Loading...A reader recently asked a question I had dealt with on the blog many years ago. When originally asked it, I responded by saying I had never thought about it before. (!) Below is the question and my initial reflections. My views haven’t matured much during the past seven years (and they ain’t the only thing), so I give my initial response. If someone can improve on it, let me know.
First here is this week’s way of asking the question:
QUESTION:
Suppose someone did claim to have found the original…. I get that you can show something isn’t original, such as by dating it to two hundred years later. But is there anything you can do to show it is likely original?
Here now is the original post.
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READER’S QUESTION:
Were we to have any *original manuscript* of any NT document in our midst, would we be able to recognize and confirm it as such? If so, how?
BART’S RESPONSE:
Now that’s a question I’ve never been asked before! And in fact, that I’ve never really thought about before. It’s been fun to reflect on it a bit.
To get to the short answer: I think the answer would almost certainly be “No”.
The reasons are of particular interest, though. Suppose by chance a very early copy of the Gospel of John appeared. How would we …
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> if a scribe was professionally trained, he wrote the same way his entire professional career. The result is that it is impossible to know if he wrote a particular manuscript when he was 20 years old or 70.
Is that always true? Physical changes that come with age, disease and perhaps other factors can make a difference, at least in some cases.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9291592/
Handwriting changes due to aging and Parkinson’s syndrome
https://ejfs.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41935-019-0131-9
Forensic study on the effect of age and illness (Parkinsonism) on handwriting characteristics
Of course it’s not literally true for everyone. But handwriting experts take all of that into account. I don’t know of any manuscripts that survive that suggest the scribe was afflicted with Parkinson’s or other debilitating diseases that affected hand writing.
Has carbon dating been used to help establish the age of a manuscript?
Only very rarely; they used it with Gospel of Judas. The problem is that the specimens themselves have to be destroyed, and so there is a natural reluctance to use it.
I realize that this still wouldn’t prove the originality of a document, but on the dating issue, are there any scientific methods for dating ancient documents written on papyrus or parchment (radiocarbon dating, DNA testing, e.g.)?
The traditional way is with carbon-114 dating. But it is used only rarely; they used it with Gospel of Judas. The problem is that the specimens themselves have to be destroyed, and so there is a natural reluctance to use it.
Mr. Ehrman, I believe I also have an interesting question for you: if there was somehow the chance for you to get your hands on a *truly original* book from the New Testament, one of the 27 – which one would you pick, and what do you think you would realize reading it for the first time?
(Me personally, I’m between Luke’s or John’s Gospel – it would be so fascinating to actually find out how they really start!)
Mark. But I wouldn’t have expectations, just interests.
I have someone who said “I should never listen to you” because you say Paul did not write 6 letters of the New Testament when the letters start with…Paul, an Apostle of Christ to the Church at ….. (Trust me, I listen to you). Their main question was – what is the evidence Paul did not write Ephesians? Your thoughts.
This view has been standard among scholars for a very long time. It is taught in all major seminaries and divinity schools (I first learned in in my Presybterian seminary that trained ministers). If this person is really interested in teh question, I have a length discussion of Ephesians and why it was probably not written by Paul in my book Forgery and Counterforgery. Basic answer (that has been around for many decades, and is standard in the field) is that the writing style is significantly unlike Paul’s in ways that involve “unconconsious” literary decisions (the use of embedded clauses; different uses of certainly verbal forms etc.) and, more important for me, theological views embraced in teh letter that run counter to those of Paul himself. I think maybe I should post on this question!
I have read Paul letters many many times looking for differents topics (from the historical Jesus to Paul’s journeys in his own words opposed to what Acts says about this same journeys), when you read for instance Galatians or Corinthians you can “feel” (I don’t know if it is the right word to express it) something different from Ephesians or Colossians, even not being a scholar If you read the letters again and again I think it is possible to have this “insight”, that Colossians,Ephesians are not “Pauline” ! They lack something , are somewhat “bored” , I don’t know if it is the “”style” or what but this is not Paul !.
