Textual Criticism. Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005),

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1 Textual Criticism Good morning Good to be back Thank you for hospitality and for being here. Slide 2 The Challenge Barth Ehrman is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman is a leading New Testament scholar, having written and edited over twenty-five books, including three college textbooks. He has also achieved acclaim at the popular level, authoring four New York Times bestsellers. Ehrman's work focuses on textual criticism of the New Testament, the Historical Jesus, and the evolution of early Christianity. In his book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, Bart Ehrman, writes this about the New Testament, Not only do we not have the originals, we don't have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. As we will see later in this book, these copies differ from one another in so many places that we don't even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. 1 Slide 3 The Challenge Please open your Bible and read from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22 with me. We ll read verse And He withdrew from them about a stone s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, 42 saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done. 43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. 45 When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, Slide 4 The Challenge Please raise your hand if there is a footnote concerning verse in your Bible, please raise your hand if there is no such footnote in your Bible. The footnote in the NIV says Some early manuscripts do not have verses 43 and Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005),

2 Slide 3 The Challenge Now think about the following statement: The Bible is the inerrant, unchanging word of God. And ask yourself whether you should believe this in light of Erhman s quote and the footnote (which is one of very many) in your Bible. (Wait) If you ve never considered the meaning and implication of these types of footnotes in your Bible before, you should begin to do so now. Who made the decisions about what is included in these verses and on what basis? Why do they call your attention to differences in manuscripts by means of footnotes? Should there be differences in manuscripts of the Bible? Are Barth Ehrman s assertions corrects, and if so, what does that say about the integrity of our Scripture? And ultimately, should you trust, as final authority in life and faith the book that you have in front of you? If you do not know about, or understand, the discipline of Textual Criticism as it pertains to the Bible, and if these questions are causing you some discomfort right now, it will be my privilege to introduce this topic to you in the next hour. If you are familiar with this topic and you can answer Ehrman and explain the footnotes you are welcome to go to sleep at this point or to go and drink some coffee, I will take no offence! Slide 6 Definition This morning s session will focus on textual criticism. Due to restrictions of time it cannot be anything more than a brief introduction and I am sure that it will seem like an overload of information. Right at the outset, I would like to encourage you to supplement and test what I say with other books or lectures on this discipline. I will mention some resources at the end of the presentation. Textual Criticism is The science and art that seeks to determine the most reliable wording of a text. -Science: governed by rules -Art: rules cannot be rigidly applied in every situation Again, it is the study of any written composition of which the original is survived by copies that contain variants (differences) in the text. As pertaining to the Bible then,

3 Slide 7 Definition Biblical Textual Criticism is the study of the original wording of the Bible or more specifically the attempt to discover, as nearly as possible, what is the original text of Scripture as written by the original authors. Textual criticism must not be confused with Higher Criticism, which is concerned with the literary and historical background of a text and asks questions about the date of composition, authorship, and audience of a text. It is also not Palaeography, that is, the study of a document as a physical artefact (its size, colour format etc.) which can be done without ever looking at the actual text. It is the examination of the text found in manuscripts of the Bible in order to try and determine the wording of the original documents. Slide 8 Importance Textual criticism precedes any other study of Scripture. Before you can know what the Bible teaches and how it applies to your life, you need to have the actual text, that is, the words that make up its content, in front of you. Every teacher of the Bible (and I would argue any serious student of it as well) should at the very least understand the process of textual criticism and ideally be able to practice it as well. It is foundational to all biblical studies. Interpretation, teaching and preaching cannot be done until textual criticism has done it s work 2 Slide 9 Manuscripts Barth Ehrman is correct. We do not have the original documents, or the more technical term, the autographs of the books of the Bible. We do not have the Pentateuch scroll that was placed next to the ark (Deut 31:24-26). We do not have the pieces of papyrus on which Luke wrote his Gospel and the book of Acts. We do not have the parchments on which the dictations of Paul were written by scribes for the very first time(rom 16:22). We only have handwritten copies of copies of these documents. These are called manuscripts. That we do not have the originals should not be surprising for a number of reasons: Ancient writing materials did not last. Papyrus becomes brittle and disintegrates, ink made from natural colouring fades. Documents were not seen as Scripture first and foremost, especially in the early church. Paul s epistles, for example, are letters to the church, they were meant to be circulated and read which meant that they had to be used and not just preserved. 2 David Alan Black, New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 12

