For this chapter, I will limit my comments to aspects of NT textual criticism with which I am familiar. This does not mean that I do not believe Avalos' contentions concerning the OT text are correct and could not be refuted by someone knowledgeable in that arena.

65 -- Avalos is well aware that the Biblical text (especially the NT) is in far better shape than all other ancient documents when it comes to textual evidence. Therefore, his only desperate resort is to erect red herrings made of straw and burn them before anyone notices what they are. Such for example is this comment, which I have seen before in other forms from fundy atheists like Avalos:

Unlike most works of antiquity, however, the textual criticism of the Bible carries crucial theological and moral consequences for those who believe they must have an accurate record of God's word to guide the conduct of their lives.

This rather idiotic argument is made often as a way to imply that the process of textual criticism as we have it simply isn't good enough -- it may be good enough for secular works, but because the Bible is the Word of God, so it is said, we need to raise the bar -- conveniently, beyond the reach of what textual criticism can accomplish. Of course, the sorts who make this kind of argument are inevitably not intelligent Christians, or Christian textual scholars like Daniel Wallace, but fundy atheists -- ranging from Bart Ehrman to now Hector Avalos. Inevitably as well, these critics fail to provide any substance to the problem -- examples of specific texts that ought to give us spiritual heartburn. Avalos, we shall see, is no different, as he merely (and in ignorance) resurrects the same canards as Ehrman does, and further supplements these canards with yet more strawman claims and half-truths -- much indeed as Ehrman does. It is perhaps no surprise that Ehrman is one of Avalos' sources for this chapter.

To sum it up, simply because the Bible has "theological and moral consequences" does not render the standards of textual criticism inadequate when using them on the Bible. These consequences suggest that we must have a sufficiently accurate rendition of the Bible; it does not at all require that we have a totally accurate rendition, as the fundamentalist mindset of Avalos (and Ehrman) requires.

66 -- Avalos lays out his charges against texttual critics, which are little different than charges of other chapters. He considers the whole exercise of seeking an original text to be a waste of time (it is an "illusion", so apparently all textual critics, even secular ones, are ignorantly wasting their time); textual criticism doesn't do anyone any good (we'd all better watch the squirrels in our yard instead); textual critics are biased religionists (they can only be fair if they are atheists like Avalos). Further depth on each of these follows.

68 -- Avalos lays out his rant in favor of pursuit of an original text as a chimera. In this it is not clear whether he distinguishes between achieving 100% accuracy in accord with the original or merely striving to recover as much as possible. It seems from his shrill importunings that the former is more likely. Avalos insists that for "conservative Christians, having the certainty of the original text is indispensable." It is? The quote that follows from Geisler and Nix doesn't say any such thing; it does say that "for all practical purposes," the Bible we have in our hands "converys the complete truth of the original word of God." This doesn't sound like certainty is indispensable for 100% of the text, word for word; it does suggest that certainty is indispensable for revealing truths, but that does not require 100% textual accuracy, and it also does not say anything epistemically different from what can be said of any other ancient document. It seems that Avalos is reporting his own prior fundamentalist attitude once again, not that of serious and intelligent Christians.

Avalos seems also to make much of the goal of NT textual critics to recover the original text as far as possible, but this is the goal of all textual critics, even secular ones, so it is hard to see why any issue should be made of this.

69 -- Avalos predictably raises the strawman that "we do not possess the autograph of any biblical writing," which is news mainly to the ignorant. From here he raises the false alarm that this means we cannot reconstruct the original, nor would we "recognize the autograph even if we found it." Presumably then, again, textual critics of all fields are ignorant slobs who are wasting their time and deceiving people, since this remains true as well of all other documents.

70 -- Avalos' rather appalling ignorance of the textual-critical process is shown in the example he manufactures in which we are allagedly not able to tell whether a manuscript read "lamb of God" or "seal of God." It should be noted that when Avalos uses the word "seal" in is not clear whether he is referring to an affixed stamp to close a document, or a pinniped. However, regardless of which he means, his failure is obvious and profound: In such cases, context is often more tnan sufficient to tell us whether a reading is correct or not (for example, if the "seal" is a pinniped, then this is obviously a false reading, and "lamb" is to be preferred, because contextually, lambs have been used in Jewish symbolism and seals have not; Jesus is called the "lamb of God" and underwent a sacrificial death in other texts, and so on). Avalos may whine back that context does not always define sufficiently, but in such cases, inevitably, either reading would make for an intelligible report and there is no issue of doctrine at stake. (My favorite in this regard is in the Thessalonian correspondence where Paul describes himself as either "gentle" or like a "little child" -- we are hardly resorting to defection to the Church of Satan over such matters.) Canard response.

