For the past twelve months, I’ve been on sabbatical from my teaching duties at Dallas Seminary. The sabbatical officially comes to an end on June 30, but the work goes on. We photographed about 80,000 pages of text, went to ten different countries, and discovered almost forty manuscripts. We have been granted permission to post several of these manuscripts on line. Some recent postings at the CSNTM website (www.csntm.org) are as follows:

36 MSS from Athens have been uploaded to the web site in the past several weeks. The uploads include 30 MSS from the Benaki Museum and six from the National Historical Museum; 17 are continuous-text manuscripts and 19 are lectionaries for a total of nearly 14,000 images. They cover a range in date from the 8th century to the 18th and include five palimpsests.

More will be uploaded in the next few weeks from other sites as well. Many readers of Parchment & Pen support our mission, and we are extremely grateful.

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The Credo House of Theology is well on the way. Get the latest updates here.

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Bart Ehrman has become the new media darling of the 21st century. He’s been on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and virtually all the major news media (e.g., NPR, ABC, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and countless others). Publisher’s Weekly, which reviews newly released books for a general readership and is the bible for the main secular bookstores in America, ran an article not too long ago called “The Ehrman Effect,” showing that books by Ehrman as well as those stimulated by his writings (both pro and con) have captured a large market. Beginning with Misquoting Jesus (2005), followed by God’s Problem (2008), and most recently, Jesus, Interrupted (2009), Ehrman’s books have sold by the tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands.

What makes him so popular? Essentially, he’s a former evangelical who is becoming increasingly outspoken about leaving the faith. He’s now a ‘happy agnostic.’ And he’s not just someone who abandoned the faith, but someone who is a bona fide biblical scholar. The media are fascinated by him. Most recently, CNN ran a story on him (May 15, 2009) entitled, “Former fundamentalist ‘debunks’ Bible.”

To those who live in the world of biblical studies, CNN’s headline is a yawn. We’ve heard it before. Some years ago, I was on a committee that was working on a revision of the standard Greek grammar of the New Testament. The grammar, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, by Blass and Debrunner and translated by Robert W. Funk in 1961, has been known by students of the New Testament simply as Blass-Debrunner-Funk or BDF. Yes, that Funk, the former head of the Jesus Seminar. This small committee met annually for about ten years; Bob Funk occasionally showed up to urge us along in his own inimical style. Since he died and the chairman of the committee, Daryl Schmidt, died, the revision of this important work has come to a standstill.

In one of our annual two-day meetings about ten years ago, we got to discussing theological liberalism during lunch. Now before you think that this was a time for bashing liberals, you need to realize that most of the scholars on this committee were theologically liberal. And one of them casually mentioned that, as far as he was aware, 100% of all theological liberals came from an evangelical or fundamentalist background. I thought his numbers were a tad high since I had once met a liberal scholar who did not come from such a background. I’d give it 99%.

Whether it’s 99%, 100%, or only 75%, the fact is that overwhelmingly, theological liberals do not start their academic study of the scriptures as theological liberals. They become liberal somewhere along the road. I won’t discuss why that is here; that’s for another blog post. My point is simply this: Bart Ehrman is hardly unique.

But he’s adored by the media because here, finally, is someone who has seen the inside of the evangelical movement (or fundamentalist fortress) and can speak intelligently both about it and about the Bible—but from a viewpoint that no longer embraces either. Or so the media think. This is old news to biblical scholars. But what makes Ehrman different is that here’s a liberal scholar who not only writes for the public square; he also speaks about his own spiritual journey in those books.

I guess, in the end, I do get Bart Ehrman. He’s capitalized on a trend that finds its greatest impetus in Bob Funk’s Jesus Seminar: liberal scholars speaking in the language of the people, and being brutally honest about their beliefs (or lack thereof). But for anyone to think that the ideas presented in such trade books are new, earth-shaking, never-before-heard-of or dealt-with trouncings of the historic Christian faith knows very little about the state of biblical scholarship today.

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An article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled, “The Next Age of Discovery,” appeared in the May 8, 2009 issue. Written by WSJ’s reporter, Alexandra Alter, the article discusses several organizations that are digitizing ancient documents. Among them, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts is mentioned. It’s an interesting piece, with some remarkable images (most of which are only available on-line). You can see the article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124173896716198603.html

I was in Athens when I got the email from Ms. Alter. I gave her my phone number and she called the next day. We spoke for 30–40 minutes. I haven’t looked at my cell phone bill yet, and I’m not sure I want to!

