Ehrman vs Wallace - Can We Trust the Text of the NT? 

Debate actually starts at 8:22 Ur welcome 😎👉

I REALLY wish they would’ve allowed for an actual back-and-forth dialogue between these two before the questions from the audience. I think that would’ve made this debate FAR more invigorating

The thing I learned is that people will believe what they want to believe not matter the evidence.

Wallace is surprisingly candid and plays no tricks, among Christians. He admitted all the facts and reached exact opposite conclusions.

The more Ive learned about the bible after becoming an atheist, the more I've come to realize how little I knew about it when I believed.

One point I agree on :"We should all seek the truth to the best of our ability!"

I love Bart, and was glad to finally find someone close to his level in debate. Even though I disagree with Wallace, I think he’s way more intellectually honest than the others that I’ve heard him debate before. Even if you disagree with either- I think they both make pretty good arguments.

I have to say, Wallace's opening remarks are easily done of the most charming and seemingly honest examples of debate I've ever seen from a Bible believer. Watching the rest now, but so far I actually like this Wallace guy, which is a very pleasant and welcome surprise

Dan and Bart are top notch scholars and, seemingly, great people. I've watched several of their debates and, each time, am left with the same impression, namely, that they're simple engaging in an apples and oranges discussion. Bart seeks certainty. Nothing short of the original texts or something close to them will satisfy him. Dan is dealing in probabilities based on extant evidence. It makes for a very informative discussion but one in which absolutely nothing is resolved.

Honestly why can't we just have a question and answer session for hours between these two amazing scholars? Forget all of the typical debate methodologies and just have them arguing back and forth asking questions and answering each other. That is when the debate becomes quite intriguing and when i learn the most about this topic. Everytime i listen to a bart ehrman debate, he excells at refuting his opponents position during the crossfire sections. This is all i look forward too.

Wallace says ehrman was “Skirting the issues I raised with you” but yet after Erhmans first round of questions Wallace started by saying straight up that he wasn’t going to answer erhmans questions yet and proceeded with his own set of questions.

Dr. Ehrman, you are part of the reason why I have even a footing when interacting with Theists about the legitimate reasons for belief. I'm an Atheist, intellectually Agnostic, however educated about the scriptures. They are very impactful, and terrifying in their influence on otherwise decent communities. Hello, from South Carolina!

Even though I disagree with Dr. Ehrman's conclusion, I genuinely respect, and like this man a lot. Anti-Christian or not, his scholarship is so incredibly helpful for everyone wanting to learn about the textual transmission of the New Testament. He's quite humble too, and a great speaker with much clarity. I cannot help but always have a smile on my face whenever I hear Dr. Ehrman speak. I pray that the Lord will draw him back into fellowship some day.

I remember being like the audience at the end. Pastors and apologists alike teach you to wave away and tune out arguments against the accuracy of the text, and it works. I remember genuinely not being phased when someone would make some of Ehrman’s arguments, and I felt like I was being intellectually honest. Just reminds me how feelings are terrible indicators of a correct position.

When Wallace was talking about how there are more copies of the Bible than classical writings, all I could I hear was Matt Dillahunty's voice saying, "So what?"

Can we all just appreciate that cut at 01:43:10 where someone went straight to the question? Whoever did that, thank you for saving me a minute or two, seriously that work is appreciated. EDIT: the people at the end, they all said Wallace won the debate and answered the questions and overwhelming evidence? Umm...did we watch the same debate?

now, rather than copies of copies we have translations and interpretations of translations and interpretations of copies of copies

This was great! Bart, you are an excellent debater. Your videos have increased my faith exponentially! You force me to question and research, so thank you. Understanding why we believe what we believe no matter what that believe is is so important. It's just to bad your questions weren't fully addressed.

I think the real question is, even if we had all the original texts, would they amount to anything more than just being what someone said?

What a wonderful conversation! Two highly knowledgeable experts conversing about a topic and offering two perspectives that complement one another. Inspite their differences Ehrman and Wallace managed to leave the audience with a thorough understanding of the essential questions related to the topic in question. Bravo! Excellent job!

One of the most evident conclusions I could see, is that evidence does not matter to those that believe. Their desire to believe is more important than evidence.

"Relatively certain" is a phrase I am not comfortable with. "Relatively confident" would be OK, but certainty can never be relative. #pedantry

This was maybe one of Bart's most intellectually challenging debates. Dr. Daniel B. Wallace was a very captivating debater and certainly had some good points.

It seems I was watching a different debate than these folks at the end. None of Ehrman’s questions were solidly answered and Wallace simply insists that he’s comfortable assuming as correct what he admits he does not know. Typical.

