What is New Testament Textual Criticism

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Wednesday, November the 16th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Or if you'd like to write in with topics you'd like to hear on the show, you'd like to hear Dr. Shah talk about, you can text us at 252-582-5028. Or send us an email to contact us at clearviewtodayshow.com.

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Yeah, absolutely. The first verse of the day is Psalm 62 and verse 7. In God is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God.

Beautiful. I love that imagery of God being our protection and our strong place. Of him being the firm ground that we can stand on. Yeah, he's a fortress. Yeah.

He's a fortress. How you doing? You feeling all right? I'm very full today. Yeah, you didn't seem to be drinking a whole lot of coffee.

You're just full up. I had a huge breakfast this morning. Normally I don't eat a ton for breakfast.

Just getting the kids ready for school. But I had a big breakfast this morning. We had omelettes this morning. Omelettes? Omelettes. Yeah, ham and cheese omelettes. By the time you wake up, you have time to cook a big omelette breakfast? Usually I'm in the gym from 5.30 to 6.30 and then I get home and I'm making omelettes after that.

Yeah. So if the scrambled egg stuff is already made up, Elizabeth normally makes it up and then we can make the omelettes from there. You know what's funny is I've never had an omelette. I've never had an omelette. You've never had an omelette? I had an omelette.

Wait a minute. Have you had an omelette or not? I had a bite of an omelette. It's a tale. You had a bite of an omelette. It's actually, it's a story. There's a whole story about my never having an omelette and then having the omelette, but it was just a bite. And it's a tale of woe.

It's a tale of bullying. I don't know if we got time to tell it. Do tell. I'm intrigued. Now we have to tell it.

I bullied Dr. Shah's brother into giving me a bite of his omelette. The year was 2019. That was the year.

2019. Dr. Shah had just graduated with his PhD from Southeastern Seminary. And so his whole, all, everybody was, all the staff went.

His family came to support him. I remember that. But what you may not remember, well, you know, what you do remember is that we went for a brunch right after this like diner to celebrate.

Yeah. Graduation was kind of earlier in the morning, so we went for a brunch after it. And then I set across from Dr. Shah's brother, Fred. Good guy.

Good guy. And so I didn't know if he was like timid or if he just was just around a bunch of new people, but I was like, I'm just going to joke around and kind of lighten the mood, just kind of make him feel welcome. I was like, he, I ordered like, I don't know, pancakes or French toast or something. He got an omelette. And so I was like, oh man, Fred, that looks good.

I was like, you know, I've never had an omelette, which was true. And he was like, oh really? He's like, wow. So he started cutting it up.

So I was like, give me a bite. And the way he, this is him, he looks, looks up at me. He's like, what? Just, just fear and confusion, just shock. He was like, and he'd never met me.

We'd never met. And he was like, what? And I was like, just give me a bite of the omelette. He was like, oh, oh, he started looking around the table for someone to help him. He's like, I mean, I just, I just ordered. And so I was like, give me a bite of the omelette, Fred. I started pushing a little bit. I was like, just give me a bite.

I'm not asking for the whole omelette. And he was like, ah, ah, ah. So Dr. Shah leans over and he's like, Fred, he's making a joke with you, man. He's trying to, he's, he's making a joke.

He's playing. And Fred was like, oh, he like visibly relaxed. I was like, oh, okay. Okay. I was like, I'm not joking, Fred. I'm not joking.

Give me some of your omelette. So he like looks to Dr. Shah. I was like, I don't know.

Shoot. So he cuts off. He's a grown man.

Like gotta be in his fifties, fully grown man. Just cuts off a little bit of his omelette and just puts it on my plate. And I was like, oh man, now I got to eat it.

So I ate a little bit and now I was like, oh man, I kind of took this too far. Cause how do I convince him that I was just joking around and I didn't just bully him. If you're listening to the show, I was joking, man. I was just joking. I just was trying to make you feel, I told him, I think I pulled him aside. I was like, Hey man, I really was just playing around. I just wanted you, wanted you to feel kind of comfortable. He was like, oh, okay.

Okay. And then he got in his car and left. He sits there. I would imagine he's just sitting there and just like thinks back to that day. He's like, I wonder if he really did need that omelette. Yeah. A 20 something year old bullied me out of an omelette. I'm confused.

