Adam,
Quote:
|
I do my textual criticism (which has always been distinguished from "higher-criticism, although it seems as if people here would like to lump the two together as far as moral culpability), because I love the Word of God's Spirit. There are a ton of variants among the thousands of mss that have been collected; the majority of the variants are superficial (changes in orthography, or a change in grammatical style to match the Greek as understood by the copyist's era), and have no real affect upon the understanding of the text, but some of them do, and it is important to me to weigh the issue as part of my ministerial responsibility before the people of God, and to make a well-studied decision.
|
As a presuppositionalist, I look at the "facts" with a different point of view than in former days. Nobody (in their right mind) should dispute the need for textual criticism. For, as everyone admits, there are lots of manuscripts and quite a few variants. The rub comes in how we interpret those facts. "Earlier is better" is a pretty good rule of thumb. However, if the "earlier" has a provenance in a community of heretics, does that make it better than a manuscript that hails from a later period, but comes from a line of orthodox Christians? Again, people like Dan Wallace and Ben Witherington have given powerful answers to Ehrman (after all Witherington was ALSO a student of Metzger at one time). Still, exploiting the reality of variants to discredit inerrance (or even inspiration) will be a ever-present problem. And, suggesting that agnostics like Ehrman may have an ideological ax to grind in how they sift, weigh, and present the "facts" is the problem, isn't it?
__________________
Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)
Click to get:
Board Rules --
Signature Requirements --
Suggestions?