Do we really KNOW what the authors of the New Testament wrote? Sometimes we just can’t decide — despite what apologists almost always say (Most apologists, btw, have never actually studied the problem; I’m not trying to be snide or rude when I say that — it’s an empirical fact; even most PhD’s in New Testament Studies have not been trained to determine which actual words of the surviving manuscripts probably go back to the authors).
I am now looking at a case in point, a single word in a single passage of Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians (see the previous post). The decision of what he wrote comes down to a single letter in the word. Scholars (especially, as it turns out, those few who ARE deeply trained to figure these things out) can’t agree about the single letter.
And the decision determines the meaning of the passage. Did Paul remind the Thessalonians that when he and his missionary colleagues were with them they became like “infants” among them rather than great, powerful, and demanding apostles? Or did he say they became “gentle” among them?
Now, you might be saying: Who Cares?
Apart from apologists who insist we know what the biblical authors actually wrote, New Testament interpreters do. It may not matter like having a passage that determines a major doctrine (Who was Christ? Was his death an atoning sacrifice? Is there a Trinity?). But there are lots of things that matter that are not major doctrines. Any scholar of the New Testament wants to know the basic gist of each book of the New Testament; and its major themes and ideas; and the meaning of each of its passages; and the meaning of each of its verses; and the meaning of each of its words.
And here is a textual variant that affects the meaning of a verse and of an entire passage. What was Paul saying? Was he saying that he and his companions were gentle? Or was he saying they became infants? As we saw in the previous post, it appears to be impossible to decide the issue simply on the question of which text is more likely to be an accidental alteration. So what else might we consider?
Back to playing in the weeds — a fun place to play sometimes!
One approach to the problem that exegetes have taken leads once again to mixed results. Why not see which word “ÊPIOI” (pronounced “ape – ioi” and meaning gentle) or “NÊPIO” (pronounced “nape – ioi” and meaning infants) is a word that Paul more commonly uses in his letters? If Paul used one of these words a lot, and the other hardly ever, wouldn’t that suggest that it was the word he typically used a lot that he used here?
That’s a good strategy, but it leads to another set of mixed results. Here is why. Paul never uses the word ÊPIOI (“gentle”) anywhere else in the seven undisputed letters (it does get used again in 2 Thess. 2:24, but Paul probably did not write that letter himself, and it’s author appears dependent on 1 Thessalonians for many of his ideas, themes, and even words; so it doesn’t count). In fact, the word never occurs anywhere else in the New Testament.
On the other hand, Paul uses the word NÊPIOI (“infants) nine other times in his undisputed letters, and it is a relatively common word in the New Testament (it occurs fourteen times altogether).
So that should settle the matter, right? “Infants” is clearly the word Paul is more likely to use.
Or is it? Here is the complicating factor – a very complicating factor indeed. When Paul *does* use the term “infants” in his letters, it always has a negative connotation, not a positive one. That is to say, Paul does not speak of “infants” in favorable terms (for example, as charmingly innocent and guiltless, cute, and adorable); he speaks of them in negative terms (for example, as immature, ignorant, and not ready to face the realities of life).
You can see this for yourself. Here are the passages: Romans 2:20; 1 Cor. 3:1; 13:11 (five times); Galatians 4:1, 3. Look them up.
Now it is true that Paul could sometimes be self-denegrating. But would he say that he and his companions converted the Thessalonians by becoming immature, ignorant, and not ready to face the realities of life? That seems highly unlikely.
So even though NÊPIOI is a Pauline term, it would be used here in a highly non-Pauline way. Once again, then, we seem to be at a draw, unable to decide which term is the more likely one he used here, the term “gentle” that he never uses elsewhere, or the term “infants” that he uses a good bit, but always in a contrary sense.
OK, so here’s the next step. Maybe we should look at the literary context of the passage to see if one term makes better sense in the context than the other. Great! Bright idea! Let’s do that!
Here too we run into a problem. And a very interesting one. Remember what the verse says: “We were XXX among you, like a nurse taking care of her children.”
If we go with “gentle,” then the verse makes perfectly good sense. Paul and his companions acted among the Thessalonians like a gentle nurse tending for her young. OK, that’s a compelling image. But what if we go with “infants”? Then the verse is, to say the least, really confusing, and possibly confused. Paul and his companions acted among the Thessalonians like infants, like a nurse tending for her young.
