New Testament Manuscripts Archives - Page 12 of 19 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: January 8, 2016

It is the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag time. Today I take on three very interesting and unusually diverse questions: where we got chapters and verses from in the New Testament; how we know that earliest Christians (before Paul) understood Jesus’ death to be a sacrifice for sins; and whether I get upset that my work is used by Muslims in order to discount Christianity. These are hot topics! QUESTION: When did scribes start dividing NT manuscripts into chapters and verses? As I understand it, early manuscripts did not even have punctuation marks. A related question is: did early Christians always read these texts/books, either by themselves or to a congregation, from beginning to end in one sitting? I imagine it would be very difficult to find specific passages without chapters and verses. RESPONSE: Ah, this is an important question, and one many people have never raised; moreover, those who have raised it often have no way of knowing how to answer it. As to chapters and verses, here is what I have to say on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:46-04:00January 8th, 2016|New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Readers’ Mailbag November 27, 2015

I hope everyone had a fulfilling (and fillingful) Thanksgiving! Now it is time to answer some questions I have received over the past couple of weeks, in short rapid-fire order. If you have a question you would like me to address, please ask it in a comment to this post. I am keeping a list and deal with the questions, weekly, more or less in the order in which I receive them. And I’m running low on questions! So ask away! QUESTION: Why do you think Jesus remained single his whole life? Could that have been part of the reason he was seen as a divine being? Ordinary people marry, not highly esteemed divine beings? RESPONSE: That’s an interesting hypothesis, but I don’t think it is “it.” Let me start with the necessary preliminary: I do indeed think that Jesus was, in fact, unmarried. People have disputed that (most notably that inestimable authority on ancient Christianity, Dan Brown, in the Da Vinci Code!) but the evidence is very strong. I have dealt [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:31-04:00November 28th, 2015|Historical Jesus, New Testament Manuscripts, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Is Luke’s Christology Consistent?

Does Luke present a (strictly speaking) consistent view of Jesus throughout his two-volume work of Luke-Acts? I raise the question because of the textual problem surrounding the voice at Jesus’ baptism. I have been arguing that it is likely that the voice did NOT say “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (as in most manuscripts; this is what it clearly does say in Mark’s version; Matthew has it say something different still); instead it probably said “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” In the past couple of posts I’ve suggested that this wording – found in only one ancient Greek manuscript, but in a number of church fathers who quote the passage (these fathers were living before our earliest surviving manuscripts) – makes particular sense if the Gospel did not originally have chapters 1-2, the accounts of Jesus’ birth. In yesterday’s post I gave the evidence for thinking that originally the Gospel began with Jesus’ baptism. But if I’m wrong about that (and hey, it won’t be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:12-04:00October 23rd, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Early Christian Doctrine, New Testament Manuscripts|

Arguments that Luke Did Not Originally Have the Virgin Birth

In discussing the voice of God at Jesus’ baptism in Luke – where he evidently spoke the words of Psalm 2:7 “You are my Son, today I have begotten you – I have mentioned the possibility that originally Luke’s Gospel did not begin with the account of Jesus’ birth, as found now in chapters 1 and 2. I have broached that topic on the blog before, a couple of years ago (if you want to see that discussion, just search for “Did Luke Originally Have”). But my sense is that most people on the blog either weren’t on it back then or possibly don’t remember what I said (as, well, I myself didn’t remember till I looked it up!). So let me summarize some of the issues. The first thing is to re-emphasize that it would not be strange for Luke to lack an account of Jesus’ birth to a virgin mother in Bethlehem. That account is also lacking in Luke’s source, the Gospel of Mark, as well as in the Gospel of John. Moreover, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:12-04:00October 22nd, 2015|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts|

Did Luke’s Gospel Originally Have the Virgin Birth?

