** you do not have permission to see this link **
I feel slightly excited, as I consider this post. Although I enjoy wrestling with theological questions and engaging with people’s ideas about Scriptures, their assumptions and opinions, I rarely feel like I have come up with something especially new to contribute myself, until just now. The question is how to explain it clearly!
I have been engaging with textual criticism for a little bit, and the two authors, Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace, in particular. Textual criticism is quite scientific actually – it weighs up the various manuscript, historical and archaeological evidence to provide probabilities of textual change direction. This requires us to understand the indisputable claim that there are hundreds of thousands of differences between the extant (existing/found) manuscripts. That is not nearly as bad as it sounds – the slightest difference between any one of the thousands of manuscripts relative to any one other manuscript (e.g. a variant spelling) constitutes a difference.
Actually, of the most significant type of variants in the manuscripts, we can identify a top 7, which include texts like the woman caught in adultery, the long ending of Mark, and an omission in Matthew 24 “nor the son” during the Olivet Discourse concerning who had knowledge of the day and hour of the coming of the Son of Man.
It seems to be argued convincingly by Wallace, along with Gordon Fee and Philip Miller and Matthew Morgan and Adam Messer and Tim Ricchuiti and Brian Wright, that Bart Ehrman applies a too systematic and overarching criterion of orthodox corruption of significant variant passages. The person agreeing with Ehrman is basically saying: scribes changed the wording to align it better with the orthodox belief of the time.
As it turns out, Bart Ehrman is so confident of his views, unfortunately, that he does not take the time to properly answer these serious purported flaws in his methodology (see his blog post ** you do not have permission to see this link **). This did not help me initially to spot a way forward that integrated both views.
My basic idea is the following, and is unique, as far as I can tell in their debate, particularly with regard to the variant in Matthew. I believe that it is highly possible for more than one factor to be acting at the same time on a scribe. Whether or not you want to call this multiple causes or multiple factors resulting in a single cause is inconsequential. What it does do is place this view, and as far as I know, in disagreement with certainly Wallace and possibly Ehrman also (thank goodness I don’t know them personally, they would have my guts for garters!) Let me unpack it, as so far I am being vague.
In Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament, on page 36, Wallace states [his italics]: “One cannot have it both ways; there cannot be wild copying by untrained scribes and a proto-orthodox conspiracy simultaneously producing the same variants. Conspiracy implies control, and wild copying is anything but controlled“. I basically disagree with Wallace’s thesis, although I need to untangle it first. Wallace is zooming in on an observation that Ehrman makes, that copying seems to be less careful the further back you go (I have not yet come across his use of “wild”). On the surface, Wallace’s argument quoted above sounds pretty solid, but unfortunately, he subtly and probably unconsciously uses that premise to draw the reader into a false dichotomy that permeates significant portions of the book. I certainly missed it until I re-read his opening chapter “Lost in Transmission” today, and cross-referencing it with Miller in the subsequent chapter discussing the variant in ** you do not have permission to see this link ** (p79) and the discussions surrounding Matthew 24:36.
This verse either states that Jesus’ death was by the grace of God, or apart from God. Miller correctly points out, as Ehrman should have noted, the very high similarity between the majuscule of the two words in Greek. He rightly notes that it is plausible that the copyist made a mistake and changed it to “apart” from God. What if Ehrman, though, is right, along with the (admittedly fewer) manuscripts? Can he argue uniquely the existence of the “grace” manuscripts based on orthodox corruption? Given the extreme similarity of the words, the answer has to be “no”. Given the definite existence of orthodox corruptions, could we rule out the influence of theological commitments? Again, the answer is “no”. The point is that Wallace’s textual approach (and possibly Ehrman, although I am not so sure) seems to be based on the need to find a single criterion. What is needed here is to invite in new fields of research, notably psychology.
Depending on the field in psychology, work on the unconscious realm of our minds, but it is generally widely affirmed to be highly affect our actions and responses. Sigmund Freud was obviously a classic example. For him, it was the unconscious repressed desires of childhood that governed our behaviour. But the area of unconsciousness is now understood to be much wider and more complex than that. Where this interests us is the area of theological commitment. We all know that theological commitment is an area people feel so strongly about, and it is because it affects our various social groups and helps define our identity. That is some serious unconscious “welly”. So why would a scribe, a human, flawed, theologically committed scribe not be doubly affectable, both by his brain confusing two very similar words and also by what he would prefer it to say?
I feel so sure that this is significant, because it seems to me it could help us better explain how orthodox corruption might occur, while doing away with any unnecessary pressure to assume that everything was conscious, thus contributing to a rather untenable position that looks conspiratorial.
