Debate: Can We Trust the Text of the NT? (Ehrman Vs. Wallace)

Bart D. Ehrman: Do we have enough evidence to reconstruct the New Testament text? Or did early scribes corrupt it beyond repair? Dr. Bart D. Ehrman and CSNTM’s Executive Director, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace debate the issue of if we can trust the text of the New Testament at Southern Methodist University on October 1, 2011. At the time, this was the largest attended debate on the text of the NT ever. Dr. Mark A. Chancey, Professor of Religious Studies at SMU, serves as MC. Though Ehrman and Wallace have held public debates in the past, this one focused on providing a general audience with insider information regarding one of the most significant pieces of literature ever written. If you are interested in the New Testament and its reliability, this is sure to be a debate you will not want to miss.

The program discussed on Bart Ehrman’s Foundation Blog: http://ehrmanblog.org/?p=17576

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude.

Dr. Wallace, director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts and New Testament Professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, has spent his life studying and digitizing ancient copies of the New Testament. He has authored and edited numerous books; most recently he has edited and contributed to Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence. He asserts that we have good reason to believe that the New Testament text is reliable.