(17 votes, average: 4.76 out of 5)
Loading...When it comes to the early Christian Gospels, most people simply assume that there were four Gospels from the first century (those in the NT), and no others, and that they were written as they are found now, and that they circulated in that form, and that later Gospel writers (say in the second century) who used earlier written sources about Jesus must have borrowed their stories from those Gospels. Their other stories they just made up, or heard about from oral traditions, or both.
In my last post I suggested why I don’t think that view is particularly plausible, and tried to imagine something a bit more realistic; there I proposed a “messier scenario” in which there were numerous early Gospels, some earlier than others (e.g., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the earliest that survive, but that doesn’t mean they were the earliest). In this view, Gospels later than the canonical four (e.g., Papyrus Egerton 2) may or may not have used the canonical four for their information (with additional legendary materials); but they possibly used others as well that were in circulation then but no longer now, along with oral traditions that must have been in abundance then but no longer survive now.
It’s important to make this point because so many people – including so many scholars – always seem to think that we must
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
Dear Bart,
I think the idea that there were multiple early versions of the gospels is correct, but I would go a little further and propose that Matthew’s gospel probably did not start with the infancy narrative either. Raymond Brown does a good job, in my view, of showing how the infancy narrative is fairly late and could depend on some of Josephus’ works. I also have a fairly radical theory that the Gospel of Hebrews (GHeb) was a predecessor text to Matthew, rather than the other way round, and as GHeb didn’t have an infancy narrative (also absent from Marcion’s gospel) then Matthew didn’t either to start with.
I’ve been reading Maurice Casey’s proposal that GMark started as an Aramaic text – what’s your view? I understand Josephus wrote Jewish War in Aramaic first, before producing a Greek version, so perhaps this was a common practice for bilingual Jewish authors? If GMark did start as an Aramaic original, I suppose that increases the chance that further translations were made that added some variety to the early versions in circulation.
Yeah, I”ve never been convinced about Matthew. The entire account resonates perfectly well with the rest of the Gospel in terms of theme and concept (fulfillment citations; visit of the wisemen; etc.) And no, I don’t think there’s much to suggest Mark started off as Aramaic. Casey, of course, wasn’t the first to propose that. You’d probably find a nice discussion of hte matter in Joel Marcus’s commentary, which for my money is the best available.
As messy as it is, this sounds likely because of human nature and what we know about literacy, cultures and stories in ancient times. It would make sense that literate true believes hearing the stories might write down the versions they heard. And of course there were periods where effort to preserve and copy documents were only made for the RIGHT documents and many others lost.
If nothing else, there is a HUGE burden on those who want to claim the Bible infallible and we have God’s word perfectly handed down to us. Because of family I’m often in conservative churches and I’m amazed at how much time and effort goes in to arguments about a single word or verse. And that’s the English whatever the “approved version” is. It strikes me as being like arguing about the correct arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
But then a number of groups just wave their hand and declare a miracle for preserving and assembling the Bible. 🙂
I like this. With all the folks Jesus came across, more had to be said/ written. Folks like Luke admit that. Sad so much is lost to us.
I find it interesting that you say here (and frequently elsewhere) that the earliest Christians were basically a band of uneducated and illiterate peasants. However, here you postulate any number of people who were keen to produce a mass of gospels which they drafted and edited to achieve acceptable outcomes.
Why do you think that Christianity so quickly attracted an intelligentsia who were highly motivated to set down an account of the life of Jesus which, in turn, would be eagerly devoured by, as I understand it, a following which was only relatively slowly being established?
I don’t think there were thousands of them. If say 1% of the population could compose a writing at this level and you have ten thousand Christians in the world, you’d still have plenty of them who could write an account if they chose.
When I talk about the earliest followers of Jesus being illiterate peasants, I’m talking aobu the *earliest* followers his disciples and the first people they convert. disabledupes{dd56239e7385c630154d3511e12e5dcb}disabledupes
The newly published Oxyrhynchus sayings fragment further evinces the messiness. It may mean that the synoptic problem is not solvable.
You say that Matthew was written before Luke. Why?
