I am finishing up a class for BiblicalTraining.org on why I trust the Bible. For the last several weeks I have been immersed in Dan Wallace and Bart Ehrman discussions.

Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus has nothing to do with misquoting Jesus but is a popular presentation on the challenges of textual criticism, and who buys a book titled Textual Criticism other than serious students?

One of Ehrman’s more popular statements is that there are more errors in the manuscript tradition than there are words in the Greek Testament. He says there are 400,000 variants and there are 138,213 words in NA28, which could imply that every word is in question. Since he focuses on the only two paragraph length passages that raise the issue of textual criticism, John…

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A little textual criticism. Paul writes, “If I give away everything I own, and if I surrender (παραδῶ) my body in order to boast (καυχήσωμαι), but do not have love, it benefits me nothing.”

As soon as you check other translations, you see that there is a textual issue. The NASB has, “surrender my body to be burned,” following the reading of the καυθήσομαι (along with the ESV, KJV). Two letter difference.

Others translate καυχήσωμαι (HCSB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). Metzger (Textual Commentary) argues that it is more likely that the original καυχήσωμαι (“to boast”) was changed to καυθήσομαι (“to burn”) once martyrdom by burning became more frequent. His argument seems conclusive.

But there still remains the NIV’s, “give over my body to hardship.” I suspect — I was not on the committee when this decision was made — that the…

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