4 The New Testament was written during turbulent times of persecution and dispersion for Christians, these are by no means ideal circumstances for the preservation of first century documents. Even though the Jews were meticulous in their recording and copying of the Old Testament, the plundering and destruction of many of their sacred places throughout history meant that many manuscripts were lost over the course of time. Some would argue that the absence of biblical autographs points to God s providence. Consider for a moment the power struggles, possibility of corruption, and temptation of veneration that would result from any one person or group s ownership of the original documents. We do not have the autographs, what we do have are many, handwritten copies or manuscripts of the 66 books of the Bible. The Greek manuscripts of the New Testament number close to 6000 alone. The oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament are part of the Dead Sea scrolls and predate Christ by 250 years. New manuscripts are still being uncovered today and so the number of witnesses keeps growing. Let s now take a brief look at some of the most important manuscripts of the Bible. These are the tools of the textual critic s trade, the clues, if you will, which he uses to discover the content of the now extinct autographs. Most of the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew. Some early parts were perhaps penned in a paleo-hebrew script and there are some parts that were originally written in Aramaic (e.g. parts of Daniel). Slide 10 The oldest copies of Biblical text are found on silver amulets dating from the mid 7 th century B.C. They contain part of Num. 6: They are written in a paleo Hebrew script. Slide 11 Until 1947, the oldest, extant Hebrew manuscript of any significant portion of the Old Testament was from the 9 th century A.D., that is very late, considering that the Old Testament canon was completed by at least A.D.100. This is no longer the case though thanks to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls-A shepherd boy in the area of Qumran beside the Dead Sea discovered some ancient documents in a cave. Archaeologists have since discovered a total of eleven caves containing six to eight hundred

5 manuscripts in various degrees of preservation dated between the third century B.C. and the first century A.D. Two hundred and two of these manuscripts or fragments have been identified as biblical. Every book of the Old Testament except Esther is represented in the findings. The manuscripts date from the 3 rd century B.C. to the 1 st century A.D. (Picture, the Isaiah scroll B.C.) Slide 12 Other Hebrew sources of the Old Testament are the Nash Papyrus, dating between 167 and 139 B.C. (damaged copy of the Ten Commandments), Murabba at Manuscripts which include an old palimpsest dated to the 6 th cent B.C. and a scroll with 10 of the 12 minor prophets dated around the 2 nd century A.D., the Masada manuscripts dated some time before the fort was conquered in A.D. 73, and the Nahal Hever Manuscripts dated to about A.D The Ben Asher manuscripts are an important group of texts dating from the second half of the eight century A.D. to the mid-10 th century A.D. This family played a leading role in the preservation and recording of the Masoretic, Hebrew text. Codex Leningradensis for example is the main source of the Hebrew Old Testament which is used today in Hebrew Old Testament editions today. Slide 13 Until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, the oldest sources of the Old Testament were secondary sources, meaning that they were not written in Hebrew. These include the Samaritan Pentateuch, of which the earliest extant copy is dated to the 11 th century A.D., the Aramaic Targums or scripture lessons which were written after Israel s return from exile for the returnong Jews who now spoke Aramaic. The earliest extant copies are dated after 400 A.D., and the Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. It was written sometime between the 3 rd and 1 st century B.C. and was the standard text at the time Jesus lived. Some important manuscripts of this text are the Chester Beatty Papyri, the Codex Vaticanus, and the Codex Sinaiticus (A codex is the technical name for parchment bound in a book form) Slide 14 Codex Sinaiticus Slide 15 The earliest copies of the books of the New Testament were written on papyrus. There are just over 100 known papyrus manuscripts and every book of the New Testament is represented in this collection. In text critical apparatus (notes in critical editions of the Greek New Testament), papyrus