If there were multiple, very different, versions of the canonical gospels in the second century, why are they not witnessed by surviving manuscripts? Wouldn’t we need to suppose that there was some kind of council at the end of the second century that decided which version of each gospel should be copied? Could you explain how we get from a very messy second century to a much less messy today?
I’m not 100% certain Matthew was prior to Luke, and am open to it being earlier. The tendency today, as you know, is to date it much later, if it’s really by the same author as Acts which is these days sometimes being dated to more like 120.
The earlier versions wouldn’t be surviving in manuscripts simply because at some point no one copied them any more — the same with all those dozens (hundreds?) of letters Paul must have written, etc. I’d say that as a whole Christianity is even messier now than then in some ways, but ALL forms of it ultimately go back to the orthodox “victory” in the fourth century and so all inherited a canon (even though some parts of Christendom still today have other books included).
FYI GCampbell Morgan preached about hundred years ago, that Gospel according to Matthew brought to India by one original disciples or important figures in early church [Barnabas?]
GBard:
Morgan’s claim is based on early church tradition: Barnabas traveled to India to preach gospel. Also evidence that Gospel of Matthew known in India in early centuries Christian era. For example, Eusebiu- church historian from 4th century, wrote that Pantaenus, Christian scholar from Alexandria, visited India in late 2nd century &found that Gospel of Matthew already known there.
POEAi:
Exact details & historical accuracy of Thomas’ journey to India are debated among scholars, &no definitive evidence to confirm or disprove it. However, early Christian communities India clai lineage back to apostle Thomas- Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala- communities’ own unique traditions &practices within broader Christian faith.
In summary, while GCampbell Morgan’s specific claim about Gospel of Matthew brought to India by one of original disciples or important figures in early church is not readily verifiable: tradition linking apostle Thomas to spread of Christianity in India. Important to note that historical accounts &traditions can sometimes subject to interpretation &varying degrees of historical certainty.
Dr Ehrman,
Is there anything to indicate that there were creative writing classes in the first or second century?
There was no such thing as adult education then. And creative writing *was* taught at the highest level of children’s education, after many years of training.
I have a question regarding Mark 1:2. On page 107 you said that Mark originally wrote, “As it was written by the prophet Isaiah, I send my messager before thy face, which shall prepare the way before thee.” You said the Isaiah reference was replaced by “the Prophets” because Isaiah did not write that. Exodus 23:20 and Malachai 3:1 were given as the likely source of the the quote in Mark. Isaiah 40:3 says, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Could this be the passage to which Mark was referring in 1:2?
Yes, the third part of the quoation is from Isaiah, and it may be that that’s why he said the entire thing was from Isaiah. Scribes realized it could be seen as a mistake though….
21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20:21-23
I have read that the Catholic belief that a priest can forgive sin, stems from their interpretation of these verses.
In my opinion, these verses completely interrupt the flow of those before and after them. Prior to v.21, there is no indication of conversation related to Jesus sending the disciples anywhere, and it is written (Acts 2:1-4) that they did not *receive the Holy Spirit* until Pentecost. It seems to me these verses were written and inserted specifically for the purpose of creating for a select group, *unquestionable authority* over the masses. In your opinion, am I understanding this correctly?
I’d say that is part of the intention of the verse., but they are also so filled with connections to other parts of John (Farewell discourse, etc.) that they were originally part of the text of ch. 20. I wouldn’t use Acts 2 as evidence one way or the other since John almost certainly had no knowledge of Acts or the Pentecost story it narrates.
I asked this question of Mark Goodacre (waiting for an answer), so I’d like your opinion: Matthew has Mark, and has the angels at the tomb say the same thing as in Mark, but instead of the women remaining silent they tell the disciples and sure enough, Jesus meets them in Galilee, but some doubt (tough audience!). Any chance the original ending of Mark was too unorthodox, perhaps too heavy on the doubt theme, so it was later truncated, but Matthew used it in a more proto-orthodox way, although he still retained the doubt comment? (So, Matthew gives us a clue about Mark’s original ending.)
