At SMU Dr. Frank Turek was asked, “How do we account for the errors of the scribes in the New Testament since these documents were handed down from one person to the next and what if these errors are not simple and interfere with the teachings of the scriptures.
how do you account for the errors of the
scribes when the New Testament was
handed down person to person
yeah excellent question there are errors
that we know about why because we can
compare the documents we can compare the
manuscripts and see where the errors are
in fact let me see if I can show you a
representation of that because it’s
better seen than it is described here it
is let’s say you have here’s the
original which we don’t have we don’t at
least we we don’t think we have any
original documents okay so they’re all
copies okay and let’s say you find four
different copies and in the first copy
you see an error right here and then
another copy there’s another error right
there in the third copy there’s another
error right there and in the fourth copy
there’s an error right there can you
reconstruct the original yes yes and
that’s what scholars do the original
this happens to be Roman six or Romans
three 26 God is just in the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus now the
note here is the New Testament documents
have far fewer variations than this
example so yes sometimes scribe made
mistakes but in virtually all cases we
know what the mistake was and we can
correct it by comparing it with other
documents now you might say why wouldn’t
God just if this is true why wouldn’t he
just maintain the original I’m
speculating here but I think one reason
well two reasons number one if we had
the original we might venerate it we
tend to venerate things like that right
but number two if I had the original
what could I do to it I could alter it
right but if you had a copy you had a
copy you had a couple you had a copy you
a copy you to copy and I had a copy and
I changed my copy is everyone going to
know who changed their copy yeah because
when you get all your copies together
and compare it to mine you go Turek you
heretic why’d you do that right so by
not preserving the original you actually
are able to preserve the original better
so what if the air is not that simple
like what if it’s a difference in
concept
um so if we have these copies and say
copy one gets 12 copies copy 2 gets 24
copies and then you’ve got copy for that
gets 400 copies but copy 4 is the
incorrect copy then how do we justify
truth in that as well as how do we
justify the truth in Jesus’s exact words
when we didn’t hear them ourselves okay
there is no significant doctrine
theological doctrine that is affected by
any variant and who admits this Bart
Ehrman himself okay so Bart Ehrman the
great skeptic admits that the New
Testament documents are reliable in fact
let me let me show you a quote from him
because this quote is very right on the
money
you know he wrote the book misquoting
Jesus and if you’ve heard of this book
but in 2005 he wrote a book called
misquoting Jesus a popular book in which
he tries to insinuate that we can’t
trust what the New Testament documents
have said yet the very same year 2005 he
wrote an academic work he updated an
academic work with his mentor dr. Bruce
Metzger from Princeton University in
fact Metzger was the top manuscript
scholar of the last century and in that
book he agrees with Metzger that the New
Testament documents are copied
accurately now why is he coming to two
different conclusions the same year same
evidence the only thing I can speculate
is when you say to the academic
community something wrong they’ll
correct you on it but when you say
something wrong to the lay community
they don’t know any better in most cases
you can sell a lot of books when you say
the New Testament documents aren’t
copied reliably that gets you a review
in The New York Times and get you on The
Colbert show the Jon Stewart Show you
sell a lot of books right what’s that a
textbook TV study we’re studying I mean
now you’re studying misquoting Jesus no
his textbook the New Testament okay well
that one that he co-wrote with Metzger
is actually good but this one this one
now here’s what he says this is in the
appendix of the paperback version so
this comes out a year or two later from
the original misquoting Jesus he’s
interviewed and in the interview here’s
what he says check this out this is a
quote from the book page 252 he says
Bruce Metzger is one of the great
scholars of modern times and I dedicated
the book to him because he was both my
inspiration for going into textual
criticism and the person who trained me
in the field I have nothing but respect
and admiration for him and even though
we may disagree on important religious
questions he is a firmly committed
Christian and I am NOT we are in
complete agreement on the number of on a
number of very important historical and
textual questions what are they in
agreement on if he and I were put into a
room and asked to hammer out a consensus
statement on what we think the original
text of the New Testament probably
looked like there would be very few
points of disagreement maybe one or two
dozen places out of many thousands the
position I argue for in misquoting Jesus
does not actually stand at odds with
Professor Metzger’s position that the
essential Christian beliefs are not
affected by textual variants in the
manuscript tradition of the New
Testament well why would you write
misquoting Jesus then not you but Bart
Ehrman right why is I mean the book
maybe should be called misquoting Ehrman
because he doesn’t even agree with
himself so it seems that even airman
when when push comes to shove admits
that we do have an accurate copy of the
New Testament documents now your second
question is how do we know verbatim what
Jesus said we might not know verbatim
what he said because there are no quote
marks in Greek so we’re not always sure
exactly if it’s a quote or if it is a
paraphrase because Jesus probably spoke
in Aramaic yet the documents are written
in Greek but that’s okay you can
communicate truth in different languages
and you don’t have to be exact with what
he said you can get the gist of it in
fact jesus said he was an itinerant
preacher he probably gave the same talks
in several different places right I mean
if you followed me around I go around to
different campuses I give the same
presentations over and over again but I
might say things slightly differently in
one place in another place so maybe one
guy heard it one way another guy heard
it another way we have the gist of what
Jesus said and that’s really all God
wanted to tell us also you might imagine
that at those times people had highly
developed memories
they could memorize complete books we
can’t remember our phone number because
we have all these devices that remember
it all for us so these people were an
oral culture and they memorize things
quite well thank you thank you grace
you