship late-dated John,

772
00:36:39,417 --> 00:36:42,000
said it had no historical
reliability whatsoever because

773
00:36:42,042 --> 00:36:46,833
of all this philosophical
description and argument

774
00:36:46,875 --> 00:36:49,833
that a guy named F.C. Bauer
had worked out.

775
00:36:49,875 --> 00:36:53,083
I don't know about you,
but growing up

776
00:36:53,167 --> 00:36:55,917
in Southern California
I was taught this,

777
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:00,583
that generally speaking
the original of a document

778
00:37:00,667 --> 00:37:03,792
is not written later than
a copy of that document.

779
00:37:03,833 --> 00:37:05,833
Is that what you're
taught here too?

780
00:37:05,917 --> 00:37:09,667
Except in Portland, but anyway.

781
00:37:09,708 --> 00:37:13,667
So what this did--here's
a manuscript no later than 150,

782
00:37:13,708 --> 00:37:17,292
Bauer argued 170, this sent
2 tons of German scholarship

783
00:37:17,333 --> 00:37:19,083
to the flames.

784
00:37:19,167 --> 00:37:21,667
Basically it's a fragment,
a tiny fragment,

785
00:37:21,750 --> 00:37:24,250
and Bauer used all these
convoluted arguments,

786
00:37:24,333 --> 00:37:29,750
and it reminds me of a statement
of a professor, William Lane,

787
00:37:29,833 --> 00:37:31,833
who said, "An ounce of
evidence is worth

788
00:37:31,917 --> 00:37:33,667
a pound of presumption."

789
00:37:33,750 --> 00:37:36,667
Folks, what we as Christians
have is an ounce of evidence.

790
00:37:36,750 --> 00:37:40,333
It may not be a lot but it's
worth a pound, or in this case,

791
00:37:40,417 --> 00:37:42,667
2 tons of presumption,
the evidence.

792
00:37:42,750 --> 00:37:46,083
Because our faith is
a historical faith,

793
00:37:46,167 --> 00:37:49,667
it's always important and
always needs to be examined.

794
00:37:49,750 --> 00:37:52,583
That was a terrific discovery.

795
00:37:52,667 --> 00:37:54,625
It's not just P52 though.

796
00:37:54,667 --> 00:37:57,625
We have as many as a dozen
papyri from the 2nd century

797
00:37:57,667 --> 00:38:00,167
and by the time we get
to the 4th century,

798
00:38:00,250 --> 00:38:05,083
by the time we get to the 300s,
we have over 120 manuscripts of

799
00:38:05,167 --> 00:38:06,583
the New Testament.

800
00:38:06,667 --> 00:38:08,083
Through those first 3 centuries,

801
00:38:08,167 --> 00:38:10,833
what do you have
for classical texts?

802
00:38:10,917 --> 00:38:12,458
Zero.

803
00:38:12,500 --> 00:38:14,667
You're waiting 500 years for
the average classical text

804
00:38:14,708 --> 00:38:16,458
before you get
any copies at all.

805
00:38:16,500 --> 00:38:18,500
So, it doesn't matter
how you slice it.

806
00:38:18,542 --> 00:38:20,542
If we're talking about
the number of manuscripts

807
00:38:20,625 --> 00:38:22,750
or we're talking about the date
of the manuscripts

808
00:38:22,833 --> 00:38:25,083
the New Testament comes out
way, way ahead.

809
00:38:25,167 --> 00:38:28,083
Within 150 years of
the New Testament's completion,

810
00:38:28,167 --> 00:38:30,375
over 40% of all the verses
are found in

811
00:38:30,458 --> 00:38:31,792
these papyrus manuscripts.

812
00:38:31,833 --> 00:38:34,542
By the time you
go to A.D. 300, now we get

813
00:38:34,625 --> 00:38:36,875
the whole New Testament
many times over.

814
00:38:36,958 --> 00:38:38,958
And here's
the opposite end of this,

815
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,375
to think about: 150 years after
the New Testament

816
00:38:41,458 --> 00:38:43,583
we've got over 40%
of all the verses.

817
00:38:43,667 --> 00:38:46,083
But what about
the last 150 years?

818
00:38:46,167 --> 00:38:47,750
What have we seen?

819
00:38:47,833 --> 00:38:51,167
In the last 150 years all
of the New Testament papyri

820
00:38:51,208 --> 00:38:52,542
have been discovered.

821
00:38:52,625 --> 00:38:54,042
Not one was known before then.

822
00:38:54,125 --> 00:38:56,792
These manuscripts are
our earliest manuscripts.

823
00:38:56,833 --> 00:38:59,292
After that comes
parchment manuscripts,

824
00:38:59,333 --> 00:39:01,958
those written on animal skins
when that became popular

825
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,000
starting really in
the 4th century.

826
00:39:04,083 --> 00:39:06,542
So here we have
these manuscripts,

827
00:39:06,625 --> 00:39:08,625
all these papyri that have
been discovered

828
00:39:08,667 --> 00:39:10,833
in the last 50 years--150 years.

