http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=2795
Was Jesus Misquoted?
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The
following article was written by auxiliary staff writer Dewayne Bryant,
who holds two Masters degrees, and is completing Masters study in
Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and Languages at Trinity Evangelical
Divinity School, while pursuing doctoral studies at Amridge University.
He has participated in an archaeological dig at Tell El-Borg in Egypt
and holds professional membership in both the American Schools of
Oriental Research as well as the Society of Biblical Literature.]
Jesus is under attack like never before. While criticism of the Faith
is nothing new, there is an increase in the public exposure of
Christianity’s detractors. From documentaries on the small screen to
blockbuster movies on the silver screen, critics are pursuing all media
venues to preach a message of distrust—and even hate. The members of the
new atheism have lambasted the Christian Faith in bestselling books,
describing the faithful as simple-minded, anti-scientific, and even
dangerous. For Christianity’s critics, the spiritual forecast looks
bright for a brisk trade in fear.
Not all of the enemies of the Faith come from a secularist perspective.
While plenty come from a scientific background, one of the newest cast
members is a former minister and purported biblical scholar. Bart
Ehrman, professor of religion at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, is one of the foremost scholars in the country in the area
of textual criticism, the art and science of evaluating ancient
manuscripts. Trained at Princeton Theological Seminary under Bruce
Metzger, a theological conservative and one of the greatest text critics
of the 20th century, Ehrman abandoned his former fundamentalist roots and has penned several books questioning the Bible.
WAS JESUS MISQUOTED?
Ehrman specializes in textual criticism, the art and science of
evaluating biblical manuscripts. Textual criticism is concerned with
studying ancient documents in order to determine the original wording of
the text. Like all other documents from antiquity, the original
autographs of the New Testament writings are no longer extant. While
scribes from the ancient world were quite exact in their standards of
copying, no scribe was perfect. This means that manuscripts possessed by
biblical scholars have slight—though usually meaningless—differences
due to copyist’s errors. In his bestselling book Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman paints a rather bleak picture of the current state of the study of biblical texts:
Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies
of the originals, we don’t even have the copies of the copies of the
originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What
we have are copies made later—much later.... And these copies all differ
from one another, in many thousands of places.... These copies differ
from one another in so many places that we don’t even know how many
differences there are (2005, p. 10).
It is amazing that a book about textual criticism made it onto the New York Times
bestseller list, but there is one major difference that makes its
popularity unsurprising. The very fact that it attempts to discredit the
Bible is a major selling point. Members of the modern militant variety
of atheism have used Ehrman’s book as a rallying point. Christopher
Hitchens lists Misquoting Jesus as essential reading in the book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007). Sam Harris, another of the new atheists, lists Ehrman’s work on his Web site as recommended reading.
Ehrman’s basic approach is one of despair. He asserts the original text
is irrecoverable and virtually unknowable. According to Ehrman, the
text was written long after the events they purport to record, by
“orthodox” scribes who intentionally altered the text itself. He
describes this secretive alteration of the text as something akin to a
conspiracy. These alterations changed the face of Christianity as we
know it. He says, “It would be wrong...to say—as people sometimes
do—that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts
mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them.... In
some instances, the very meaning of the text is at stake, depending upon
how one resolves a textual problem” (p. 208).
In short, the Christian Faith practiced by millions today is unlike
that practiced in the first century. Not only is it different, it is
inaccessible because agenda-driven scribes have corrupted the very
documents that serve as a window to the early church. Short of the
invention of time travel, no one can know precisely how early
Christianity was practiced—according to Ehrman.
THE STATE OF THE TEXT
According to scholars and critics like Ehrman, the New Testament
documents were transmitted in poor fashion. In one of the greatest
hoaxes in textual criticism, liberal scholars like Ehrman perpetuate the
misconception that the transmission of the biblical text is like a game
of “broken telephone” or “Chinese whispers.” According to the rules of
the game, a line of people take turns whispering a phrase into the ear
of the next person in line. They must whisper it so softly that the
person on the other side of their neighbor cannot hear it, and they are
not allowed to repeat themselves. When the message gets to the end of
the line, it is usually nonsensical and garbled beyond recognition, much
to the delight of the participants.
The “broken telephone” analogy is a popular one, but woefully
incorrect. Distorting the message to the point of incomprehensibility is
the point of the game. That was not the point of the biblical scribes
who copied what they believed to be the very Word of God. It is a
well-known fact that Old Testament scribes copied the text with a level
of fidelity nearly inconceivable by moderns. Scribes developed a highly
sophisticated method of counting words, letters, the middle word of a
book along with its middle letter, and everything else imaginable to
ensure that the copy of the text was a perfect reproduction of the
original manuscript. For that reason, the vast number of copyist errors
in the Old Testament manuscripts consists of nothing more than a single
letter, usually one that looks similar to another in the Hebrew
alphabet. Using rules of textual criticism, scholars are able to
classify and correct the error quite easily.
