Dan Wallace & The Center for The Study of New Testament Manuscripts

I had the privilege of spending a good portion of my day with Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, Senior New Testament Editor of the NET Bible, and connoisseur of strong, bold coffee. I can verify that Dan is worthy of his many credentials in the arenas of textual criticism, Koine Greek, and New Testament studies, but I now strongly suspect his java expertise since it wasn't until our conversation today that Dan learned of the best deep-roasted coffee on the planet, Peet's Coffee (the only coffee allowed in the Buzzard home).Dan spent the morning preaching at CPC, delivering a message entitled, "Is What We Have Now What They Wrote Then?" Dan's message was a tremendous, clear, and witty treatment of the reliability of our New Testament documents. I encourage you to listen to Dan's message which, by tomorrow afternoon, should be available here. Take note, however, that the more technical portions of Dan's message were accompanied by a number of helpful Power Point slides which, of course, you'll not receive on the audio.After our morning services a small handful of us from the church spent a few hours huddled around a table with Dan, sipping coffee and asking him questions. This was a delight. Dan is a great guy and a lot of fun to be around. Dan fielded scores of questions from us related to textual criticism, new manuscript discovery, contemporary challenges to the authority of the NT, and translation theory (when I asked Dan his opinion of modern English translations I was happy to hear his hearty, enthusiastic endorsement of the ESV).I actually need to confess over some of how I handled my interaction with Dan. I think it was because I was sitting the closest to him, because I asked him to sign my Diglot before we sat down, and because he knew I was the only seminary graduate present, that Dan mistakenly thought I was smart. And so whenever Dan was quoting a lesser known author, referencing a little known moment in church history, or discussing the intricacies of Greek grammar, he looked over at me and would say something like, "Justin, you know about so and so, or such and such, right?"  70% of the time I was tracking with Dan, but 30% of the time I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. And what did I do in those moments? Yep, I nodded my head up and down as if I understood every word, as if I was in the know. I repent.When I wasn't telling non-verbal lies, most of our discussion centered around the excellent and exciting work that Dan is doing with the Center for The Study of New Testament Manuscripts which is aggressively working to better preserve ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament and which has, in the last four years, discovered more biblical manuscripts than any other institute in the world. Presently, CSNTM has leads on more than 200 previously unknown manuscripts. From Dan's CSNTM website, here's a fuller explanation of what the Center for The Study of New Testament Manuscripts is all about:
1. To make digital photographs of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts sothat such images can be preserved, duplicated without deterioration, andaccessed by scholars doing textual research
2. To utilize developing technologies (OCR, MSI, etc.) to read thesemanuscripts and create exhaustive collations
3. To analyze individual scribal habits in order to better predict scribaltendencies in any given textual problem4. To publish on various facets of New Testament textual criticism5. To develop electronic tools for the examination and analysis of NewTestament manuscripts6. To cooperate with other institutes in the great and noble task ofdetermining the wording of the autographa of the New Testament.As Dan shared with us around the table, God is significantly blessing the efforts of Dan's institute. Yet a great deal of work is left to be done, a great deal of money is yet to be raised, and a great deal of prayers are needed. Let me persuade you to peruse the CSNTM website, to pray for the work of Dan and CSNTM, and to consider donating to CSNTM.