To conclude, I critique Wallace’s methodology to be underpinned by an unspoken mutual exclusivity of criteria – it is far from obvious that this is necessary. I.e. – In the example of ** you do not have permission to see this link ** (although John 1:18 would have been a better example), both Wallace and Ehrman can be correct about their hypotheses of causation. It requires further investigation and particularly bringing in specialist psychological research.
Wallace is clear that more than one simultaneous factor is not possible. I am not so sure for Ehrman, and will attempt to find out on his blog in the forum area.
So how migh Ehrman respond? In order of probability from what I have seen of him thus far:
1. Probably not at all – heck, even Wallace is small fry for him!
2. Very short response, dismissive, sticking to his initial guns: it is all about the orthodoxy… kinda (unfortunately, this response will invite a quote from him about how other considerations need to be examined first)
3. Positive, curious, discussion-opener.
How might Wallace respond?
– I have no idea how to interact with Wallace. He seems like an open-minded kind of guy though, so if I ever do get through, I would expect some careful reconsideration of his exclusive view.
On the question of the field of psychological analysis, I was reminded at another random moment that Dr. Ehrman already appears open to its relevance – consider his application of psychological research in the hypotheses of hallucinations, in his chapter that covers the resurrection narratives in How Jesus Became God.
It would be good to hear a specialist in the field of hallucinations directly.
jbjbjbjbjb said
That is not nearly as bad as it sounds – the slightest difference between any one of the thousands of manuscripts relative to any one other manuscript (e.g. a variant spelling) constitutes a difference.
J
The question is how they look against the belief that the bible is inerrant. I think that is the point of Ehrman’s discussion of them
in MQJ.
As it turns out, Bart Ehrman is so confident of his views, unfortunately, that he does not take the time to properly answer these serious purported flaws in his methodology
What flaws? “a too systematic and overarching criterion of orthodox corruption” isn’t flaws. It’s not even clear that this is anything more than unfounded criticism. How exactly does one apply a criterion of orthodox corruption?
I don’t see where “Defending Myself has to do with over confidence. The only thing that possibly suggests this is where he talks about not spending “any time reading what they have to say”, but that is about the criticisms offered by “fundamentalists and lots of conservative evangelicals.” It has nothing to do with Wallace, Gordon Fee, Philip Miller, Matthew Morgan,Adam Messer, Tim Ricchuiti and Brian Wright.
When he does mention Wallace, there’s nothing suggesting over confidence,
“I’ve had several public debates with my friend Dan Wallace, a professor of New Testament at the exceedingly conservative evangelical Dallas Theological Seminary. In our first debate, we were supposed to be talking about whether we can be sure that we have the original wording of the New Testament, given the fact that we don’t have the original manuscripts but only copies made, in most instances, very much later, and that these copies all differ from one another in one way or another. In the debate, I talked about this topic and gave my views about it based on my years of research. And what did Dan do? He actually didn’t talk very much about the topic. What he wanted to talk about was me, about how one thing that I said at one time contradicted something that I said at some other time – he came up with lots of these – so that I couldn’t be trusted in anything that I said.
I thought that was a rather odd way to engage in a debate, since the topic was not whether Bart Ehrman was reliable but whether the manuscripts of the New Testament were. In point of fact, I could easily defend myself against this kind of attack – a lot of what Dan has said about me over the years involves taking my comments out of context, or misrepresenting my views, or … well, there are lots of problems. But I refuse to defend myself at any length about such things. And why? Because to me, they aren’t relevant to the topic. And I have better things to do than show that Dan’s assaults on me are unfounded.”
And this brings us to
“One cannot have it both ways; there cannot be wild copying by untrained scribes and a proto-orthodox conspiracy simultaneously producing the same variants. Conspiracy implies control, and wild copying is anything but controlled“
Indeed, nowhere does Ehrman mention, much less alledge such a conspiracy. It seems
you, wallace and others want to read “orthodox corruption” as conspiracy where there’s absolutely no reason to; particulalry where Ehrman often attributes variations to things
like scribes being tired, genuine mistakes etc. Indeed, one has to wonder what your
“top 7” variants have to do with “orthodox corruption” You’re clearly conflating variants with “orthodox corruption” For example, You argue,
” Miller correctly points out, as Ehrman should have noted, the very high similarity between the majuscule of the two words in Greek. He rightly notes that it is plausible that the copyist made a mistake and changed it to “apart” from God”
But that’s the point “the scribe made a mistake” in a book that is said to contain no mistakes, this is a big problem; particulalrly when there are lots and lots and lots
of those mistakes.
No offense J, but your analysis reads like Gee Bill Clinton, Lani Davis, Robert Reich
and Debbie Wasserman all make a convincing argument that Hillary Clinton should be the next President of the US. But I don’t know what Bernie Sanders would say and I don’t know what Republicans would say….
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)