Loading...I will give just one other textual disagreement that I have with the translators of the NRSV: by “textual” disagreement I mean a disagreement over what the original Greek text of a passage was that should have been translated. For this second example I’ll stick with Luke, and again with the Passion narrative. The full passage of Jesus’ prayer in the garden in Luke 22:39-46 reads as follows in the NRSV:
39 He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. 40 When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” [[ 43 Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. 44 In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. ]] 45 When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, 46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”
A couple of preliminary points. First, this is the famous passage from which we get the phrase “sweating blood.” Jesus does not actually sweat blood here; he sweats great drops that were “like” blood. But the tradition developed that he was sweating blood out of agony. This is the only passage where this phrase occurs in the NT. Second, you will notice that in the NRSV there are double brackets around vv. 43 and 44 [[ ]]. That is because the translators are telling you that in their opinion, the verses were not originally found in the text. You will find the same double brackets, for example, in the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) and the final twelve verses of Mark (16:9-20)
In my view, that judgment is
This is an intriguing passage. But was it originally in the Gospel of Luke? Join the blog and see what the issues are! And enjoy four other posts like this every week — going back nine years! Click here for membership options
Professor Ehrman, on another topic entirely – I have been reading Mark in the New Zealand Māori language. As with many other related languages, Māori has no words for ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ as such. It does have words for ‘older sibling or cousin of the same sex’ and ‘younger sibling or cousin of the same sex’. The translators have decided that references to Jesus’ brothers should be to ‘younger brothers’. Is there any scriptural reason to believe this? Were his ‘brothers’ younger? I.e was he the first-born male?
Well, that’s what all the traditions indicate, at least those that say anything about it (matthew and luke)
Very interesting post. I would also like you to comment is on the reasons for others defending the insertion, both from the point of view of the scribes in antiquity and from the point of view of Christians today.
They would say that it was not an insertion but hte original text, and that a scribe deleted it. The reason they give is that scribes did not want Jesus appear weak and need of help, as a divine man. It’s a good argument and makes sense, but I think the stronger argument is on th eother side by a pretty good margin.
Hoping you will provide the translation from the earliest Greek. This passage has always been a problem for me. Thanks.
I believe the NRSV translation is pretty good.
* So correct me where I am wrong. The plausible historical events were that Jesus was a remote eccentric preacher who plucked his illiterate low socioeconomic core followers from their daily lives. Believed in himself to be the upcoming new king through magical heavenly intervention. Got executed for rebellion. His female followers claimed that his body disappeared & assumed he was resurrected & alive. Paul being a westerner & struggling with reality perception when coming across this group decided to go into isolation & then came up with a subverted scenario to fit that Jesus was the Moshiach. He then goes to preach for 15~20 years without real reference to what Yeshua’s authentic disciples understand.Paul’s passion, eloquence & the damning conditions of most of the listeners specially when he calls for FREE ETERNITY SALE ENDING SOON. The movement got minor traction & when the core of the message needed to cease being a mystery & to get within the public arena. One decides to write a book (Mark) & in it he claims that Jesus was a leader who got elected by Yahweh though rejected by his people & was executed.he didn’t want to suffer but he submitted himself, suffered for us and now he is glorious. Author of Matthew pushed it further that Jesus being born Divine not only elected human. Author of Luke who is more rational than the rest, found contradictory between severe passion & his foreknowledge of future plus the passion doesn’t match with ultimate psychological & physical strength in facing tribulations. So he omitted that. Eventually Author of John came to shift toward divine in control of the whole narrative & use self scapegoating literature on Jesus lips to pamper listeners feelings.
I’m afraid that’s too much to comment on. Basically you are summarizing the life of Jesus, the teaching of Paul, and the Gospels. If you want to give one statement at a time I can comment.
Swedish version has Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 in brackets but not the passage in Luke.
I’ve heard people refer to Herodotos and Thucydides as “the first historians”. Why are they considered historians but not the people who wrote e.g. the Book of Kings or Chronicles?
I suppose because the Greeks show some evidence of donig the kind of evidence searching that modern historians do.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
Was 1 John 5:7-8 not originally in the NT?
Thank you?
Absolutely not. It’s not really a debated issue among textual scholars.
I understand that, historically speaking, the picture of Jesus painted by the Jesus Seminar is badly flawed. But I wonder if that picture might still be “legitimate” as a model for living, like a figure from historical fiction could be. Is there enough of the historical or the scriptural Jesus in the JS depiction to say that it resembles Jesus in important ways? After all, people can still be inspired by Jesus even though they realize that his central teaching about the imminence of God’s kingdom was badly mistaken.