Hi, Bart
A quick off-topic question….
I wanted to buy a biography of David Friedrich Strauss. I could only find one book (a mere 300 pages; hardly a tome) that seemed to fit the bill. One problem: the *best* price I could find was about 85 dollars; some retailers are charging 110 dollars! I’ve noticed this kind of pricing with these kind of books before. Anyway, I was just wondering whether you have any idea, with your experience of dealing with publishers, why on earth they charge so much for books that wouldn’t be of interest to the great majority of the general public in the first place? Are they *trying* to keep them away from the common man?! Not blaming you, of course. 🙂
Regards.
I suppose it’s mainly supply and demand. Sonmeone who wants a book like that probably is willing to pay a lot for it because they are hard to get your hands on. But yup, it’s irritating and frustrating.
Can you suggest a book or author that “introduces” the reader to the OT through understanding its influence on the NT? I’m sure this would not really do justice to the value of the OT in its own right, eg, its importance to the Jewish people. But the OT is so large (and often opaque) and, having a Christian background and much more personal interest in the NT, this approach might be, for me, a good point of entry into the OT. It would be a good idea for me to follow up with a book that treats the OT as independent but what I’m looking for seems like a good place to start.
That’s a very interesting question. I can’t think of anything like that for a layperson. Maybe others can? Apart from that approach, if you want to get a handle on the OT, I’d suggest simply reading a good “Introduction.” I give a lot of the major information in my book The Bible: A Literary and Historical Introduction, which may be a place to start.
Is there any concerted effort by a significant number of experts on religion to develop a consensus on which religion, if any, is true or closest to the truth? Atheism, humanism and the like would need to be considered too. By consensus I mean something analogous to consensus in science, especially natural science — or consensus about the historical Jesus among critical NT scholars. Or maybe just a consensus about what is common to the vast majority of religions (and which religion best approximates that commonality)?
I’m not being facetious. I think I could largely accept and live in a way that’s strongly influenced by a consensus —just as I am in many other areas of my life. I know there is also a more personal side to religion but a consensus could provide a guiding framework and a rational place to start.
A more specific and perhaps more answerable question is whether there is any consensus about which religion, if any, is best supported by, or at least most compatible with, science, especially natural science?
Scholars of religion study *about* religion; they don’t endorse truth claims of one over another. That’s a theological endeavor, not an endeavor of critical scholarship. Most theologians, of course, do deal with that, and not surprisingly, those connected with one religious tradition or another tend to think it is the one that is true. Historical scholars often used to think that all religions were basivcally the same underneath, but I don’t know of any experts in the field of religion today who would say that. Just the opposite.
I recommend Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained to get some detail on adjacent considerations about how religion functions. There are the late romantic mytho-structuralist types who tried, per Bart’s comment, to find underlying commonalities and assert a proto-science of religion (William James, Frazier, even Jung) but Pascal Boyer is the most modern assessment.
Do know much about the Jehovah New World Translation Bible(NWT) and its accurate translation of the Greek Xian scriptures? I frequent a site with many posters coming from all Xian belief backrounds. One mainstream Xian poster wrote that Bruce Metzger had said it was mistranslation. The advocates for the NWT listed Bruce Metzer, along with a slew of other biblical scholars, had written that it was an accurate translation. The main stream Xian poster wrote that Bruce Metzger had later said his words were taken out of context. Are you familiar with any of this?
Metzger did think the NWT was flat out wrong in its translation of John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a god.” (Rather than “… and the Word was God). He had an article on it and often talked about it. I don’t know his opinion of the translation otherwise, but my sense is that he suspected it of incorporating a theological bias.
I until my late- 40s always thought that verse: that the Bible AKA Word was God, that existed in the beginning.
Since you helped me figure out the ‘scriptures” were the OT then.
thanks!
This is fascinating. Thank you.