But what sense does that make? Was Paul acting like the infant or like the nurse taking care of the infant? How could it be both? This is a mixed metaphor.
So doesn’t that show that the text must have originally read “gentle”? There are two further factors that need to be considered. The first is this: if one of these forms of the text presents a confusing reading that is hard to understand and involves a mixed metaphor, and the other is not at all confusing but is easy to understand without a mixed metaphor: which of the two forms of the text would a scribe be more likely to change and correct? (I’m not asking which reading Paul would write; I’m asking which reading a scribe would want to change.) Obviously the one that is hard to understand. But that would suggest that “Infants” was the original reading and scribes changed it to get rid of the mixed metaphor.
But the second factor is this: is the fact that there is a mixed metaphor an indication Paul did not write the word “infants”? One way to settle that question is to ask: does Paul ever use mixed metaphors?
And here the answer is “absolutely yes”!! Here is my favorite instance, Galatians 4:19, where Paul says: “My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you.” Here in this one sentence there are three metaphors that are clearly not in sync! Who are the Galatians? According to this verse they are little children. They are also fetuses yet to be born (Paul is in labor with them). And they are yet also pregnant women (with Christ being formed in their womb). All in one verse!
So is it unlikely that Paul would use a mixed metaphor? No. But does a mixed metaphor in one variant reading of 1 Thess. 2:7 (people who are infants and nurses of infants at the same time) mean Paul did not write the verse that way? Again, no!
Once again we seem to be at a standoff. And in fact we are. Scholars go back and forth on this one. For those conservative evangelical scholars who tell us we can KNOW what the words of the New Testament were, I ask: OK, which word do we know that Paul wrote here? And if we know, why don’t we agree?
Hi Professor Ehrman!
I just joined the blog after months of binging your videos, podcasts, and (some) books—so I hope it’s ok if I take advantage of my new membership and ask some questions over the next few days.
First, though, I want to thank you for introducing me to the wide world of early Christianity and its varieties. I am a PhD student in Art History at UChicago, and though I study more modern questions/problems, I’ve been interested for years in Christological debates surrounding the Mosaic prohibition of images, so I was already inclined to find your material compelling. A research project for a professor led me to Stephen Greenblatt’s book on Adam and Eve, which briefly touches on Marcion and other early forms of Christianity. I thought it all sounded incredibly cool, so I did some googling, and soon found my way to your scholarship—and haven’t looked back! (I’m currently supposed to be reading for my qualifying exams but am finding it difficult when your work is both so fascinating and so pleasant an escape from what I ought to be doing. I’m blaming you if I fail out of the program! [Not really, obviously.]) Onto comment two!
OK, thanks and welcome. Now get off the blog and STUDY!!!
I know your books are often geared toward a general audience—and those are primarily what I’ve read thus far—but, being a PhD student, I love working through complexly written, intricately argued, and thoroughly sourced texts. I’ve started your book on katabasis (from YUP), and I’d love to dig deeper into your more scholarly-oriented work. I assume the Gospel of Judas, being out of OUP, is in that vein, but what else would you suggest? What are the books (or essays!) that you feel best represent the kind of deep scholarship you’re proud of? And what (briefly—for your sake!) are your short-to-medium-term plans for writing that’s intended more for an academic audience, e.g. prospective books, forthcoming essays in journals, etc.?
Also, because my first comment was questionless, I hopefully can ask one more! Though I know you aren’t a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, I was wondering if you might have some suggestions for good (preferably relatively recent, relatively robust—and, if at all possible, secularly oriented) sources on the “primeval history” portion of Genesis, and the creation scenes in particular? The likely history of their redaction, debates over their (not necessarily exclusively Jewish) interpretation and theological implications—that kind of thing.