He's like, I don't know. I just, I thought that was great. I ordered that for me. That's hilarious.

That was really fun. If you're listening, text and let us know how you felt about the omelette. Let us know your perspective. Long story short, I have had a bite of omelette, bite of an omelette with a side of bullying. Yeah. Yeah.

Big side of both heavy on the bullying, bullying. Yeah. Well guys, today we were talking about a very special topic. We're diving deeper into the realm of biblical scholarship and you know, we thought we'd start this adventure by beginning with Dr. Shaw's field in new Testament textual criticism, talking specifically about the original text. What is that?

How is it recoverable? Why does that matter for our discussion today? We're going to grab them in just a few minutes, but if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, text us at two five two five eight two five zero two eight or you can send us an email at contact at Clearview today show.com.

Let's go grab Dr. Shaw and we'll be right back. If you haven't already, be sure to check out Dr. Shaw's book, changing the goalpost of new Testament textual criticism. Before the 19 sixties, the goal of new Testament textual criticism was singular to retrieve the original text of the new Testament. Since then, the goalpost has incrementally shifted away from the original text to retrieving any text or many texts of the new Testament. Some scholars have even concluded that the original text is hopelessly lost and cannot be retrieved with any confidence or accuracy. If that's the case, how can we claim that the Bible is inerrant? To answer these questions, make sure you order a copy of Dr. Shaw's book.

That title again is changing the goalpost of new Testament textual criticism. You can pick up your copy on Amazon right now and let us know how it's helped you by emailing us at info at Clearview BC dot org. You can also support our ministry here at Clearview by visiting us at Clearview BC dot org forward slash give.

Thanks for listening. Now back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View today with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can find us online at Clearview today show.com or you can always send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shaw is with us in the studio today. Dr. Shaw, how are you this Wednesday?

I'm doing very well. It's good to see you guys. Absolutely.

Good to see you as well. Yeah. I was going to say, you might want to, I didn't even, I did not even catch that.

I saw it as soon as he started. I was like, oops. I was going to see if I can just, was it too far away? You want to keep it in the show? Yeah, sure.

Why not? Oh, you stopped it though. Okay. I just keep it. Keep it. It's funny. All right. I'm back in, back in the game.

Back in the game. If you guys are new with us, you've never seen the show before. You're unfamiliar with Dr. Shaw's work. Dr. Shaw has a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. He's a professor at Carolina university, author, full time pastor and the host of today's episode.

That's right. And we, we start that way. We have the introduction in there, but I want to just focus on that first part. Dr. Shaw has a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Your specialty, your PhD is focused on the original text.

And I know we talked about that a lot. We've had a lot of discussions here, but there's so many of our listeners, so many of our viewers who may not understand what we mean. We say that they're like, oh, I thought my Bible was the original like, and it is their previous Bible that I don't know about or what, how do we understand this?

It is. And the Bible they have in their hands is the word of God inspired and errant word of God. But when you talk about a discipline, a scientific discipline of the study of the manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, the variants that are found, and there are variants between the manuscripts and the fact that we don't have the original, if we had the actual manuscript, right? When I talk about manuscript, I'm talking about the papyrus or the parchment on which Paul wrote or Matthew Mark Luke, John wrote, or, you know, the first people wrote who received the word of God, then this would not even be an issue. But the fact that we don't have them, then it becomes an issue because what we have are copies and copies do disagree.

Copies do have variants. And so that's how, that's why we need a discipline called textual criticism. So you're not critiquing the text. You're not criticizing the text in a way that you're like actually going through and manipulating or looking at what the text says. You're, you're looking at the different variants between all these different manuscripts. Right.

Okay. It's to get technical on that, you know, there's a higher criticism of the Bible and there's a lower criticism of the Bible. Higher criticism deals with issues of you know, miracles and supernatural intervention in our universe, in our world and in the lives of God's people.

Lower criticism is when you're dealing with, not dealing with those philosophical issues or theological issues, you're dealing with strictly the text, the manuscripts, the variant readings and how to make sure you get back to the original text. So we don't have the original manuscripts, but the text of those, those original manuscripts are scattered all over. Right. Right. And so many thousands of manuscripts that we have. And so studying them, comparing them, applying the discipline, the criteria, the practices of textual criticism is what we do. So your field then, New Testament textual criticism would be a form of that lower criticism that you were talking about. Right. Not that it's less important, it's just not dealing with the philosophical issues. It's just a designation.