CSNTM is mentioned in one sentence, followed later in the article by a full paragraph. My only concern about the piece, and this is really a minor quibble, is that it juxtaposes what CSNTM’s costs for expeditions are (about $10,000 a week) with those of another institute. The other institute, a very fine organization, can get manuscripts scanned at a site for $20,000 a year. The way they do it is to train locals to do the work, then leave them alone (presumably for a year). That’s a remarkably efficient model, but I don’t think it’s the best one for what CSNTM does. The equipment we use requires a technician on-site. Things break down, especially the cameras—sometimes on a daily basis. And they need to be refurbished after about 30,000 pictures. If we had 23 sites where our equipment was being used (as this other organization does), the cost just for the equipment alone would exceed $400,000. This does not include the ongoing costs of paying locals to do the work. Also, CSNTM goes through multiple check-points to ensure the highest quality of images. We do all this on-site. We realize that we have only one shot at shooting (pardon the pun!) the manuscripts, and we must get it right. See our “Showroom” for the evolving standards that CSNTM uses on our site www.csntm.org.

The next paragraph indicates that Google can scan books for about ten cents a page, but up to a dollar a page for some books. And for rare works, it costs as much as $1000 a book. CSNTM’s costs are, on average, $3300 per manuscript (the average New Testament manuscript is more than 500 pages long). Such documents need to be handled with special care. Rare books are not in the same category as unique manuscripts, some of which are more than a millennium older than the rarest books. Our primary objective is to protect and preserve the manuscripts. There are no short-cuts to this process.

We believe that the Word of God is worth the extra care required. Each manuscript is a unique handwritten testimony to God’s providential care of scripture.

Later in the article is a paragraph on the work of CSNTM. It notes, among other things, that we have discovered 75 manuscripts (all of which are Greek New Testament manuscripts; we’ve also discovered quite a few others that we don’t count), and that our goal is to photograph 2.6 million pages of text.

Overall, the article is very well researched and well written. Kudos to Ms. Alter and the Wall Street Journal for a fine piece that lets the public know about this ‘new renaissance’ that has become possible because of technology.

By the way, tens of thousands of images are already posted at our site. Come take a look.

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As many of you know, my family and I moved to Norman, Oklahoma, a year and a half ago primarily due to my mother’s illness. Previously, we lived in Frisco, Texas, where I was a pastor at Stonebriar Community Church for six years. We all loved the church. We loved the people, the commitment to the preaching of God’s word, and the reverence for certain traditions. Oh, and did I mention grace?! That is why I went there in the first place – grace! Rarely (and sadly) do you find a passionate commitment to the word of God and a attitude of grace. This situation gives forth to energy. Call it the power of God, the movement of the Holy Spirit, or whatever you will according to your tradition, but the church was alive. I wanted to be there every day. I miss it greatly.

Grace and truth. The two most important elements in my hierarchy of looking for a church.

Notice, to the surprise of many, I did not list “perfect theology” as a criteria. I did not even say theology that I am always comfortable with (since there is no perfect theology). At Stonebriar, I had it all. Just about everything Chuck taught, I agreed with. If not, I loved the man so much that I would bend myself to agree with him! (At least for that Sunday.) Of course, Chuck is a pastor more than a professional theologian. But he was committed to sound theology and he is a Calvinist! (a four pointer at least). Oh the depths and riches of reformed preaching! The power, the hope, the pride that can be taken when God’s sovereignty is preached in such a way.

However, today I do not go to a Calvinistic church. In fact, I am at an Arminian church. In fact (again), I am a regular teacher at a church that is both Arminian and Egalitarian. In fact (last time), last week I had to call the pastor that I am under to ask if it was okay for me to teach on “Women in the Church,” a topic in a current series I am on. This church is called Crossings Community Church and it is part of the Church of God, Anderson (not the charismatic Church of God you may be thinking of).

Let me briefly define a few terms before we move on (I will get in trouble if I don’t. If you already know these “big” words, move on. If not, learn them! – its not that hard):

Calvinist: One who believes in the doctrines of grace most traditionally defined by the TULIP acronym. The most controversial of the doctrines are Unconditional Election: the belief that God elects some individuals to salvation and not other based upon his sovereign will; Limited Atonement: the belief that Christ’s death only paid for the sins of the elect; Irresistible Grace: the belief that when God’s saving grace is presented to the elect, it is always effective (i.e. they will not ever reject it); and Perseverance of the Saints: the belief that those who are saved (the elect) will persevere and cannot “lose” their salvation.