If there weren’t serious other problems with the ending of Mark, that might be a way to explain it. But it is so unlike Mark in so many other ways (and the transition from v. 8 to v. 9 too problematic) that it doesn’t seem to be original. Most critics think it’s more likely that Matthew simply ran with the theme “he’ll meet them in Galilee” that he found in Mark.
“Why should we think that the version of Mark we have is like the one each of them had? Each of them surely had Mark in different versions, at least to some extent; they weren’t using the very same copy!”
This sure explains the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark.
Yup, it’s one of the standard arguments — which often gets ignored by those who want to argue against Q!
Given the low literacy rate at the time, which you have mentioned Dr Ehrman, and the likelihood that literacy among the 1st century Christian community would have been miniscule, doesn’t that militate against the possibility of anything other than a mere handful of gospels in circulation?
Well, a mere handful could be, say, seven or so. If there were about 10,000 Christians in the world and only 1% of them could compose a writing, and some of them chose to, that would get us to enough for Luke’s “many”
If we accept that the texts were malleable, how much sense does it make to actually think of ‘Matthew’, ‘Mark’, and ‘Luke’ as distinct things at this stage instead of various alternate traditions/revisions of a single text? And for that matter, does it really make sense to view, for example, the Gospel of Marcion as an edit of Luke rather than yet another alternate revision of a ‘single’ gospel?
It may have been the different variations were viewed as distinct accounts fairly early (as seen in the opening of Luke), but would this not be expected considering that it’s certain that eventually, they solidified into separate books?
Yes, the Gospels would have been malleable things; but that would not preclude Marcion from having a text very much like Luke and editing it. That would be part of the malleability — we wouldn’t know which form of what later came to be called Luke he had. (I don’t think his form of Luke, e.g., had chs. 1-2 in it). So I agree it’s not so simple as thinking Marcion used “Luke” just as we have it, as did everyone else…. But the different versions of these writings (each of which *did* have an origin of some kind) does not mean that each one of the versions was not itself a self-subsisting entity (If you see what I mean; anyone who read the version in front of her would have had *one* of the versions, not a mess)
Yes, the Gospels would have been malleable things; but that would not preclude Marcion from having a text very much like Luke and editing it. That would be part of the malleability — we wouldn’t know which form of what later came to be called Luke he had. (I don’t think his form of Luke, e.g., had chs. 1-2 in it). So I agree it’s not so simple as thinking Marcion used “Luke” just as we have it, as did everyone else…. But the different versions of these writings (each of which *did* have an origin of some kind) does not mean that each one of the versions was not itself a self-subsisting entity (If you see what I mean; anyone who read the version in front of her would have had *one* of the versions, not a mess)
Would these earlier gospels be also in Greek, or could they be in Aramaic as well?
Evidently in Greek, given all the surviving evidence and the indications in what we do end up with were based on Greek, not Aramaic, versions.
Great article, thanks for sharing these complex issues. It does seem to me that the version of Mark that Matthew and Luke used had Peter denying Jesus three times before the rooster crowed once because that is in both of their gospels. That means Mark had to be changed to having Peter deny Jesus three times before the rooster crowed twice. So, I think that change is a perfect example of the types of changes you are posting about. It also seems to me that the birth narratives and genealogies in Matthew and Luke may have been added later. Luke writes that there were many other accounts and I agree with what seems to be the mainstream view that Luke didn’t have access to Matthew. But suppose the scribe who wrote Luke’s gospel had read Matthew many years before and only vaguely remembers an account with a birth narrative, the Q material and a genealogy. That scribe may have tried to find Matthew and, perhaps a bit frustrated at not finding a copy of Matthew, decided to do the next best thing: create one’s own genealogy and birth narrative. That may be why Luke is sort of Matthew like.
Bart, I’ve often wondered about the pictures of Jesus on the cross. How could a cross possibly be constructed and remain standing with a body nailed to it? Isn’t it more likely that people when crucified were nailed to a tree to which was added a board across it where the hand were nailed or tied? I think about the day that supposedly the Romans crucified approximately 5000. How could that many crosses be erected? How would they be anchored in the ground?
