I'm sorry - did you claim that I'm terrified? Don't presume to tell me how I feel about things. Textual criticism doesn't scare me, and I believe in it. I know pastors/priests who are terrified by Textual Criticism and who do not believe in it. Not long ago I pointed out to an Anglican priest that it's the only way we get the Greek from which to translate, he said "nonsense we translate from the original manuscripts" - I said, uh no we don't we use a printed critical text, and have been doing so ever since Tyndale, we don't just use a manuscript, we use a critical text.
There are a small handful of known errors in the OT for which there is no correct Hebrew reading. Conversely there are no known errors in the NT for which there is no correct Greek reading. Working out which reading is the correct one is the job of Scholars who specialize in Textual Criticism. Until Ehrman or someone else can demonstrate there are parts of the NT for which there is no correct reading in the Greek, he has completely failed to demonstrate that the NT has been altered from the 1st century originals.
Only completely ignorant layman are persuaded by arguments such as his. "He has evidence" - yes he has evidence, but his evidence is wafer-thin and circumstantial and academic. It's hardly a compelling argument. I've never seen any clear evidence of textual alteration from the 1st to 2nd centuries that isn't already accounted for in the variances in the texts that we have.
There are a small handful of known errors in the OT for which there is no correct Hebrew reading. Conversely there are no known errors in the NT for which there is no correct Greek reading. Working out which reading is the correct one is the job of Scholars who specialize in Textual Criticism. Until Ehrman or someone else can demonstrate there are parts of the NT for which there is no correct reading in the Greek, he has completely failed to demonstrate that the NT has been altered from the 1st century originals.
Only completely ignorant layman are persuaded by arguments such as his. "He has evidence" - yes he has evidence, but his evidence is wafer-thin and circumstantial and academic. It's hardly a compelling argument. I've never seen any clear evidence of textual alteration from the 1st to 2nd centuries that isn't already accounted for in the variances in the texts that we have.
