At one point the host, Mark Lanier, mentions they had invited Bart Ehrman to speak at the Library. This is illustrative of how these “scholarly” institutions find it educational to listen to their opponents from the non-Bible-believing side, but likely will never give the time of day to their opponents on the Bible-believing side – for example, those who defend the Traditional Texts of the Bible.
Each paragraph below will begin with the approximate hour, minute, and second marks (0:00:00) where the statements occur in the video. These are random things that caught my ear, with some brief associated comments. Folks like Bill Mounce think they are teaching people how to trust the Bible, while often introducing them to thoughts that make them doubt it.
0:07:50. Mounce talks about the principle of the shorter reading. He brings up the example of prayer and fasting in Mark 9:29. He claims there would be no reason to drop “and fasting” if it were original. Of course, this ignores that the copyist could have simply read over and missed it, or that he deliberately left it out. Mounce also later uses this in the example of a variant affecting no doctrine – something unnecessary unless you need to know whether to fast before performing an exorcism.
0:16:33. Mounce says he always wanted to preach a sermon series on the silly questions of Scripture, then brings up Jesus’s question to the invalid man, “Do you want to get well?” In effect, he says that our Lord Jesus asked a silly question. He backtracks on that, at least, probably indicating he was going for the laugh. Seems unbecoming.
0:16:54. Later, after John wrote his gospel, Mounce says two sentences were added to the manuscripts. John 5:3b-4 Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had. Mounce is “really happy” that John 5:3b-4 is removed. He says he would “have real trouble” with the idea of an angel coming and “magically stirring up the water and magically healing people apart from faith.” This shows he has an agenda; he likes to remove passages he does not like (Mark 16 is another such, since he indicates he does not like the statements about snakes and poison). So, no, Bill, you are not “just” following science.
0:18:08. Mounce points out the problem in Mark 1:2. The CT has “as it is written in Isaiah the prophet” yet only the 2nd half is Isaiah 40:3, and the first half is Malachi 3:1. After noting that difference, he says, “and yet Mark wrote ‘and in Isaiah the prophet’ – so a concerned scribe comes along and he decides to correct the original.” Mounce then asks, “Is it more likely the original said in the prophets and introduced an error and said just Isaiah,” or is it more likely a scribe would think it is an error and change it? So it appears that Mounce thinks that the reference to Isaiah by Mark (in Mark 1:2) was an original error corrected by a later scribe. In other words, the inspired writer Mark made a factual error!
0:21:52. Mounce says “these” guys (text critics who assign the UBS A-D rating for textual variants) are not flaming fundamentalists; they have no theological agenda; this is just science. So it seems Bill is well situated to “follow the science” if the “science” is promoted by liberals – just so they are not “flaming fundamentalists”! (This will come up again.)
0:35:32. Mounce talks about the variant reading in Mark 1: 41 “Jesus was indignant.” He complains about Bart Ehrman’s view of this passage, but then ultimately agrees with Ehrman that later scribes changed it to compassionate!
0:37:50. Here again Mounce “disagrees” with Ehrman claiming that we don’t know what the original words of the New Testament are. However, he immediately blunts this objection by indicating it is a matter of degree. He thinks Ehrman is overstating the case, but Mounce himself thinks that we don’t know what some of the original words were. Mounce thinks that though there are many differences in the manuscripts, only a few things are in question (0:40:20). Apparently, like his comrade Dan, he thinks what we have is “good enough.”
0:50:58. Mounce says Bibles should remove the Pericope Adulterae. “I don’t think it’s true.” Nevertheless, both Bibles with which he is associated as a translator – the ESV and NIV – have not removed them.
0:52:15. Mark Lanier points out that Bill Mounce is “not a rabid fundamentalist who says I’m gonna buy the King James.” They definitely have animus toward the KJV and toward fundamentalism as well.
0:53:00. Mounce says that Erasmus had only 3 manuscripts from 11th century. One had Matthew through Jude; one of Revelation without the last six verses, so Erasmus had to make up Greek for the last six verses. Then says he had a few other manuscripts but didn’t use them much. Mounce says Erasmus’s 1516 Greek text was “the worst published book in the history of publishing” and had many mistakes. The Critical Text world makes varied claims about how many manuscripts Erasmus had. Only 3 or 4? A half dozen? Seven? Twelve? Who knows!! This accusation repeated with such frequency makes it a commonly accepted “truth.” However, neither frequent repetition nor common acceptance makes something true.
0:54:05. Mounce tells the wild Tischendorf/Sinaiticus tale, but at least he admits it might not be exactly true.
0:56:20. Mounce laughs and says 1 John 5:7-8 is “a complete and total fabrication” – “there’s no question about it.” He goes on to bring up the Erasmus “rash wager” and claim that is the reason 1 John 5:7 was added to his Greek text. According to Mounce, “English is in a constant state of flux...This is one of the reasons why the CBT was originally formed with the mandate to meet every year and keep the NIV up-to-date with current English and biblical scholarship.” One would suppose he would try to keep his scholarship current on other things! Instead, he respreads like manure Erasmian myths that had been cleaned off our theological pastures. Though he wants to keep up-to-date with current biblical scholarship, Mounce seems unaware that Erasmian scholar Henk Jan de Jonge had cleaned up both the “rash wager” and “made-to-order” myths re the Comma Johanneum over forty years ago! Even up-to-date text critics like Peter Gurry admit this should be well known.
Among text critics, it’s fairly well known that no Greek manuscript was ever produced to order for Erasmus that included the long form of 1 John 5.7. But...it continues to be perpetuated among students of the New Testament.
[i] fanboy (or, fan boy), noun. A male fan who demonstrates intense excitement at the mention or in the presence of a particular celebrity, film, product, etc.
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