Today and tomorrow Daniel Wallace will be debating Bart Ehrman on “The Textual Reliability of the New Testament.” The debate is part of the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum, a ministry of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Here’s the announcement from DTS:

On April 4-5, 2008, Dr. Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas, will participate in a debate with Dr. Bart Ehrman, chair of the department of religious studies at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, over the textual reliability of the New Testament.

For more information, please visit www.greer-heard.com.

Let’s pray that God’s truth would prevail.

I recently stumbled across and listened to two other free Bahnsen (Wikipedia | Theopedia) debates:

• Greg Bahnsen vs Edward Tabash: Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3
• Greg Bahnsen vs George Smith: Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3 | Pt 4 | Pt 5 | Pt 6 | Pt 7 | Pt 8 | Pt 9 | Pt 10 | Pt 11 | Pt 12

They aren’t quite as good as the debate with Stein (Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3), but they are still worth listening to.

By the way, if you are unfamiliar with Bahnsen, that needs to end. Read John Frame’s opinion of Bahnsen, where he says,

I do honor him, as one God singularly gifted for the spiritual warfare of our time. I hope that his example inspires others to join the fray with similar brilliance, passion, and commitment. I have recommended the tapes of the Stein debate to many of my students. Whatever we may say about the debate genre, there is a place for confrontation and for the intellectual exposure of Satan’s lies. In those respects, Bahnsen still has no peer.

Edward Tabash’s “arguments” were just plain laughable. I would summarize the essence of his contention this way:

1. Major Premise: God is evil.
2. Minor Premise: I hate God.
3. Conclusion: God does not exist.

The conclusion is obviously a non sequitur, and the major premise is incredibly erroneous. All we learn from Tabash is that he hates God, whose existence, by the way, he is trying to disprove! In his concluding appeal, Tabash tells the audience that if they are going to believe in God, just make sure it’s not the evil God of the Bible, again, whom Tabash hates.

Last night I read the final installment in the six-part email debate that has been taking place over the last month on ChristianityToday.com between atheist Christopher Hitchens (website) and Christian theist Douglas Wilson (blog). I thoroughly enjoyed it and heartily recommend it. Wilson is a cogent thinker, effective debater, and engaging writer, and he did a phenomenal job of presuppositionally obliterating the notion of philosophically consistent atheistic morality.

If I ever teach apologetics, I’ll probably make this debate required reading. Though they are difficult to compare because one was written and the other spoken, I’d put this debate up there close to the Bahnsen-Stein debate.

To get a sampling of Wilson’s argumentation, see these two posts:

• Hitchens vs. Wilson: Is Christianity Good for the World?
• Wilson on Atheism and Morality

Here are the six exchanges in the debate:

• Part 1 (Hitchens | Wilson)
• Part 2 (Hitchens | Wilson)
• Part 3 (Hitchens | Wilson)
• Part 4 (Hitchens | Wilson)
• Part 5 (Hitchens | Wilson)
• Part 6 (Hitchens | Wilson)

I’ve compiled the whole debate in a document (Word | PDF). I’ve added some links and headings for ease of navigation (you’ll want to display the document map [Word] or bookmarks [PDF]), and I’ve also enabled markup in the PDF file in case you want to highlight while you read (Adobe Reader 8 required). Enjoy!

You may also be interested in Douglas Wilson’s new book, Letter from a Christian Citizen, which is a response to atheist Sam Harris’s book Letter to a Christian Nation.