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Dr. Ehrman, I am an enormous fan of you and your work. Truly. But some of the recent claims you’ve made in your blog posts seem rather grandiose. You’re saying that the field of textual criticism was all but dead before you showed up and imparted your uncommon wisdom?
RESPONSE:
WHOA!!! That’s not what I’ve been saying (or *trying* to say) (evidently unsuccessfully!) at all! I’m not claiming that I myself am personally responsible for turning around the discipline. I’m glad this reader has made this comment, because others might be thinking the same thing, and so I need to clarify.
What I *am* saying is that when I got into the field it was moribund. And now it’s vibrant. I was very lucky to get in when I did, as it was at the beginning of a resurgence of interesting and a new direction that the field has since taken. If it had kept on going the way it had, it may well have died out. But things have happened that have changed the entire scene.
Just one sign of that. At the Society of Biblical Literature meetings 30 years ago, there might typically have been a dozen or fifteen (older) people in attendance at each of the two sessions. About 10 years ago, we had sessions where there were over a hundred people, and we were running at least three sessions. Something had clearly happened in the interim.
There were, to be sure, signs of life already 30 years ago (I’m speaking now of the American scene, although the same could be said about England; scholars Germany had been continuing, all along, their rigorous work in the field). Just to name two prominent examples, my since-then-colleagues, Eldon Epp and Gordon Fee.
It was Eldon – who is now rightly considered the “dean” of textual criticism in America — who had written his famous (infamous?) article which he described as a “Requiem” for the discipline of New Testament textual criticism in America. That, obviously, wasn’t hopeful. But years before that he had written a dissertation at Harvard which ended up (he would not have anticipating this) being the harbinger of very big things yet to come. The title is not one that you would normally find in Barnes & Noble: The Theological Tendency of Codex Cantabrigiensis in Acts. So, uh, what’s that?
Codex Cantabrigiensis (otherwise simply called D) is one of the oldest and most unusual manuscripts of the New Testament. Dating from around 400 CE or so, it is magnificent in appearance, but the form of its text is quite different in many places from the form of the Greek text that scholars tend to think is original. Epp’s analysis showed that in many places in the book of Acts, the scribe of the codex (or the scribes that produced the manuscripts that this scribe was copying), changed the text in order to make it more anti-Jewish, in one way or another.
In other words – even though this was not an avenue that Epp at the time explored – it was precisely he Christian opposition to Judaism at the time in which this text was being produced that affected the scribe who produced it. That is important for several reasons (which again, Epp for the purposes of the dissertation, did not delve into): it means that these variant readings opposing Jews and Judaism were probably not original; they were instead incorporated into the text at a later time; and it was precisely the milieu of the Christian scribes copying the text that was affecting the alterations he made in the text.
That was a ball that I later grabbed and ran with. I didn’t invent the ball though!
Gordon Fee had been Epp’s student for his PhD work, which he did on one of the most significant early manuscripts of the New Testament, known as P66. Gordon is an unusual scholar for lots of reasons, but one of them is that he is not interested only in textual criticism (as most textual critics of his time were), but in broader areas of New Testament studies, especially exegesis (interpretation) and theology. Over the course of his long and distinguished career, he has written numerous commentaries on the various letters of Paul, and works exploring the theology of the different authors of the New Testament
As a result, he was wide ranging in a way that proved to be highly important. For Fee, you can’t do any work on the New Testament until you know what its words are. That is, you can’t interpret what Paul *meant* (in, say, his letter to the Romans or his letter to the Galatians) if you don’t know what he *said*. And you can’t discuss the theology of Paul until you have a full understanding of the meaning of Paul’s individual letters.
And so, textual criticism is absolutely fundamental for being able to do any scholarly work on the New Testament. It is not a secondary matter but a primary matter. Thus, even if someone is principally interested, say, in the theology of Paul’s letter to the Romans, that requires a detailed and intimate understanding of the manuscripts (and versions, and quotations of the church fathers) of Romans.
