Daniel Wallace

Certain names represent the biggest evangelical challengers to the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture.  They have written journal articles or books against preservation of scripture.

The Bible version issue starts with scriptural teaching on preservation.  When you believe what God said, you come to perfect preservation.  Then you have to deal with what that looks like in the real world.  The teaching of the Bible presupposes the outcome.

One of the biggest names is Daniel Wallace, longtime professor of Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary.  Any evangelical who takes Greek knows who Dan Wallace is.  Second or third year Greek students use his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.  It is a very helpful book to own and use.

Manuscript Evidence

In recent years Wallace turned his attention to The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.  A major stated mission of CSNTM is the following:

To provide digital photographs of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts so that such images can be preserved, duplicated without deterioration, and accessed by scholars doing textual research.

Wallace considers their task to continue the restoration of a lost text of the New Testament.

Denial of Preservation

When anyone asks Wallace about the preservation of scripture, he sends them back to a journal article he wrote in the 1990s, entitled, “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism.”  Rather than interact on the subject, Wallace points to that article.  He doesn’t need to talk about it.  Wallace wrote the article and that ends the conversation.  He wrote it, that settles it.

With Wallace’s demand, I acquiesced and read his article with an open mind and great interest.  I didn’t assume he was wrong.  I welcomed the possibility he was right.  What he wrote, however, was very disappointing.  It was filled with errors.  Wallace and I had a brief back and forth on an evangelical blog in the comment section, since deleted.  He claimed that I cherry picked the points I made about his article.  I ask you to consider if that’s true with the below links to my analysis of his article.

First Post.  Criticizing Professor Wallace     part one

Second Post.  Criticizing Professor Wallace     part two

Third Post.  Criticizing Professor Wallace     part three

Fourth Post.  Criticizing Professor Wallace     part four

For a man of such renowned, his article denying the preservation of scripture is very, very poor.  It’s still right there all over the internet though, remarkable multiple errors and all.