Discussion of Canon and Text at the G3 Conference

Yesterday morning, at the G3 conference in Atlanta, GA, James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Michael Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte held a good discussion of the canon of scripture (mostly the New Testament canon), and often times their conversation drifted toward matters of textual criticism. I would encourage you to watch the video (link below; sorry, it’s currently available only on Facebook), and if you are interested, please comment on some of the more salient points. For example, around the 45:00 minute mark, there is a good discussion of the relationship between the canon and individual text forms of books, which will probably interest many of you. Also, I would be interested to know what you all think about the distinction between the “ontological” canon and the “exclusive” canon (Kruger) or White’s Canon 1 and Canon 2. If I remember correctly, this topic arose near the beginning of the discussion on the video. Here is the link to the video: The Canon (G3 conference).

An ‘Unanticipated Discussion of CBGM and P45’

Some of my students brought this video to my attention yesterday. It is James White, a well-known apologist and debater in the States, discussing the CBGM on his show The Dividing Line. Starting at about the 19:19 mark (video below), he mentions the Text und Textwert volumes, the difficulty of grasping the CBGM, the new THGNT as a kind of methodological push back against the CBGM, the correct (longer) reading at Mark 1.1, James Royse and singular readings, his own dissertation on P45, and some of the apologetic value of the CBGM and its data. He covers quite a bit.

Along the way, he says that the primary problem of the CBGM for most people is still the basic one of understanding it. I think he’s right about this and I have obviously been working to remedy that problem in my writing. But there is more work to be done, especially in explaining the method to pastors and laypeople. I will keep trying and, in the meantime, I say kudos to White for his efforts to understand the CBGM and explain it to his audience. For an “unanticipated” discussion of the method, he does a pretty good job describing it. May his tribe increase.

James White Comments on Ehrman’s Announcement

Until very recently, I was unaware of the Christian apologetic James White. Apparently, he has recently debated with Bart Ehrman on whether the Bible “misquote” Jesus or not (alluding to the title of Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus). On his Alpha & Omega Ministries Apologetics Blog he commented yesterday (here) on Bart Ehrman’s recent announcement that a second edition of The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Questionis (eds. Bart D. Ehrman & Michael W. Holmes) is in the pipeline, in which he found “a very telling statement.”

Ehrman had said, “What was then the state of the question [status questionis] has now become a bit dated. A lot has happened in fifteen years! Arguably more than in any comparable fifteen year period in the history of the 300+-year-old discipline.”

Now I cite White’s interpretation of Ehrman’s statement:

What has happened in the past fifteen years that is “arguably more than in any comparable fifteen year period in the history of...the discipline”? Has there been a discovery of a new Sinaiticus? Something akin to the DSS in OT research? A massive papyri manuscript find? No, actually, nothing like that at all. So why the paradigm shift?

Simple: the arena has become predominated by post-modernists who have thrown in the towel on the “original text” and have openly and shamelessly said, “Hey, let’s talk about what we can impute to nameless scribes based upon our mind-reading the reasons for their textual variations!” This is nothing less than an abandonment of the paradigm of the preceding generations, a hi-jacking of the discipline itself. While speculation about possible scribal prejudices may have its place, it will alway be just that: speculation.

It is apparent that White knows very little of what he is talking about. Just because he happens to strongly disagree with Bart Ehrman’s views of the transmission of the NT, which I am not trying to defend, he seems biased against everything associated with Bart Ehrman in a very unfortunate way. Ehrman’s monograph from 1993, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture was already out when the volume on the Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research came out in 1995. To a great extent, the latter volume, with contributions from a wide range of twenty-three leading scholars, reflects a consensus on the status questionis in most areas of the discipline, while in some other areas a variety of views are represented. (Admittedly, the “Byzantine priority”-position held by e.g., Maurice Robinson is lacking.) In any case, I am quite confident that the second edition will in no less degree reflect the “width and depth” of scholarship in the field.

A lot has really happened in NT textual criticism in the last fifteen year period, which has very little to do with postmodernism. A lot of significant work has been and is being done in an increasing pace, most notably at the leading centres in Münster and Birmingham. In addition to a steady stream of new MSS (e.g., 26 more papyri and many more uncials, minuscules and lectonaries), we have seen the publication of new major editions, and significant developments in methodology. And, yes, even some new scholars have entered the field ;-). As one of those, who, btw, has not “thrown in the towel on the ‘original text’,” I very much look forward to contributing to the second edition.

Update Here is a link to a final response from James White, to which I had to respond in the comment section on this blog, since no comments are allowed on White’s blog.