Okay. I've seen, it's kind of interesting you said that because I've seen, and it's been a while back where I saw it, I don't have the information where somebody called textual criticism, higher criticism because they were looking at it as how textual criticism is used to deny the inspiration and energy of scripture. So they call it a higher criticism.

So it's just funny how people use that term criticism in so many different ways. How do you go about comparing all of the different manuscripts? Are they logged somewhere that you can access all these different manuscripts and see the comparisons between them? Right. The manuscripts have been collated.

Right. And not every manuscript has been collated, but enough has been done for us to be able to know what a certain text type reads. The terms now are called textual clusters or groups of manuscripts, but nonetheless, the collation has been done.

Okay. And once based on a sample, a certain manuscript is designated as say Byzantine text or Alexandrian text or Western text then is grouped with those manuscripts. And most times the groupings pretty much are correct. Okay. But then there are times that you have to go even beyond and say, I need to check their individual manuscript to make sure that it is indeed Byzantine at that point or Alexandrian at that point.

But most times they've been designated quite well. So the collation of the text is putting all of these different manuscripts into their categories. The collation of the text is when you examine a manuscript. Okay.

And note down the variance. Got it. That's the collation of the text. I was involved in the International Greek New Testament Project back in 1997. Wow.

1998. So I helped collate some of those manuscripts. Wow. Of course, they were checked and rechecked behind me.

Sure. Just the way I checked and rechecked behind some of the people. So that's called collation. It's a tedious task. It's not, unless you are called to that field, it is, your eyes get crossed. I can imagine.

I can imagine. Because you're going through microfilms and just looking at each line, each word, each dash, and then recording what's going on there. If there's anything deviating from that manuscript, usually it's compared to the Byzantine text because Byzantine text is considered to be the fuller text.

So a manuscript is typically, at least in the Greek New Testament Project, is compared to the Byzantine text. And wherever it deviates, it's noted. Wow.

Okay. So that was our task. And so, you know, it's a lot of work. But once that is done, then we know where that manuscript lies. And most times, you know, samples are done because every single manuscript has not been completely collated. So I think I see what you're saying. Once the collations are done, you can see where that manuscript falls within all the other clusters.

And that's how you know which text type that it belongs to. Now, we're going to have a guest on tomorrow, your mentor that you did your PhD under, Dr. Maurice Robinson. Was he involved in any of the collision process? Oh, yes. It's through him I was able to get involved in the International Greek New Testament Project. Okay. Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome. So it's a lot of work. Nowadays, thanks to the Center for the Study of the New Testament Manuscript with Dr. Dan Wallace over in Dallas Theological Seminary, now you have some amazing high resolution photocopies or pictures.

So, you know, you don't have to stare at that screen for hours and hours. Now you can, you know, use those photos. That's amazing.

That is really awesome. Yeah. And there have been corrections. In your study of textual criticism and looking at all these different variants between different manuscripts, has that ever called into question, either for you or for other people that you know of, you know, if there are these variants, then how do we know where the original is?

I mean, I guess that's what the field is, right? But like, how do we have confidence that God's Word is actually intact? Well, in recent years, if our listeners are aware of the name Bart Ehrman, Bart Ehrman has written books like Misquoting Jesus, very popular book, I believe New York Times bestseller. You know, in that book, he talks about, you know, you don't have, he's talking to Christians. He said, you don't have the original manuscripts. And if you do not have the original manuscript, how can you keep claiming that you have, that your text is inspired? That is the God's Word. Because the manuscripts that you do have are copies of copies of copies, and they disagree. Now, here's the interesting thing.

He is right. We don't have the original manuscripts. Like I said in the opening, if we had the original manuscripts, the debate is over.

You know, you have to just look at it. But the first manuscript on which Paul wrote or Paul's amanuensis wrote, the secretary wrote, or Peter, James, or John, or Matthew, Luke, whoever wrote, that manuscript got lost, or it disintegrated with time, because they were made out of papyrus. You know, when I was in Egypt back in February, March, I was able to go to a place where they actually made those papyrus. And I purchased some blank papyrus, long, long rolls.