Arminian: One who denies all of the Calvinistic doctrines of grace except the first, Total Depravity. The Arminian will opt for a belief in “Conditional” election: the belief that God’s predestination is based on the foreseen faith of the individual; “Resistible” grace: the belief that God’s saving grace can be rejected by anyone; “Unlimited” atonement: the belief that Christ’s death paid for the sins of every individual; and the belief that a truly saved person and fall from or “lose” their salvation.

Complementarianism: Belief in essential equality, but functional hierarchy in the sexes. This hierarchy is by God’s design and is not due to the fall. Man is to be the leader in the church and home. Women are not to be in positions of authority over man in the church or home, but are honored due to their role in the same way as men.

Egalitarianism: Belief in the essential and functional equality of the sexes. All role distinctions which imply leadership belonging to the man is due to the fall, not by God’s design. Therefore, women can serve in positions of authority over man in both the church and the home. Role is assigned by individual giftedness, not gender.

So . . . Why does this Calvinistic Complementarian go to an Arminian Egalitarian church? Continue Reading »

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Kalo Pascha! Christos anesti! Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

Saturday night, April 18. It’s Easter tomorrow in Greece, and the festivities are in high gear. We’re staying in the Athenian suburb of Pikermi, situated exactly half way between Athens and Marathon. Much of Marathon Road, just a block from where we are staying, is shut down at night so that the faithful can light their candles and walk on the road to their church. They did this last night, Friday night. Marathon Road has signals and is only two lanes, but people at night typically drive 60-75 mph. The speed limit is half that. Drag races are commonplace.

There’s much pageantry here—candles, light bulb displays on the road in the shape of candles and ribbons, busses with “Kalo Pascha” running on the teletype. People were out in the streets last night in Pikermi and Rafina, on Good Friday no less. Stores were open. Restaurants were packed. If the Greeks are this festive and happy on Good Friday, one wonders how they’ll treat Easter.

But today was different. Stores were closed, restaurants were closed. The candles that lit the way on Marathon Road were removed. The place was dead still, as though all were in mourning.

Then, at 11.30 pm, we went outside and walked down to Marathon Road. Scores of people were walking with unlit candles to the service, held at a little Orthodox church just a couple blocks from where we are staying. A little girl had set up a card table along the main drag, selling long, thin candles. One Euro apiece. We each bought one. By the time we got to the church, hundreds of people were standing outside. The service would last until 3 am. There is no regular Easter Sunday service, just this nighttime vigil. In the midst of the joyous season (which resembles the way Christmas used to be celebrated in the States), we hear thunderous boom! boom! boom! It’s been happening for the last several nights. We at first thought it was a big gun going off, and wondered if the Anarchists were trying to temper the positive attitude that surrounds them. But nobody reacted except for dogs, big and small, and cars with alarms.

We joined the crowds at the church. The tiny sanctuary was packed with folks inside. It could only hold maybe twenty or thirty people at one time; hundreds milled around in the courtyard outside the church. Young and old, all had long, thin, unlit candles. A microphone was hurriedly set up just outside the church entrance. A few minutes later the priest came out and continued his chanting. His voice grew hoarse, but he dutifully continued. At 11.55 pm, we could see people inside the church lighting candles. Then they came outside and lit others; one by one the candles were lit and the darkness began to dissipate. Then at precisely midnight…fireworks! They came from the tops of two buildings—one across the street and one about 100 feet from the church. The fireworks lit up the sky, thundered and boomed, and dazzled the children. The priest kept chanting, but his voice was drowned out by the pyro display. The fireworks went on and on. Ten minutes…fifteen minutes…twenty minutes. And they started precisely at midnight on Easter Sunday morning.

I couldn’t help but think that the fireworks must symbolize Christ’s resurrection from the grave. And as I was watching the show, I saw in it the explosive power, the sudden transformation of the night sky, the joy, and the conquest—all that the resurrection represents. I reflected on when fireworks were used in other countries. St. Sylvester Day in Germany (New Year’s eve) is one that I’ve witnessed, as is Independence Day in America. The Chinese celebrate The National Day of the People’s Republic on October 1, Mexicans on September 16 and May 5, the French on Bastille Day (July 14), while the Brits celebrate Guy Fawkes Day every November 7^th—all with fireworks. But these all pale in significance to the resurrection of Christ. How remarkable it is to see a country celebrate the resurrection of Christ—and to do it this way! The Athens newspaper, Το Βημα, headlined its front page today with Ανασταση νεκρων—“he is risen from the dead.” From Easter until Pentecost, the Greek greeting changes from a mere γιασας or ‘hello’ to Χριστος ανεστη (‘Christ is risen’) to which one replies αληθως ανεστη (‘he is risen indeed’).