Have you posted on the Jesus Seminar? My somewhat superficial search did not find any. Can you briefly summarize their views, perhaps with more emphasis on their “portrayal” of Jesus than on their methodology? Or could you do a future post on them? I’ve heard they portray Jesus as a Cynic sage, perhaps like Diogenes. I wonder if he resembles Epicurus or the speaker in Ecclesiastes.
Can you recommend a book or author? Right now I’m planning to get Crossan’s “Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography” from the library.
Oh yes, as a message to live by, I very much like what many of the seminar members say. It’s just not what Jesus said. They avidly deny that he was an apocalyptic preacher who thought the end of history as we know it was soon to arrive. I think they are absolutely wrong about that. and yes, that shorter biography by Crossan is one of his most accessible books.
Hi Dr Ehrman, are you familiar with Alan Garrow’s presentation of the Matthew Conflator Hypothesis? And if so, do you believe it has merit?
I’m afraid I don’t remember the details.
I’m curious to know: was the RSV crew better on some of these issue than the NRSV? Was there courage on display in 1952 and a failure of nerve in 1989?
Maybe a bit more courageous. And a lot more slandered as a result. Metzter was on both (maybe the only one?
I don’t recall)
These posts about Bible translation are absolutely fascinating. More, please! 🙂
I think it is very interesting and informative to see how the writings were edited and modified over time, but ultimately a certain set of books with certain stories came to be known as “The New Testament.” We don’t throw out Luke because it added to the “original” story in Mark. We don’t exclude the Pastoral Epistles from the New Testament even though it seems clear they were not original to Paul. Sweating blood and the woman caught in adultery may have been added in after the original writing of those Gospels, but they are part of the lore that became known as The New Testament. So I can understand why a translation committee would include them; that’s what “The New Testament” became over time. But I’m like you: I’d rather have the best estimate of what the earliest versions contained, and put the later additions as footnotes. After all, “Revised” is right in the title of the NRSV!
Hello Bart! This is my first time commenting here: I once believe otherwise about the Bible but now I can see more clearly about what this book is about. My question is. Is there a Bible out there that has most of the original writings from the gospels instead of all this other ones altered in some form by later scribes???
Thanks
Yes, almost all modern translations strive for just that. But there will always be debates about some passages.
Aaah, good point-out!!! I don’t think it belongs there, either.
Are Paul’s people the readers you refer to?
If Luke is Lucius of Cyrene 😁, Lucius of Laodicea (multiple names, a thing with Early Christianity), might his understanding of the Jesus sitch pre-date Paul via travel south?
Then yep, it’s the Paul people. Moreso the Bar Bars they converted, not noticing that dramatics look out of place. Area school of philosophy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristippus
Jesus tried to convert folk in Judea, not everyone liked that, he moved on.
Ok, so I brought presents. Here is a sculpture of a snake wrasslin an eagle, like Revelations 12:14. Nabs had representative art. ~50-150 AD
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eagle_Wrestling_with_Serpent,_Nabataean,_Khirbet_Tannur,_Petra,_50-150_AD,_limestone_-_Cincinnati_Art_Museum_-_DSC04361.JPG?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Found the reference to “separate cups” for your last post in Strabo’s Geography, dated 7 BC (drafts) to 18 AD:
“They eat their meals in companies consisting of thirteen persons…No one drinks more than eleven [appointed] cupfuls, from separate cups, each of gold.”
(see how the 12th cup is the baddee?)
“The Idumæans are Nabatæans. When driven from their country by sedition, they passed over to the Jews, and adopted their customs…of this description are the inhabitants of Galilee…”
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44886/44886-h/44886-h.htm
I added ellipses because there’s a lot of detail, hopefully not because of [[]]
I like knowing about this bracketing, thank you. Also good call on looking at vibe match. “Passionless passion” is that school of equanimity that Aristippus of Cyrene is famous for.
Revelation 3:16
“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
Yeah that’s about the piping and ‘alkalosis’, reminder the church is faultless 😁
So the Pauline pov might be different than Greco-Roman Luke.
Acts 13-14
“…we reached Puteoli. There we found some brothers and sisters who invited us to spend a week with them. ”
So, Puteoli had a Nabataean community. It received goods from Gaza. Nabs are Rome’s biggest sea trading competitor.)
https://www.academia.edu/1978586/Roman_trade_with_the_Far_East_Evidence_for_Nabataean_middlemen_in_Puteoli?utm_source=pocket_mylist
When Strabo in Geography recounts his friend Athenodorus of Tarsus’ experience with ultra-peaceable Nabataeans — that’s at Puteoli. (I think I thought Petra.)