71 -- Avalos now offers an extended rant about how oral transmission allegedly complicates matters. His comparison of his own once-delivered lectures to repeated oral performances by ancient teachers is anachronistic and nonsensical, however. Further, Avalos resorts to worrywart "what ifs" such as the transmission of Jesus' words from Aramaic to Greek (while failing to provide a single example, much less one to worry about).

77-9 -- For a few pages, Avalos rants about the OT text, and it is later that we return to an area within our purview. After whining some more about the "bibliolatrous orientation" of Biblical scholars (sort of like the "Tacitalatrous orientation" that Ronald Syme had) Avalos conveniently indicates his ignorance of Jewish exegetical procedure as he criticizes Jesus (Matthew 5:31) for allgedly misquoting Deuteronomy [79]. It is only in Avalos' fundamentalist mentality that this is a problem. Intelligent readers are aware that in antiquity, exact quotation was not sacrosanct and free use of a text was permissible. Then there is more on the OT beyond our scope, but a point on page 82 deserves notice. Avalos here actually has words of praise for John Allegro and his "sacred mushroom" thesis, which he admits was "quickly discredited" and "criticized heavily." Even so, Avalos pontificates:

Yet Allegro can at least be credited with raising questions about Christian beliefs that would not seem so odd when directed at other religions whose members might also believe in visions, ecstatic experiences, and other phenomena that we know are linked to drugs in many traditions.

Who knows -- maybe Avalos will next say that while the racist theories of the KKK have been discredited, we can at least credit them with raising questions about the fashionability of white sheets.

We return to the NT at:

83-4 -- Avalos rants upon what he considers the "propaganda" [83] of NT textual criticism which includes the well known figures concerning the superiority of the NT textual evidence compared to other documents. Avalos whines that such comparisons are "unfair" and "very misleading" because they are comparing the Christian "best" with the non-Christian "worst". Avalos, however, purposely distorts the issue by expanding the category. The NT is compared with a specific class of texts such as the works of Tacitus and Livy which are 1) texts inscribed on paper or a comparably perishable substance, and 2) were intended for distribution. In the past, I have had a Skeptic try to change the rules by appealing to a poem someone wrote and threw in a funeral casket before it was buried as better attested than the NT. This is apples to oranges because the poem was not intended to be distributed and so was not subject to the vagaries of the NT or the works of Tacitus in terms of preservaiton. Avalos offers the same kind of deception as he writes [83-4]:

For Augustus Caesar....we have inscriptions and texts contemporary with his life. The Res Gestae, a record of Augustus Caesar's deeds, reputedly narrated by Augustus himself, is still extant, and we could just as easily argue that it represents Augustine's own words more faithfully than anything we have for Jesus.

What Avalos intentionally fails to report is that the Res Gestae is published in the form of bronze tablets affixed to the sides of Augustus' tomb. It is also preserved in inscriptions carved on temples. It is not a text preserved on perishable material that were intended to be distributed on that material. To put it bluntly, Avalos has lied by obscuring part of the truth which makes a comparison to the NT irrelevant. He also fails to account for the real argument, which is that as sure as secular scholars are about the transmission of secular documents with much less evidence, to that extent we can be more confident about the NT which has greater evidence. Canard response.

84 -- Avalos also waves around a red herring by making a bogus comparison to the Book of Mormon. He excuses the false comparison to a book made in the age of printing with a fundamentalist excuse that "a good theologian can argue that God's plan was precisely to introduce the book of Mormon after printing to achieve maximum effect." Of course, this obscures the real issue, which is again, comparison and confidence in ancient documents; as well as that textual transmission has hardly been an apologetic issue for or against Mormonism in the first place!