This is a good time to be here, and a good time to reflect on Jesus’ appointment at his resurrection as the ‘Son-of-God-in-power,’ as Paul said in Rom 1.4. Maybe I’ll light up a few Roman candles next Easter.

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(This post was lost during the Great Crash of 08—it is found)

In the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, by Norm Geisler (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998; p. 532), there is a comment about the number of textual variants among New Testament manuscripts:

Some have estimated there are about 200,000 of them. First of all, these are not “errors” but variant readings, the vast majority of which are strictly grammatical. Second, these readings are spread throughout more than 5300 manuscripts, so that a variant spelling of one letter of one word in one verse in 2000 manuscripts is counted as 2000 “errors.”

Geisler got his information (directly or indirectly) from Neil R. Lightfoot’s How We Got the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1963). Lightfoot says (53-54):

From one point of view it may be said that there are 200,000 scribal errors in the manuscripts, but it is wholly misleading and untrue to say that there are 200,000 errors in the text of the New Testament. This large number is gained by counting all the variations in all of the manuscripts (about 4,500). This means that if, for example, one word is misspelled in 4,000 different manuscripts, it amounts to 4,000 “errors.” Actually in a case of this kind only one slight error has been made and it has been copied 4,000 times. But this is the procedure which is followed in arriving at the large number of 200,000 “errors.”

In other words, Lightfoot was claiming that textual variants are counted by the number of manuscripts that support such variants, rather than by the wording of the variants. This book has been widely influential in evangelical circles. I believe over a million copies of it have been sold. And this particular definition of textual variants has found its way into countless apologetic works. Continue Reading »

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Editor’s note: Dan originally posted this essay on Feb 19, but had second thoughts on how he had worded some things.

In the Feb 18 issue of the New York Post, there is a cartoon depicting two policemen standing over a rabid chimp that one of them had just riddled with bullets. As it lay dying in its own pool of blood, the other officer quipped, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The cartoon plays off of the shooting of a chimpanzee in Stamford, Connecticut on Monday, after it had mauled a woman and nearly ripped her face off.

Of course, political cartoons always imbibe in satire and they often use current events as a metaphor to make their point. This one seemed to be no exception.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the cartoon was that this was intended to be a racial slur against the president. Even worse, the fact that the chimp had been killed seemed to suggest assassination. And frankly, I was sickened and horrified at the possibility that these were intended implications. As I read some of the early reactions to the cartoon, I noticed that some saw the same thing I saw while others did not. Some said that the monkey was just a monkey and that there was no symbolism intended, and certainly not a visual slander on the president. But as the news circulated, it seemed that people began to take up polar positions: either the cartoon was intentionally racist and mean-spirited (to say the least) or that “a monkey is just a monkey” and no symbolism should be read into the cartoon. The editor at the NY Post said that the dead ape did not represent the president but simply represented the stimulus package and its defenders in general. Continue Reading »

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I’ve been doing an occasional series on spiritual mentors who have greatly impacted my life. I talked about Joe Aldrich, a man who had a huge influence on my life in my late teens and early twenties, helping to set me in the direction of going to seminary, and Dallas Seminary in particular. And his transparency and real-life Christianity was obviously attractive to me and it modeled for me how I should live. I saw in Joe especially how vital a strong, open, vulnerable prayer life was.

Then, I spoke of Harold Hoehner, a surrogate father for me while a student at Dallas Seminary, and a wise man whose sense of humor coupled with deep scholarship and demands on his students to do their best for Christ’s glory motivated me to do better than I ever thought I could. As well, over several decades Hoehner single-handedly influenced Dallas Seminary policies for the better in numerous categories. He often was the lone naysayer in faculty meetings, but he was a purist when it came to doing the right thing. To see a man stand up in the midst of very godly, wise people and take the contrarian line was shocking at first. But I soon learned that his views were thought through very carefully and that he saw with 20/20 vision where certain policies would take us. I learned courage—based on deep discernment—from him in contexts in which his opponents could be very good people with less than the best ideas.