I have been discussing the intriguing textual variant found in Luke 3:23, where Jesus is said to be baptized. When he comes out of the water the heavens open up, the Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove, and voice then comes from heaven. But what does the voice say? In most manuscripts the voice says exactly what it does in Mark’s Gospel: “You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.” But in a few ancient witnesses it says something slightly but significantly different: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you” (or: “given you birth”). I am arguing that the latter may in fact be the original text of Luke, but that it was changed by scribes who were alert to the problems it posed. But if that’s what the voice said, then doesn’t that indicate that it was at that moment (Note: “Today”!) that Jesus became the Son of God? You may be able to figure out one objection to thinking that this is what Luke [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:11-04:00October 21st, 2015|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts|

Scribes Who Changed the Voice at Jesus Baptism?

I have been discussing views in the early church that asserted (or were claimed to assert) that Christ was not a divine being by nature, but was only “adopted” to be the Son of God, for example at his resurrection or, more commonly, at his baptism. Some such views were allegedly held by the Jewish-Christian Ebionites and by the Roman-gentile Theodotians. Whether these Christians actually held to such views is a bit difficult to say, since we don’t have any writings from their hands. But it is clear that they were *thought* to hold these views, and for my study of the changes made in the texts of the Bible by Christian scribes, that is all that matters. Scribes sometimes changed the text in light of “aberrant” views thought to be held by others. (Whether these others actually held such views or not.) We have seen instances in previous posts of changes made in order to oppose “docetic” Christologies, which had just the opposite problem (in the eyes of the proto-orthodox): these held that Christ [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:57-04:00October 19th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts|

Are Their Any Completely Anti-Heretical Manuscripts?

READER COMMENT/QUESTION: The whole thread on the “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture” is really really great! Thanks!! QUESTION: are the shorter version in Luke 22:19-20 and the “bloody sweat” in Luke 22:44 documented by the same manuscripts? Or do these variants appear in different manuscripts? In other words: do we have an “entirely docetic” manuscript of Luke? (incidentally, I see that both variants are in chapter 22 very close to each other). Thank you very much!!! RESPONSE: Ah, this is a great question. The answer to the first question is no. The manuscripts that contain the shorter reading in Luke 22:19-20 (that is, the form of the text in which Jesus does NOT say that the bread represents his body “given for you” and that the cup is “the new covenant in my blood poured out for you”) are not the same ones that contain the shorter reading in Luke 22:43-44 (the “bloody sweat”; in this case the manuscripts with the shorter reading do NOT have the account of Jesus’ sweating great drops of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:56-04:00October 13th, 2015|Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Luke’s Last Supper and Orthodox Corruptions of Scripture

I can now wrap up my discussion of the textual problem of Luke 22:19-20 and the intriguing question of what Jesus said at his Last Supper (according to Luke). I have argued so far that the longer (more familiar) form of the text, found in most surviving manuscripts, is actually a change made by scribes, not what Luke originally wrote (this is where Jesus indicates that the bread is his body given for others and that the cup is the new covenant in his blood shed for others). I set *up* that discussion by referring to one of the debates over the nature of Christ in precisely the time period when the change was made: the second century, when Christians were debating whether Jesus was so completely divine that he was not actually human. Various Christians that scholars call “docetists” said the answer was no. The label for these Christians comes from the Greek word doceo, “to seem,” or “to appear,” because these people said that Christ “appeared” to be human and “seemed” really to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:56-04:00October 12th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

The Striking Conclusion: Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke

This sub-thread about the Last Supper and the death of Jesus in the book of Luke (and Acts), part of a longer thread on The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, has (itself) taken a rather remarkably circuitous route. Let me remind you how we started this little side-trip. First the biggest picture. I am describing my book – originally written over twenty years ago now (my God, how does this happen???) – about how scribes in the second and third Christian centuries changed their texts in order to make them more obviously “orthodox” and less susceptible to use by Christians who held Christological views deemed “heretical.” The current sub-thread has all been on one textual variant, a passage in Luke 22:19-20, the account of Jesus at his last supper. If you recall, there are two forms of the text, one much longer than the other. We are asking whether Luke originally wrote the longer version of the text (so that scribes shortened it by taking out a verse and a half) or if he wrote the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:56-04:00October 11th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Luke’s View of Jesus’ Death

In my previous post I tried to argue that the longer version of the account of Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke could have been created by a scribe who wanted to make the passage sound more like what is familiar from Matthew, Mark, and John, and to stress the point made in those other accounts as well, that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood are what bring redemption. The passage as you recall reads like this: 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he took) the cup, saying, “This cup is the new coverant in my blood that is shed for you. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:56-04:00October 1st, 2015|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts|

Why Would a Scribe Change Luke’s Account of the Last Supper?