85 -- Avalos here whines about the fallacy of "equating the quantity of contemporary copies of a claim with the validity of the claim," but in 10+ years of apologetics work, I have so far only seen one person ever come up with such an argument, and that was the Secular Web's James Still falsely imputing this argument to Josh McDowell. I have yet to see it coming from a Christian author, though perhaps as incompetent as Avalos is, it is conceivable that he used to make that argument himself as a child evangelist.

Several pages follow about such issues as the textus receptus and how textual criticism has caused its own demise (too bad Avalos didn't tell his fellow Skeptic Bart Ehrman, even though he read his books and even is co-dependent on them for this chapter). Our interest picks up again at:

91-95 -- this entire section is a screed against "arbitrary methods" of textual criticism and in particular a rant against Bruce Metzger, who conveniently for Avalos is now deceased and unable to defend himself. Avalos whiningly quotes one of Metzger's hypotheses for why a certain reading was to be preferred; it had to do with scribal reverence, and Avalos won't have that, saying, "...all of this seems to psychoanalyze the author and the scribe" [92] and lapsing into, "How would we know?" as though this were an actual answer.

There is of course a certain truth here. Textual criticism, like many fields (even those in science) works within the realm of hypothesis and probability. Metzger, as an eminent textual critic, was in a position to know why readings of certain types were to be preferred, certainly far better than Avalos, who is a relative novice in the specific field of NT textual criticism. "How do we know" is not an answer to what Metzger offers. An answer would be to show why Metzger's hypothesis does not account for the data better than a rival hypothesis. Canard response.

In all of this, Avalos fails to provide any actual reason for concern. He notes that the name of Barabbas [93] appears in some manuscript data preceded by the name Jesus. Metzger saw this as a case of scribes leaving out "Jesus" for the sake of revering Jesus Christ; Avalos, however, dips into the paranoia pot and declares:

One cannot escape noticing that a name such as Jesus Barabbas might also provide evidence that there were two people named Jesus who might have been confused with each other at the crucifixion. The likelihood of confusing one Jesus with the other also might impugn the crucifixion (and resurrection) accounts. That is to say, what if Jesus Barabbas was really the Jesus crucified instead of Jesus of Nazareth?

One cannot escape noticing that Avalos' thesis reeks of a sort of bigotry that emerges from comments like, "All those (insert race here) people look the same to me." That Avalos seriously proposes such a confusion based on a single (not full) name -- especially in a time when the name "Jesus" was as common as, say, "Bob" is today -- indicates someone whose brain has been parked in a tow away zone for quite some time now. It hardly needs pointing out that a mere similarity of one part of a full name is not enough to overcome the difference in the rest of the name, the difference in appearance, and that the opponents of Jesus would hardly have missed the switcheroo -- that is, unless Avalos really is proposing an "evil twin" theory of his own.

Further on, Avalos attempts to prove "contradictory reasons" for textual-critical decisions, but in so doing, shows that he hasn't got the ability to think complex situations through. Metzger argues for a deletion of "Jesus" from "Jesus Barabbas" out of reverence. Metzger also argues for "he" instead of "Paul" in Acts 18:1 (which speaks of Paul leaving Corinth) because no one would delete "Paul" if it were in the original. Now on this, I can add that Metzger's view coheres with lectionary use of Acts; because sections would be read in pieces, it makes sense that "Paul" would take the place of "he" so that the reading would make it clear who "he" was. Avalos even admits that it is "plausible" that a scribe made the change for clarity [93]. But then he falls off the deep end as he calls Metzger's note that "no one" would have replaced "Paul" had it been in the verse a "sweeping claim....and this despite the aforementioned deletion of 'Jesus'" next to Jesus Barabbas. Yes, and what? There is no issue of potential "reverence" with Paul, nor another "Paul" in the text he might be confused with. Avalos claims there is contradiction in method; there is not -- two different reasons are supplied that are in no way mutually exclusive. Much less does Avalos prove that the claim is "sweeping" by providing an actual reason why "Paul" would be deleted. There is no "subjectivity" here; Avalos is simply thinking like a fundamentalist yet again, and is unable to process ideas too subtle for his mind to capture.