The last person I discussed was my mother, Nayda Wallace, who was my primary spiritual teacher through childhood. Her no-nonsense approach to facing responsibilities (something that Dad had a HUGE impact on as well), and her deep concern for her children coupled with attempts to instill common sense in us was a marvelous heritage she bequeathed us. I sometimes think that my folks believe that if everyone just faced their responsibilities, the world would be a perfect place. Obviously, that’s reaching a bit. But they did instill in me a deeply ingrained sense that I must never shirk from my responsibilities. And if I did, I would always face the consequences. I learned that to bargain for one’s children to keep them from facing their responsibilities, and facing consequences when they did not, is one of the worst things that parents can do. Too bad most parents don’t have a clue how destructive protecting their kids from the world can be because it keeps them from facing the consequences of their actions. Continue Reading »

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Best of Parchment and Pen
On the flight back from Athens last week, I sat in front of a gregarious Irish gentleman. He was a medical doctor in Dallas, but didn’t even come close to losing his native accent. We talked theology most of the flight.

He was fascinated by CSNTM’s work of photographing ancient Greek New Testament manuscripts. And he was a good student of church history. This gentleman affirmed a lot of my most precious beliefs: Jesus Christ, the theanthropic person, died for our sins and was bodily raised from the dead; by putting our faith in him we are saved indeed, we are saved exclusively by God’s grace; there’s nothing that we can bring to the table to aid in our salvation. The good doctor called himself an evangelical. And he also called himself a Roman Catholic. Continue Reading »

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The third in the series of four ‘living eulogies’ is dedicated to my mom. I know, I know: it’s absolutely shameless of me to extol the virtues of my own mother when the rest of you don’t have your own blog so you can’t. Life isn’t fair; get over it.

At the same time, I am quite sure that what I have to say about my mother will relate to an awful lot of you. You’ll get your chance to say so, of course. And that’s when we can all play ‘Queen for a Day’ (in case the allusion is lost on you, this was an old 50s TV show that pitted deserving, pitiful women who told their sob stories to a live audience; the woman who got the loudest applause was made queen for a day; think ‘Extreme Makeover’ as a full-contact competitive sport). But I digress.

Nayda Baird Wallace celebrated her 79th birthday last November. Her health is not the best, but her mind is still sharp. She’s one of a rare breed of people who have been blessed with an overabundance of common sense. Both my parents have an extra share of the stuff, but for some reason it completely bypassed me and was a-genetically transferred to my wife. Mom also knew how to package it in such a way that made it palatable to my brother and sister and me, rebels without a clue that we were. My folks for decades have carried on conversations with themselves and others in which all the world’s problems would obviously be resolved if the world would just listen to what they had to say! A keynote to their poetic ranting was responsibility. At times, it seemed as though that was the sum total of what life was all about. In some respects, they were free market thinkers for the family unit. But instead of the law of supply and demand, they developed the law of infraction and natural consequences. One of the greatest lessons I learned growing up was that if I violated some principle of life, there would be natural consequences to face. Unlike so many parents today who shield their kids from ever having to face the consequences of their own actions, my folks almost seemed to relish in brandishing the consequence sword. They had a great game face: even when doing the tough love thing was brutally difficult on them, they didn’t flinch. And all three of us learned that we couldn’t appeal to third base to get out of consequences: Mom was just as tough as Dad, and they were both united in the discipline that was doled out. Great models for my wife and me to follow! (And, by the way, an essential means of parenting is seen in this: the father should always be on the mother’s side and the mother should always be on the father’s side; if the father and mother do not present a united front, the kids learn to favor one parent, manipulate the other, and disrespect both.) Continue Reading »

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I first came across the writings of Harold Hoehner when I was in college. He was writing a series of articles for Bibliotheca Sacra (or BibSac, as it is called by folks at DTS) on chronological aspects of Jesus’ life. I was amazed at how he went about establishing the probable date of Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and certain points in his ministry. He brought in evidence from all sides, did not present only one viewpoint but discussed several angles, was less than dogmatic with his conclusions, interacted with literature, both ancient and modern and in a number of languagues. He seemed to leave no stone unturned. His judgments were sober and even-handed. I was deeply impressed. (I later learned that this work was essentially based on his second earned doctorate, this one at Cambridge University.)

After reading Hoehner’s arguments on the death of Christ (Friday crucifixion, Nisan 14 or April 3, AD 33), I wrote to him and suggested that another argument that Jesus died on Nisan 14 and that he presented himself to the nation on Nisan 10 was that it fulfilled the typology of Exodus 12:1–6. To my surprise and delight, Hoehner wrote back! And he politely pointed out that my argument could only be brought in as tertiary evidence, for although Jesus did indeed fulfill the typology of the OT, as historians we must look at the evidence that is of a historical nature—that is, evidence that both Christians and non-Christians would embrace—and we must also recognize that typological fulfillment often went in various directions, preventing us from cherry-picking in support of a view. For example, Jesus was not a year old when he died; he was not killed by fire but by crucifixion, etc. In other words, typology can be used in a confirmatory manner for historical study, but not as primary or secondary evidence. It’s what one brings in when discussing the results of one’s investigation. Continue Reading »

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Friends, just a short note: Several have asked about getting a hold of my plenary lecture at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting; others have wanted to get my lecture given at apologetics conferences and in churches on whether our Bibles today essentially reflect the wording of the original text. Both of these are now available as a video DVD. The ordering information is available below.

