Saturday, April 10, 2010

Advice from a NT Textual Expert

My last post was about the fixation on end times prophecy and current events in which many American evangelicals get caught up. It brings to mind something that stuck with me that was said by Daniel Wallace, the New Testament textual critic that gave a keynote address at our recent Central Oregon apologetics conference.

He said that we have the most textual evidence for (copies of) the gospels, followed by the epistles, and that Revelation comes in a distant last. He took this to reflect the amount of study spent on the different New Testament books by the early church, and believes that theirs would be a good practice to follow.

Yet many evangelicals spend far too much time speculating--nay, asserting--that their understanding of Revelation gives them warrant to declare its fulfillment in modern world events. (If only they knew their history as well, they might approach the topic of prophecy more humbly.)

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