I also wonder why the Catholic Church, if they believe that Jesus was taken down from the cross and buried, still have Jesus hanging on the cross?
Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist once posed the question; If the guillotine was used for executions in Roman Times ( assuming it had been invited) and it was used to execute Jesus, would we all be wear tiny guillotines on a necklace? I never thought how wearing a cross is quite barbaric. I know it’s mean to be a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice but the fish would have been a less offensive symbol.
Humans can make a mess out of anything, does the early church still have the copies they used to put the NT together, did they use multiple different copies to make one final copy of each gospel and choose what to use or not to use in each gospel. Or did they just pick the one that best fit their narrative.
It depends what you mean by “the early church.” There wasn’t a single thing/group/person there who did any one ting. Each Gospel was originally written by a single person who used oral and written traditions, probably, and that Gospel may have been revised/edited/or simply changed in places by one or more other persons. The quottions of the Gospels that we have starting in the second century and definiltely in the third appear to be from books very much like the ones we now have, and those may have been very close to the “originals” — or not.
“If Matthew and Luke have three different versions of the same story they found in Mark, is it possible that each of them copied the story accurately from the copy of Mark they had, but that copy was different? In that case their differences are not because of their own redactional/editorial changes in Mark.”
Question: To search for hints (not proof) of such examples, wouldn’t we focus on places in Matthew and Luke that might lack a good fit with the themes of those two books? Because that fit might be less than great if the authors of Matthew and Luke copied accurately from other versions of Mark.
Yes, that would be a good approach. I’m not aware of any examples of it (mainly because the differences we’re looking at are almost always quite minor).
Are there any instances in textual criticism in which we possess extraordinarily divergent versions of what appear to be the same text, such that we might expect different versions of Mark? So, for example, perhaps two divergent genealogies of copies (from the same text) that have been preserved for a long time? What are the signposts that exist for us to even generate educated hypotheses?
Sure. The manuscripts of Mark 16 are hugely different depending on whethe rthey have the last twelve verses; and John 7-8 depending on whether we have the woman taken in adultery. If you’re interested in other examples, more along the lines of what you’re suggestoin, look at David Parker’s book The Living Text of the Gospels.
We have approximate years for the authoring of the canonical gospels. As a textual critic, are you able to give approximate years for the time the gospels got out of their fluid states and reached a kind of stability?
By the end of the fourth centuries the fluidity has shifted considerably to a relatively stable situatoin (with changes being small in size even if large in significance at times). And we don’t *know* how fluid it was before that — just that it seems likely with some evidence…
Bart, great post. As a former evangelical fundamentalist like you, this statement caught my attention: “Remember, these books were not seen as sacred, inviolable Scripture.” Can you please recommend reliable sources for reading about this?
I’m not sure there are entire books on it, but it’s the sort of thing that seems fairly obvious to most critical historians, since there is such good evidence, for example, that both Matthew and Luke completely rewrote both the Gospel of Mark and the Q document, without imagining, we might suppose, that they were changing “Scripture.” And there’s very good evidence that Paul’s letter we call 2 Corinthians started out as multiple letters — at least two but possibly as many as five — that have been scissored and pasted together into what we now have.
So, given this “messy” scenario, what do you think of the possibility that what we call Matthew and Luke weren’t really separate gospels at all but later versions of what we call Mark? Mark wouldn’t be a “source” at all but Matthew and Luke would be later versions of Mark with edited and added material?
I’m not advocating this position but it does seem to be at a least a logical possibility given this “messy” scenario.
It completely depends on what you mean by “later versions.” They were certainly rewritings of Mark. And you could argue that any copy of Mark that had one difference is a “later version.” So … it depends on what is meant (and how we justify what we mean — i.e., why that and not a different thing. What’s the difference from a changed version, a new version, a different version, a revision, a recension, a rewritings, a new work, a….)
Well from a functional point of view I suppose it would be the difference between a single dependent gospel literary tradition and multiple independent gospel literary traditions.