829
00:39:10,917 --> 00:39:14,958
If they have new wording that
we've never seen before found in

830
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,542
earlier manuscripts then
we may have a problem.

831
00:39:18,625 --> 00:39:21,667
If those places where you have
new wording in this papyri

832
00:39:21,708 --> 00:39:23,708
commend themselves, you know,

833
00:39:23,792 --> 00:39:25,708
"This looks like it's
the original wording."

834
00:39:25,792 --> 00:39:27,750
Then what we would
have to say is,

835
00:39:27,833 --> 00:39:30,042
"Without those discoveries
we wouldn't know what

836
00:39:30,125 --> 00:39:32,042
the original New Testament
had to say."

837
00:39:32,125 --> 00:39:36,542
And yet, in the last 150 years
not a single newly discovered

838
00:39:36,625 --> 00:39:40,250
reading has commended itself
as original to

839
00:39:40,333 --> 00:39:42,000
New Testament scholars.

840
00:39:42,083 --> 00:39:45,167
What these papyri have are
readings that are already found

841
00:39:45,208 --> 00:39:47,792
in the other manuscripts
that we already knew about.

842
00:39:47,833 --> 00:39:52,000
So, we have a great deal of
confidence that the text

843
00:39:52,042 --> 00:39:55,000
of the New Testament is
found in this book.

844
00:39:55,042 --> 00:39:57,500
And this is a Greek
New Testament that's got either

845
00:39:57,542 --> 00:39:59,792
the Greek text above
or the apparatus with

846
00:39:59,833 --> 00:40:01,167
the texture variants here.

847
00:40:01,250 --> 00:40:04,375
We find the original text either
above the line or below the line

848
00:40:04,458 --> 00:40:07,667
in our Greek New Testaments,
and you find it essentially

849
00:40:07,750 --> 00:40:09,542
in your English New Testaments.

850
00:40:09,625 --> 00:40:11,542
This is exciting news frankly.

851
00:40:11,625 --> 00:40:15,875
Now, has the Bible been
translated and re-translated

852
00:40:15,958 --> 00:40:18,583
so many times that we don't
know what it originally said?

853
00:40:18,667 --> 00:40:20,667
Here's one other
way to look at it,

854
00:40:20,750 --> 00:40:23,167
to look at the New Testament
from the perspective of

855
00:40:23,250 --> 00:40:24,875
the King James Bible
published in 1611,

856
00:40:24,958 --> 00:40:28,500
based on 7 Greek New Testament
manuscripts,

857
00:40:28,542 --> 00:40:30,375
the New Testament was,

858
00:40:30,458 --> 00:40:32,958
the earliest of which came
from the 11th century.

859
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,542
Now, 400 years later
we have over

860
00:40:36,625 --> 00:40:39,500
5,800 Greek New Testament
manuscripts,

861
00:40:39,542 --> 00:40:43,583
almost 1,000 times as many as
the King James translators used,

862
00:40:43,667 --> 00:40:46,208
and our earliest come
from the 2nd century.

863
00:40:46,292 --> 00:40:49,125
As time goes on we're not
getting further removed from

864
00:40:49,167 --> 00:40:50,708
the original, are we?

865
00:40:50,792 --> 00:40:52,292
We're getting closer and closer.

866
00:40:52,333 --> 00:40:54,333
We haven't lost those
seven manuscripts.

867
00:40:54,375 --> 00:40:58,333
We still have those and we have
a ton more that are earlier.

868
00:40:58,375 --> 00:41:02,042
So time goes on and we're
getting closer and closer to

869
00:41:02,125 --> 00:41:04,667
the original text,
not farther away.

870
00:41:04,750 --> 00:41:07,167
So that's my first point.

871
00:41:07,250 --> 00:41:12,958
Now, the second one will
take about half an hour too.

872
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:14,458
The quality of variants.

873
00:41:14,500 --> 00:41:16,083
What kinds of
variants are there?

874
00:41:16,167 --> 00:41:17,875
What's the nature
of these variants?

875
00:41:17,958 --> 00:41:21,958
Well, 99% of them virtually
make no difference at all.

876
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,167
In fact, the vast majority of
our textual variants

877
00:41:25,250 --> 00:41:26,833
can't even be translated.

878
00:41:26,917 --> 00:41:32,500
Most of them, in fact, are
differences in spelling.

879
00:41:32,542 --> 00:41:34,583
Sorry.

880
00:41:34,667 --> 00:41:38,375
But you knew what I meant.

881
00:41:38,458 --> 00:41:43,958
In fact, the most common textual
variant we have is what's called

882
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:45,792
"a moveable new."

883
00:41:45,833 --> 00:41:49,208
That's "n" at the end of a word
when the next word starts with

884
00:41:49,292 --> 00:41:51,208
a vowel, like
"a book, an apple."