“Is What We Have Now What They Wrote Then?”
A lecture at an apologetics conference in Providence, Rhode Island, 2008, about whether our printed New Testaments today accurately represent the original text.

“Challenges in New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century”
A plenary lecture at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, 2008, on current issues in NT textual criticism.

The price of each video DVD is $10 plus $3 S&H. The price of both video DVDs together is $15 plus $3 S&H. Texas residents also will pay 8.25% sales tax. Allow two to four weeks for delivery.

To order, go here.

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Many people have influenced my life for the better, but few have had as much an impact as Joe Aldrich has. Joe is the former president of Multnomah School of the Bible. Joe has Parkinson’s Disease and is slipping fast. He’s been out of the public eye for many years now, even though he’s not that old (in his sixties). He was my pastor at Mariner’s Church in Newport Beach, CA, when I was the church’s first youth pastor (1970-72). Every Thursday we would get together to talk about the youth ministry. It was a real struggle for me and I needed a lot of help. That’s because I was a freshman in college! Joe had been a Christian Ed major in his master’s program at Dallas Seminary; I was, at the time, a Christian Ed major at Biola. I changed to a Bible major because of Joe. But the reason may not be what you might think: I learned much more from him about Christian education than I did from all my professors at Biola! I felt that I was getting such a good education from him about what CE was all about that I didn’t need to waste money on an inferior education in college. This is not meant to demean the CE program at Biola; rather, it’s simply to note that learning Christian education in a real-life setting, and learning it from a man who had been so involved in it that he at one time was an adjunct teacher of Christian education at Dallas Seminary, is something that you can’t compete with. When I switched to a Bible major, I was required to take two years of Greek. I took the first year while I was a CE major, but the second (and then third and fourth) after I switched majors. Joe had an impact in the direction of my life and career.

Now, back to Thursdays. Joe and I would meet for two hours every Thursday. But we didn’t talk about youth ministry for most of the time. For the first hour or so, Joe would bubble over about the sermon he was preparing. He was genuinely involved in the text, and it constantly changed his life. He first preached from Nehemiah. It was a multiple-month series. Joe would diagram the Hebrew text that he was preaching from each week, memorize the text in English, and wrestle with the exegesis of the text very seriously. I thought that if a man who had been a CE major at Dallas Seminary was diagramming the Hebrew text each week, then surely Dallas Seminary was the place to get a solid theological education! I learned, too, that Joe had memorized the Greek verb chart paradigms and could still recite them all at will as a pastor. Joe was the first DTS grad that I remembered meeting; he was one of the primary reasons I decided to go to Dallas for my education. Continue Reading »

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I learned today that one of my former professors and colleagues, Zane Hodges, passed from this life to the next over the weekend. Zane was 75 years old when he died. He was at the center of some major debates within evangelical circles, namely, how salvation is to be defined and what constitutes the original text of the New Testament. He viewed salvation as that which was bestowed solely by faith in Christ, and that one does not necessarily have to persevere in faith to be saved. And by this perseverance, he meant that a saved individual did not have to have either good works or even continued faith to be saved. His view of the text of the New Testament was that the majority of manuscripts, regardless of age, were the surest pointer to the original text. He was responsible for resurrecting Dean Burgon’s views of the text within scholarly circles. Both of these views are quite controversial in evangelical circles.

Zane taught Greek and New Testament courses at Dallas Seminary from 1960 to 1987. I took him for more courses than from any other NT prof, and learned a great deal from him. His skills with the Greek text were breathtaking. I never knew a professor who could sight-read as well as Hodges (except for Johnson). And he thought through his positions well. I didn’t agree with him on everything; in fact, I would say that I disagreed with him on most of his positions. I was always a bit nervous coming into his class because I wasn’t sure what he would say that hour that might rock my world. But I enjoyed immensely how he structured the courses, how he argued his positions, and how charismatic he was in the classroom. He was a superb preacher and very persuasive. His electives always had the highest enrollment by far of any NT electives at DTS.

Zane never married. His lifelong celibacy influenced a number of others, including Art Farstad, with whom he co-edited The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text.

