I have to agree here also. As much as I disdain how this is sometimes utilized in a card-stacking manner to make the case for christian belief (as opposed to the case for transmission accuracy), it *is* true. There are so many extant copies and fragments of the NT that there isn't much reason to doubt the accuracy of transmission. There are some concerns here though:
1. There is no reason whatsoever to take the current-day canonical NT as a whole, nor consider the fragments in that way. As Till points out later, there are comparably very few *complete* NT manuscripts, and none dated within 1 century of the purported events. I think it's important to point this out because when discussing the NT with a christian, it is crucial to dismiss the idea that the present day NT was somehow a unit, and was miraculously copied better than any other ancient manuscript. That idea is completely false; not only do we have fragments of books that are not included, we have entire manuscripts which exclude other books that are presently in the NT canon. This deals more with attacking the idea of inerrancy per se rather than attacking the inerrancy medium (accuracy of transmission).
2. I actually wonder whether or not anyone has documented the "minor" variations that exist in the NT documents from any given time period. Is it the case that we see families of error? (i.e., different errors which occur in different time periods) This does not discredit the accuracy of transmission; indeed, if people from the same time period were making the same mistakes, one might consider that further evidence of the accuracy of transmission. However, this sort of analysis could shed some light on the inerrancy doctrine.
> I think you have misunderstood Geisler's purpose. Unless you can
> produce a quotation of Geisler saying that "the number of New
> Testament manuscripts proves that the content of the New Testament is
> accurate", I think your complaints are groundless.
From what I've read, I agree here also. Geisler did not make the claim that the accuracy of transmission was a testament to the veracity of the claims. Till's complaint creates a 'bogie' and then proceeds to knock it down.
> > Nevertheless, an observation is in order about what Geisler is claiming in
> > his statement. When he said that "5,366 Greek manuscripts of the New
> > Testament" exist, he undoubtedly left the impression with the audience that
> > there 5,366 known Greek copies of the NT, and that is certainly not the case.
> > Some of these "manuscripts" are in fact only small fragments that contain
> > only a verse or two of a NT book, some of them are larger fragments, and only
> > a relative few are copies of entire NT books. However, there are no Greek
> > copies of the entire NT in its present canonical form. Even Sianaiticus and
> > Vaticanus, the oldest most complete codices, contained books that are not in
> > the present canon and left out books that are in the present canon.
>
> Geisler is certainly NOT suggesting that we question the reliability
> of Tacitus' _Annals* because we only have two manuscripts! Rather,
> Geisler's point seems to be, "No one doubts the transmission accuracy
> of Tacitus, and we only have two manuscripts extant. So we
> definitely don't have any reason to doubt the transmission accuracy
> of the NT!"
> > authenticity of the Marcan Appendix, because this is where they find one of
> > their great proof texts for baptism. I haven't counted the words, but I
> > would think that the Marcan Appendix alone would constitute more than
> > one-thousandth of the NT. It occupies over half a page in a 288-page New
> > Testament that I have before me now as I type this, so that would be much
> > more than one-thousandth, wouldn't it? Then, of course, we have the story of
> > the woman taken in adultery in John 8:1-11, which is not in "many ancient
> > authorites," and neither is the confession of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts
> > 8:37). I could continue, but why bother?
I think this is a valid point attacking the idea of accurate NT transmission. Perhaps some of the various books which currently form the canon were transmitted without corruption, but the john 8: passage, along with the mark 16 passage are both missing in earlier manuscripts. It's a bit obscuring to take the fact that the fragments which contain these possible later insertions match each other without much variation, as evidence for the accuracy of transmission of say, the modern day canonical book of john (or mark), when in fact there are manuscripts which do not contain the story of the adulteress. This is along the lines of saying, in the context of presenting evidence about how "accurately" an entire book was copied, even though some copies of the book didn't have the same number of chapters, and some copies added a few stories here and there. Even though not technically incorrect (sure, after the adulteress story was added, it was transmitted accurately), it does *not* attest to the accuracy of transmission of the modern day canonical NT; in fact, it is a testament against it.
