Erasing text messages from iphone. What gives. It is taking up substatial amount of space.

Hey there ianc435,

It sounds like you want to delete some text messages from your phone, or entire text conversations at once. Here are the steps to do that on your iPhone from the following article:

How do I delete a Message?

You can delete a message by choosing More… after tapping and holding a message bubble in your current Messages conversation. Selected messages that will be deleted show a checkmark to the left. Tap the trash, in the bottom left corner, and choose Delete Message.

How do I delete an entire Message conversation?

You can delete a Messages conversation by sliding from right to left when viewing your list of current conversations or by tapping Edit and choosing the delete button to the left of the conversation.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

All the very best,

Sterling

Ah I see, thank you for the clarficiation. In that case, the data may need to be purged with a backup and restore of your phone with iTunes. This article will help you do that.

iOS: Back up and restore your iOS device with iCloud or iTunes