He never earned a doctorate, and intentionally so: he thought that such a degree might make him proud. Continue Reading »

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A friend wrote to me recently, asking why I haven’t written anything about wife abuse on Parchment & Pen. She urged me to do it because, according to her, complementarianism is rich soil in which to grow this kind of wickedness (she’s an egalitarian). Now, I could dispute the merits of that viewpoint, but I’ll pass. Instead, I want to take a pro-active position on what the Bible says about how a husband should treat his wife. I’ll talk about the do’s and don’t’s.

But to begin with, I should mention a curiosity in the history of English Bibles. In 1537, John Rogers published, under the pen name, Thomas Matthew, the Matthew’s Bible. He essentially combined the Old Testament of Miles Coverdale with the New Testament of William Tyndale. Besides blatant plagiarism, Rogers also added about 2000 notes to his Bible, many of which were controversial. Far and away, the most controversial note was found at 1 Peter 3.7: “If [the wife] be not obedient and healpfull unto [her husband, he should] endeavoureth to beate the feare of God into her…”! This Bible soon earned the moniker, “The Wife-Beater’s Bible.” I suppose a silver lining in this story is that the fact that this label was so quickly given to the Matthew’s Bible shows us that our ancestors also thought that this little comment was inappropriate. Thank God that note didn’t make it into the King James Bible!

Now if someone could read 1 Peter 3.7 five hundred years ago to mean that he had the right and the obligation to beat his wife if she disobeyed, then certainly some corrective instruction needs to be given.

The first thing to note is that 1 Peter 3.7 ruins the flow of the argument. Beginning in 2.13, Peter had been discussing the person who functioned in the subordinate role in relation to a non-Christian superior. He speaks about obedience to the government—both the king and those he commissions, submission (of slaves) to one’s master, and submission of wives to their husbands. In each instance, non-Christian superiors are in view. But then, at the end of the discourse, Peter turns to Christian husbands. Why does he do this? He didn’t address Christian governors or Christian slave-owners. Why now address Christian husbands? There were Christian slave-owners and even some in government. Why not address them? Continue Reading »

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I wanted to take this opportunity to announce the release of a new monograph that deals especially with the deity of Christ, and especially from a grammatical perspective. Based on my doctoral dissertation but with significantly more material and thoroughly updated, Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance was published last week by Peter Lang. If you’re familiar with Sharp’s Rule, which was articulated especially in relation to Christ’s deity, you will understand the need for Sharp’s name in the title. (This announcement is timely, too, since it’s Sharp’s birthday! He’s 273 years old.) The monograph represents about 25 years of research, off and on, and touches on some key passages such as Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1. It’s available at Amazon. But since it is an academic book, it’s a bit pricey: $69.95.

Besides affirming the deity of Christ in both of these passages, the book deals with constructions that do not fit Sharp’s rule and thus have a different force. “Pastors and teachers” in Eph 4:11 and “apostles and prophets” in Eph 2:20 are discussed at length, for example. In neither of these passages is it likely that the groups are identical. The fact that the book came out after Gordon Fee’s magisterial Pauline Christology has afforded me the opportunity to interact with Fee’s arguments that “our great God and Savior” refer to the Father rather than the Son. I disagree with him on this, and argue that the epithet speaks of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, the book had several typos in the Greek due to some font issues at the printer’s. But a corrigenda sheet will accompany each hard copy so that you can spot the errors and make the corrections. If you write to me (dbw@csntm.org), I can send you the corrigenda sheet (in case you buy a copy that was already dispatched to the reseller before the typos were detected).
The monograph will be on sale at the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual meeting coming up in Boston later this month.

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Over at the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood website (www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Never-Apologize-for-Gods-Truth) a blog post was put up on October 28. The title of the post: “Never Apologize for God’s Truth.” The blog post is a discussion about my essay, “Some Reflections on the Role of Women in the Church: Pragmatic Issues,” posted at http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=6133. I thought it misrepresented my views in some serious ways, so I wrote a response. I had thought that that response would either get posted on the site (it wasn’t), would have caused the author to alter what he said (he didn’t), or at least have stimulated the writing of a letter to me from the CBMW folks (they weren’t). Regrettably, I have to post my response here, because of the one-sided story that was given at CBMW. Here’s what I wrote:

A friend sent me the blog that was posted at CBMW about my recent essay on the role of women, posted at bible.org. I’m honored that my views would be considered worthy of discussing at CBMW. But I have to say, I think I was misrepresented.