6 documents are indicated by a P with a number superscript. The oldest papyrus fragment of the New Testament is P52, the John Rylands Papyrus. It contains portions of John 18:31-34, and is dated to the early second century. Slide 16 The next group of New Testament manuscripts is called Uncials or Majuscules. These are mostly written on parchment/vellum and are usually in codex form. The style of the Greek writing is similar to what we would call capital letters. These manuscripts date from the 4 th to the 10 th century A.D. and are designated in the text critical apparatus by Hebrew, Latin or Greek capital letters and a number with a zero prefixed. Approximately 274 uncials are known today. Some of the most important ones include Codex Sinaiticus (the earliest surviving complete copy of the New Testament), Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus. The picture shows the Uncial form of Luke 11:2 Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Notice, there are no spaces between the words. Slide 17 By the 9 th century a new, cursive style of writing had developed and most of the manuscripts from this time display this miniscule or small lettered script. There are close to 3000 miniscule manuscripts of the New Testament known today. They are designated by numbers. Some of the more important ones are Codex 1, 13, and 33. The picture shows the beginning of the Gospel of Luke in the miniscule script. Slide 18 Lectionaries were service books that were used for daily readings from Scripture. Passages are not written in chronological order but according to the calendar of the church. There are about 1000 known lectionaries of the New testament. They are designated by the letter l or the abbreviation lect. A few of the lectionaries are as early as the 5 th century A.D. but the majority are from the 10 th century or later. The New Testament was originally written in Greek, but by as early as the second century, translations of the documents were already appearing. These documents are called ancient versions and are grouped according to the languages into Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Gothic, and Arabic translations. The earliest of these manuscripts date from the 5 th century.

7 Finally there are also the quotations from the New Testament which we find in the extant copies of the writings of the church fathers. It has been determined that, with the exception of about 11 verses, the whole of the New Testament text can be reproduced from these quotations alone. These are somewhat limited in their use for textual criticism since it is often difficult to determine whether the fathers were quoting scriptures verbatim or merely paraphrasing. Slide 19 David Alan Black gives the following succinct comparison and summary of the manuscripts of the Bible, As we have seen, the Greek witnesses to the text of the New Testament number around five thousand ranging between the second and the eighteenth centuries. In comparison, manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament number perhaps half as many, though the text of these manuscripts is more uniform than that exhibited by the manuscripts of the New Testament. Moreover, the earliest surviving copies of the New Testament are much closer to the date of the original writing than is the case with almost any other piece of ancient literature. 3 This means that the textual critic of the Bible has the best tools available to any scholar in the field of textual criticism of ancient writings. In contrast to all other ancient texts throughout history, the manuscripts of the Bible are numerous and early, by implication then, the possibility of determining the text of the original biblical documents is much greater. Slide 20 The white text in this summary brings us to the next aspect of our introduction to textual criticism, namely variants. Black s observation implies that there is no uniformity between the manuscripts of the Bible, i.e. there are many differences between the various manuscripts. Black, an evangelical, biblical scholar seems to agree with Ehrman an agnostic, critical scholar that there are differences (and in the case of the New Testament, many differences) between the manuscripts. What does this mean? Slide 21 Variants Differences between manuscripts are called variants. There are more than two hundred thousand variants in the New Testament documents alone. Let s examine briefly the nature of the variants, and then consider how these variant readings are used to determine the original reading in textual criticism. 3 Black 22.

8 In considering the nature of biblical textual variants we will look at John 1:18 as an example. Your English translation of the verse might read something like, No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father s side, he has made him known (ESV). Slide 22 Here is a comparison of the wording of the middle part of the verse from 34 manuscripts. The phrase occurs in ten different ways and there are a total of 18 differences between them. In the Greek this phrase would literally translate as to see, at any time, only-begotten, God, the, to be, in, the bosom. Notice, that there are 18 differences between 34 manuscripts for this specific section. There are not 18 different sections with differences. So, what we mean when we say that there are more than variants is not that there are places in the New Testament where there are differences among the manuscripts. Rather, we are saying that there are this many instances in which the MSS differ among themselves. In fact, the variants found in New Testament manuscripts only concern about actual places in the text. The high number of differences is directly attributable to the large number of manuscripts available for comparison and not to the instability of the text. Notice also, that the 34 manuscripts under consideration confirms everything which is not being pointed out as a variant. So there is consensus about the vast majority of the words in this section. Next, one should consider the weight or importance of the variants and what sort of influence they have on the reader s understanding of the text. The vast majority of the variants between biblical manuscripts are of relatively minor importance and have to do with spelling, word order or minor grammatical differences. In our example, numbers 1,2,16 and 17 are spelling differences, number 18 is a difference in word order, and 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11 are grammatical differences that have little bearing on the meaning of the text. Scholars estimate that only between one to five percent of variants have a substantial impact on the meaning of a passage. In our example, 12, 13, 14, and 15 are of this nature (notice these are not four different words, but the same word, differing from the other lines, occurring four times. When you think about it, this is an astounding testimony to the accuracy of the transmission of the New Testament text over the thousand year period in which the major manuscripts were penned.

