Huff said that on a number of occasions, people have approached him after he spoke on the problem of evil and that behind those people’s questions was the reality of personal pain in their lives.
“A lot of those kind of big ‘problem of evil’ questions are less theological and philosophical and sometimes more personal,” argued Huff.
Huff also said that apologists and pastors ought to be careful “not to over-exaggerate in certain claims.”
“My area of speciality is in manuscripts. And there has been some exaggerations in sort of the apologetic endeavors,” Huff said.
Huff explained that the number of available New Testament manuscripts “dwarfs” that of other ancient texts, but he said that nuances between the classifications of different manuscripts lead to apologists sometimes comparing “apples to orchards,” which can be “unhelpful.”
“And so I think in our apologetic endeavors, I think trying to find the best forms of the argument and make sure that we’re not over-exaggerating for the purpose of getting to the conclusion,” Huff argued.
Huff said that in many cases, a conclusion is true, such as in the claim that manuscript evidence for the New Testament is superior to that of other ancient texts, “both in quantity and quality.” However, he said, “in some of the presentation of the data that I’ve seen on some popular level apologetics endeavors, it tends to present the information in a way that individuals in my field kind of cringe at how you’re playing loose and fast with some of those facts.”