At the same time, an intimate familiarity with all the ins and outs of the exegesis of Paul’s letters and a deep understanding of Pauline theology can assist in deciding what his text said at any given point. It is a two-way street between textual studies and exegesis/theology.
Both of these scholars emphasized points that later ended up changing the field at the point when I joined the scholarly community. Textual criticism is indeed important, critically important, but it is not important simply in and of itself. It is important, even more, because it is vitally related to other things: the interpretation of the New Testament and the history of the early Christian church.
I was quickly convinced of this, so that when I got into the field, it was precisely the relevant and significant connects to other fields of discourse in New Testament studies that became my focus (after my dissertation). Along with others at about the same time, I came to see that relevance and significance alone would be able to turn the field around and make it a thriving discipline again.
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Eldon J. Epp is the author of The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts, and The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters, among other books.
Gordon Fee is also the author of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and Discovering Biblical Equality, among other works.
I don’t see how anyone who reads your posts carefully could have thought you were making grandiose claims for yourself!
This response to that snide comment proves you are a true saint, Dr. Ehrman. You had already strongly objected to our comments about your contributions to the field of textual criticism. You said you were “lucky to be alive and active at the time of its resuscitation.” There’s nothing “grandiose” about that.
Have either of these two scholars written trade books to reveal those differences that made a significantly different understanding of the works of Acts or Paul’s letters?
Eldon Epp has written a book on Junia the apostle that relates closely to one inmportant textual issue in the writings of Paul, involving the one woman that Paul actually calls an “apostle.”
Just wanted to say that I have the Eldon Epp book on Junia and as a layman I found it very interesting and an easy read, ie., it’s scholarly, but not to the point that I found it distracting.
Happy birthday!
Not quite, but I’m closing in!!
Perhaps the most interesting example of textual criticism delving into modern controversial questions is Epp’s masterful treatment of Junia, the woman apostle mentioned in Romans. I would love to hear you say much more about the work and influence of Epp. Larry Hurtado also did his PhD thesis on Codex W under Epp and, as you know, Hurtado has also also managed to develop influential exegetical and theological perspectives.
OK, I may do so down the line. Yes, Larry was a bit ahead of me in the game. His dissertation is a highly technical analysis of W, but very important for some areas of scholarship on the text of mark.
Whoa! This “fan’s” comment seems way off base to me and does not describe the Dr, Ehrman I know and respect so much. Not even close.
Great series of posts!
On another note, what is the status of your forthcoming trade book on memory?
It should be published in the spring, gods willing.
Fee is apparently a Pentacostal and I don’t know about Epp, but I haven’t read their work as I have yours here and in your books. How different is Epps view of NT text and authorship from yours that he is in a very different position on it apparently?
Epp pretty much agrees with me on most of these major critical issues.
What about Fee? Does he basically agree on technical aspects but finds his pentacostal views through faith or does he have major differences? I’m certainly no expert in the field. Personally when experts have a lot of disagreement I have no reason to just pick a supernatural view over it’s not clear enough. So I’m curious how he arrives at a different place than you unless it’s over things you mention like suffering. By the way I’m in personal agreement on that. Regardless of scripture I can’t reconcile our world with claims of the nature of god.
He and I agree on a lot of things involving textual criticism, but disagree on other historical issues, such as whether the Gospels are historically accurate, whether Paul wrote all the letters assigned to him, and, well, most critical issues.
It’s pretty easy for me to see why textual criticism is foundational to just about any other NT scholarship. But I’m reminded about something surprising you wrote once about the comparative method of looking at NT texts: what surprised me was that the comparative method didn’t really take original forms into account. For example, when studying the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, the comparative method doesn’t take into account that Luke may not have originally contained the first two chapters, or that they may have been written by someone else. I didn’t quite understand why this approach to the text, which still seemed to be a historical approach, didn’t rely on textual criticism the way I’d expect. If this question is to far afield from the topic, just save it for later. Thanks as always, love the blog.
It just depends what it is you want to study. One valid approach is to study only the original text. Another valid approach is to study the text as it comes down to us.