9 Even Barth Ehrman has to agree that most of the many, many differences have little if any bearing on the meaning of the text. Slide 23 You see, in order to get you interested in my talk, I only quoted part of Ehrman s statement, you ll remember that he said: Not only do we not have the originals, we don't have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. As we will see later in this book, these copies differ from one another in so many places that we don't even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament Slide 24 He then adds, Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant. A good portion of them simply show us that scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most people can today. 4 And in another place he writes This is not a dispute between scholars who think the text has been altered and those who think it has not. Everyone knows that the text has been changed; the only question is which reading represents the alteration and which represents the earliest attainable form of the text. Here scholars sometimes disagree. In a remarkable number of instances most of them, actually scholars by and large agree. 5 So Ehrman agrees that the vast majority of variants do not hinder our search for the original text. What about the variants that are significant though? Ehrman, for examples makes much some of the significant variants in the Gospels and tries to show that these are a problem for the orthodox Christian beliefs regarding the person of Jesus. On page 207 of his book he states, Slide 25 To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us... It would be wrong, however, to say--as people sometimes do--that that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them. We have seen, in fact, that just the opposite is the case. In some instances, the very meaning of the text is at stake, depending on how one resolves a textual problem: 4 Ehrman, Ehrman, 94.

10 Slide 26 Was Jesus an angry man (Mark 1:41)? Was he completely distraught in the face of death(luke 22:44)? Did he tell his disciples that they could drink poison without being harmed(mark 16:9-20)? Did he let an adulteress off the hook with nothing but a mild warning (John 8:1-11)? Is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly taught in the New Testament(1 John 5:7)? Is Jesus actually called the "unique God" there (John 1:18)? Does the New Testament indicate that even the Son of God himself does not know when the end will come(mark 13:32)? The questions go on and on, and all of them are related to how one resolves difficulties in the manuscript tradition as it has come down to us. All of the verses that he mentions here contain significant variants, and based on differences like these that Ehrman wants to question what we know about the character, actions, beliefs, nature, knowledge and teachings of Jesus. We will not have time to look at each one of these passages but I would like to point out at least one thing that Ehrman fails to mention. To be sure, if 1 John 5:7, which contains a significant textual variant, was the only verse to which one could point in support of the doctrine of the Trinity, this would be a problem. But the doctrine of the Trinity is supported by many other passages in Scripture over which there is no textual concern, e.g. Matt 28:19. Thus, even though a textual variant might have great bearing on the meaning of a specific portion of the text, one would be hard pressed to show that there is any variant that influences a core biblical doctrine, since they are usually attested to by more than one verse. One of Ehrman s questions concerns our example John 1:18. I would like to spend the remainder of the time that we have to show you how textual criticism is done using this verse. I hope to convince you that every text critical footnote in your Bible is testimony to the painstaking efforts of textual critics to get as close as possible to the wording of the original New Testament documents and that these should bolster your confidence in the integrity of our Scriptural tradition rather than cause doubt. I will start by trying to explain the method of New Testament criticism and will then use John 1:18 as an example. Slide 27 The first step in determining the preferred reading of two or more manuscript variants is to discover the number of variants. This is done by looking at the textual apparatus (what is this?) in one of the standard Greek Bible Texts; either the United Bible Society s The Greek New Testament, or the Nestle Alund, Novum Testamentum Graece.

