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Loading...Early on in my study of textual criticism I came to realize one of the major issues confronting scholars in the field – an issue that scholars have been contending with since the eighteenth century. For the past hundred years or so the vast majority of experts have been convinced by a solution to the problem, but the solution was slow in coming, for all sorts of reasons. But when I was first introduced to the problem I learned there were two sides that were being taken, and I wrote a paper about it (my first year in college). I continued to be interested in the problem for a long time, and it ended up being the subject of the Masters’ thesis I wrote under the direction of Bruce Metzger.
The problem is this. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament – at last count, somewhere around 5600 manuscripts in Greek alone (that includes everything from small fragments the size of a credit card with just a few letters written on them to massive volumes with the entire New Testament from beginning to end). Over 94% of these manuscripts come to us from after the ninth Christian century – so 800 years or more after the books of the New Testament were first written and placed in circulation. But some of them are early – with fragments going back to the second century and full manuscripts going back to the fourth.
These various manuscripts – the thousands of them – can be grouped together based on their textual similarities. That is to say, some of the manuscripts agree a lot with each other but not with other manuscripts. And so, to use the example from yesterday’s post, some manuscripts include the story in John 8 of the woman taken in adultery, and others lack it; some manuscripts have the last twelve verses of Mark and others do not. Because some manuscripts are very similar to one another, we can assume they are related to one another and we can, in theory, build a kind of family tree.
And so here is the problem. When we do that,…
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1.) How are the manuscripts dated? Is it primarily through carbon dating, or are other means employed as well?
2.) Is there a particular time frame we see a lot of these changes happening?
The changes start as soon as we have manuscripts to collage. They are dated by the science of palaeography, which is, basically, handwriting analysis of ancient texts.
Hi Bart,
I have been on a message board debating a fundamentalist. A while ago he posted this about the differences in the manuscripts. I will paste his words here and would like your thoughts on this as it is relevant to today’s post.
“I went back to look at some of the issues surrounding the NT that I thought might make an interesting discussion because there’s some controversy and debate about it.
I’ll have to summarize and simplify, but let’s start here.
There are (basically) two streams or lines of manuscripts of the NT.
1. The Critical Text/Alexandrian
2. The Majority Text/Byzantine
Let me cut right to the chase.
Most modern critical scholarship today (and most modern translations, including the NIV, NASB, ESV, NET, etc.) use stream 1 as their textual basis, and these don’t include some famous passages that are found in other translations based on stream 2, such as the KJV, MKJV, NKJV, MEB, etc.
Most notably among them:
1. the long ending of Mark 16:9-20
2. the comma 1 John 5:7
3. the adulterous woman John 7:53-8:11
So, here’s the interesting part to me and why I wanted to discuss this. AS it turns out, there is a large amount of Early Church testimony that quotes these passages very early.
So, what does it mean to me?
I think there’s a good chance that these controversial passages are more original than most modern critical scholarship would argue, because the real age difference between the two streams is only around 100 years and there’s no logical explanation for how all these Church Fathers cite these passages so often if they didn’t exist until the 15th century, as some have argued on the Comma, for instance.
AS it turns out, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus are what most modern critical scholars favor (stream 1) but this isn’t the majority of manuscripts. It’s quite the opposite.”
Yes, he’s write: Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are the earliest full manuscripts and they are not representative of the majority text. The earlier manuscripts (that are not complete) also do not support the readings of the majority text (it’s not just these two).
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think you missed a part of Liam Foley’s question (I point this out because I’m interested to hear your answer too). In addition to asking about manuscripts, he also asked about the fundamentalists’ claim that the early Christians quoted the majority text additions (e.g. Mark 16, 1 jn 5:7, John 8). According to fundies, this is evidence that the majority text is as early as the critical text manuscripts (e.g. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus). I don’t think the fundie argument is valid, but Liam Foley doesn’t want to know why I think that, he wants to know why you think that (as do I and many others I’d guess).
Ah, right, I missed that part. No, that’s precisely false. That’s part of the problem. Early church fathers’ quotatoins of the text do NOT follow the later majority text.
Vaticanus is missing some books… but most scholars I read assume they used to be there (Philemon and the Pastorals specifically)… but they seem to think Revelation might not have been included when it was compiled. What’s your take, and what reason is there to think Revelation was or wasn’t included?
I ask because I read the same assertion by scholars (that Rev might not be in original Vaticanus)… but they never say why…
Codex Vaticanus is missing the opening leaves (46 chapters of the book of Genesis); some in the middle (30 of the Psalms); and some at the end (from 2 Thessalonians to Revelation). It does appear to have had the book of Revelation originally.
Okay… I thought 2 Thess (or at least part of it) was in Cod Vat? Is it an assumption Rev was part of it, or is there evidence it was? That’s my question… I’m wondering why some scholars surmise it was not in it… just wondering why they believe that…
Sorry, my fault. I was doing it off the top of my head. It is lacking 1 Timothy to the end of Philemon.