885
00:41:51,292 --> 00:41:54,333
Or in Arkansas they
say, "A book, a apple."

886
00:41:54,375 --> 00:41:58,708
But we all understand
what they really mean.

887
00:41:58,792 --> 00:42:02,250
The name for John
in Greek, for example,

888
00:42:02,333 --> 00:42:06,500
is spelled either Ioanes with
one n or Ioannes with two n's.

889
00:42:06,542 --> 00:42:10,583
Every single time we see the
name John in the New Testament

890
00:42:10,667 --> 00:42:13,250
there are manuscripts that spell
it differently from others.

891
00:42:13,333 --> 00:42:16,333
Every time we see that that
counts as a textual variant.

892
00:42:16,417 --> 00:42:20,583
And so, there's so many
differences in just the

893
00:42:20,667 --> 00:42:23,875
spelling, and then you've got
the Greek definite article,

894
00:42:23,958 --> 00:42:25,542
the word "the" in Greek.

895
00:42:25,625 --> 00:42:28,542
This is the most common word
we have in the New Testament.

896
00:42:28,625 --> 00:42:31,083
It occurs 20,000 times.

897
00:42:31,167 --> 00:42:33,458
One out of seven words
is the Greek article.

898
00:42:33,500 --> 00:42:36,000
I wrote my Master's thesis
on when the Greek article

899
00:42:36,042 --> 00:42:37,833
does not occur.

900
00:42:37,917 --> 00:42:41,167
I wrote my Doctor's dissertation
on when it does occur.

901
00:42:41,250 --> 00:42:44,083
Those two works I can guarantee
you would cheer

902
00:42:44,167 --> 00:42:48,792
the most hopeless insomniac.

903
00:42:48,833 --> 00:42:53,708
And yet, I'm still not quite
sure how the Greek article

904
00:42:53,792 --> 00:42:56,083
is being used.

905
00:42:56,167 --> 00:42:58,708
Scholars have 20,000 of these
in the New Testament alone,

906
00:42:58,792 --> 00:43:01,292
yet we still are trying
to figure it out.

907
00:43:01,333 --> 00:43:04,000
For example, in Greek you
can say, and Luke does say,

908
00:43:04,042 --> 00:43:07,292
"The Joseph and the Mary
left Jerusalem

909
00:43:07,333 --> 00:43:09,000
looking for the Jesus."

910
00:43:09,042 --> 00:43:11,000
Now we never
translate it that way.

911
00:43:11,042 --> 00:43:14,000
We're not exactly sure why the
article is used with these but

912
00:43:14,042 --> 00:43:16,500
it is, and there are variants
that have the article

913
00:43:16,542 --> 00:43:17,958
and don't at times.

914
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,375
So, there's also
word order differences.

915
00:43:20,458 --> 00:43:22,083
Greek is a highly
inflected language,

916
00:43:22,167 --> 00:43:24,792
which means if I say something
like, "John loves Mary,"

917
00:43:24,833 --> 00:43:28,583
I can say it in any order
I want: John loves Mary;

918
00:43:28,667 --> 00:43:33,500
Mary loves John; John, Mary
loves; Mary, John Loves;

919
00:43:33,542 --> 00:43:36,667
and every single time it means
John loves Mary not by

920
00:43:36,708 --> 00:43:39,250
the word order but by
the endings of these words.

921
00:43:39,333 --> 00:43:41,750
One is always the subject,
one's always the direct object,

922
00:43:41,833 --> 00:43:44,083
and so thinking
about these issues,

923
00:43:44,167 --> 00:43:46,333
about the various
spelling differences,

924
00:43:46,375 --> 00:43:51,625
the use of the article, and this
statement, "John loves Mary,"

925
00:43:51,667 --> 00:43:55,125
I asked myself a year ago,
"How many ways can you say,

926
00:43:55,167 --> 00:43:57,875
'John loves Mary,' in Greek?"

927
00:43:57,958 --> 00:44:00,583
Well, this is my
anal side coming out,

928
00:44:00,667 --> 00:44:03,292
and so take out
your pads of paper.

929
00:44:03,333 --> 00:44:05,083
You need to write
all these down.

930
00:44:05,167 --> 00:44:07,667
Here's the eight ways you
can say, "John loves Mary,"

931
00:44:07,708 --> 00:44:09,375
in Greek.

932
00:44:09,458 --> 00:44:12,375
Every single line is
translated, "John loves Mary."

933
00:44:12,458 --> 00:44:14,667
There's another eight ways.

934
00:44:14,708 --> 00:44:17,458
Sorry, there's more.

935
00:44:17,500 --> 00:44:21,375
All of these, every single line,
it says, "John loves Mary."

936
00:44:21,458 --> 00:44:26,375
There's more, sorry.

937
00:44:26,458 --> 00:44:32,958
96 ways you can say, "John
loves Mary," in Greek, 96 ways.