I was just reading Brent Nongbri’s review of Robyn Faith Walsh’s “Origins of early Christian literature”, where he makes this interesting counterpoint: “When does someone stop being a copyist or scribe and start being an author? … In fact, if we were to actually treat the synoptic gospels as we do copies of other ancient literature that show comparable levels of similarity, we would probably not refer to individual ‘gospels’ at all but simply describe them collectively as shorter and longer recensions of the same work… The idea of the synoptic gospels as discreet texts written by different individual, identifiable authors may itself be a relic of the kind of second-century Christian thinking that Walsh seeks to expose.”
Sounds very relevant to the point you’re making here!
Yup, that’s become a point some scholars are stressing, even if other think it’s going a bit too far.
Which makes me wonder about the Gospel of Marcion. Did he edit it, or did he have reason to believe the copy he had was authentic while those used by other Christians was fraudulent?
I don’t think this is an either/or. And it completely depends on what the words “authentic” and “fraudulent” mean (i.e., the definitions you’re using)
Regarding Luke coping Matthew, Mark Goodacre points to agreement between Matthew and Luke against Mark. Of course Q is invoked but goodacre makes a pretty chart showing (to my layman eyes) what looks like some clear copying of structure itself, not just word for word agreement against Mark. So whether Q or not existed, its just hard to look at these and see one not knowing the other. e.g.
“They then insert almost exactly the same wording at exactly the same place in the Marcan narrative, even to to the extent of running on at the same point with a conjunction not found in Mark”
http://www.markgoodacre.org/Goodacre,%20Mark%20Q%20Overlaps.pdf
Yes, those have to be taken very seriously by proponents of Q. Some are pretty easily explained, I think (e.g., that the words of John the Baptist in Matthew and Luke are inserted in the same places of John’s speech). The biggest problems with Matthew using Luke are the things it can’t seem to explain, such as the overwhelming number of cases where the sequence of independent events (not, say, the words of John) occur in *different* places in Matthew/Luke even though the sequences do line up well in markan material.
There is an Ehrman-Goodacre blog-debate I am praying for…fingers crossed!
Ha! I don’t like getting creamed in public!
“There are a zillion more possibilities that could be raised in this messier scenario. We all want simple and clear-cut answers, and I’m afraid we are too susceptible to them. Even seasoned scholars seem to assume there were clear-cut choices and we know what they were. But I don’t see why that’s a safe assumption at all. It runs contrary to what our sources themselves indicate (explicitly in Luke 1) and to what we ourselves know about written and oral sources at the time.
There are a gazillion possibilities. So its hard to see how we can too strongly rely on the gospels for reconstructing the life of Jesus. Perhaps we should treat it as more of a range of possibilities with few certainties.
My concerns on this debate are that the more glaring issues of Luke 1,2 and Matthew 1 are often swept under the carpet or ignored in favor of “the Synoptic Problem”. The birth stories of Jesus and John the Baptist are clearly from Genesis with Elizabeth being prototypically Sarah.(in Luke). In Matthew, they also draw the Nativity from Moses and Ephraim to satisfy Hosea 11. Where Matthew turned to Joseph and Moses in drawing out the Mosaic parallels replete with Herod the Great, babies, and Joseph fleeing to Egypt, Luke turned to Genesis and the birth stories of Isaac and Ishmael and drew from it, an Isha, a Son of God who eventually fits the Dying and Rising Model also. Hellenistic Jews crafting a new religion for Gentiles and the Judaic Diaspora that is at once also Samaria friendly. While I agree with your premise that the stories target distinct OT typologies, there are parallels worth noting. Matthews’ 3 Magi originate in the 3 men in the birth of Isaac who are Harbingers. Luke’s Vahu(Vasu) Mana(John – no alcohol), one of pure mind, is the belted Harbinger. (Dr. Price?) Vasus are drowned in the Ganga to extirpate sin.
