Greer-Heard: Final Friday Thoughts

As I said earlier, it was an interesting night to say the least. It started off a bit slow with Ehrman's presentation: I was disappointed that he kept his discussion at a fairly low level. In one sense, I suppose that was good for everyone in the audience without a TC background, but on the other hand, it's a dialogue between two text critics about the text of the New Testament! It's meant to be at a high level!

Whether it was the right tactic or not, Wallace certainly changed that with his presentation. At first he appeared to throw Ehrman with his presentation, as he quoted Ehrman throughout, and took a more aggressive stance than Ehrman had. But it also brought out a much sharper Ehrman in his reponses, so that was good to see. Again, I'm not sure that initial aggressiveness was the perfect tactic to represent the reliability of the New Testament text (a disconnect Ehrman noted), but I don't think it was an unfair tactic by any means, as it simply used Ehrman's public statements about the text to illustrate the many ways (some would say contradictory ways) he's answered the question in the past.

The most disappointing portion of the evening by far, however, was the Q&A section, after the responses finished. They had questioners line up at either side of the chapel and ask Wallace and Ehrman their questions, alternating between the two. Though I suppose it's to be expected considering the environment, the questioners for Ehrman were not very charitable, and it was irritating to hear them essentially attack him. Whatever he was actually thinking up there, it's to his credit that he had very good humor about it, probably unleashing the best line of the night when a questioner asked something like, "you've said this, this, and that tonight, blah blah blah, how can the church defend against people like...you?" To which Ehrman responded, "Good luck."

Overall, it was a stimulating evening, and I'm looking forward to listening to the paper presentations tomorrow of Michael Holmes, David Parker, Dale Martin, and William Warren (along with the Q&A's with Ehrman and Wallace throughout the day). Right now, their two arguments appear to boil down to this: Ehrman firmly believes that we cannot know whether or not the text is reliable, because we don't have the evidence from the first century after the New Testament was initially written. Wallace firmly believes that even though we don't have that evidence, the probability is strongly in favor of the fact that the text demonstrates its reliability in almost every case, particularly in cases involving essential doctrines. I'll be posting updates tomorrow to see how they continue to flesh that dynamic out in the remaining sessions.