Did the people in the end watch the same debate as me?

The big issue and concern Ehrman presents is on display at 39:11 - "we cannot know if the scriptures reliable". His whole argument is that we don't know if the scriptures are reliable. He is right, we don't know. I'm still a Christian, I still read the bible, and I don't have to believe the bible is inerrant to read it nor to be a Christian. I thank Dr. Ehrman for all the work he has done and I'm pleased to have such a great resource to refute my brothers and sisters who are stuck in 'Bible Worship' instead of 'Christ Worship'. The truth is that all must come to any belief they have through faith. Ehrman has faith that the Christ is not risen. He bases that faith on evidence that we are not able to know beyond a doubt that the scriptures are inerrant. His faith against Christ is as dubious as my faith in Christ. In the end, if I'm wrong I died living a better life. If he is wrong he dies and goes to hell. That is a big gamble to make on his own assertion that "we don't know".

Wow, the closing bit with the audience feedback is a real lesson in confirmation bias.

In his conclusion, Wallace says he's "relatively certain". Which is it? He should drop the "certain" part. He's relatively confident.

Beautiful expose by both men, well balanced, entertaining, straight forward and to the point and much agreed upon by both professors.

I love these debates. Would love to see more, because your research changed my life for the better.

As Mark Twain stated: "It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies..."

Though I'm no longer a Christian, Dr. Wallace was one of my Greek professors at Dallas Theological Seminary. I'd highly recommend "How Jesus Became God" by Ehrman to any open-minded Christian interested in historical, textual criticism.

Whatever Professor Ehrman was arguing for, he put a good evidence for that argument. The fact that scholarly discussion is no longer made about the autograph or the original text is a proof of Dr Ehrman’s viewpoint. Now, it is all about Ausgangstext, exit text, output text, initial text and the archetypal text it descended from. No more original text. It’s untenable.

Great debate, Bart. I've read many of your books, and I've learned SO MUCH from you. Thank you, thank you!

Excellent! Excellent debate!!! One of the best debates I've ever heard.

I enjoy these discussions. Much I am already aware but I still hear another point of view and the reasoning supporting that point of view and the hurdles and difficulties in the tasks at hand. Very good!

You can always count on a bad moderator to interrupt the debaters during a back and forth when the discussion finally gets good and this moderator didn't disappoint.

Why interview only people who are obviously christian at the end. Ehrman was intellectually honest whilst Wallace believes he is correct without evidence.

Hearing the responses at the end was pretty disheartening. The things they believe Wallace proved were the exact things that he agreed we didn’t know. The argument should be whether or not (or at what level) you can still believe in the literal teachings of the NT given its glaring historical issues. I think to completely ignore the historical backdrop and issues leans into the growing skepticism in Modern American Christianity.

When Bart says “we don’t know”, meaning, the opposition has to provide the evidences. If you fail, then you have to admit that you’re in the wrong. I rest my case.

When I was a child, I was told the Bible was without error. At age 20 I went to Bible school where this was reinforced. At age 25 I went to Seminary where this was reinforced some more. At age 35 I began a Graduate program in Religious Studies where "objective" research was encouraged by reading at least three textbooks on each side of the particular issue. It is now clear to me that the Bible has many errors.

What questions did Wallace answer? He kept asking Ehrman questions; Ehrman gave some answers. Wallace gave none?

That intro is A+. Really he nailed setting the stage. A very great debate as well

Thank you for the debate, and for airing it as you have done, here. How unfortunate, though, that the video concludes with a handful of characters who uniformly endorse the notion that Professor Wallace presented the stronger of the two cases. It would seem to me that the purpose of the video is to all its viewers to decide, and even to mull over the question whether designating a "winner" is the most useful way of appropriating the material presented here. Moreover, those "interviewed" (they aren't are they?) at the end, or better put, asked to comment as to who "won", exhibit the kind of reasoning that in other frameworks would amount to an excellent series of examples of confirmation bias. Why were they included here, anyway? The integrity of the video and presentation has been compromised by including them.

It's good to see Ehrman debating a seasoned professional.

I have great respect for both of your work as schalors. I must confess I am biased as a Christian I tend to agree with Dan Wallace but I admire your work very much! I have always felt that your methodology when it comes to the manuscript tradition of the new testament was confusing but your works are very insightful

Comparing the number of NT manuscripts to other ancient works literally means nothing historically for the NT. Yes, it is significantly better attested than Plutarch’s works, etc., but that doesn’t imply that the NT is WELL attested. Being the best in a field of terribly attested historical documents doesn’t mean something is well attested. I can be the best basketball player on a horrendous team, but that doesn’t mean I am a genuinely good player.