Bart,
What do you make of the claim by so many scholars that this or that has multiple independent attestation and the following observation by world-renowned expert on oral transmission Jan Vansina: “In history, proof is given only when two independent sources confirm the same event or situation, but…it is not possible to do this with oral tradition wherever a corpus exists and information flows are unstemmed (i.e., in most cases). Feedback and contamination is the norm….No one will consider the three synoptic Gospels as independent sources, even though they have different authors…they stemmed from one single oral milieu, from one corpus in one community. Once this is realized, it is easy to see that it also applies to John, the fourth Gospel” (1985: 159). What is the value of multiple independent attestation given these comments by Vansina?
Also, do you think some (or many?) scholars use the phrase “multiple independent attestation” knowing full well it has limited value?
My sense is that almost everyone realizes it has lmited value. Vansina is a great scholar and his anthropological work is very important. But to say that there’s one source because there is one oral tradition is to miss out on the realities of the spread of the Christian message in antiquity, in my judgment.
Vansina does not seem to me to be saying there was only “one source” or “one oral tradition.” Rather, he seems to be saying that multiple independent literary attestation in the gospels (scholars frequently leave out the “literary” part) can’t really shed much light on the historicity of this or that tradition because we have no way to know if the tradition began from a single source and then spread in different directions in the dynamic oral environment, i.e., I think Vansina is saying that, yes, there was one oral *environment*, but not “one oral tradition,” and within that oral environment I would imagine Vansina would agree with you that the rise and circulation of traditions was incredibly complex and sometimes independent from others. Am I misreading Vansina, and has Vansina made what would seem a pretty big blunder on your view?
I’m not sure which part of Vansina you’re referring to so I don’t know if you’re misquoting him or not. But if there are separate oral traditoins, they all must of necessity go back to a time earlier than all all of them, if they are independent; and the more independent oral traditions there are, the more likely it is that they are nearer to the event described itself.
1) Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that two or more *truly* (not just literarily) independent sources reporting some event *prove* the event actually happened (not just that it goes back to an earlier time)?
2) Also, do you agree that we have no way of determining if *any* tradition in the four Gospels come from *truly* independent sources because we have no way to know how much feedback and contamination there was in the oral environment?
I don’t know what truly independent means if it doesn’t mean literarily independent. No tradition about Jesus is *absolutely* independent of any other since they are all about Jesus, so they have a common source.
But I think I get your drift. Yes, ultimately two stories that are literarily independent definitetly, ultimately go back to the same oral tradition. If lots of sroties are widely literarily independent, it is more likely the oral traditoin very early. From there you start asking which other criteria can help you decide if the tradition appears to be authentically historical or not. None of these criteria can be used in isolation from the others. disabledupes{72485b3ffef0f9920ee27d250b413bbe}disabledupes
By “truly independent” attestation I mean for example that two or more people who didn’t know or ever talk to each other saw, for example, Jesus predict his own resurrection and then conveyed this to others in some way that history preserved.
Scholars seem to throw around the term “multiple independent attestation” for this and that tradition and I’ll bet many laypeople think the above is being claimed when it fact it only means “multiple independent LITERARY attestation,” which only tells us the tradition existed before the literary works but not squat about whether the tradition is actually historical. Agreed?
Oh, well I think that hte author of Q and Mark and the sources behing M and L and the author of John, and the authors of the sources of John, and Paul etc – I think they were all personally unknown to each other.
Right, all the people behind those sources didn’t know each other, but they were all drawing from an oral environment where, for any given tradition that two or more of them report, could trace back to a real event or could trace back to a single rumor that then spread from there. Multiple independent *literary* attestation doesn’t tell us which it is; it only tells us that the story predates the sources it appears in….right?
Yup. ANd the more independent sources the more likely the original source is older…
Thank you for this – it really made me think about what early church services would have been like. What came to mind is a rabbi/teacher/priest would have told stories about Jesus based on whatever information he would have heard or read. Each might have concluded with a lesson or homily, similar to what protestant ministers have been doing for hundreds of years. The Catholic Church was intent on corralling in all the multiple variant stories – and not just tut-tutting the version they did not like but actively damning even killing those worshiping the variants of which they disapproved. If this is in any way correct, the rise of protestant variations of the Catholic version does in some way represent the rebirth of the original oral traditions of the early church. So we are living with the version of Christianity that was chosen as the official version – the Reader’s Digest edition if you will – with redactions and edits to suit the purpose of the early Catholics. This is not some great insight, but your post really made me step back and appreciate how we have ended up where we are today.