Dr. Ehrman, was the KJV translation made from Erasmus’ edition of the Greek text? And, if so, what was the quality of Erasmus’ edition?
Yes, from is later edition (not the first). It was not good, by modern standards. He had very few manuscripts to work with, and they were not of high quality. That’s precisely the problem!
So in other countries where English is not spoken, there are similar factions to the ‘King James only’ phenomenon we see in English speaking countries?
Yes, to some extent. The bigger problem (that I didn’t get into, but maybe should) is that the NT scholars working on these problems had their own KJV kind of issue: they were accustomed to the standard Greek text (on which KJV was based) they had been raised on, that with new manuscript discoveries was being seroiusly challenged.
Cliff hanger again!
lol
This is really quite interesting and I don’t quite get why more scholars are not interested in textual criticism.
It’s too technical and simply not what they’re interested in (that’s true in almost all fields dealing with literature. Most Shakespeare scholars don’t want to pour over folio and quarto texts and try to figure out which word was said in Act 3, Scene 2, line 31; they want to talk about the meaning of the plays)
I was under the impression that there *is* quite a bit of interest for tc. Isn’t that why the NT Textual Criticism group was created on FB–for those studying it? There’s also an OT tc group.
I don’t see Shakespeare as having the same level of importance for uncovering the original words of a play compared with uncovering the original words that were thought to be inspired by the creator of the universe. it makes sense that other forms of literature wouldn’t generate much interest for tc.
There is a Facebook group for people studying tc. It’s called New Testament Textual Criticism. It has about 5,000 members. Not every member is studying tc, but there are many who are interested in the field. One thing I have learned by observing their discussions is that interest in tc is complicated and tedious work.
Don’t get me wrong, though, there is a high level of interest for tc in that group. I think it was created for those who are studying it.
I find it interesting that even the Bible (RSV) says the Bible (KJV) has defects. The RSV Preface says: “…the King James Version has grave defects. …these defects are so many and so serious as to call for revision of the English translation.”
Roughly, what percent of the King James is different from the earliest texts? And do these consist of mostly trivial differences, or more important ones?
I’m not sure if you’re asking about whether the KJV borrowed English phrasing from earlier translations or if the Greek text underlying it was different. I’ll assume the latter. There were some very big differences (woman taken in adultery, last twelve verses of Mark are the ones I’ve noted); other pretty big ones, and lots of little ones. But even the little ones matter, if you want to do a deep study of what an author meant by what he wrote.
I used to think Jesus was an Aramaic peasant, so I revered my Peshita, thinking that it it closer to the original. I am no longer that crazy about the inerrancy so the original words have less and less significance for me. What is meaningful is the teaching of Jesus in Mathews, and St Paul’s passages. I am in many ways, still a fundamentalist, so it still helps me to know what was said, that’s all.
Why do most Scholars today not buy the argument that the fourth Century mss. that survived were not the majority text? It seems not only clever but very plausible.
For reasons I’ll explain!
“And scholarship of this sort has to be historical, not based on what you personally happen to believe about God.”
“In my paper I argued that the text found in the earliest manuscripts must be original.”
Wow! Dr. Erhman, and they didn’t kick you out of Moody? 🙂
No, on this point a lot of my teachers agreed with me!
You’re posts have been great!! By the way, how’s the Triumph of Christianity book going?
Virtually done. That’s what this thread was supposed to get to before I went down some very interesting but unexpected paths!
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A question for Dr. Ehrman: If, in your suspicion (as you’ve mentioned a few times on the blog), the original Gospel of Luke began at 3:1 and the infancy narrative found in 1:5-2:52 is a later addition, do you think that should be indicated in NT reconstructions and translations in a way similar to how Mark 16:9-20 is often bracketed? I know the major difference is that we actually have manuscripts of Mark that end at 16:8, but do we necessarily need a manuscript of Luke that starts at 3:1 in light of the arguments that suggest that’s where it originally began? I know the case for a 3:1 beginning is not as strong as the case for a Mark 16:8 ending, but it’s still persuasive enough for us to see it as probable. Maybe a better way of asking the question: If you were the sole arbiter in reconstructing the “originals” or the “earliest attainable forms” of each New Testament text, would you include 1:5-2:52?
Ah, good question. My sense is that htese chapters were added before the final edition was published and circulated, unlike, say, the last twelve verses of Mark, which were added only after the alternative form of the text was widely known and used. (And no, we have no mss that begin with 3:1, lacking the first two chapters.)
Since when did the gospel authors write multiple editions? How can we draw the line between sanctioned “edition” and an extended imaginative scribal interpolation? If Mark 16:9-20 is an example of the latter, why can’t Luke 1:5-2:52 be the same?
Yes, it is often thought that the Gospels did go through multiple editions, and that our versions are the “last” edition (that is true of both Luke and John, probably, in my judgment). So Luke 1-2 is a second edition addition. Mark 16:9-20 was added not by the author but by a later scribe, decades after the author was dead and gone. That would be the difference.