In my previous post I started to discuss a textual variant that I covered in my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, a very important variant for understanding Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days, for grasping Luke’s view of the importance of Jesus’ death, and for seeing how scribes occasionally modified their texts for theological reasons. The passage has to do with what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper. Here is the form of the text as found in most of the manuscripts. (I have put verse numbers in the appropriate places) 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:55-04:00September 30th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

The Last Supper in Luke: An Important Textual Problem

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture argues that there are textual variants still preserved among our manuscripts of the New Testament that were generated by scribes who were trying to oppose various kinds of “heretical” Christologies, including the one I discussed yesterday, which said (at least which its opponents said that it said) that Christ did not have a real flesh and blood body, and that as a result he did not really experience pain and death, but only appeared to do so. The proto-orthodox theologians who responded to this view insisted that Jesus really was human, and they argued that it was precisely the bodily, human nature of Christ that allowed him to bring salvation. By shedding his (real) blood and experiencing a (real) broken, crucified body, Christ brought about salvation for the world. The docetists (those who claimed that Christ only “seemed” to have a body that could bleed and die), in the opinion of their opponents, had gone way too far in asserting that Christ was a divine being. If he wasn’t human, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:55-04:00September 29th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

How Can You Know A Scribe’s Intentions?

My next step in this thread about my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture will be to discuss the various Christological views known from the second century (Docetic Christologies, adoptionic Christologies, separationist Christologies; and Modalistic Christologies), and then I will try to show how textual changes made by scribes in the period reflect opposition to this, that or the other Christology, in support of the “Proto-orthodox” Christology that came to dominate the early Christian tradition. Before doing that, I need to clear out one final piece of underbrush. The argument of my book was that Christological changes of the text were “intentional” not simply accidental. But that raises a very large question that I have not addressed on the blog, even though I have discussed intentional changes a number of times. It is this: how can we determine the “intention” of a scribe? This is part of a much larger question that literary scholars have dealt with for many decades now, going back at least to the middle of the twentieth century, to what is [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:55-04:00September 26th, 2015|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, New Testament Manuscripts|

How Consistent are Orthodox Corruptions of Scripture?

The goal of my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture was to show all the places that I could find of where early Christian scribes modified their texts of the New Testament in order to make them more amenable to their own (the scribes’ own) polemical purposes, particularly with respect to the Christological debates they were involved with. I will describe these second and third century debates in subsequent posts. (Recall: there are very good reasons for thinking that the vast majority of “intentional” changes in the text of the NT were made already by around the year 300 CE – so it is debates in this earlier period that really matter for understanding textual changes.) In my previous post I indicated how I went about finding the data: I carefully combed through our most exhaustive textual apparatuses verse by verse, throughout the entire New Testament, examining every textual variant that is noted in them – many thousands indeed! – and looking to see which ones were closely, relatively closely, or distantly tied to Christological [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:55-04:00September 23rd, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, New Testament Manuscripts|

On Falsification and Forgery

On Friday I will be giving a talk at a symposium at York University in Toronto that will be focusing on the use of forgery in the early Christian apocrypha, sponsored by Tony Burke of York U. and Brent Landau at the University of Texas. Website is here: http://tonyburke.ca/conference/ I thought it might be interesting to excerpt a portion of my talk here, as it covers some ground that I recently have gone over on the blog, but from a different perspective. (More on the bloody sweat! But in relation to early Christian practices of literary deception.) In any event. Here is a portion of what I’m planning to say. *************************************************** I first became interested in the field of apocrypha and early Christian literary forgery about 25 years ago, when I was principally obsessed with New Testament textual criticism. Almost everyone else at the time who was also obsessed with the manuscript tradition of the New Testament was principally obsessed with one question only: how do we establish the original text of the New [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:55-04:00September 23rd, 2015|Forgery in Antiquity, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

How Do You Research Orthodox Corruptions?