The best part of the debate was the free wheeling between Bart and Wallace, but the moderator cut them off too short, not allowing them to go deeper. Moderators always do this as if they make it about themselves and not the two debaters.

You can always count on a bad moderator to interrupt the debaters when some really important back-and-forth discussion organically emerges.

GREAT PRESENTATION. GREAT HUMOR TOO. LEARNED A LOT. CLASSIFIED QUESTIONS DONE BY THE GREAT SCHOLARS. THANK YOU

Pretty amazing how people see what they want to see. The fellow at the end kept talking about the vast amount of evidence Dr Wallace presented, when he didn't show much at all. On the other hand, Dr Ehrman was on point throughout, but they seem to think he was either flailing or arguing from silence. Dr Ehrman clearly was the winner-and Dr Wallace never did get around to answering his questions!

We need more Bart Ehrman

Probably the most good-natured debate I've seen.

Two main points are: 1. How many differences we have between two manuscripts with a gap of 100 years. Once we know, we can make a projection for 200, 300 etc. years. Of course, we have to pick such two manuscripts a few times firstly - to see if number of differences changes, depending by historical epoche (in Antiquity, Middle Ages etc.). 2. To compare two randommanuscripts of the same time and to see the umber of difference. Once we have it, we can make a projection of this number to four, six and more manuscripts. So, we can estimate the number of original differencesm, compare manuscripts on two levels: 1. manuscripts of the same origin - in time; 2. two different originaged manuscripts of the same time.

Glad to see these sort of things are becoming more widely discussed and debated. Absolutist certainty at last has now a solid substantial counter.... my concern has been that a declining mainstream Christianity has left the field open to a rigid unchanging biblical rump who will end up never being challenged. It was great to get an insight into the scholarship and ongoing debates within biblical academic circles and disagreements without fighting to the death as in the past. I thought the concluding audience remarks reflect the conservative nature of SMU. An encounter of differing views helps to change ones perspective...modifying or changing views or just the realisation that others hold compelling reasons with sincere convictions.

Well done to both! Great debate

Still in Wallace's opening statement, but it amazes me that I'm *_supposed_* to be amazed that there are more copies of texts that were being churned out by the church than there are copies of the works of ancient historians. If there was a Church of Tacitus cranking out manuscripts, I wonder how many of *_those_* would have survived.

If you have a car and over time change all the parts... is it still the same car?

After viewing several of Dr. Ehrman's debates on youtube, it seems to me he has yet to encounter a truly worthy opponent... which is certainly not his fault at all.

right at the start of this, I am curious how different the text of P45 is versus the older (4th century) manuscript of Mark? That could provide a decent benchmark for estimating how different P45 might be from the original manuscript(s).

Ah, I wish the scholars hadn’t been interrupted when they were going at it - not for the drama, but to hear more of the live fight, _at their level_ . I wanted more of those details. Plus I admit I liked the passion (so ok, drama ;) ).

I like the Burden of Proof by Ehrman, the engineers need to prove the bridge is trustworthy. Wallace claims we are all on the train. clearly we are not. If we are, show me the caboose so i can jump off this thing.

Always good to hear the genius of Bart Ehrman

1:52:29 There is at least one essential and glaringly obvious difference between classical writings such as Homer’s Odyssey, the works of Plato, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, compared to New Testament scripture. None of the aforementioned authors claim their writings are the inerrant word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity. Subsequently, no one is threatened with eternal punishment for not revering the written words of the Greek authors.

This is such an academic point of discussion. The original text is gone so it's completely speculatory.

Excellent debate - with both speakers conducting themselves professionally. How refreshing. And yet, there's a point where the debate starts to go into epistomolgical circles - "can we know, can we know for sure...who knows". It would be great, perhaps next time, to see how biblical textual research examines the veracity of some of the main articles of Christian faith (i.e. was Jesus the son of God or merely a son of God (John 10:36 in the earliest manuscripts does not include the definite article "the")? From Jesus' perspective, does one enter the Kingdom of Heaven through faith - or good works? (as Ehrman hints at by citing Matt. 25)? Did Jesus see himself as a sacrfice for mankind, or as a reformer against a Persian-influenced, corrupted Judaism?...etc.

Great debate and I've learned alot from both debaters.

Since they both agree that the text we have today is false and we can never know what originally was in the text I don't understand why the debate is two hour long?

Regardless of who you think won the debate, the real winner is the audience (at least the audience that listens). Very informative stuff!