Sorry, I still don’t see how one can tell the difference between additions by later imaginative scribes and one by the same author in a sanctioned “edition” – particularly in the cases of Luke 1:5-2:52 and John 21 where it recognized that the writing style/language use is different. There is no Church Father attestation of a tradition (explicit or implicit) to suggest that the authors published multiple editions of their works. Thanks anyway for your responses. Always appreciated.
Scholars typically differentiate between multiple editions of a work (Luke, John); interpolations into a work prior to the existence of any manuscript evidence (1 Cor. 14:34-35); and textual alterations based on manuscript readings (hundreds of thousands!)
IT is amazing how much modern perception finds its way into the translations. I am currently reading up on the distinctions between the terms Judean, Jew, and the terms Judah and Judean. And I am having to rethink my entire perception of what an ancient Jew was. Still quite unsure about Judah and Yehud. Was there a Judah before the Persian Satrapy (sub satrapy, as the case may be)?
Why did we have to put “j” into everything anyway, it just adds a little touch more confusion when trying to cipher out the original names of things.
Yes, Judah was one of the twelve original tribes, way back in Israel’s history. And I am not one of those scholars who thinks that the term Jews should be translated Judeans wherever it is found in the NT (for example, the Gospel of John)
The letter j is actually a consonantal i (cf. German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages), and we only inherited the pronunciation of j as a soft g in English from the French “zh”. That’s why English uses the letter y as a consonantal i, instead, while every other germanic language still uses the j.
“And scholarship of this sort has to be historical, not based on what you personally happen to believe about God.
I realized that already at Moody Bible Institute. In my paper I argued that the text found in the earliest manuscripts must be original.”
This is a perfect example of how some Christians can misjudge those of us who were former believers. They can’t understand that some of us were so seriously committed and passionate for God that we followed the truth no matter what the cost. And there is a great cost. They just don’t realize it.
I have never understood the desire of some fundamentalists for the “original” manuscript, other than perhaps for letters. It is an obvious point but the Gospels were written decades after the events described and even the earliest original will not be a newsreel.
It seems like this would indicate a change from copying a local manuscript to ordering a manuscript that had been copied at a factory at some centralized location? I assume the factory would be inclined to include all variants in the exemplar as long as they were not heretical? I wonder if the ink or the parchment or the font can indicate the location where each manuscript was written to prove that manuscripts were being produced at centralized factories? Probably my ideas are wrong, but maybe you can go into more detail about how it worked?
There weren’t factories, in the sense of businesses, producing manuscripts. Later in medieval times there were scriptoria where several scribes would copy a single manuscript. And no, there are no physical signs to indicate where mss were produced. Maybe I’ll talk more about this in a post.
Something I forgot to mention in my original comment was the effect of the Bible readings in the liturgies. I don’t know when scholars believe that the incorrect versions became the standard versions, but when Constantine began to make Christianity the official religion, there would have been a need for orthodoxy in the manuscripts that the priests read during liturgy. It seems to me that the Church would have had the money and need to create and distribute standardized manuscripts to the most important churches. Then the smaller churches might have used the manuscripts in the important churches as their exemplars knowing that they were the standard versions. I imagined the Church might have had teams of scribes working in an assembly line fashion to create all the Bibles that Constantine commissioned. That could have been the force that made the minority text into the majority text.
The problem is that the majoirty text was not in place until some centuries after Constantine.
I ask this here because when I search “original sin” I get this (and others like it) to return… we know a lot of ideas are modern (e.g. inerrancy, pre-trib rapture, etc.)… but when did the concept of original sin really come about? I sense that it has something to do with Augustine… but it seems to really take root with Calvin… but I’ve actually never studied that like I need to… what are your thoughts? I know they all base it on Paul… and maybe they’re right… but I’m wondering how those who came after followed Paul understood “original sin”?
It’s a huge deal these days because of the very strong likelihood that the historicity of Adam is legendary… which leads me to my second question… Adam means “man” in Hebrew I believe… in one of the creation accounts Adam seems to be used that way… does Genesis itself require that Adam be seen as a proper name?
Yes, Augustine was the first to develop the concept fully. It does become a doctrine of importance in his wake.
Thanks… what about Adam… Adam means “man” in Hebrew I believe… in one of the creation accounts Adam seems to be used that way… does Genesis itself require that Adam be seen as a proper name?
It’s obviously a play on words there.
So I take that to mean there’s no need to take Adam as a real person in the context of either of the two Genesis creation accounts… How do you see that applying to how Paul used it in Romans and 1 Corinthians? Is there a chance Paul didn’t see Adam as *necessarily* a real person?
No, Paul certainly thought Adam was a real human being.
Hello, Bart! Has anyone ever found a second century manuscript of Acts? I searched for one at the CSNTM’s page, but there were no results…
I’m away from home and so am not able to check, so I don’t know the dates of the oldest (tiny) fragments; but the first full text we would have is from teh mid fourth century.