This is our first Biblical meeting with one:
2 Maccabees 5:8
“Accused before Aretas the ruler of the Arabs…”
Here’s another cheat code:
Matthew 11:11
Truly I tell you, among those *born of women* there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist…
Jewish are matrilineal. Nabataeans are patrilineal.
How else do scholars explain that?
Not sure which part of that you’re asking about.
How do scholars explain Jesus calling John the Baptist, “born of woman”? Isn’t everybody?
(I’ve read on your blog that you can answer qs not directly related to the post. 🙏🙏🙏)
We already know Jesus isn’t born of a “man.” And the Gospels have Mary giving birth, so he didn’t spring up from seafoam.
Not being “born of woman” seems to be Jesus explaining to his followers as to why John the Baptist is saying that he’s not worthy of lacing Jesus’ sandal. Explaining the heirarchy.
Maybe he’s just referring to angels, but it seems like Aggadah.
“The rabbis of the Mishnahic era believed that it would be dangerous to record the deeper teachings in explicit, mishnah-like, medium. Rather, they would be conveyed in a “concealed mode” and via “paradoxes.” -wiki.
My guess about “born of women”: John is Essene.
That Mary is an Essene, too; chosen to receive the, airquotes, Holy Spirit of deified King Aretas — Galilee’s neighbor. (One Aretas had 700 sons, supposedly.)
Then Jesus would have greater “rank.”
Rabbinical Judaism esteemed matrilineal lineage especially, (like the “seed of woman” in Genesis 3:15). Nabataeans went with the “seed in a flowerpot” concept, so esteemed patrilineal descent more (born of man, or a deified king).
The comment about John is that he is the greatest to be born of a woman; it’s just syaing he’s the greatest human ever.
Dr.Ehrman,
I’m sure you’ve answered this a million times by now, but how different are the earliest complete gospels to the ones we read, like the NRSV? And are they different because the words and context are subjective? I guess what I’m asking is, what is the biggest difference between the originals and our modern bibles? Thanks.
The manuscirpts all have lots of differences, but the vast majority of the differences are not substantial at all. Those that are substantial are debated among scholars, and as a rule of thumb (a very loose one) earlier manuscripts tend ot have better froms of the text than the later. Our modern translations are almost all based on our earliest and best manuscirpts.
The traditional interpretation of v. 40 — “remove this cup from me” — is usually that Jesus is acknowledging the ordeal and death he was about to face. Yet he tells his disciples that they should also pray that they not face an impending “time of trial,” suggesting he may have been thinking (if these are indeed Jesus’s thoughts/words rather than just the author of Luke’s) that something bigger was about to go down than just his own arrest and/or death. After all, you have suggested elsewhere that Jesus likely hadn’t anticipated what would happen to him that weekend, captured in his famous words in Mark 15:34. What do you make of this passage?
I think you mean v. 42? Luke has kept this tradition — it probably was a standard way of telling the tale. BUT, Jesus asks only once in Luke, not three times as in Mark , and Luke adds “if it be your will.” That is usually thought to be a rather significant softening of the pleading you find in Mark.
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” “Get up and pray”
Jesus surrendered his will to God, premier move because God can easily save Jesus. To back his emotional appeal to God, Jesus wanted all his followers and disciples not to sleep but also pray to God for His Assistance not to face any unnecessary tests.
These were certainly desperate signs that Jesus strive his best with supreme effort to save himself. Jesus did not want himself to be killed by his enemies, the Jewish religious leaders, who wanted to prove that he was not the true Messiah.
Please, kindly comment your frank opinion strictly by evaluating at only the evidence in Luke 22:39-46. Try your best to avoid completely or erase your understanding of the Christian beliefs to make a fair, as a Judge’s judgement.
Messiah who can be easily humiliated and murdered legally cannot be a true Messiah. This is the norm and expectation of the children of Israel. A crucified Messiah is obviously a false Messiah. Billions believe Jesus was the true Messiah not in line with Jewish belief.
It is interesting in that the RSV, originally had ,as you say, v.42 to v.45, adding in the footnotes, that other ancient authorities, had v.43-44. Question Prof. Why did they(translators) see fitting to now add those rwo verses and not previously, which, as you said, made more sense to leave them out? BTW, In Mormonism, they believe, the Garden, is where the actual atonement took place. Jesus’ sweating like blood, Mormons believe, is the sacrifice for our sins and not the crucifixation on the cross. That is why no symbols of the cross exist in any of their Temples or churches. Many believers hold the Garden as a sacred place. Good post.
Dr Ehrman,
1. As disciples were sleeping and Jesus was praying, who noted down what Jesus prayed ?
2. How usually would a God-fearing, simple preacher would explain these later-on-scribal-additions to normal folks who are not scholars?