And people were looking at me going, why are you purchasing this? Because they had all kinds of these paintings and drawings that you could pick. And for the people to then take it and then, you know, draw it out, you know, and so on the manuscript that you want or the papyrus you want. And I was like, I'm not interested in any of those drawings. I don't need hieroglyphs. I don't need pictures of pharaohs. I just want a blank one. So I can bring it back here. That's really cool. So it's, you know, when you feel it, you know, it's so easily disintegrated with time, water damage, especially around the Mediterranean.

The climate is humid, damp, and those manuscripts got destroyed. Do you have the papyrus still? Do you have it like at the house?

Oh yeah, have rolls. Maybe on Monday's show we could bring it in and maybe let's look at it. I'd be really interested to see it.

Yeah, that'd be great. And one of my messages, I held it up. I opened it up and people were like, oh my goodness, here's a papyrus roll. It's not from ancient times.

It's from maybe they made it about a year ago, but just to be able to have a papyrus roll. Is the process the same of how they make it? Yes.

Wow. Now we don't know for sure exactly how they made it back then, right? There is some information here and there, but it's kind of meager. There is some information about how papyrus was made and how it was laid out and all that stuff.

But nonetheless, I don't know how many other ways they can make it. Yeah. And there are some people who are very particular about their theory of how the papyrus was made. But we do know this much that it came from a papyrus plant going around the Nile Delta, the river basin, and it was taken and then it's peeled, the stem is peeled and dried and all that stuff and put together in cross layers and thousands upon thousands of things have been written on it. Wow.

That's insane. Yeah. If we have a few minutes just before we have to close, I want to talk a little bit about your actual dissertation. So you're, like we said, you're a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, but your specific focus is on the original text, which we already said is kind of the original words of the author.

Not necessarily that physical papyrus, but the original words that the author wrote. When you say you feel like we can get back to it, what exactly do you mean? Are we getting away from that or are we getting away from the search for it?

Yes. There's been a movement for the past 20, I would say now 25 years, 30 years maybe where, and I believe it's an impact of postmodernism on the discipline of textual criticism. Postmodernism, what I'm referring to is the idea that truth is relative and how does, how has that infiltrated textual criticism? Well, it has infiltrated textual criticism by saying that, you know, we don't have the original text, so the best we can do is get back to a third, fourth century text.

Now none of this is new information, right? People like Lachman back in the 19th century, they all agreed, you know, Tischendorf and so many other scholars I can name, they all agreed that yes, our manuscripts go only so far, third, fourth century. And then in the last century, 20th century, we found papyrus fragments that confirm that, you know, yes, that text even goes further back. But beyond that, we don't have anything.

So what do we do? We have to then apply textual criticism, put this, these variants together and figure out do we have the original text? The way people like Bart Ehrman and others make it sound, they make it sound as if the text is lost forever.

You don't have the original, it's over. But then in footnotes and then in, you know, in the middle of the paragraph they put something like, well, you know, 94% of the text is solid. Wait a minute. Why is the 6% up in the main body of your text, but then the 94% that actually supports Christianity is buried in the footnotes that we're not going to write. Right.

And even Bart Ehrman will say, yeah, I have no problem. And scribes were typically very, very diligent in doing their work. But wait a minute, the way you write, it almost seems like we've lost the text for good. It's over. I wonder if there might be an agenda at foot.

I don't know. So even though he agrees, even though he clarifies those things, the way he writes it, the person, unless you really pay attention to those footnotes and really pay attention to those provisos, you walk away thinking, I don't even know why Christians believe the Bible is God's word because we don't have it. But when you really examine textual variants, 94% and some scholars will even go 95, 96% of the text of the New Testament is perfectly fine.

There are no problems. Now where there is a problem in those five, 6%, that's where you apply the discipline of textual criticism. Having said that, let me say it again. No critical first level theological doctrine is in jeopardy, even in those five to 6%.

It's not like you're going to walk away saying, you know what? I can't believe in the Trinity now because textual criticism has forever taken away the Trinity from us or the atonement of through the penal substitution atonement. Can't believe that guys because textual criticism, that's not true. It's mostly like grammar or like it's mostly like the variants have to do with like there's an and here instead of a but or this person crossed something out and wrote it in the margins.

Well, I would go one step beyond that. There are passages that are not found in certain manuscripts, significant manuscripts. And so the issues are not just about and or but or some preposition. It's more than that. But really we're talking about only 6% of the text where this even remotely happens.

So it does happen, but it's not as pervasive. Also key theological doctrines, orthodox doctrines, the things that you need for your faith are not compromising those texts. We have plenty of other texts that pretty much take care of that.

Okay. And how interesting that, you know, Bart Ehrman's book and his his research is what is kind of at the forefront, what's publicized and what, like you said, is a is a bestseller. But books that are saying, yeah, this really isn't impacting major doctrines of Christianity.

You're not seeing those on the top of that. Well, it's cells to tear something down. Anytime you tear something that's established down, of course that's going to sell.

Yeah. Controversies or, you know, some some fast paced Da Vinci, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code type works. You know, people love that. It's like, oh, so you're telling me that, you know, the church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, had this conspiracy going on and how to control the masses and there's and there's like like these these these vast treasure troves waiting somewhere, you know, it's like, no, there isn't anything like that. Yeah, but it sells, though.

That'll certainly sell. And if and listen, if I can convince the masses that it does exist and they'll buy my book saying that this is what happened, why not write it? Which is why I appreciate so much that that you are both a scholar and a pastor, because as as your congregation, we get to benefit from that of you not shying away from these things like, hey, there are variants and let's talk about them. Let's let's discuss what these mean and how they don't impact our confidence in God's word.

Thank you. And that's what we want to do, because you take away the word of God. Take away the Bible.

We don't have a faith. Right. And that's what's happening in our in our world today. The attack is against the the Bible, especially the New Testament now, especially the Greek New Testament. And so I believe it's a fight worth is a battle worth fighting. And it's it's important that we have the text. And and we do we do have the Bible.

We do have the New Testament. And it is an errand. Amen. Amen.

Absolutely. I hope I hope that gives you confidence. Listeners and viewers, I hope that gives you confidence in the word of God that you hold in your hands.

It is genuinely the word of God. If you have questions about today's topic or anything related to the idea of New Testament textual criticism, make sure you send us a text at two five two five eight two five zero two eight. And you can also email us at contact at Clearview today show dot com. Don't forget, you can support us financially in the same place Clearview today show dot com. There's a button there to donate and every contribution goes to build this partnership as we seek to impact people engage their hearts and minds for the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's one of the things I think that's bringing us a lot of hope and a lot of encouragement these days is just seeing that people are responding, you know, seeing that people are not only hearing the word of God being being taught, you know, in our church and being pushed out through this radio show, but they're responding to it and they're giving an obedience. And I think that's what's really I know that's encouraged me. It's just something that I don't know, it's just really something that I feel like we want you guys to to take seriously, but also be blessed in it. Be blessed in that obedience.

Absolutely. Do you have any last minute advice before we head out of here? I do have some last minute advice. So my last minute advice for today is, you know, those little those protein shake drinks, you can get like premier protein or like muscle milk or something like that, just the kind of individual, you don't have to make them loaded with calories. They are, but they've got some they've got some protein in them. It's good, like a quick grab out of the fridge. Sometimes you use them like meal replacement type stuff. If you are a coffee drinker, you can use the protein shake as creamer.

So just kind of combine two together. Okay. Now process sugar in that, though. Well, I'm gonna but if you're putting creamer in your coffee anyway, you get that process sugar.

I can't really talk. The caveat there is they are, they can be a little pricey. So I wouldn't use that as like a creamer replacement. But one morning, if you're like running out the door, you don't want to carry a bunch of things at once. Just use that premier protein, just a little splash of it in your coffee. When we were when we were doing the the VBS here at Clearview, I had somebody tell me to do that with protein powder, like instead of putting your protein powder in a shake, put it in coffee. So I did it that very night full of clumps.

But it was still good. I mean, it worked. But I wonder I wonder if you blended it together. I wonder if that would work. Maybe people in hot coffee.

One you let the coffee cool down or you can use cold brew coffee. Okay. I don't know. Well, that's his advice. There you go. That's my full try. Let's let us know what you guys think. We love you guys and we'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.