Here’s what the blog post said, “Wallace responded by admitting that he could never embrace egalitarianism because it is clearly unbiblical; the text just does not support egalitarian claims…”

That’s far more than what I actually wrote on two fronts. First, nowhere in the essay did I say that I could never embrace egalitarianism. Not even close. Instead, what I said was that I could not go against my conscience and that, in my view, egalitarians were doing exegetical gymnastics. But even here I couched my statement with a note of personal perspective. Throughout the essay you will see qualifiers such as “For me at least,” “I think,” “probably,” etc. These points were mentioned specifically in relation to my exegetical certainty about the role of women in the church. Probably the strongest statement I made in terms of certainty was “I may not be comfortable with my complementarian position, but I am unwilling to twist scripture into something that it does not say. (I’m not saying that those who take an egalitarian position on this passage are willing to twist the scriptures! But I am saying that I think they are, in effect, probably doing this just the same.)” Continue Reading »

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In a recent SBL Forum, Tony Burke charges conservative scholars with doing bad historical research, biased in the extreme against the apocryphal gospels in particular. The provocative title of his essay is “Heresy Hunting in the New Millennium” (Tony Burke, ” Heresy Hunting in the New Millennium,” SBL Forum , n.p. [cited Aug 2008]. Online:http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=787). He picks on several known scholars who have brought their scholarship to the marketplace. Burke especially charges them with being apologetically driven in such a way that they are prejudiced against reading the ancient apocryphal gospels fairly: “Proper research and sober argument take a back seat to the apologists’ goal of buttressing the faith.”

Those who are singled out for criticism are Darrell Bock, Craig Evans, Gordon L. Heath, Philip Jenkins, Timothy Paul Jones, J. Ed Komoszewski, Stanley Porter, Ben Witherington III, and N. T. Wright.

The arguments that Burke uses often reflect his own strong biases, of which he seems to be unaware, for virtually everything that he criticizes among these authors can also be said about modern-day defenders of early heterodox Christianity. The response by Rob Bowman (http://www.religiousresearcher.org/blog/?p=54#more-54) displays this point for point.

I would hope that we could dialogue on the real issues of substance about the historical Jesus rather than allege that a person can’t possibly be telling the truth because he or she has an opinion about a particular ancient source. Why is it that evangelicals are frequently alone in their recognition that all of us come with biases when it comes to Jesus, but that we all have something to contribute and that we can all learn from one another? I guess historical positivism isn’t dead yet.

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After an always exhausting and worrisome trip over the ‘Pond,’ I arrived in London with three friends on August 16 (or, as the Brits say, 16 August).

Exhausting? Yes, because I choose not to go to sleep the night before flights to Europe so that I can sleep on the plane. OK, maybe ‘choose’ is too strong of a word. The reality is that I have so much work to do before I leave for the airport that I don’t have time to sleep. But it’s a great plan for curing jetlag. Of course, if there are crying babies in the vicinity, then my scheme fails miserably. Or if one of our team happens to lose his lunch due to a migraine and turbulence, and if he happens to be my son, it’s hard to fall asleep. It’s also exhausting hauling 17 large pieces of luggage, paying the increasingly exorbitant extra luggage costs, and wondering if we’ll ever see our bags again. If we don’t, the expedition is over before it begins.

But worrisome? I admit: I’m a worrier. I wish I weren’t. I wish I trusted God much more, especially since he has a pretty decent track record with me. I wish I didn’t get heartburn as I park my big derriere in a tiny seat and try to take my mind off of all that we have to do. I wish I could just relax, believing that our gear is going to be OK, believing that we won’t have hassles from the passport folks or the customs agents when we land, believing that the four of us can haul everything to the next vehicle to take us somewhere without incident. I don’t relax until we get to our new home and I see that the gear is still in one piece. Even though it’s all insured, it’s a lot of delicate equipment. Each person is allowed to take one bag for personal belongings; the other 13 are for our work of photographing manuscripts. Continue Reading »

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The famous codex from St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt has begun to show up on the Internet. A joint project between the British Library, the University of Leipzig, the National Library in St. Petersburg, and St. Catherine’s Monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai, Egypt, has been underway for some time now. All four institutes own portions of this manuscript (with the BL owning the largest section, the complete New Testament—which, incidentally, is the oldest complete New Testament by half a millennium!). The project to post these images on-line has involved new digital photography and some slick search-capable tools.

One can see the images already posted by going to this site: http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/

Unfortunately, only selections from the codex are on-line currently. The entire codex should be up by July 2009.

CSNTM has the complete NT on its site, but our images are digital photographs from the 1911 black-and-white folio photographs (http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/GA%2001/). Continue Reading »

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