My major scholarly monographs (not counting the ones for technicians that would make no sense to anyone not deeply trained in Greek and manuscript studies) are The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture; Forgery and Counterforgery; and the Journeys book you’re already getting into. I’ve done other scholarly work involving translation projects (e.g., the Loeb Apostolic Fathers), collectdions of essays (Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament), etc. The Judas book is a trade book. On the primeval history, the best thing would be to start by looking at the reputable textbooks on the Hebrew Bible by John Collins and by Michael Coogan, see what the lay of the land is, then go to their bibliographies and work from there. Also the work of Joel Baden on the Pentateuch and the Documentary Hypothesis can bring you up to date on teh major source issues.
Quite a rollercoaster! Edge of the seat…
“Infant” could be understood both negatively ( dependent ) and positively ( gentle, non-imposing), it occurs to me.
As ” dependent”, they’d need the nurse, so there is a plausible segue. Moreover, the seeming illogical hurdle of placing both ” infants” and “nurses of infants”in the same sentence may be diminished by the acceptance of two distinct metaphors. At the end, they are both examples of gentleness that one can understand linearly.
Having said that, why can’t ” gentle” be seen as a hapax legomenon in Paul’s oeuvre? These are often seen in all sorts of writings.
My question, then:
are there other hapax legomena in Paul’s opus? And/or in the Gospels? Sounds like a normal occurrence to me, even as each of these words is used exceptionally only once.
It could be,bottom line, that the original word was ” infants”,changed logically to ” gentle” to smooth the context.
Why? Most of all, because one can see a scribe going from ” infant” to ” gentle”, as an assumed improvement, but not from ” gentle” to ” infants”, which would have felt more creative than a scribe could perhaps have allowed himself.
Oh, yes, there are indeed hapax legomena — at least insofar as they were hapax when they first appeared in teh NT. Two of them are striking for completely different reasons. The word that sometimes gets (WRONGLY) translated as “homosexual” is a term Paul made up (ARESENOKOITAI); he invented it out of two words “adult-male” and “bed” so I guess literally it means “man-beds.” Some people are “man-beds.” Most modern folk, including tons of scholars, think it’s obvious what he means, but it’s not at all obvious when you actually look into the matter. And even if it does refer to “men who are the active partners in sex acts with other men” (which is how I say it in public) (in private it takes only two words that are hyphenated) that is NOT homosexuality, since in the ancient world there was no *concept* of what we think of as “sexuality.” Long story.
The other that immediately comes to mind is in (the pseudo-Pauline) 2 Timothy 3:16 — “all Scripture is INSPIRED by God.” The word is one the author made up, THEOPNEUSTOS, which unlike the other is not hard ot figure out. It literalyl means “God-breathed” hence “inspired by God.” AT Moody Bible Institute, we *loved* this verse; and we “despised” ARSENOKOITAI! Ai yai yai…
Man-bed may have been Paul’s attempt to translate the Leviticus injunctions against homosexuality. It is called ” mishkav zakhar”. משכב זכר
Bed-Male.
Unrelated, I found two more instances of ” blood on him ” or ” blood on them” in Leviticus. I had looked for the HB normal expression of what became, perversely or out of ignorance, Matthew’s ” may his blood be on OUR heads”.
I couldn’t help but wonder, when watching your recent podcast with Megan, when you mentioned that word “ARESENOKOITAI”, if maybe it meant, ‘men shouldn’t have sex outside of marriage’, or something like that.
This is a pretty common Christian concept. It also follows by default that if ALL the men aren’t having sex outside of marriage, then neither are the women. This is also a very common Christian concept as well.
Idk. It’s just what first came to my mind when I first heard you say it, & I’ve kept thinking about it ever since.
The other things that Paul usually lists that people shouldn’t do, are also pretty common and familiar concepts. Why would he introduce something that is so out of the blue, here and in this list of things?
It’s an interesting idea. The problem is that there is nothing in the word that makes one suspect or think of “extramarital” As to why he coined the world — good question! Maybe he used it with the Corinthians when he was with them for so long, and they simply knew what he meant by it.
I didn’t know Paul introduced that term!
Hi Professor Ehrman,
Can we answer even if we have no idea if we are Team ÊPIOI or NÊPIOI?
“My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you.”
Is there a possibility that alludes to a type of reincarnation?