938
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:37,000
So if you hear that there's
400,000 textual variants

939
00:44:37,042 --> 00:44:39,292
among our
New Testament manuscripts,

940
00:44:39,333 --> 00:44:43,292
that tells me,
"Really, that's it?

941
00:44:43,333 --> 00:44:45,292
When we've got so
many manuscripts?"

942
00:44:45,333 --> 00:44:48,667
There could be tens of millions
of variants that never affect

943
00:44:48,750 --> 00:44:52,333
a darn thing;
400,000 means nothing.

944
00:44:52,375 --> 00:44:54,708
Oh, I'm sorry.
This is not all there are.

945
00:44:54,792 --> 00:44:58,208
If we add conjunctions that are
often untranslated there's

946
00:44:58,292 --> 00:45:02,833
a whole lot more ways--you need
to really appreciate this.

947
00:45:02,917 --> 00:45:09,917
This took me 8 hours to put
all this stuff together.

948
00:45:11,542 --> 00:45:13,667
And at this point
I said, "I give up.

949
00:45:13,750 --> 00:45:16,458
I'm too tired.
That's enough."

950
00:45:16,500 --> 00:45:19,667
These are only a few of the
ways to say, "John loves Mary."

951
00:45:19,750 --> 00:45:23,167
Don't worry I won't bore you
with more of these details,

952
00:45:23,250 --> 00:45:25,250
but there's other legitimate
word orders that swell

953
00:45:25,333 --> 00:45:29,083
the numbers to over 500, and if
you use a different verb

954
00:45:29,167 --> 00:45:32,167
for "loves," it mushrooms
the numbers to nearly

955
00:45:32,208 --> 00:45:35,750
1,200 ways to say,
"John loves Mary," in Greek.

956
00:45:35,833 --> 00:45:38,667
Now, let's apply that back to
the issue we're wrestling with.

957
00:45:38,708 --> 00:45:40,833
Bart Ehrman said, "We
could go on nearly forever,"

958
00:45:40,917 --> 00:45:43,333
talking about specific places
in which the text of

959
00:45:43,417 --> 00:45:46,000
the New Testament came
to be changed either

960
00:45:46,042 --> 00:45:47,667
accidentally or intentionally.

961
00:45:47,750 --> 00:45:50,417
The examples are not just
in the 100s but the 1,000s.

962
00:45:50,500 --> 00:45:51,833
He's absolutely right.

963
00:45:51,875 --> 00:45:54,333
And if we were to talk
about those nearly forever,

964
00:45:54,375 --> 00:45:56,125
we would be bored
to death forever.

965
00:45:56,167 --> 00:45:59,000
It's not the issue of
the number of variants,

966
00:45:59,042 --> 00:46:02,667
and he would never want
to talk about these.

967
00:46:02,708 --> 00:46:04,292
Textual critics
are not interested

968
00:46:04,333 --> 00:46:05,667
in that kind of variant.

969
00:46:05,750 --> 00:46:07,875
They're interested in the ones
that change the meaning

970
00:46:07,958 --> 00:46:09,292
of the text.

971
00:46:09,333 --> 00:46:11,000
If we can say,
"John loves Mary,"

972
00:46:11,042 --> 00:46:12,375
over 1,000 times in Greek

973
00:46:12,458 --> 00:46:14,000
without substantially changing
the meaning,

974
00:46:14,042 --> 00:46:16,167
the number of textual
variants for the New Testament

975
00:46:16,250 --> 00:46:17,792
is meaningless.

976
00:46:17,833 --> 00:46:19,875
What counts is
the nature of the variants.

977
00:46:19,958 --> 00:46:22,792
So we go on to that question
which is:

978
00:46:22,833 --> 00:46:26,875
What kind of variants do affect
the meaning?

979
00:46:26,958 --> 00:46:28,667
Those that are both
meaningful and viable.

980
00:46:28,708 --> 00:46:31,333
That is, they have a good chance
of being authentic

981
00:46:31,417 --> 00:46:33,542
of those 400,000 variants.

982
00:46:33,625 --> 00:46:36,667
The number--this is the
smallest group of all of them.

983
00:46:36,708 --> 00:46:39,750
It's less than 1% of all
textual variants with that.

984
00:46:39,833 --> 00:46:41,667
Less than 1% of all
textual variants

985
00:46:41,750 --> 00:46:43,500
are both meaningful and viable.

986
00:46:43,542 --> 00:46:47,708
In fact, by my estimates
it's approximately 1/4 of 1%.

987
00:46:47,792 --> 00:46:49,375
Very, very tiny amount.

988
00:46:49,458 --> 00:46:52,000
Those are the only ones that
count when we're thinking about

989
00:46:52,083 --> 00:46:53,917
these issues about our faith.

990
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,000
So let me give you
two examples.

991
00:46:56,083 --> 00:46:59,000
The first one is
Mark chapter 9, verse 29.

992
00:46:59,083 --> 00:47:01,750
This is a text where we have
a textual variant that

993
00:47:01,833 --> 00:47:06,500
is both meaningful and viable.

