From The Text of the New Testament It’s Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration by Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman there’s a whole chapter dedicated to the ways in which scribes changed their texts:
Unintentional changes: Errors arising from faulty eyesight; Errors arising from faulty hearing; Errors of the mind; Errors of judgement
Intentional changes: Changes involving spelling and grammar; harmonistic corruption; additions of natural complements and similar adjuncts; clearing up historical and geographical difficulties; conflation of readings; alterations made because of doctrinal considerations; additions of miscellaneous details
The way you word your post it appears you believe that changes were done intentionally. My apologies if I misinterpret you. As you can see though, there were many ways in which changes could have occurred. Contrary to what you state though early church fathers in their writings do note scribal changes. Bart has mentioned this on the blog (can’t remember where or when though) and I know I’ve read Metzger mention this as well in his book The Canon of the New Testament. I would assume that the problem in catching changes is that in the event of one scribe making one copy with intentional changes, he could could distribute his “new” copy to a location that had no earlier version to check against his and therefore he would not get caught. Alternatively in scribal schools where many scribes are making many copies of the same book, maybe I’m wrong, but it seems impractical for editors to check the work line by line of many copyists.
Kazibwe Edris said
greetings everybody
how did ancient scribes get away with changing and adding to the text of the new testament without anyone noticing?
Greg has a good point. Your question suggests you think scribes just rewrote the text to suit some personal agenda.
To the extent changing the text was intentional, it’s more likely to have been that intentional changes were made in order to, you might say, preserve the real meaning.
Consider the following
“Western authorities add, “unto him,” mostly reading the following words in the second person (cf. Mark and Luke). This is my beloved Son. Very similar if not identical words were spoken at the Transfiguration (** you do not have permission to see this link **), Matthew giving precisely the same, Mark and Luke only omitting “in whom I am well pleased,” and Luke also reading “chosen” instead of “beloved.”
(** you do not have permission to see this link **)
Suppose a scribe chooses to write beloved rather than chosen and also restores the “”in whom I am well pleased,” Has he done anything untoward? No doubt, he might be thinking he has corrected a problem by syncing the text. The very act of editing involves making changes, either in style or amplification.
Kazibwe Edris said
when i asked the question in the op i had this post in mind** you do not have permission to see this link **
Indeed, and wat esplanation does Prof Ehrman offer? Does he contend that scribes were trying to get away with something or,
The words in bold and underlined sound very much like what you find in 1 Corinthians 11:22-24. It’s hard to see why a scribe would omit them. But it’s easy to see why a scribe would want to add them. They make the text closer to what you find in that passage –emphasis added, (and Matthew and Mark). And they make the symbolism of this last meal explicit.
This is pretty much what I already argued
gmatthews said
While we know the Jews looked at every single letter when they made copies of the OT (I don’t know when that started though), there’s no evidence that Christians did anything remotely like it. For me, I wonder why mistakes didn’t happen more often.
You know I thought this may have been a matter of timing (the alledged consistency? continuity? of the Quaran etc)
That is, Urban centers might have a higher literacy rate and greater appreciation of the value of accuracy- what with trade and all; a more developed scribal culture. I don’t want to dismiss early Christians as illiterate hillbillies. Instead I suspect that an apocalyptic community, looking toward the imminent end of this evil age, was much less interested in transmitting their message to future generations since theirs was to be the last. This puts more emphasis on oral transmission. Consider too the possibility that written gospels, sayings, etc may have been adopted not to improve the accuracy of transmission, but to appeal to a class of literate people who simply valued written over verbal communication (Luke’s Theophilus e.g.) Of course, there’s, to paraphrase the philosopher Jerry Lee Lewis, a whole lotta supposition goin on and I do not have even a spec of evidence.
When you “wonder why mistakes didn’t happen more often” are you referring to scribal transmission or transmission in general?
I was referring to transmission in general. It wasn’t until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire that we even see any professional consistency in codices. Before then the format of the collected works varied (by this I mean little things like the construction of the codex, paper or parchment, etc), the orthodoxy of any given book was in question, the use of nomina sacra, etc, etc. The quality of the scribal worked varied WILDLY. This can be determined by the way they shaped their letters, the size of the letters and other things. Given all of these variations (and many others) why should we think the textual transmission is accurate to any high degree? I’m sure it wasn’t horrendous, but there’s no way we can accept that it was exemplary.
Agreed. Ehrman has said he thinks most errors were made early on. I always assumed he meant just the oral tradition, but literate transmission isn’t inherently more accurate than oral as you’ve shown. Its interesting that much of the time scholars seem to think that getting back to the oral tradition will lead to a better understanding. James Dunn has said some interesting stuff in this regard. I would much rather see Prof Ehrman debate him than Price. Im looking forward to Bart’s next book for this reason.
I wonder if he is planning to attend ** you do not have permission to see this link **
gmatthews said
Good question, but I’ve read that there’s a lot of interest in memory and the transmission of early Christian ideas and legends and I’ve never seen his name mentioned in any of those discussions. He’s not a player in that area as a focal point for him.
Ahh but he is a gangstah!
I think his new book will put him in that area, but I would be saisfied if he debated Jimmy Dunn
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