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Here’s a way to think about what it can even mean to talk about an “original text,” from a post many years ago, published when I was just finishing up one of my books.
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In my debates with other scholars about whether we can know (for certain) (or at they sometimes put it, with 99% certainty) what the original words of the New Testament were, I always argue that we cannot “know,” and they argue we can. Let me explain one reason that I find their position highly problematic by dealing with a broader issue. What exactly *is* the original text of a document? If we can’t agree on that very basic and fundamental question, then we can’t very well agree on the possibility of getting back to the original.
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Hi Bart. I have a question about the chapter: “Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones” in your heaven and hell book. Somehow, I am not quite sure that God was meaning the resurerrection and hope of the nation itself. We read: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.” Where does it imply that God doesn’t mean the individual resurrection here ? Tbh, it’s 50%-50%, the reason being is that these people as God says are saying: “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.” and God gives them breath – if you are implying that God gave these bones new life(instead of resurrection), where is this shown ? Thank you <3
I think you need to read the passage in its context in Ezekiel, to understand what situation Ezekiel is addressing and what he is saying thrughout his book. The nation of Israel has been destroyed and sent into exile, but God will be restoring it to life and bring it back to the land. REad chapter 36 right before it and chapter 39 after. Context is essential for making sense of metaphor.
I think maybe you are over-exaggerating to make your point. Or perhaps we are just asking the wrong question when we want to know what was the ‘original’. When I wrote papers in college (which wasn’t often really since I was a physics major and that was not a big part of my coursework) I produced three things: An outline, a handwritten draft, and a final typed copy that I turned in. The outline was just a tool to help me organize the first handwritten draft and would have made no sense to anybody but me. The handwritten draft was where I actually wrote the paper and produced a complete copy. The final typed copy was the edited version, and the only one that got out into circulation (audience of 1 – my instructor who was grading it). The point is only the final draft was what I would call the ‘original’, since I considered the others just steps along the way to creating the final version. Wouldn’t you agree that we could take the same approach in NT texts – then the final version sent out would be the ‘original’.
Yes, that’s one view, and one I incline to. The one first put in circulation is the “original.” But what if your teacher corrected it, and you made revisions, and then published it in a student journal. And the editor at the journal corrected some of your grammar in places? Then which is the original of the article you published? The one everyone read, the one you submitted, or the one you turned in for class. It may sound like nit-picking, but the reality is that most textual scholars of the NT in America and Europe have stopped using the term “original.” In part that’s because of these problems and in part because they’ve become convinced that we can find the oldest form of the text behind our surivivng manuscripts, but there’s no way of knowin if that oldest attainable form of the text was the oldest form of the text, let alone the original text.
An interesting example here is the Book of Mormon, where there’s the “original” manuscript (of which around a quarter survives), a copy-edited “printer’s manuscript,” and the first printing which sometimes follows the original manuscript and sometimes the printer’s manuscript.
“She may not like the way I begin sentences with “But” or “And”; she may not like my extensive use of dashes instead of commas;”
I just want to say I’m on your side on both of these issues.
The original is in the mind of the originator.
“The original is in the mind of the originator.”
If so, then we have no access, ever, to the “original” of any text. That may well be true, but makes the word “original” completely useless for any discussion of texts and transmission of texts.
Is it necessarily true that the NT authors dictated their work to only ONE scribe. Even Tertius of Romans might have been the leader of a group of scribes.
I say this in view of the fact that there was no postal service in those days and if the author (e.g. Paul) wanted to make sure that his letter got to its destination, he might have dictated to a group of scribes and produced several copies and sent them by way of several individuals who might be going to say, Corinth.
We do know of multiple scribes making subsequent copies of a text at one time, but I don’t think we know of multiple scribes ever being used for correspondence or literary treatises by an author in the Greek and Roman Worlds.
For published works I have to go with the text put in circulation as most representative of the authors intent except perhaps for the title which I understanding is frequently under the control of the publisher. That said … in one of my favorite Mexican cookbooks, about a third of it is upside down, which I doubt author Rick Bayless intended.
PS: Bayless is really good.. if your from North of the Red River beware the pepper!
Maybe we should call them “the received text”!😂