When I finished my dissertation on a technical area within textual criticism – it was an analysis of the quotations of the Gospels in the writings of the fourth-century church father Didymus the Blind, in an attempt to demonstrate what the manuscripts at his disposal in Alexandria Egypt must have been like – I very much wanted to continue to work in the field of textual criticism, but I wanted to do some research that had some broader applicability and wider interest to scholars who were not purely technicians in this one rather arcane subdiscipline within New Testament studies. I had always been especially interested in the detective work involved in solving textual problems in the New Testament. Where there are important passages that have important variants among the various manuscripts, how do you decide which variants are “original”? I’ve always loved that kind of problem, maybe because I’ve always been such an inveterate debater, and arguing for a plausible solution to a textual conundrum involves, virtually every time, mounting a convincing argument in the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:39-04:00September 21st, 2015|Book Discussions, Heresy and Orthodoxy, New Testament Manuscripts|

Magic and Manuscripts

In my post yesterday I mentioned something about the importance of our surviving manuscripts for understanding practices of magic in the early Christian tradition. Several people have asked me about it, so I thought I would follow it up. There’s been a lot written about magic over the years. When talking about antiquity, “magic” is not what we think of today: we think of illusion artists who do tricks in order to make think something has happened which in fact has not. In antiquity, magic was understood to be a real thing, not a clever illusion. It involved the manipulation of the physical world through suprahuman means. The big question was then (and still is for scholars studying the phenomenon) how to differentiate between magic and miracle. The (very) short answer is that miracles were performed by those who were thought (by the observer) to be on the side of the good (or God or the gods) and magic was performed by those who were (thought by the observer to be) on the side of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:38-04:00September 17th, 2015|History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Why Intentional Changes of the Text Might Matter

In doing the research that led up to my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, I came to see that the variations of our manuscripts were important not only because they could tell us what the original writers said in the books that later became the New Testament, but also because they could tell us about what was influencing the anonymous and otherwise unknown scribes who produced the copies of these books in later times. As I pointed out in a previous post, scholars have long thought – with good reason – that most of the intentional changes of the text (that is, the alterations that scribes made on purpose – at least apparently on purpose – as opposed to simple scribal mistakes) were made sometime in the first two hundred years of copying. If these changes were indeed made intentionally, then the scribes who made them must have had a reason for wanting to make them. They were consciously changing their texts in places. They weren’t doing that in millions of places, but in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:38-04:00September 16th, 2015|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Why Bother With Anything Except the “Original” Text??

In this post I would like to tie a couple of strings together that have been more or less hanging. In a couple of earlier posts I asserted my view that we were probably as “close to the originals” of the New Testament writings as we are ever likely to get, that barring some spectacular new discoveries (such as the original themselves!) or some fantastic changes in method, we simply are not going to be able to know whether we are right or wrong in the textual decisions we have made about which among the many thousands of textual variants (most of which are completely insignificant and meaningless, but some of which are very important indeed) are probably original and which are later scribal alterations. It’s not that I think we must now have the original text. I don’t think we be sure. But I also don’t think we will come to know how close we are to the original any better in the future than we do now -- unless something drastically changes. And [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:38-04:00September 15th, 2015|History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

My Focus on Christology in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture

In the last couple of posts I have talked about the basic thesis that lay behind my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. After doing my dissertation I became interested in seeing how theological disputes in early Christianity may have affected the scribes who were copying the texts that later came to be collected into the canon of the New Testament. Rarely had a study of this sort been pursued before, and never thoroughly and rigorously. Here let me provide a bit more background. First, for reasons I have stated earlier in this very-long thread, there is a broad consensus among textual scholars that the vast majority of textual variants found in all of our manuscripts down to the invention of printing (and beyond!) were probably generated in the first 200 years of copying. This has to do with the phenomenon that I have earlier called “the tenacity of the tradition.” If you recall, this is the phenomenon that later scribes appear not to introduced new readings into the tradition (at least not very often [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:38-04:00September 14th, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

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