And as you’ve pointed out in other posts, even if we thought our New Testament was extremely close to what was originally written it would have no bearing on whether what was originally written was true or accurate. I think the LDS church has pages from the original Book of Mormon, but I don’t think any Christian apologist would cite that as evidence that the book is true.
In the case of John (and also Mark?), aren’t there (possibly dubious) traditions of the autographs being kept by certain churches? So like, what if a fragment with early readings from John (that could be dated to the first century or so) was found around Ephesus for example? Or if a verifiably early manuscript of Mark (or the text from Secret Mark) was found in Alexandria? I still don’t think that would be enough to substantiate whether something was actually an ‘original’, but how do you think possible locations of such discoveries and it’s commensurability with traditions of early Churches storing ‘original’ books would impact how critical scholars would analyze such a discovery? Hope that makes sense!
I”m not quite sure what you’re suggesting. I don’t think there are any fragments of NT writings that continue to be held by churches today that are older than what we all know about. In fact, i’m pretty sure there arenen’t. And no, the text of Secret Mark was found only in a copy found in the back pages of a printed edition of the letters of Ignatius — that is, it is not an ancient manuscript.
The Catholic Church kept the Codex Vaticanus under wraps for a long time, which may have contributed to the stories Mae is referring to. But obviously, they’ve made it accessible to scholarly study for a while now.
The possibility of the Vatican secretly holding an even older Biblical manuscript sounds more like the plot of a Dan Brown thriller than anything that might happen in real life.
I’m not sure they kept Vaticanus under wraps did they? My impression is that no one knew it was in there — but if I’m wrong about that, I’d love to know! I completely agree on the Dan Brown comparison!
Does the composition of the ink on a manuscript help palaeographers decide on the dating and where a manuscript was written?
In theory it could but it doesn’t help a *lot* — unless of course it’s found to be modern ink!
I think one would have to turn to science. Various nondestructive techniques now exist to test the composition of the ink used. The document medium itself could be analyzed at various wavelengths to determine of it is parchment or palimpsest. Palimpsest might be useful if the original document could be discovered. In modern example think of a note on the back of a dated legal document. That data along with the paleography work could get it pretty darn certain. I don’t think any ‘one’ analytic method would yield a valid date.
That’s not going to help on this particular question, I’m afraid. If Mark wrote his Gospel and the next week someone copied it, you wouldn’t know through this kind of analysis if you were dealing with Mark’s copy or the first copy of Mark’s copy made a week later.
It may be true that ancient manuscripts never quite said “This book has been written in my own hand.” But don’t some of Paul’s epistles come close? Apparently he dictated most or all of them, then often included a few lines at the end that he wrote personally. In Gal 6:11 he even comments “See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand.”
If a copy of one of the epistles were found with a few lines written in an obviously different way at the end (with “large letters”), that would surely be as good an internal indication as you could hope for that this really was the original. Of course, it’s true you still couldn’t be sure. It might be a clever copy made by someone in ancient times trying to pass it off as the original.
Oh, some books definitely say that. As you say, it is in GAlatians 6:11. But that doesn’t mean that the manuscript you’re reading the words in was actually made by Paul. It means Paul said that in the original copy. And if you had a copy of Galatians that did have larger letters for that verse (we don’t have, but even if we did) that still wouldn’t tell you if Paul wrote it. It could just as easily be a later scribe writing it in bigger letters because the text says it’s *supposed* to be written in bigger letters.
Hypothetically, what would you think if those two were written in completely different hands, not just different sizes? Would you expect a scribe to hand over copying of just that closing verse to another scribe for the sake of verisimilitude?
I don’t know, actually. That would be interesting. Not probative necessarily, but intriguing! Unfortunately we don’t have anything like it and so it’s hard to provide an analysis of it.
Bart, Great points!