11 Slide 28 Using the USB one sees that there are five significant variants identified for this verse. (Explain what the page looks like). I have underlined them in red. The USB gives each variant followed by a list of the manuscripts that support that particular variant. The individual variants are separated by a double forward slash. Slide 29 So, our five variants are: 1. monogenh;v qeovv 2. o monogenh;v qeovv 3. oj monogenh;v uiovv 4. monogenh;v uiovv qeou: 5. oj monogenhvv And these translate to Slide monogenh;v qeovv A (the) only-begotten God (John omits the article elsewhere with it implied) 2. o monogenh;v qeovv The only-begotten God 3. oj monogenh;v uiovv the only-begotten son 4. monogenh;v uiovv qeou only-begotten son of God 5. oj monogenhvv the only begotten Once the variants have been found and translated, we can now begin to weigh the evidence in favour of each of the five readings. We will do this by means of external and internal considerations. Slide 31 Externally, we consider the nature of the manuscripts that support a specific variant. We do this by ordering the manuscripts into groups or text families and by taking their ages into consideration.

12 Scholars have designated roughly three text families to which NT manuscripts belong. These are Alexandrian texts, Western texts and Byzantine texts. Manuscripts are designated to a text family based on the variant readings that are found in them. The names indicate the rough location of the origin of these manuscripts.(think family tree). So for our example one might use a table for each of the variants and divide the witnesses as follows: Slide 32 Variant one (only- begotten God) has the oldest manuscript attesting to it in P66 as well as the most important Alexandrian uncials. There is hardly any support for this reading in the other text families. There is no minuscule support for it. So this reading has strong genealogical solidarity (all of the important Alexandrian manuscripts has this reading) but it has hardly any geographical distribution (it only really occurs in one area and was thus not widely held). Slide 33 Variant three (only-begotten Son) has the support of the Byzantine uncials and minuscules in various regions. It has the support of many of the church fathers from all geographical areas. Therefore, variant three has strong genealogical solidarity in the Byzantine family and perhaps a wider geographical distribution than variant one. In my discussion of these two variants you can see two principles at work: 1) Prefer the reading that is supported in widely separate geographical areas. 2) Prefer the reading that is supported by the greatest number of text types. I do not think that we can decide anything conclusive based on the external evidence. Although the earliest manuscript supports reading 1, other old, Alexandrian manuscripts support reading 2 (e.g. p75 and.( 2 א So no text type is unanimously in support of a specific reading. The readings of the Church fathers for reading 3 is spread over a wide geographical area but not the actual manuscript evidence. It seems that there is no one reading that was widely supported. So I would say that the external evidence is inconclusive. Let s now consider the internal evidence There are two aspects that we consider here 1) Scribal habits and practices

13 2) The author s style and vocabulary The following principles should be kept in mind when looking at internal evidence: 1. Prefer the shorter reading: Scribes more often added than omitted words. Be cautious of accidental omission, or stylistically, grammatically, theologically objectionable phrases taken out. 2. Prefer the more difficult reading Scribes tend to change difficult readings to smooth out theological problems 3. Prefer the reading that accords best with the author s style and vocabulary. Watch out for words/phrases that are clearly out of harmony with author s style/diction. So here we ask the question, can any of the variants be explained as being an intentional or unintentional change by a scribe and which variant seems best to fit with the context of the passage and the writing style of the author. Slide 37 Scribes would make intentional changes in order to try and improve grammar or spelling and to correct or update historical information. We have a possible example of this in the second variant. A scribe could have changed the more archaic form 1. monogenh;v qeovv A (the) only-begotten God to a grammatically superior 2. o monogenh;v qeovv The only-begotten God The article is not necessary and John often makes do without it (cf. John 1:1). So based on the principles mentioned above, reading one is more likely to be original than reading 2 since it is shorter, somewhat more difficult (since it could result in grammatical ambiguity) and finds support in the author s style Other intentional changes would be: conflation (adding in words to smooth a text over) this is a possible explanation of variant four, the longest one (the only-begotten Son of God) elimination of ambiguous or difficult words or phrases, possibly what we have in variant five (only-begotten), since the manuscripts show disagreement it gets left out altogether doctrinal changes a possible explanation for variant one (only-begotten God) which is a theologically strange concept (could make it the more difficult) but seems to be in support the doctrine of the deity of Christ.