Strabo, Dio Cassius and others speak of a 13 CE Indian delegation of wise men and this one Buddhist monk that meets with Caesar Augustus, and, Herod The Great’s bestie — Nicholaus of Damascus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarmanochegas
Nicholaus of Damascus is a big source that Josephus uses. If Paul is Saulus the Herodian, (Eisenman) he might have availed Nicholaus as a source like Josephus does. Scholars do think Paul is sometimes working off of sources, right?
“*Again* in labor”, reincarnation.
“Until Christ be formed in you”
Paul as the womb flowerpot, Christ (anointing) as the ‘activating principle’ seed.
Greco-Buddhism or even NeoPythagoreanism could potentially inform the meaning of a spiritual resurrection, and maybe Transjordan ephedra could inform a potential physical one.
I’m not sure. I guess it would depend on who is being reincarnated.
I’m thinking that a scribe might have had infants on ‘es mind, considering the nature of the sentence. One could have made a kind of ‘slip’, seeing that the words are spelt and sound so similar in Greek.
There’s also the possibility that the scribe didn’t like Paul very much, or that ‘e didn’t like the way Paul put this sentence. The scribe could have meant ‘infants’ in the way that Paul himself usually uses it, meaning “immature, ignorant, and not ready to face the realities of life”.
If the scribe was one of the Thessalonians, ‘e might not have liked the way Paul was relating to them, calling them and referring to them as children, so ‘e decided to give the “complement” or implication in return.
I like that apostrophe thing. Is that your idea or is it something folk are doing now? Clever and convenient. (Some years ago linguists did try to introduce a new generic pronoun E, but it never caught on)
It really felt like my own idea when I thought of it, but it also might be an idea whos time has come so to speak. I’ve introduced it to a few other people, & they started using it too. I haven’t seen it too often however. I just like it and choose to use it often enough.
It’s also convenient when talking about God, unless one wants to express the idea of an anatomical god. Using E instead of He or She, Em instead of Him or Her, and Es instead of Hers or His. People seem to have no trouble recognizing it or knowing what it means, because it sounds so similar to the pronouns that we already use.
There are several languages that have gender neutral pronouns and don’t have gender specific ones.
If a person does or might believe in God, (or even if they don’t), I think it’s a better pointer and pronoun for what God really is or might be.
If “Paul” was a Greek speaking/writing person, he may have very likely been familiar with the Socratic/rhetorical mode of discussion of playing the “infant”/ignorant one”. “Would you please illuminate me?” (In other words, either simple sarcasm or throwing out bait for the fish to hook himself on). And I am definitely for the apostrophe! Saves so much textual space and no more worrying about pronouns! “And Yahweh said, ” ‘ am who ‘ am”. “In the beginning there was ‘.” Perfection.
“We could have made demands upon you as apostles of Christ; but we were XXX among you, like a nurse taking care of her children.”
Here’s my thinking:
Assuming that a scribe made an intentional change, it makes more sense to me that the original was the mixed metaphor “infants”. Then a later scribe determined that the sentence didn’t make sense – and perhaps thought the extra “N” was a mistake by a previous scribe – so he changed it to a similar word that did make sense, “gentle”.
I have trouble understanding why a scribe would intentionally change the word from “gentle”, which makes logical sense in the sentence, to “infants”.
It also seems possible to me that Paul, as an imperfect human, made have written “infants” but meant a different word that would have made more sense in the context.
Thanks, very interesting! I’m just reading a book called _The Language Game_ (Christiansen & Chater, 2022) in which the authors discuss the messy and often confusing nature of language. And I was thinking as I read it, “Geez, if God wanted to send a message to humans, sending it via ancient authors was about the worst possible way to do it.” Words are often ambiguous to begin with. Then add in the fact that there were no printing presses in the ancient world, so authors had to rely on fallible scribes to copy their words. Not to mention the fact that ancient authors WROTELIKETHISWITHNOSPACINGORPUNCTUATION. What could go wrong?
I wonder about the word “nurse” in the verse. In the modern Swedish translation, the word is “mor” (mother). This seems more logical, because, as far as I know, a nurse takes care sick and injured people, not children per se. Or can the English word “nurse” also mean “nanny”?
What is the Greek word, and what does it mean?
The disputed word is in the Swedish translation “kärleksfull” (loving).
Nurse in this case refers to the person other than the mother who takes care of an infant.