3. You mentioned “manuscripts that are our oldest and usually conceded to be our best”, which manuscripts are you talking about here? Are they in totality?
1. Exactly. It doesn’t make sense 2. Usually by saying that God allows humans free will and so scribes could make mistakes. 3. P75 A B N T W 479, etc.
Dr Ehrman,
You wrote “translators should translate the oldest form of Luke that survives, and put any additions to the text in a footnote..”
1. Why additions are to be put in foot note? Why not remove these entirely and simply declare “not divinely inspired” ?
2. Hypothetically speaking, would such a NT with all Scribal additions removed change the way we think about Jesus and his mission much?
1. Translators do not take a stand on what is inspired. They are simply translating the text. A footnote indicates that other manuscripts read differently and there are debates about the original 2. Probably not for the vast majority of people, no.
Once again a problem emerges for our literalist friends, requiring more gymnastics to maintain this as a factual historical record. From a stone’s throw distance away how did the disciples SEE the details of Jesus perspiring nor even HEAR his prayer while kneeling, and all this while they were asleep? Surely they didn’t first eavesdrop on their Master who purposefully withdrew from them? It’s the volume of questions about the necessary path from any claimed happening to when such details got written down (let alone the transmission problems thereafter) that I finally grew weary of!!
Mr. Ehrman, you should have mentioned in your post that you analyze this issue meticulously in “Misquoting Jesus”.
Ah thanks. I think I’m dealing it here at greater length than there. (I have a few more posts to go)
If a later scribe wanted to add in suffering for jesus to lukes passion narrative why not just add in a line from matthew/mark?
Serves to harmonise the gospels as well – and no need to make up a new verse.
They certainly could have done so.
Can you provide an approximate timeline for when the additions may have been added? Also, do these additions appear more often in any particular region that would indicate which population may be been more likely to be adding to the older texts?
Tgis particular addition must have been made in the second century. I’ll be talking about that in a later post, because it’s also evidence of why the change was made.
Why were the others sleeping in grief? Also doesn’t the ending indicate that Jesus knew the others were very close to being in as much trouble as he was?
I suppose we’re supposed to think they were upset about what Jesus had told them at supper, but it’s a little hard to make sense of. In the accounts Jesus seems to know the arresting party has come just for him.
“scribes did not want Jesus appear weak and need of help, as a divine man.”
“good argument and makes sense,”
Great, Fantastic, its true. Scribes’ opinion and your judgement are in line with the teaching of Quran. According to the Quran, Christianity is about making Jesus divine. How can Jesus be divine when he wept, ate food, and answer nature’s call by visiting toilet? The ….. in the toilet surely cannot be divine.
Do you agree, Christianity generally is about making Jesus divine??
A son receives life and also die which logically cannot be divine. God receives life from nobody and never die.
“And behold! Allah will say (Day of Judgement): “O Jesus the son of Mary! Did thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah’?” He will say: “Glory to Thee! never could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, thou wouldst indeed have known it. Thou know what is in my heart, I know not what is in Thine. For Thou know in full all that is hidden.” Quran 5:116
Please, READ QURAN. Be safe not to be bias?
Dr, Ehrman: I have opined this before and now again. Thank you, sir, for ALL the knowledge and wisdom you share on this site! I HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH! I’m just a bit curious if you have ever contemplated the fact of authoring a Novel? With your expertise, I’m certain you could produce something MUCH BETTER THAN DAN BROWN! The NSRV is my favorite English Translation. You are sending it away in this post, lol. BLESSINGS!
Codex Bezae includes the verses, but strangely transposes two large clauses in the previous verse. Transpositions of large chunks of text are almost always indications of prior disagreement between manuscripts. Another example in Luke in Bezae is the transposition of 6:5 to 6:10, together with the addition of the sabbath worker agraphon just before 6:6. Did a scribe erase 6:5 to make room for the Sabbath worker and agraphon, and did a subsequent scribe correct the omission of 6:5 by placing it at 6:10? Similarly, did someone erase 22:42 to make space for adding 43-44, and did a later hand correct the omission of 22:42, reversing its clauses? So I’m wondering whether Bezae witnesses to the absence of 22:43-44, as well as to its presence.
OFten transpositions occur because a scribe realizes he’s left somethign out so sticks it in when he can.
There is no opportunity for homeoteleuton here, so a corrected leap is unlikely.
There are other (common) reasons for parablepsis.