95-101 -- This final section of the chapter is the most sorrowful yet, as Avalos entirely defers to what he has read from Bart Ehrman and tries to defend the idea that critical doctrines are affected by textual issues. Indeed, Avalos' resorts become quite hysterical at this point, as he uses the lack of presence of originals to declare that "one cannot know if an important doctrine has been omitted, added or changed." [96] The fact that this lack of originals also means (by this logic) that we can't know if important doctrines have not been accurately preserved does not seem to occur to Avalos as he hoists himself gaily upon his own petard. It boils down once again to Avalos telling textual critics (secular and Biblical alike) that they are idiots wasting their time -- and if you think not, wait until you see his closing statement for the chapter.

One the same page, however, we get to a point that is so fundamentalist that Avalos has been asked to write a Chick tract on it. Avalos quotes 2 Timonthy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Avalos' reasoning here is so astounding in its foolishness that it can only have full effect with a direct, extended quote [96-7]:

Logically, the expression "All scripture"...indicates that there is no such thing as a passage that may be considered less doctrinally important than any other passage. Notice that the passage does not say that only some portions are useful for doctrine, but that all are useful for doctrine. So the fact that some copies of the Bible have fewer verses than others indicates that doctrine is necessarily affected by the loss or addition of verses.

The problems and deceptions inherent in this argument are legion in quality.

1. First, Avalos has arbitrarily "atomized" the phrase "all Scripture" to the level of individual passages, when the word as consistently used in other texts more clearly indicates rather the collective whole, or at most, individual books. The absurdity indeed can be illustrated by a reductio ad absurdum of Avalos' position. Why stop at passages? Why not say that every individual word is meant, and that e.g., 2 Chr. 11:14 ("For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest's office unto the LORD") is doctrinally important right down to the words "came," "Jeroboam," "off," and so on? In addition, perhaps Avalos can explain what "doctrine" will be lost (and found nowhere else) if we lose 2 Chronicles 11 or Leviticus 3. He needs to validate the argument that no passage in less doctrinally important than any other -- not just say so. This is simply Avalos' fundamentalist mindset seeking to prop up an unsupportable argument with paranoid fantasies.
2. Second, Avalos has given himself away by alluding to the KJV version of this verse (which says "profitable for doctrine") but quoting what appears to be the NASB. He is trying to connect the "doctrine" of the KJV with the use of the word "doctrine" to refer to specific doctrines such as the Trinity or atonement. The actual word used is far more general and means teaching or instruction. It is hard to believe that Avalos is not aware of this, so we must conclude that he is purposely trying to deceive readers.
3. Finally, the recitation of this list would indicate that all scripture is good for one or more of the purposes listed, but not all of them; and indeed, the use of lists in a rhetorical context would suggest that the traits are not meant to be exhaustive but exemplary. So even if Avalos were not being deceptive with regards to the word "doctrine," he would still be wrong.

After this, Avalos continues his fundamentalist diatribe by pointing to Deut. 4:2 and Matthew 5:18 as evidence that changes in the text invalidate each. Of course, this would only affect Deuteronomy at most in both cases, but either way Avalos is still wrong. Changes in copies do not have any bearing here. As I have said elsewhere:

A reader made the point here that while my paraphrases above "are probably correct for typical Skeptic rhetoric," a more intelligent version would be, "If God actually is concerned as to whether or not His 'words' from which not 'one jot or one tittle' (Matt. 5:18) will pass away, then doesn't the fact that this text fails to meet this standard tell us something about whether or not this God really does exist or is really who His word claims to be?" In answer: Though Matt. 5:18 has often been used as a proof of inerrancy, I think it is rather an expression related to the Jewish idea of God's Word as preexistent, and unchanging and has nothing to do with copies on earth. One could mangle the Scriptures to death, but the original is still on file in the home office, so to speak. As an analogy, my prison inmates used to think that if they tore down the signs I posted rules on, that they could get away with breaking the rule; but the sign was not the authority -- I was!

How ironic that Avalos, who is so up on criticizing "bibliolatry," has failed to correct his own thinking in this regard.

Finally, Avalos reaches for some actual passages that he thinks affect doctrine, and he simply relies on Ehrman to provide him with Mark 16:9-20, John 8, and 1 John 5:7-8. For this, to begin, I will refer to the comments of Dr. Daniel Wallace found here to show just how sorrowfully inadequate Avalos' single-page-each treatments are. Then I will refer readers to my own treatments: