At SMU Dr. Frank Turek was asked, “How do we account for the errors of the scribes in the New Testament since these documents were handed down from one person to the next and what if these errors are not simple and interfere with the teachings of the scriptures.

how do you account for the errors of the

scribes when the New Testament was

handed down person to person

yeah excellent question there are errors

that we know about why because we can

compare the documents we can compare the

manuscripts and see where the errors are

in fact let me see if I can show you a

representation of that because it’s

better seen than it is described here it

is let’s say you have here’s the

original which we don’t have we don’t at

least we we don’t think we have any

original documents okay so they’re all

copies okay and let’s say you find four

different copies and in the first copy

you see an error right here and then

another copy there’s another error right

there in the third copy there’s another

error right there and in the fourth copy

there’s an error right there can you

reconstruct the original yes yes and

that’s what scholars do the original

this happens to be Roman six or Romans

three 26 God is just in the justifier of

the one who has faith in Jesus now the

note here is the New Testament documents

have far fewer variations than this

example so yes sometimes scribe made

mistakes but in virtually all cases we

know what the mistake was and we can

correct it by comparing it with other

documents now you might say why wouldn’t

God just if this is true why wouldn’t he

just maintain the original I’m

speculating here but I think one reason

well two reasons number one if we had

the original we might venerate it we

tend to venerate things like that right

but number two if I had the original

what could I do to it I could alter it

right but if you had a copy you had a

copy you had a couple you had a copy you

a copy you to copy and I had a copy and

I changed my copy is everyone going to

know who changed their copy yeah because

when you get all your copies together

and compare it to mine you go Turek you

heretic why’d you do that right so by

not preserving the original you actually

are able to preserve the original better

so what if the air is not that simple

like what if it’s a difference in

concept

um so if we have these copies and say

copy one gets 12 copies copy 2 gets 24

copies and then you’ve got copy for that

gets 400 copies but copy 4 is the

incorrect copy then how do we justify

truth in that as well as how do we

justify the truth in Jesus’s exact words

when we didn’t hear them ourselves okay

there is no significant doctrine

theological doctrine that is affected by

any variant and who admits this Bart

Ehrman himself okay so Bart Ehrman the

great skeptic admits that the New

Testament documents are reliable in fact

let me let me show you a quote from him

because this quote is very right on the

money

you know he wrote the book misquoting

Jesus and if you’ve heard of this book

but in 2005 he wrote a book called

misquoting Jesus a popular book in which

he tries to insinuate that we can’t

trust what the New Testament documents

have said yet the very same year 2005 he

wrote an academic work he updated an

academic work with his mentor dr. Bruce

Metzger from Princeton University in

fact Metzger was the top manuscript

scholar of the last century and in that

book he agrees with Metzger that the New

Testament documents are copied

accurately now why is he coming to two

different conclusions the same year same

evidence the only thing I can speculate

is when you say to the academic

community something wrong they’ll

correct you on it but when you say

something wrong to the lay community

they don’t know any better in most cases

you can sell a lot of books when you say

the New Testament documents aren’t

copied reliably that gets you a review

in The New York Times and get you on The

Colbert show the Jon Stewart Show you

sell a lot of books right what’s that a

textbook TV study we’re studying I mean

now you’re studying misquoting Jesus no

his textbook the New Testament okay well

that one that he co-wrote with Metzger

is actually good but this one this one

now here’s what he says this is in the

appendix of the paperback version so

this comes out a year or two later from

the original misquoting Jesus he’s

interviewed and in the interview here’s

what he says check this out this is a

quote from the book page 252 he says

Bruce Metzger is one of the great

scholars of modern times and I dedicated

the book to him because he was both my

inspiration for going into textual

criticism and the person who trained me

in the field I have nothing but respect

and admiration for him and even though

we may disagree on important religious

questions he is a firmly committed

Christian and I am NOT we are in

complete agreement on the number of on a

number of very important historical and

textual questions what are they in

agreement on if he and I were put into a

room and asked to hammer out a consensus

statement on what we think the original

text of the New Testament probably

looked like there would be very few

points of disagreement maybe one or two

dozen places out of many thousands the

position I argue for in misquoting Jesus

does not actually stand at odds with

Professor Metzger’s position that the

essential Christian beliefs are not

affected by textual variants in the

manuscript tradition of the New

Testament well why would you write

misquoting Jesus then not you but Bart

Ehrman right why is I mean the book

maybe should be called misquoting Ehrman

because he doesn’t even agree with

himself so it seems that even airman

when when push comes to shove admits

that we do have an accurate copy of the

New Testament documents now your second

question is how do we know verbatim what

Jesus said we might not know verbatim

what he said because there are no quote

marks in Greek so we’re not always sure

exactly if it’s a quote or if it is a

paraphrase because Jesus probably spoke

in Aramaic yet the documents are written

in Greek but that’s okay you can

communicate truth in different languages

and you don’t have to be exact with what

he said you can get the gist of it in

fact jesus said he was an itinerant

preacher he probably gave the same talks

in several different places right I mean

if you followed me around I go around to

different campuses I give the same

presentations over and over again but I

might say things slightly differently in

one place in another place so maybe one

guy heard it one way another guy heard

it another way we have the gist of what

Jesus said and that’s really all God

wanted to tell us also you might imagine

that at those times people had highly

developed memories

they could memorize complete books we

can’t remember our phone number because

we have all these devices that remember

it all for us so these people were an

oral culture and they memorize things

quite well thank you thank you grace

you