994
00:47:06,542 --> 00:47:09,500
After the disciples tried to
cast out some demons and they

995
00:47:09,542 --> 00:47:12,375
were unsuccessful, they came
to Jesus and complained to him,

996
00:47:12,458 --> 00:47:15,167
and apparently they were
particularly pesky demons

997
00:47:15,208 --> 00:47:17,458
who could not be cast
out the normal way.

998
00:47:17,500 --> 00:47:20,958
And so he said to his disciples,
"This kind can only be cast out

999
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:23,500
by prayer [and fasting]."

1000
00:47:23,542 --> 00:47:27,375
I put "and fasting" in brackets
because maybe what Jesus was

1001
00:47:27,458 --> 00:47:31,292
saying is, "This kind can only
be cast out by prayer," period.

1002
00:47:31,333 --> 00:47:33,750
The earliest manuscripts
don't have "and fasting."

1003
00:47:33,833 --> 00:47:36,500
The later ones, and most
manuscripts, have "and fasting."

1004
00:47:36,542 --> 00:47:38,292
Scholars have had to
wrestle with this.

1005
00:47:38,333 --> 00:47:41,000
This is the one place in
the New Testament where it

1006
00:47:41,042 --> 00:47:45,792
might be required to fast if
you're going to exercise demons.

1007
00:47:45,833 --> 00:47:48,083
Otherwise, it's not
a requirement ever.

1008
00:47:48,167 --> 00:47:50,125
Scholars go back
and forth, and debate this,

1009
00:47:50,167 --> 00:47:53,500
and I'm sure as you can
just see by looking at me,

1010
00:47:53,583 --> 00:47:55,417
I go with the shorter reading.

1011
00:47:55,500 --> 00:47:58,417
Let's not talk about that.

1012
00:47:58,500 --> 00:48:00,792
Let's get on to a less
embarrassing text now.

1013
00:48:00,833 --> 00:48:03,167
Revelation chapter 13, verse 18.

1014
00:48:03,250 --> 00:48:06,167
This is a meaningful
and viable variant:

1015
00:48:06,250 --> 00:48:09,167
Let the one who has insight
calculate the beast's number,

1016
00:48:09,250 --> 00:48:12,458
for it is the number of a man,
and his number is 666.

1017
00:48:12,500 --> 00:48:16,875
Everybody knows the anti-Christ
number is 666, right?

1018
00:48:16,958 --> 00:48:20,292
You talk to anybody in Seattle,
"Hey, what does 666 mean?"

1019
00:48:20,333 --> 00:48:22,167
"Oh, that's
the anti-Christ or the beast,"

1020
00:48:22,250 --> 00:48:23,583
or something like that.

1021
00:48:23,667 --> 00:48:25,000
Well, not so fast.

1022
00:48:25,042 --> 00:48:29,458
In 1843, a German scholar who
visited the Biblioteca Nacional

1023
00:48:29,500 --> 00:48:33,167
was able to decipher
a manuscript that has

1024
00:48:33,250 --> 00:48:35,667
become one of the most important
manuscripts for

1025
00:48:35,750 --> 00:48:37,083
the Book of Revelation.

1026
00:48:37,167 --> 00:48:39,292
It was a manuscript that
had been scraped over,

1027
00:48:39,333 --> 00:48:41,833
written of parchment,
in about A.D. 400,

1028
00:48:41,917 --> 00:48:44,667
written on parchment, and some
scribe about 800 years later

1029
00:48:44,750 --> 00:48:47,583
scraped all the text off
and wrote on top of it.

1030
00:48:47,667 --> 00:48:49,000
That's called a "palimpsest."

1031
00:48:49,042 --> 00:48:51,750
We have a number of palimpsests
for our Greek New Testament

1032
00:48:51,833 --> 00:48:53,667
where the under text is
what's really important

1033
00:48:53,750 --> 00:48:56,375
and extremely difficult to read.

1034
00:48:56,458 --> 00:48:59,458
Well, I had a chance to go to
the Biblioteca Nacional

1035
00:48:59,500 --> 00:49:02,542
a few years ago, look at
that actual manuscript,

1036
00:49:02,625 --> 00:49:05,333
and read the very place that
Constantine Fontissiondorf had

1037
00:49:05,417 --> 00:49:10,833
read, at Revelation 13:18, and
it was very clear this place

1038
00:49:10,917 --> 00:49:17,250
where it says, "The number of
the beast was 616," not 666.

1039
00:49:17,333 --> 00:49:20,000
Extremely important
manuscript for Revelation.

1040
00:49:20,083 --> 00:49:22,250
But it's just one manuscript.

1041
00:49:22,333 --> 00:49:26,958
But then in 1998, within
the lifetime of most of you

1042
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:31,250
I suspect, there was another
manuscript that was discovered

1043
00:49:31,333 --> 00:49:33,333
at Oxford University.