Even as a Christian, I am a great fan of Ehrman. I think most people who debate him do not give him enough credit when they are preparing for the debate. That said, I think Wallace did the better job here.

If the original words are recoverable, how will we know when we have them? We have no basis for comparison. How will we know the original words once we've found them?

Compared to 'religious' debates this was great, because they were arguing facts and concepts rather than theology and both doing it rather well. I would really like to get a statistician to run the numbers on how many copies of which age would be needed to truly confirm the accuracy of an unknown original. I do know that any copy that is known to have been taken holey from a specific source that we also already know can be discarded from the evidence. How far would that take the pile down?

Thanks for posting Dr Erhman. Wallace was indispensable in helping me learn Greek and you were crucial in helping me let go of ancient superstitions. Tremendous respect for both of you in your search for truth.

Sorry, Boss. I didn't complete the assignment because there was typo in the email. I couldn't really rely on it or extract any meaning from it. Perhaps everything in it was wrong. How could I know? If one thing was wrong, maybe everything was wrong. And I certainly wouldn't want to base any important decisions on something that is obviously false.

Ehrman: All I ask is that you approach it with an open mind. Audience: What did he say? My hearing has left the building.

Did that one student interviewed even listen to Ehrman about the reliability of classical scholarship? He answered the question.

Good job again , Dr. Ehrman. My only gripe about the format of these debates is that they grow tired. It seems that the podium lectures, then counter arguments, keep the debaters from really putting forth solid discussion. The best debates are when the speakers get to “cross examine” each other. Then they are required to directly answer the other’s questions. This one got good toward the end then until the moderator stopped it and moved them into their “final arguments” (just another lecture). It’s like sitting in church listening to a sermon which will, hopefully, become a thing of the past.

After watching this debate, there are a few things that I want to prove constructive criticism about the discussion. I will try to be fair on both people. I do realize that I will be a bit harsher on Wallace because I find that many of his arguments are flawed. 1) The thing that I found about Wallance argument is that he wants to convince people that because we have so many manuscripts of the new testament, it means than any other ancient text it means that it is more reliable 2) If we want to say that the NT is not reliable, then we have to say that all of the ancient manuscripts are not reliable, and as such, we will go back in the age of darkness. To me, this is an argument to appeal to emotion. The simple truth is that we don't have an accurate representation of history. It is just an account of what has occurred. 3) As for the reliability of the text, Wallance tried to use his experiment that with his 70 churches that they found that the variable of errors was about 4 errors. However, he did not say the significance of those errors. Here are two variance sentence in which both of that sentence as only 1 letter difference * I can do this Honey * I can't do this Honey Both of these sentences have 1 letter difference of where the meaning of the ENTIRE sentence changes. 4) I would love where they get that number that 99% of the text is preserved. This argument seems way too convenient. I realize that most of these are spelling mistakes. A spelling mistake can make a difference depending on which word you spell. Here is another example of a spelling mistake of a single word that changes the meaning of the word itself: Long vs lung 5) Wallace did bring a high point that tax collector is more accurate to record their record than those who specialize in literature record keeping. Bert failed to respond to how those people were not able to keep an actual record 6) Wallace did make a high point about the probability of knowing the most likeable outcome Which to me Bert fails to consider how the likelihood of finding the most accurate. 7) Yet it does not mean that we do have the original text because even in a probability situation, there is still some element of chance that the probability is actually wrong. After all, if you have a likelihood of a 97% chance of being accurate, you still have a chance of 3% of being inaccurate. I know that 3% might not seem significant. To understand the impact of how significant those changes are with the figure of 1% that is a considerable change. There are 150k in the NT that would mean that there are 1500 significant words. Kinda change the perspective, eh? 8) Wallace makes the argument that you can reconstruct the entire new testament with the Greek fathers. I actually want to see the evidence that you can actually do that. I bet that this is an exaggeration, and you won't be able to reconstruct it. I also do know that some of the church father is quoting things from the Bible that does not exist from our Bibles.

The gospels of Peter, Luke , Matthew, and John all tell the story of Mary going to the tomb of Jesus. But each story is different from the others. Eg: Matthew: An angel comes down from heaven, rolls back the stone covering the entrance, and then tells everyone that Jesus has already risen. Mark : The stone is already rolled away from the entrance when everybody gets there and there is a young man inside ( angel?) who says Jesus has already risen. Luke: The stone is already rolled away from the entrance, and as if by magic two men appear (angels?) and tell them Jesus has already risen. John: In this last version Mary shows up, finds the stone moved and the body gone. Two men (angels?) ask her why she's crying. Jesus himself appears and tells Mary that he is about to rise to heaven. The story of the resurrection of Jesus is arguably the most important story of the Bible from the Christian point of view and yet 4 different versions of the event from the primary Biblical sources.