> You seem to be more interested in engaging the Church of Christ in
> rhetoric than offering strict argumentation on substantive issues.
I have to defend Till here. The public debate medium is *much* different than debating in writing. There is a lot less time, and a lot of how effective your presentation is has to do with how quickly and how easily you can take apart certain themes in your opponents claims. Christian debaters tend to use card-stacking; they'll spew dozens of claims which one could not possibly refute point by point, in the time alloted. So you're basically trying to show the *main* points of the opponents position as invalid. In my own experience, when a person finishes a copy of "Evidence that demands a verdict" or "When critics ask", they walk away with an amorphous awe for how "perfect" the word of god is. Most people dont remember whether or not the "thousands of extant copies" refer to bits and pieces (and believe me, many are bits and pieces. Scraps with parts of a verse on them) or to the whole book, and end up over-applying the results of the claims. The inerrancy doctrine rests on whether or not there are any errors in the bible. As it stands, if there is even 1 error, whether or not it is a matter of "doctrine or a precept of duty", then the canonical bible is *not* inerrant. So even though Till is arguing something which has nothing to do with Geisler's specific argument, it *does* undermine the value of some of the major thrusts of the inerrancy principle (i.e., that the bible is historically valid).
I do agree however, that in a written medium this sort of strawman-ism should be avoided at all costs. It provides geisler with an easy way to make both the person and the position appear foolish.
> I
> could care less *per se* whether the Church of Christ doctrine on
> inerrancy is correct, I want to know whether inerrancy *in a more
> general sense* is correct. Now Geisler made the claim that none of
> the variations in the New Testament manuscripts affect Christian
> doctrine, and you have failed to offer any counter-evidence on this
> point.
Same here. But when it really comes down to it, that doesn't make much of a difference does it? As non-believers, we dont comprise the majority of people that Till is trying to convince. In the mind of many believers, accuracy of new testament transmission is somehow a mystical "proof" of content reliability. Since most believers haven't spent much time reading about manuscript transmission, translational difficulties, etc., it really doesn't make much of a difference if the New Testament was copied accurately or not. So from a practical standpoint, it is easy to see how Till would address the more important premise repeatedly.
> I want to make it clear to those of you who don't know me that I am
> an agnostic and in no way believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
> However, I think Farrell Till completely misunderstood the argument.
> In summary we've seen that:
>
> 1) There are good reasons to believe the transmission accuracy of the
> New Testament is extremely high.
I will make a point which may seem silly, but is of consequence. Since the canonical NT was not determined until the 4th century, the manuscripts which Geisler mentioned are of little consequence regarding accuracy of it's transmission. The books which are included in the NT canon certainly have an extremely high level of transmission accuracy for ancient documents.
> 2) There are no good reasons to doubt the transmission accuracy of
> the NT.
Again, this is tied in to my aforementioned objection. We do not have good reason to doubt the transmission accuracy of the book of Romans (substitute most other books which are included in the NT canon); Geisler's speech has presented a significant amount of evidence supporting that claim. He has not presented any evidence supporting the claim that the NT as we have it today was transmitted accurately after it's creation in the 4th century. This does not mean that there does not exist such evidence; just means that Geisler did not present any evidence in support of this conclusion.
> Everyone - Farrell Till, Jeff Lowder, Norman Geisler, and Michael
> Horner - agree that transmission accuracy does not prove content
> accuracy. However, it does undermine severely the objection that
> material was added to the New Testament *after* it was written.
Again, there is at least a good deal of debate about whether or not the john 8: passage and the mark 16: passage are later insertions. I think, if we are to address this in a written medium, that we need to begin dealing with these books individually. The "NT" as a unity throughout time is a hoax; there was fierce argument over which books were to be included and which were not. This adversely affects the inerrancy doctrine.