1044
00:49:33,417 --> 00:49:37,500
A papyrus, 26 little postage
stamp-sized pieces that spread

1045
00:49:37,583 --> 00:49:40,417
out over 9 chapters, and one
of those postage stamps

1046
00:49:40,500 --> 00:49:43,542
was of Revelation 13:18.

1047
00:49:43,625 --> 00:49:46,167
In 2002, I had
the opportunity to examine that,

1048
00:49:46,208 --> 00:49:48,583
even under a magnifying glass
and a microscope,

1049
00:49:48,667 --> 00:49:52,583
and I noticed that it said, "The
number of the beast was 616."

1050
00:49:52,667 --> 00:49:55,083
So here we have one of our
most important manuscripts

1051
00:49:55,167 --> 00:49:57,167
in Revelation and now
the earliest manuscript

1052
00:49:57,208 --> 00:49:59,000
of Revelation chapter 13,

1053
00:49:59,042 --> 00:50:02,167
both saying, "The number
of the beast is 616."

1054
00:50:02,208 --> 00:50:04,167
Scholars have wrestled with
this, they've debated this.

1055
00:50:04,208 --> 00:50:06,167
Is this really the number of
the beast

1056
00:50:06,208 --> 00:50:08,042
or is it something different?

1057
00:50:08,125 --> 00:50:11,167
And yet most scholars today,
even though they know

1058
00:50:11,208 --> 00:50:14,042
about this, would say,
"I'm not so sure.

1059
00:50:14,125 --> 00:50:17,292
"I think 666 is the number
of the beast, and 616,

1060
00:50:17,333 --> 00:50:19,167
"that's the neighbor
of the beast.

1061
00:50:19,250 --> 00:50:23,292
He lives a few doors
down," you know?

1062
00:50:23,333 --> 00:50:30,250
How would you like to
live in that neighborhood?

1063
00:50:30,333 --> 00:50:31,875
This is an important variant.

1064
00:50:31,958 --> 00:50:33,542
It's meaningful and it's viable.

1065
00:50:33,625 --> 00:50:35,792
I don't know what
the original text says,

1066
00:50:35,833 --> 00:50:39,000
I don't have absolute certainty
about what the word of God is

1067
00:50:39,042 --> 00:50:41,000
in every single place
in the New Testament.

1068
00:50:41,042 --> 00:50:43,167
This is one of them
where I'm not sure.

1069
00:50:43,250 --> 00:50:46,167
But I can tell you this, even
though this is a meaningful

1070
00:50:46,250 --> 00:50:49,083
variant, I know of no
Bible college, no seminary,

1071
00:50:49,167 --> 00:50:51,625
no denomination,
no theological institute,

1072
00:50:51,667 --> 00:50:54,625
and no church that says in
their doctrinal statement

1073
00:50:54,667 --> 00:50:56,833
the following, "We believe
in the virgin birth,

1074
00:50:56,875 --> 00:50:58,833
"we believe in
the deity of Christ,

1075
00:50:58,875 --> 00:51:00,458
"we believe in
the substitutionary atonement

1076
00:51:00,500 --> 00:51:02,375
"of Christ and his
bodily resurrection,

1077
00:51:02,458 --> 00:51:05,833
and that the number
of the beast is 666."

1078
00:51:05,917 --> 00:51:09,292
It may be important but
it's not that important.

1079
00:51:09,333 --> 00:51:11,000
So, what is important?

1080
00:51:11,042 --> 00:51:13,875
What things are in the text
that change the meaning?

1081
00:51:13,958 --> 00:51:18,167
What theological beliefs depend
on textually suspect passages?

1082
00:51:18,250 --> 00:51:21,500
We go back to Dan Brown
and have his statement

1083
00:51:21,542 --> 00:51:25,750
from Sir Leigh Teabing, the
theological gadfly in this book,

1084
00:51:25,833 --> 00:51:28,375
"My dear," speaking to Sophie
he says,

1085
00:51:28,458 --> 00:51:29,875
"Until that moment in history

1086
00:51:29,958 --> 00:51:32,667
"Jesus was viewed by his
followers as a mortal prophet,

1087
00:51:32,708 --> 00:51:38,250
a great and powerful man, but
a man nonetheless, a mortal."

1088
00:51:38,333 --> 00:51:42,042
That moment in history
was A.D. 325

1089
00:51:42,125 --> 00:51:46,083
when the Council of Nicaea
met to define what they meant by

1090
00:51:46,167 --> 00:51:47,917
the deity of Christ.

1091
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:50,917
Now Dan Brown is
saying, "In A.D. 325

1092
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:52,917
"they didn't just
define the deity of Christ,

1093
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:54,333
they invented it."

1094
00:51:54,375 --> 00:51:56,125
In particular
Emperor Constantine,

1095
00:51:56,167 --> 00:51:58,625
here's a picture of
that handsome man,

1096
00:51:58,667 --> 00:52:01,792
invented the deity
of Christ in 325.

