Following our discussion of that Dan Wallace quote about not being overly skeptical about identifying the original text of the NT, here’s a recent series Bart Ehrman has started about textual criticism on his blog. The first post introduces the subject. I draw attention to it because two things stood out to me: (1) his definition, which is quite traditional, and (2) his overall confidence in identifying the original text.
First, his definition:
Textual criticism is the technical and highly specialized discipline that works to reconstruct the original text and to figure out how, when, where, and why it got changed.
Then, his confidence, with his emphasis:
Scholars who engage in this work are not as a rule insanely pessimistic about the possibilities of getting back to a pretty close approximation of the original text in most cases. That is to say – some people reading my books have not picked up on this enough – there are good reasons for thinking that most of the time we can get back to a fair approximation of what ancient authors wrote, even if there are places (sometimes many places) (and sometimes many very important places) where there are real grounds for doubt.
We could probably reflect on why not everyone has picked up on this enough from his books, but let’s let that go for now. I suspect Bart and I would disagree a bit on how many “very important” places where variation affects the NT text (I don’t think Mark 1:1, for instance changes Mark’s Christology in any way), but that’s a matter of degree, it seems. We probably also still disagree on whether these uncertainties are defeaters for inspiration and inerrancy and that’s a significant disagreement. But it’s nice to highlight agreement with Bart on this blog when we can so that’s what this post is for.
No comment on his definition, but if he's going to publish it, could he not have taken the time and care to rework the writing to eliminate at least one if not two of the back to back parentheses? Last year I read steven pinker's "a sense of style" , and it convicted me to much repentance and tearing of clothes.
ReplyDeleteIf and when I rule the world, no academic anywhere will be allowed to publish anything until they have read that book.
It's amazing to see ETC blog come full circle. It was begun as a response to Ehrman's overly skeptical take on New Testament Textual Criticism. Now it post a link to his blog which discusses the confidence textual critics have in the text of the New Testament. You just can't make these things up.
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