Not to mention that, if it is a Greek or Latin document representing the Aramaic teachings/sources, we would still not know if the translation was 100% accurate. A slightly later, less ‘original’ document might have the translations closer to the original non-Greek-language sources. I am slowly learning more about reading Hebrew and Greek and I already see the many difficulties in translation that can occur on practically every page. Originals publications may not accurately reflect the origin/source. We often see this type of issue in music publications.
I believe you have mentioned before that the ancients’ practice was to destroy what they had just copied since they now have a fresh copy, correct? So all originals are likely gone?
I was referring to Jewish tradition in the Middle Ages.
Aw! So does that mean in ancient times, the originals were generally kept after being copied?
Yup, though not usually preserved as of huge importance (hey, I have a copy; why do I need the original?)
We have 300 year gap between the writing of mark and first available manuscript, how much has mark been harmonised with the later gospels? We have caught christians harmonising john with matthew (stabbing of jesus). Can stylometric analysis help and see if mattheian, johinean or lukan style has crept into mark ?
I wish we knew. But without intervening manuscripts, we don’t have the evidence we need.
Professor, notwithstanding that scholars will always argue, even those that agree saying “yes but” , and apologist will … be apologist; does not the … likely condition of the oral traditions the gospel was based on as you discussed in “Jesus Before the Gospels” make any autograph historically somewhat moot?
It depends what debate your thinking of that has made teh point moot. If you mean the actual words of Jesus, it certainly complicates matters. If you mean knowing what an author actually said about Jesus, it would be extremely faluable to have their writing itself.
Bart,
I’ve searched up Mark Goodacre on this website and haven’t found much. Maybe I’m crap at searching but have you addressed his arguments that Luke copied Matthew and his (less developed) argument that John knows the other 3? I’m wondering what to make of that but seems like a big paradigm shift that leaves us with Mark and Matthew as the only 2 gospels in the first century and somewhat close to the disciples and Paul.
I”ve never addressed it in print, no. But we’ve talked about it a lot! He’s my colleague at across-town Duke.
Oh man you sure know how to leave tantalizing responses I suppose that’s a a prompt BART LETS HAVE HIM ON HERE TO DISCUSS THAT!
See now you can tell him your blog readers insist!
He’s made a number of guest posts on the blog before. Search his name and you’ll see!
To follow up on my question above regarding Ephesians. I’ve also heard Tom Wright, while doing a lecture on his book ‘Paul: A Biography’ (YouTube) say that “Paul wrote Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians and Philemon from prison in Ephesus.”
I’m in the beginning stages of ‘from Fundamentalism to Eyes Wide Open’ and to have Biblical Scholars (conservative and liberal) who dig their heels in, say two different things with fervency can be overwhelming. That’s why I love the statement ‘It’s not what to think but how to think’. As you often say, “Just do the work and you can figure it out yourself”.
I do have your book Forgery and I’ll check out that chapter regarding Ephesians. Thanks.
Great! Yes, my Forgery book gives a brief overview of the evidence; it you want to see it laid out more fully, I get into the weeds in Forgery and Counterforgery.
Interesting thought experiment. But surely the autograph of any of the synoptics would be far more illuminating than the original of the Gospel of John. If your hypothetical find can be 1st-century fiction, why not just go for it?
Imagine it is, instead, a previously unknown epistle from Peter or James or John that paleography (and, maybe, radiocarbon analysis) dates to, say, the mid-50s CE, addressed to Paul. 🤔
The author, asserting his authority as the successor Jesus, himself, had personally chosen (or as his brother, or as his most beloved disciple) and — speaking on behalf of all three — tells the self-proclaimed “Apostle to the Gentiles” to STOP claiming to know the Messiah he never even heard of until after his death! That whatever it was he saw in his alleged vision on the road to Damascus, it obviously could NOT have been the risen Jesus because what he is preaching contradicts everything the living Jesus ever actually said. “Pharisee Paul, I lived with Jesus Christ. I knew Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was a friend of mine. Pharisee Paul, you’re no Jesus Christ!”
Now THAT is a find that would shake thing up! 😱