1097
00:52:01,833 --> 00:52:04,375
Well your colleague said,
"An ounce of evidence is worth

1098
00:52:04,458 --> 00:52:06,000
a pound of presumption."

1099
00:52:06,042 --> 00:52:09,375
Let's see if there's any
evidence before 325 that affirms

1100
00:52:09,458 --> 00:52:11,333
the deity of Christ.

1101
00:52:11,417 --> 00:52:14,000
Here's another early
and extraordinarily important

1102
00:52:14,042 --> 00:52:17,958
papyrus, P66, dated
about A.D 175,

1103
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:22,333
about 150 years earlier
than the Council of Nicaea.

1104
00:52:22,417 --> 00:52:23,875
This is John chapter 1

1105
00:52:23,958 --> 00:52:26,083
and I just want to read
the first verse.

1106
00:52:26,167 --> 00:52:28,667
Read along with me
if you would.

1107
00:52:28,750 --> 00:52:32,333
"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,

1108
00:52:32,417 --> 00:52:36,000
and the Word was God."

1109
00:52:36,042 --> 00:52:38,833
I'm sure you've never
heard that before, right?

1110
00:52:38,917 --> 00:52:43,292
Every single manuscript
we have of John 1, verse 1,

1111
00:52:43,333 --> 00:52:46,792
regardless of the date, says
essentially the same thing.

1112
00:52:46,833 --> 00:52:49,417
There are two variants but it
doesn't affect this statement.

1113
00:52:49,500 --> 00:52:54,708
That is Jesus unequivocally
called "God" in John 1:1.

1114
00:52:54,792 --> 00:52:57,875
Not only that, but the same
could be said for the major

1115
00:52:57,958 --> 00:53:01,000
passages that affirm Christ's
deity: his virgin birth,

1116
00:53:01,042 --> 00:53:02,875
his sinlessness,
his death on a cross,

1117
00:53:02,958 --> 00:53:06,083
his bodily resurrection,
and his second coming.

1118
00:53:06,167 --> 00:53:12,750
So we come to this last
question: What theological

1119
00:53:12,833 --> 00:53:18,250
issues are really jeopardized
by these textual variants?

1120
00:53:18,333 --> 00:53:21,375
I quoted Bart Ehrman earlier who
was kind of the source behind

1121
00:53:21,458 --> 00:53:24,667
Werleman,
and Al-Azami, and others.

1122
00:53:24,750 --> 00:53:29,000
And in the appendix, in the
paperback version of his book,

1123
00:53:29,042 --> 00:53:31,500
"Misquoting Jesus," which was
done about 6 months after

1124
00:53:31,542 --> 00:53:34,792
his hardback book came
out, and by the way,

1125
00:53:34,833 --> 00:53:37,583
when the hardback book came out,
shortly thereafter he was on

1126
00:53:37,667 --> 00:53:41,542
Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show"
to talk about this book.

1127
00:53:41,625 --> 00:53:43,542
Stewart said,
"That's one hell of a book."

1128
00:53:43,625 --> 00:53:45,000
Really liked it.

1129
00:53:45,042 --> 00:53:49,083
And the next day on Amazon
it was perched at number one.

1130
00:53:49,167 --> 00:53:52,083
So hundreds of thousands
of these books have sold.

1131
00:53:52,167 --> 00:53:55,125
And so the editors decided to
kind of add some teasers

1132
00:53:55,167 --> 00:53:57,125
in an appendix thrown into
a paperback version.

1133
00:53:57,167 --> 00:54:00,167
And they asked him, "Why do you
believe these core tenants of

1134
00:54:00,250 --> 00:54:02,667
"Christian Orthodox that'd be in
jeopardy based on the scribal

1135
00:54:02,750 --> 00:54:06,458
errors you discovered in
the biblical manuscripts?"

1136
00:54:06,500 --> 00:54:10,583
This is Ehrman's answer:
"Essential Christian beliefs

1137
00:54:10,667 --> 00:54:13,292
"are not affected
by textual variants

1138
00:54:13,333 --> 00:54:17,458
in the manuscript tradition of
the New Testament."

1139
00:54:17,500 --> 00:54:21,000
Some of you have friends
and family members who have

1140
00:54:21,042 --> 00:54:24,875
abandoned the Christian faith
because of the writings of these

1141
00:54:24,958 --> 00:54:28,500
skeptics, and yet the source,
the popular source behind them

1142
00:54:28,542 --> 00:54:30,458
is Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus,"

1143
00:54:30,500 --> 00:54:32,750
and that's not what
he actually said.

1144
00:54:32,833 --> 00:54:34,958
In other words, Al-Azami
was wrong to say that

1145
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:38,375
"the Orthodox Church obliterated
these other views of Christ,"

1146
00:54:38,458 --> 00:54:41,542
and that "they changed it
so that essential Christianity

1147
00:54:41,625 --> 00:54:42,958
looked different."

