Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament

by Daniel B. Wallace

Publisher:

Kregel

, 2011

Overview

How much did the theological arguments of the church affect the copying of the New Testament text? Focusing on issues of textual criticism, this inaugural volume of the Text and Canon of the New Testament series offers some answers to that question and responds to some of the Bart Ehrman’s views about the transmission of the New Testament text. Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament will be a valuable resource for those working in textual criticism, patristic, and New Testament apocryphal literature.

Key Features

• Includes essays by six authors on issues in textual criticism
• Discusses textual issues related to an early apocryphal text
• Addresses issues raised in Bart Ehrman’s The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture

Contents

• Lost in Transmission: How Badly Did the Scribes Corrupt the New Testament Text?
• The Least Orthodox Readings Is to be Preferred: A New Canon for New Testament Textual Criticism?
• The Legacy of a Letter: Sabellianism or Scribal Blunder in John 1.1c?
• Patristic Theology and Recensin Recension in Matthew 24.36: An Evaluation of Ehrman’s Text-Critical Methodology
• Tracking Thomas: A Text-Critical Look at the Transmission of the Gospel of Thomas
• Jesus as ΘΕΟΣ: A Textual Examination

Top Highlights

“Funk’s attitude is easy to see: rampant skepticism over recovering the original wording of any part of the NT. This is the temptation of postmodernism.⁹ The only certainty is uncertainty itself. It is the one absolute that denies all the others. Concomitant with this is an intellectual pride—pride that one ‘knows’ enough to be skeptical about all positions.” (Page 23)

“A textual variant is any place among the MSS in which there is variation in wording, including word order, omission or addition of words, even spelling differences.” (Page 26)

“First, can we recover the autographic text; that is, can we determine, through rigorous analysis of surviving manuscripts and scribal methods, what that text, in all its essentials, looked like?” (Page 13)

“Whether that impression accurately reflects Ehrman’s views is more difficult to assess, but one thing is clear: Ehrman sees in the textual variants something more pernicious, more sinister, more conspiratorial, and therefore more controlled than I do. This chapter—indeed, this book—offers a different narrative.” (Page 22)

“there are more MSS from the third century than there are from the fourth or fifth century.^{39” (Page 34)}

Praise for the Print Edition

This collection of stimulating essays, edited by Dan Wallace, renowned scholar of New Testament manuscripts, interacts with Bart Ehrman’s own groundbreaking book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture It is essential reading for anybody interested in the text of the New Testament and in the way that was brought together.

—Paul Foster, senior lecturer in New Testament language, literature, and theology, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh

If I could choose only five scholars in the world from whom to learn and whom to emulate, Dan Wallace would unquestionable be one of them. His commitment to rigorous, authentic inquiry is unsurpassed. . . Wallace has. . . enlisted new work I the field of textual criticism from five emerging scholars. That these essays also address issues raised by Bart Ehrman provides additional value for those wanting to learn a more sober-minded view.

—Michael R. Licona,external research collaborator, North-West University

Today virtually all scholars agree that there are readings in the transmission history of the Greek New Testament that more likely reflect the theology, not of the New Testament authors, but of scribes who changed the text. As Wallace points out in his introduction, this is not the issue at stake. The problem that this volume of essays seeks to aggress is when ‘orthodox corruption’ is made the default explanation whenever there is a grain of suspicion that a passage may have been tampered with for doctrinal reasons.

—Tommy Wasserman, academic dean and lecturer in New Testament, Orebro School of Theology

Product Details

• Title: Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence
• Author: Daniel B. Wallace
• Series: Text and Canon of the New Testament
• Publisher: Kregel
• Print Publication Date: 2011
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Bible. N.T. › Evidences, authority, etc; Bible. N.T. › Canon
• ISBNs: 9780825433382, 082543338X
• Resource ID: LLS:RVSTNGCRRTSTMNT
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:50:49Z

About Daniel B. Wallace

Dr. Wallace influences students across the country through his textbook on intermediate Greek grammar. It is used in more than two-thirds of the nation’s schools that teach that subject. He is the senior New Testament editor of the NET Bible and coeditor of the NET-Nestle Greek-English diglot. Recently his scholarship has shifted from syntactical and text-critical issues to more specific work in John, Mark, and nascent Christology. However he still works extensively in textual criticism, and has founded The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, an institute with an initial purpose to preserve Scripture by taking digital photographs of all known Greek New Testament manuscripts. His postdoctoral work includes work on Greek grammar at Tyndale House in Cambridge and textual criticism studies at the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster. When he is not involved in scholarly pursuits, Dr. Wallace and wife, Pati, enjoy spending time with their boys and beagles.