I have found only 49 cases of transpositions of more than three words in NT manuscripts. Two or three of these corrected perceived chronological contradictions. 42 of the cases seem to be corrected omissions. Sometimes the “omitted” text was not original, but was added from another copy (in the wrong place). Sometimes it was omitted by haplography and was added back in immediately (in scribedo) or later (from another copy). In two cases the omission was probably deliberate. I think Prisca’s house-church was deliberately omitted by the DFG ancestor before being added back (in the wrong place) by a later hand (Rom 16:3-5). Bezae’s ancestor likely omitted Luke 2:5 (we know that in the second century there was sensitivity over the perception of Jesus’s illegitimate birth) and it was later added before 2:4b. The remaining two cases are both in Luke (6:5; 22:42) in Bezae, and are both adjacent to added text. That is why I am wondering whether an ancestor of Bezae added text by erasing other text to make space. What other common reasons for parablepsis could apply to Luke 22:42 in an ancestor of Bezae?
Well, an attempt to improve the sense of the passage strikes me as a likely one. Transpositions were not always accidental (i.e., involving parablepsis)
Yes, I agree that attempts to improve the sense of a passage often motivated transpositions. The question, however, is whether transpositions of large chunks of text occurred in a single step. We can hypothesize that a copyist with one exemplar read ahead and reflected on the order of the words and decided to rearrange them. However, I am struggling to find any example of this. Rather, transpositions happen when a previous omission is corrected (using a second exemplar or via a margin or in scribendo or however). It is easy to imagine people (non-scribes?) reflecting on the word order and taking liberties when correcting an omission. To reword Fee’s challenge: Can you think of a transposition of more than three words that happened without there being evidence that the words were absent from an ancestor manuscript? That is to say, what transposition cannot easily be accounted for as some kind of corrected omission? I struggle to find a good example of this. If an example does not come to mind, perhaps you could ask your colleagues and students to keep their eyes open for possible cases.
I suppose any example anyone comes up with could be explained as well by an accidental ommission that was later corrected, so I don’t see how you could demonstrate it one way or the other.
That is completely wrong. The great majority of clauses in NT manuscripts show no signs of ever having been omitted. Only a small fraction of clauses have parablepsis opportunities or plausible idealogical reasons for deletion.
By the way, I found just 5 cases of transpositions (of more than 3 words) where I have to appeal to an earlier ideologically motivated deletion. It is interesting that these motivations are from Christology, misogyny, and anti-Judaism, all of which you have identified as motivations for orthodox corruption from other data. 3 are in Bezae.
If you will comment about Codex Bazae in general. It’s early, but not AS early as Sinaticus and Vaticanus, but its still fairly early. 5th C correct? It contains the earliest witness to? The long ending of mark? The periscope adulerae? The sweating blood thing? This scribe didnt invent these stories, what is the tradition he is drawing on? Is it possible… he draws on an earlier tradition than Sinaticus and vaticanus?
We are not talking about the johannie comma here: these insertions have early attestation, and when i say early i mean 5th C. Considering our earliest complete witnesses come from a century before, why not give bazae credit where credit might be due?
Also, Dr. Metzger had a position on all the above;
He did not believe these things were part of the original, yet he felt they belonged in the text. He once said he would preach a sermon from the longer ending of mark without hesitation did he not?
It was probably written around 400 CE, so a bit later than these other “great codices.” It is dependent on a different stream of transmission tradition from them. It’s text is commonly called the “Western” text, which can be dated as going back into the second century, as can their different texts. So evaluations ahve to be made about which of these second century texts best represent the earlier first century text, and why. My view is that every textual variant in the Western text needs to be take with the utmost seriousnness, and sometimes it represents the original form of the text. And yes, Metzger could probably see a passage as Scriptural authority even if it was not original. But I’m not completely sure.
Dr. Bart Ehrman,
I just want to make sure I understand your stance on the NRSV. So you think that the translation is pretty accurate, even though there are parts (such as the ones you’ve been writing about) that are just not true to what the text says, right?
Also, I’ve read from a couple different articles that the NASB is the one most true to the original languages, but what translation do you think is most accurate? If it is alright, it would be great to get your thoughts from two perspectives:
1. The translation that conveys the meaning in modern-day American English
2. The best word-for-word translation
YEs, that’s my view. I wouldn’t say that the NASB is most true to the original languages. I’d say it is the most woodenly literal of the popular translations. But woodenly literal often means that the translation has completely missed the nuances.
I think the NRSV is the best over all for the combination of accuracy and readability. Others might seem more powerfully poetic (King James) or simple to understand (paraphrases such as the Way); others might be more word-for-word literal (NASB). But what you want is something that is BOTH highly readable and highly accurate — and for me that is definitely the NRSV.