1148
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:44,333
That's not the case.

1149
00:54:44,417 --> 00:54:47,167
Ehrman makes this claim, and the
three times I've debated him

1150
00:54:47,250 --> 00:54:50,167
I put these two quotes up
at the end of the debate,

1151
00:54:50,250 --> 00:54:52,917
and he can't refute them
because he knows he said it.

1152
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,917
The debates could have been
a whole lot shorter if he just--

1153
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:58,625
if I just put that up at
the beginning but people

1154
00:54:58,667 --> 00:55:00,083
would want their money back.

1155
00:55:00,167 --> 00:55:03,042
So a few months after this came
out in the paperback version,

1156
00:55:03,125 --> 00:55:07,000
it was quietly taken out of
the paperback version of

1157
00:55:07,042 --> 00:55:09,250
"Misquoting Jesus" because it
hurt sales.

1158
00:55:09,333 --> 00:55:12,792
So let me conclude with
an unnatural segue.

1159
00:55:12,833 --> 00:55:16,458
A polar bear attacks a man
in Canada

1160
00:55:16,500 --> 00:55:19,500
and bystanders do nothing.

1161
00:55:19,542 --> 00:55:21,750
The media didn't
even report this.

1162
00:55:21,833 --> 00:55:24,458
Now, have in your mind
what this looks like.

1163
00:55:24,500 --> 00:55:26,458
Everybody got a good picture?

1164
00:55:26,500 --> 00:55:29,458
I hope breakfast was a long time
ago because it could be

1165
00:55:29,500 --> 00:55:33,417
a little scary,
a little shocking.

1166
00:55:38,750 --> 00:55:40,667
What I just said
was true, wasn't I?

1167
00:55:40,750 --> 00:55:43,375
A polar bear attacks
men in Canada.

1168
00:55:43,458 --> 00:55:45,833
The image you may have
had was, "Oh my gosh!

1169
00:55:45,917 --> 00:55:47,500
"The sky is falling.

1170
00:55:47,583 --> 00:55:48,917
"Chicken Little.

1171
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:50,917
"How can we get
out of this mess?

1172
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:52,333
"400,000 textual variants.

1173
00:55:52,375 --> 00:55:53,833
What am I going to do?"

1174
00:55:53,875 --> 00:55:56,375
The reality is,
what does it effect?

1175
00:55:56,458 --> 00:55:58,500
Doesn't affect the essentials
of the Christian faith.

1176
00:55:58,542 --> 00:56:01,875
I may not know exactly what
the Bible says in the original,

1177
00:56:01,958 --> 00:56:05,292
but this I can bank on, that
no essential teaching

1178
00:56:05,333 --> 00:56:07,000
of the Christian faith
is in jeopardy

1179
00:56:07,042 --> 00:56:08,667
because of these
textual variants.

1180
00:56:08,750 --> 00:56:11,792
When I say that, when you hear
about the number of variants,

1181
00:56:11,833 --> 00:56:15,667
have this picture in mind of the
attacks on the Christian faith

1182
00:56:15,708 --> 00:56:18,958
by a polar bear of this size.

1183
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:22,000
Let's pray, shall we?

1184
00:56:22,042 --> 00:56:23,792
You're a great God.

1185
00:56:23,833 --> 00:56:28,167
You've given us the Scriptures,
you've inspired them,

1186
00:56:28,208 --> 00:56:31,292
and you've had faithful scribes
over the centuries copy them

1187
00:56:31,333 --> 00:56:34,333
so that we could have
the Bible in our hands today.

1188
00:56:34,417 --> 00:56:37,875
We're grateful for that Lord
and I pray that we will have

1189
00:56:37,958 --> 00:56:40,333
a clear, and deep,
and abiding conviction,

1190
00:56:40,417 --> 00:56:43,083
that what we have in our hands
in all essential respects,

1191
00:56:43,167 --> 00:56:45,292
is in fact the Word of God.

1192
00:56:45,333 --> 00:56:47,333
In Jesus' name, amen.

1193
00:56:48,833 --> 00:56:50,167
Pastor Sutton Turner here.

1194
00:56:50,208 --> 00:56:51,500
The sermon just finished

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and you can still play a role
at Mars Hill church.

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Whether you're part of one
of our local Mars Hill churches,

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or part of our global
Mars Hill community,

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if you value this sermon,
please consider making a donation

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by visiting marshill.com/give.

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Sermons like this are recorded
and streamed for free

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to anyone interested
in learning more about Jesus

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and living their faith.

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And I'd like to ask you
to support making that happen

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by making a gift,
even a small one, to Mars Hill,

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you will help a global family
of brothers and sisters in Christ

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that download sermons like
this one over 10 million times.

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Your gift also helps plant churches,
equip evangelists,

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distribute bibles and study materials
all over the world.

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Let's see
more materials translated,

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more pastors sent out,
more churches planted,

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and more people saved
by Jesus Christ.