14 Slide 39 Unintentional changes include errors of sight: Wrong word division Confusion of letters (Possibly the case with variant 1 and 3 in uncial form, nomina sacra could be confusion =u=c/=θ=c Same ending Interchanging letters Mark 14:34 Repeating Not repeating Unintentional errors of hearing: Confusing vowels and dipthtongs (Perhaps explain qeov and uiov) Unintentional errors of memory Perhaps a scribe was familiar with other instances where John refers to the only-begotten Son (John 3:16) and copied from memory instead of sight changing the word from God to Son. I do not think there is any one internal evidence observation which is decisively in favour of a specific variant though I do think it legitimately rules out variants 2, 4, and 5. For me the linguistic oddity of only-begotten God (especially in light of John s consistent use of onlybegotten with son in the rest of the gospel) seems suspect. A quick word study of monogenhv shows that there are 3 other instances where John uses the word (1:14, 3:16, 3:18). He also uses it once in 1John 4:9. In every instance he uses it to describe the son. So, if pressed I would perhaps choose reading 3 as the best possibility. I would not hold this choice dogmatically and would check it against the comments of the UBS Textual commentary (Explain their findings and the {B}.) Slide 39 This concludes our rather technical, yet necessary look into the discipline of Textual Criticism. Even if you got lost somewhere between variants and text-types, I hope that you have come to realise that the production of the Greek text which has been translated into the Bible that you have in front of you is a painstakingly, meticulous process which is open for inspection by believer and unbelievers alike. If nothing else, textual criticism shows the transparency with which the biblical text is treated. We are not trying to hide any evidence. Scholars face text critical problems head on and do not sweep difficulties under the metaphorical rug. Those footnotes in your Bible should always remind you of this fact.

15 Hopefully our discussion of the manuscripts and the nature of their variants has convinced you that the Bible can rightly be considered as the best attested ancient document by a very long margin. This is of course what we would expect when we consider the nature of God and his providence. Slide 40 (Animated, keep clicking) Let s briefly consider some suggestions for some practical applications of the information that I ve shared with you today. Pray for, and support biblical text critical work. Encourage young people who might be interested in this line of scholarly work. Support organizations that continue the search for and evaluation of manuscripts and that maintain the already existing sources (see for example the Green Scholars Initiative and the Centre for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts) Read more than one translation of the Bible in your study thereof and make sure that you take note of the textual differences. Bible translators have made decision regarding variants, make sure that you know what they are and be aware of alternative readings. Use verses with significant variants wisely in you teaching and evangelism e.g. John 1:1 vs. John 1:18 for the deity of Christ. * Thank God for his word and the preservation thereof over millennia. Read, study, and proclaim it with the diligence that it deserves. Resources: Scott Lanser at the Associates for Biblical Research table -Rose publisher borchures -Wallace Ehrman debate -Response to Ehrman s Misquoting Jesus. -Archaeological verification of Bible (OT especially) Textual Criticism further study: David Alan Black, New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994) Paul D. Wegner, A Student s Guide To Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods & Results (Dovers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006) Also, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible

16 Bruce M. Metzger and Barth D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). * Mike s Rebuttal No doctrine is affected by any of the uncertainty or ambiguity surrounding the above. Some manuscripts have, at Mark 1:41, Jesus becoming angry after seeing the man with leprosy (others say he was moved with pity), either of which would have been a perfectly understandable reaction. Did Jesus sweat drops of blood, as some manuscripts have Luke 22:44? Either way, other passages record the angst he felt regarding his impending death, despite his willingness to endure it. Does the controversy surrounding the ending of Mark affect anything? Seemingly not, since Jesus' words were directed specifically to the apostles in any case, and it would therefore be illegitimate to attempt to infer anything from the passage about Christian life today. The story of the woman caught in adultery, even if true, merely reiterates what the NT says elsewhere: the old covenant (along with its regulations) has passed away (Hebrews 7-9). The same goes for 1 John 5:7 and John 1:18--the Trinity and the deity of Christ can be gleaned from number of different passages. And, with respect to the textual variant at Mark 13:32 (the words "nor the son" are missing from some manuscripts), the parallel passage in Matthew 24:36 has no variations, thus showing rather straightforwardly that those words belong in the original.