Mr. Wallace is correct that we can be relatively highly accurate to reconstruct the content. In this case Quantity can lead to quality of reconstruction.

The debate summed up in 2 sentences. 1) Ehrman believes since we can't be 100% sure then we can't be sure at all. 2) Wallace believes we can't be 100% sure but based on the evidence its probable that we can be sure.

Around halfway through the debate Wallace admits to not answering Bart Ehrman's questions and then proceeds to never answer them. In my mind, if you can't answer the simple questions raised by Ehrman you might as well not debate because it's an admission the bible is unreliable.

So basically Ehrmann says even though there is not so much discussion on the main essence, we cannot know the details, while Wallace tells us that though we can't know all the details, there can't be much discussion on the main essence? I enjoyed this very much, both are very good public speakers.

2:05:30...pursue truth at ALL costs. Great debate!

Kind of slimy how Wallace again conflated "original / autographic / initial / ausgangs" in his closing remarks after being repeatedly and directly corrected on that point

I love how they portray the ignorance of the audience about what was discussed in the debate.

Myself and the audience watched two different debates. I am going to boil it down too, when you base your life on Faith, you take the documentation on Faith as well.

Bart Ehrman has never lost a debate......ever!

The problem with Wallace's argument is that it's essentially an argument from hope. He wants to believe that we have the original text so he makes whatever points he can to supports his belief and ignores those points that don't. In terms of deliberate changes, the period immediately following the composition of a text is when it is most likely to be changed - when few copies exist and people reading it find that they don't like parts of it and decide to change it. We don't have any NT texts from these periods and in the early decades of Christianity the texts didn't have the Holy Scripture status that they would later have. Early Christians routinely changed existing texts, fabricated stories about Jesus and wrote texts that claimed to have been authored by apostles and other famous people - it was the norm. Luke changes things words and events that are in Mark, nearly half the Pauline Epistles are regarded as forgeries by most scholars, not to mention the fact that there were far more gospels written that were considered as fabrications in the first few centuries than the 4 that were subsequently canonized. Forging, fabricating and changing texts was the norm in the early Christian decades and centuries.

Big fan of Bart Erhman One man theological wrecking ball.

Greetings to you, Dr Erhman, from Mizoram, India

I've not listened to Dan before. This exchange was very enjoyable. The Gospel acc. to Snoopy is a little flawed when you compare modern literacy rates to 2nd/3rd century literacy rates among early Christians, and the materials used for reading and writing, not to mention lighting. What would happen if they repeated this by candle light on parchment with a quill among a group with a more representative literacy rate? They'll probably have to surrender their spectacles too.

Believers in religion teach us that God will reward men for good actions, but men who are intellectually free, know that the reward of a good action cannot be given by any power, but that it is the natural result of the good action. The free man, guided by intelligence, knows that his reward is in the nature of things, and not in the caprice even of the Infinite. He is not a good and faithful servant, he is an intelligent free man. -Robert G. Ingersoll

I cannot figure out how Wallaces argument that there are lots of cooies from centuries after...has anything to do with how accurate those copies are. And yes, we should doubt that we have the exact originals of those other ancient authors too.

They're all gonna say wallace because they are christians and couldnt handle ehrmans points. Ehrman silenced wallace in the term 'original' text not being used by textual critics but using it only for 'practical' purposes

I like Bart, he's got a very personable way about him which can clearly be seen at the beginning of this debate. I think that where things have gone wrong for this man is that he has run to the end of the available knowledge on this subject and hasn't found enough evidence to convict him with absolute certainty of the claims of Christianity. I admire his honesty but find it sad that he is unable to bridge the gap of what he does know with faith. As I see it, every belief system requires some level of faith and Bart has finally taken the position of Agnostic when he meets this point. He will never be an atheist either for this same reason.

Most of the debate is about validity of the text. I'm far more concerned about the 'telephone game', 40 years of gossip by people who wanted the stories to be true, and perhaps more than true.

Wow, the people interviewed at the end of the video apparently paid zero attention to what Dr. Ehrman said. Their bias is painfully apparent.

From reading peoples comments I’m always dumbfounded by people’s inability to accept “I don’t know”. To insert infallibility where there is major holes isn’t faith, it’s committing yourself to ignorance. “Faith is based upon that which cannot be proven. Without faith there is no manipulation. Without manipulation there’s no fear and without fear there is no power. “

Very well done Dr. Bart D. Ehrman.