While the Old Testament scribes were quite sophisticated in their
efforts, what about the scribes who copied the New Testament documents?
Unfortunately, New Testament scribes were not always as faithful as
their Jewish counterparts. But this hardly means that their work is
suspect. Let us return to the broken telephone analogy. Scribes copying
the documents were not copying for an audience of one. Their work could
be checked and verified by many others who read the copies, or heard
them read aloud in the first churches. Furthermore, they were under no
rules that limited their ability to communicate their message or forbade
them from correcting anyone else. The sheer gravity of copying the
words of the apostolic writers, not to mention those of Christ Himself,
would have involved the entire Christian community.
To his discredit, Ehrman uses the broken telephone argument when he
surely knows better. Trained at Princeton Seminary, a premiere school
for New Testament studies, Ehrman knows that scribes did not transmit
the biblical documents in this manner. While scribes in the New
Testament world did not have the same checks and balances used by Jewish
scribes, it does not mean that their efforts were slack or their
standards lax. Copying the biblical documents was not for an audience of
one, but for the entire Christian community. Others would have been
able to check the documents and note any errors that the scribes might
have made.
An inconvenient truth for Ehrman, and others favorable to his views, is
the witness of authorities in the early church. The early church
fathers began quoting and alluding to the books of the New Testament
very early. In his Apologia Prima, Justin Martyr indicates that
on Sunday the apostolic writings would be read publicly. Tertullian
echoes Justin’s sentiments, saying,
Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply
it to the business of your salvation, run over to the apostolic
churches, in which the very thrones of the apostles are still
pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are
read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them
severally (De Praescriptione Haereticorum 36.1).
As New Testament scholars Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace point out,
“What is at issue here is the meaning of ‘authentic’ writings. If this
refers to the original documents, as the word in Latin (authenticae)
normally does, then Tertullian is saying that several of the original
New Testament books still existed in his day, well over a century after
the time of their writing” (2007, p. 45, italics in orig.). Tertullian
specifically references Paul’s letters to the churches at Corinth,
Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Rome. Although this point is not
entirely certain, it is an interesting thought. Tertullian’s statement
provides evidence of a concern for preserving the manuscripts
accurately. Given human fascination with historical relics and our
interest in preserving them, it is possible that the early churches
would have mirrored Tertullian’s concerns, preserving the letters
written by the apostles themselves.
Bock and Wallace make a powerful argument concerning two of the earliest manuscripts known today. Citing p75 and Codex Vaticanus (also known as B), they argue that the two manuscripts
have an exceptionally strong agreement. And they are among the most
accurate manuscripts that exist today. P75 is about 125 years older than
B, yet it is not an ancestor of B. Instead, B was copied from an
earlier ancestor of P75.... The combination of these two manuscripts in a
particular reading must surely go back to the very beginning of the
second century (2007, p. 47).
The state of the New Testament text is much better than the situation of despair found in Misquoting Jesus.
As a world-class text critic, Ehrman must be fully aware of this
material, yet chooses not to cite any of it in his work. In fact, he
rarely cites scholars who disagree with him, leaving the inaccurate
impression that he represents a vast majority of scholars who hold the
same viewpoint. This borders on academic dishonesty.
That Ehrman knows the ancient scribes were conscientious about serving
as custodians of the textual tradition is revealed in admissions
throughout the text of Misquoting Jesus. He says, “Far and
away, the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple—slips
of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled
words, blunders of one sort or another” (p. 55). The truth finally comes
out that the massive majority of errors in the New Testament
manuscripts are the result of a copyist’s error, not a deliberate
alteration. What Ehrman downplays is that textual critics are
well-schooled in how to detect and qualify copyists’ mistakes. By
referring to the 400,000 errors in the manuscripts, Ehrman is leaving a
false impression with his readership. Some of the errors are easily
correctable, and others are downright absurd. As Bock and Wallace
explain, “What exactly constitutes a textual variant? Any place among
the manuscripts in which there is variation in wording, including word
order, omission or addition of words, and even spelling differences is a
textual variant. Thus, the most trivial alterations count as variants”
(p. 54).
Ehrman does reserve some qualified praise for the ancient scribes. He writes:
The scribes—whether non-professional scribes in the early centuries or
professional scribes of the Middle Ages—were intent on conserving the
textual tradition they were passing on. Their ultimate concern was not
to modify the tradition, but to preserve it for themselves and for those
who would follow them. Most scribes, no doubt, tried to do a faithful
job in making sure that the text they reproduced was the same text they
inherited (p. 177).
