Textual Criticism 201: The Textual Apparatus

Published: May 7, 2008, 6:30 p.m.

b'In "Misquoting Jesus," Bart Ehrman writes of the variants in several familiar passages (none of which is new material) but curiously leaves out much important information. Ehrman does not discuss the manuscripts behind the passages and gives the impression that there is mass confusion over the readings. While quick to count the manuscripts and variants, nowhere does he weigh the manuscripts or give information of their trustworthiness. It would almost appear that Ehrman has an agenda to leave his readers in serious doubt about the authenticity and reliability of the Bible. We will look deeper into Ehrman\'s book in a later chapter. For now, in this chapter, we will examine the external and internal evidence for each of the passage listed above and a few others. There is nothing to hide and nothing over which the believer should be worried. However, before we do that, we must familiarize ourselves with the tools we have at our disposal for such a study - the fourth edition of the Greek New Testament produced by the United Bible Society and the twenty-seventh edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament.'