Bart,
Do you think the scribe who added the appearance to Mary in Mk 16:9-11 got it from Jn 20:11-18?
Also, why do you think no Gospel author narrates Jesus’ appearance to Peter (mentioned in Lk. 24:34)?
1. I really don’t know! My sense is that there were lots of resurrection stories floating around, and generally it seems unlikely that we know THE smoking gun for the source of any one of them. But maybe! 2. I wish I knew. The problem with Luke 24:34 is that Simon was a name shared by other. Paul mentions the appearance to Cephas in 1 Cor. 15:3-8 — and right, we don’t have a Gospel account of it (just as we don’t have a Pauline account of the appearances to the women!)
Bart,
On a different topic, do you think there is much chance that Rom 1:1-6 is an interpolation?
No, I don’t think there’s any evidence of it. On the contrary, there are very good reasons to think they go back to Paul. (They are in all the manuscripts, of course, but the internal linguistic connections to Paul are strong.)
What do you think of these three reasons that might point toward Rom 1:1-6 possibly being a later interpolation)?
1) Rom 1:7 can easily be interpreted as the initial greeting.
2) Paul’s phrase “spirit of holiness” (Rom 1:4) occurs only this one time in the entire NT, so maybe it is a later scribe’s way of making reference to the “Holy spirit”?
3) Rom 1:5 and 16:26 are the only verses in the NT where the similarly structured phrase “obedience of faith” appears and some think Rom 16:25-26 is also an interpolation.
1. Paul always starts his letters by naming himself (that is how letters almost always started in the Greek and Roman worlds); 2. A later scribe would be unlikely to use “spirit of holiness” because it is a Semiticism, uncharacteristic of Greek writers; the phrase instead shows that this is a formulation Paul is quoting that started out in Hebrew. 3. The use of a term in a later interpolation is not evidence that the term was probably not used by the author of the work into which the interpolation is made. In any event, 16:25-27 does not involve an interpolation but a textual variant — some mss have them and some don’t. That’s quite different from 1:1-6.
You said the use of a Semiticism is “uncharacteristic of Greek writers,” but Paul is a Greek writer, so why is the phrase “spirit of holiness” (Rom 1:4) more likely to come from Paul than a later Greek writing interpolator?
It’s uncharacteristic but not unheard of. It actually happens relatively frequenlty among Jews who were familiar with the Septuagint.
Dr. Ehrman,
This is a bit of an aside, but what reasons do you have for doubting the authenticity of the tomb underneath the Church of the Holy Sepulcher besides that it’s not normally how traitors and criminals would have been buried? It seems that the tradition dates to as early as the third century (which alone would not make it reliable obviously) and the location where bishop macarius was digging *did* contain an early Jewish cemetery dated to the first century, which is rather exceptional. Even more exceptional however is the fact that the cemetery and alleged site of the crucifixion were outside of the walls during the life of Christ but probably inside of them after Agrippa’s additions in the 40s, so someone searching for the tomb later would not have checked in that spot unless a previous tradition existed that it was located there because of the prohibition on tombs within the walls. What do you think of all of this? I know that on this issue Jodi Magness accepts these arguments and concedes that burial in that site is plausible.
Sure it’s plausible. But so are a thousand other optoins for where the burial was. One always needs to ask what evidence there is. I tlak about it in my book The Triumph of Christianity. Cntrary to what’s widely said, Helena (Constantine’s mother) didn’t “discover” the site. Eusebius, our source of information, indicates that Constantine himself “realized” it. But there was a pagan shrine to Aphrodite there, put there by wicked men who were inspired by demons to cover up the spot of Jesus’ burial. The reality is that no one could possibly know where Jesus was buried. There are no references to his burial spot (i.e. identifications of it) in any of our sources from earlier centuries. In the fourth century Jerusalem became an important spot and so locals started making claims for pilgrims. (The place was virtually abandoned by Xns before then).