Indeed, scribes in the ancient world were expected to copy texts
faithfully, despite Ehrman’s assertions that they deliberately altered
the New Testament documents. His understanding of ancient scribal custom
is made clear by his inclusion of a humorous story about a scribe who
deliberately modified the wording of a passage in a copy of the Bible
(Codex Vaticanus). A later scribe came along and changed the word back
to its original reading, adding the marginal note: “Fool and knave!
Leave the old reading, don’t change it!” (p. 56).
A weakness of Ehrman’s argument is that, while he argues that scribes
deliberately altered the text, one must ask how he knows it was altered;
the charge presupposes that the original reading is still accessible in
some way. One cannot argue that the words of Jesus or the teaching of
Paul has been changed if one does not know what they actually said,
which Ehrman repeatedly confesses. Rather, the very fact that scholars
know that the text was altered on occasion means that they have a good
idea of what the original reading was. This makes Ehrman’s arguments
relatively inconsequential, since he depends upon later examples of
change to make his points.
The criticism of Misquoting Jesus has come fast and furious. In the age of the Internet, substantial criticisms of the work have appeared en masse.
Not only do Ehrman’s ideas fail to convince those who have studied the
issue, New Testament scholars have posted devastating critiques of his
work on-line in venues ranging from academic blogs to seminary Web
sites. Academic heavyweights such as Darrell Bock, Craig Blomberg, and
Craig Evans have all provided measured criticism of Ehrman’s work,
although he appears to have paid little attention. Indeed, Ehrman fuels
the controversy when interviewed, choosing to rehash the same arguments
each time when they have been answered by other scholars in a variety of
media venues. In interviews, Ehrman generally tends to overplay the
nature of the manuscript errors and attributes much more importance to
them than is warranted.
Ehrman’s book Orthodox Corruption is a scholarly version of the popular-level Misquoting Jesus. Of this book, New Testament scholar Gordon Fee writes, “Unfortunately, Ehrman too often turns mere possibility into probability, and probability into certainty,
where other equally viable reasons for corruption exist” (1995, 8:204).
Some critics of Christianity are notorious for failing to incorporate
the criticisms of their peers in their own work and making adjustments
where necessary. In this Ehrman is no exception, as Orthodox Corruption generally states a similar case as the one found later in Misquoting Jesus, even after fellow scholars offered criticism that appears to have gone largely unheeded.
Ehrman’s work resonates in a post-Christian culture where Christianity
is viewed as secretive and even deceptive. His description of the state
of the text is bleak, but it is just as inaccurate. Scholars have great
confidence in the Greek text that lies beneath modern English
translations, and for good reason. Ancient scribes believed they were
copying the very words of God, and treated their duties with a
commensurate level of care. They knew that God, and His Word, deserved
no less.
CONCLUSION
Bart Ehrman has made something of a career out of selling the idea that
the New Testament is not only full of inconsistencies, inaccuracies,
and outright contradictions, but that some of those discrepancies were
deliberately inserted into the text. He is something of a theological
celebrity, enjoying airtime in a number of different radio and
television interviews. As one of the foremost New Testament textual
scholars in America, Ehrman should be taken seriously. At the same time,
his criticism of the Faith is questionable, and, at times, laughable.
Ehrman excels at selling a packaged version of Christianity that is
supposedly authentic but falls short. He matter-of-factly describes the
supposed difficulties with Christianity almost as if they are trade
secrets of the Faith. On the popular level, it is likely that many of
his readers have never heard of these criticisms of the New Testament
from a scholar writing for a lay audience. At the same time, scholarly
treatments of these issues are readily available. Many fine works
written by both the scholar and non-scholar alike have answered all of
the objections Ehrman raises. From that standpoint, Ehrman’s exploration
of these issues gives an appearance of disingenuousness.
Unlike less scholarly, more popular authors such as Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), Peter Baigent (The Jesus Papers), and Simcha Jacobovici (The Jesus Family Tomb),
Ehrman must be taken seriously. He is a widely respected scholar who
has produced a number of contributions to the field of New Testament
studies. At the same time, he also appears to have little interest in
resolving the problems he raises. An honest seeker will try to resolve
difficulties he uncovers, if for no other reason than to explore the
mystery itself. Ehrman seems to have little interest in finding
solutions, preferring instead to emphasize what he considers to be
problems in the text. The Christian must be aware that the overwhelming
majority of those difficulties often have rather simple solutions,
offered by scholars bearing the same level of credentials as Ehrman
himself.
REFERENCES
Bock, Darrell and Daniel Wallace (2007), Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson).
Ehrman, Bart (2005), Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco, CA: Harper).
Fee, Gordon (1995), “Review of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, by Bart D. Ehrman” in Critical Review of Books in Religion, 8:203-206.
Harris, Sam “Recommended Reading (A-Z),” [On-line], URL: http://www.sam harris.org/site/book_reading_list/.
Hitchens, Christopher (2007), God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve Books).
