(9 votes, average: 4.78 out of 5)
Loading...I have often talked about scribes of the New Testament sometimes being careless, occasionally making rather amazing mistakes. Most of the time, of course, scribes were careful and accurate, but every now and then they would make a mess up by, say, leaving out a word or three, or an entire line, or copying the same word twice, etc. And sometimes they added things they thought ought to be in the text but were not.
Only in a few places does that involve MAJOR additions, the two largest and most significant by far are
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Dr Ehrman,
Each time that you have mentioned scribes making intentional and non-intentional mistakes, I have thought of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (set in the later Middle Ages, but still). I like to imagine that in the non-intentional cases it was the inadvertent mistake of one of the sleep-deprived, carpal tunnel syndrome-prone young monks sitting in rows in the scriptorium.
But for the intentional ones, we’re probably looking at characters more like Jorge of Burgos. If he said that variant B was the only authoritative one to be written down, then so be it…
Hello!
I have a question for Bart (OK, actually three). What was the position or role of the apostles in the early movement? Was it the top of a hierarchical structure? Was it an ordained ministry? I ask because I’m a former minister from the New Apostolic Church (basically a fundamentalist church, (although they don’t like being labeled as such), and they believe that my two follow-up questions would be answered “Yes!”. They also believe Peter to always have been considered the head of the overall church, just like their global leader (called the Chief Apostle, which, in fact, is a title that they label Peter with).
After reading many of your books (and many by other scholars), I don’t believe any of this anymore. But I’d really like to get your take.
Thank you Dr. Ehrman for all of your great work!
The early Christian movement didn’t have any official structure in its leadership, the way that, say, modern denominations today have. Peter appears to have been looked on as the leader of the church at the earliest stage, since he was Jesus’s rigth hand man, and later, maybe because Peter left for missionary work, James was then seen as the head. But that was only in the church in Jerusalem, and it wasn’t an official office of some kind. The hierarchies that came into place were many years later, toward the end of the NT period.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. It’s always reassuring to know that there was someone (in history) more incompetent than me 🙂.
Do you think that the scribe was also the translator, by which I mean, was the scribe just copying a bad Latin translation and making additional mistakes, or was he responsible for the whole sorry mess?
PS. At my high school, Latin was compulsory for everyone for the first three years 😳
It’s debated whether hte scribes was the translator or not. My sense is that he was copying a bad Latin translation and made it worse.
How do we know that the copyist did not have two versions in front of him and decided (or had been told) to copy both, as we would?
By the way Ian Mills has recently repeated the view that copyists should not be blamed for deliberate changes to texts. Others were responsible. Yet you continue to blame copyists, without evidence.
You’re proposing that the copyist was asked to reproduce two different copies of a sermon of Ambrose one after the other? I suppose that’s not usually thought to be likely because we don’t know of it happening anywhere else. Do you have some examples in mind? I asked Ian about that in November (we had a long talk about lots of things — as you know he was my student). Of course he thinks copyists changed things. Whether anyone is to be “blamed” for changing a text on purpose is, I suppose, a question of ethics, not of transcription. (As you probably know, there’s plenty of evidence in manuscripts themselves that canges were deliberate. Check out the marginal note in Vaticanus in Hebrews 1!)
There is no point in my discussing this with you. You continue to confuse the issue and dodge the question.
What about illiterate scribes? Could ancient starving artists, who were good at copying, earn a few drachmas
copying manuscripts, not knowing what they were writing like copy machines?
There’s some evidence of that, yes, mainly in non-Christian texts. Some of it kind of humorous (one is a manuscript in which a local scribe in a town practiced writing his name repeatedly, at one point misspelled it ,and from then on continued to replicate the mistake….)
Dr. Ehrman’,
Related to scribal additions (and how we share an affinity for Ecclesiastes), you’ve said on the blog that its epilogue was added later. I completely agree. And I think it was done clumsily.
Keep the commandments for this is the the duty of man.
Ok. The commandments were ever, only, specially for Jews. My question (and I don’t even care if you speculate wildly): who can you imagine adding the epilogue? Someone Jewish, or later Christian, or ??? Not only does the epilogue not flow from the body, but the admonition for man to keep the commandments feels so very much clunky to me.
Thoughts?
It’s usually thought to have been a pious Jewish scribe who wanted the book to end on the right note.
This is very interesting, but I want to ask a question about this: “MAJOR additions, the two largest and most significant by far are Mark 16:9-20, and John 7:53-8:11.” I know a lot has been said about this by you and others, but I asked Dr. Wallace and never heard back so I’ll ask you. No one ever mentions Tatian’s Diatessaron when discussing these scriptures. I’m sure you know that the Diatessaron dates to 150ad circulation, and that it was used by many of the churches at that time as their teaching/scripture source. The Diatessaron has the long ending of Mark, but does not have the beginning of John 8. So the question is, “how should the Mark and John passages be viewed in light of this?” Justin(130ad), Irenaeus(180ad) and Hipolytus(200ad) were all familiar with the longer ending of Mark as well, yet no one until the time of Augustine (that I could find) indicated they knew about the story from the beginning of John 8. How should the Diatessaron evidence be viewed?
Yes, Dan and all textual scholars know quite well about the Diatessaron. But what no one knows quite well is what was actually in it. For some passages we have good evidence, for others, not. I don’t recall just now, and am far from any of my reference books: What is our evidence that it had Mark 16:8-20 and did not have the story of the woman taken in adultery?
And where are you getting your information about the church fathers’ knowledg of the longer ending of Mark?
“Information about the church fathers’ knowledge”
“….towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: ‘So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God’ confirming what had been spoken by the prophet: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on My right hand, until I make Your foes Your footstool.” Irenaeus:Against Heresies, Bk III, 10:5 quoting Mark 16:19
“hear what was said by the prophet David…..he says, ‘He shall send to You the rod of power out of Jerusalem,’ is predictive of the mighty word, which His apostles, going forth from Jerusalem, preached everywhere….” Justin:1st Apology, 45 also from Mark 16:19, but not as certain
“For if they eat [Eucharist] with faith, even though some deadly poison is given to them, after this it will not be able to harm them.” Hippolytus:Apostolic Tradition, 36:1 quoting Mark:16:18
See also Apostolic Constitutions,1:1, verbatim from Mark 16:17,18. Preserved from Hippolytus Peri Charismatum?
However, Metzger writes:“Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from *almost* all Greek copies of Mark known to them.”
Thanks. Yes, Irenaeus did. The others, I don’t know; it’s not clear they’re getting their words from Mark.
I don’t see anything here to contradict what Metzger says? He’s mentioning Clement, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome because they were deeply interested [well, not Clement so much] in the biblical text and frequently commented on variations in the MSS known to them.
Here is the evidence you asked for. Why is it that you say “no one knows quite well is what was actually in it?” On this subject every source I’ve found reads the same. Thanks for your response.
Diatessaron 35:16, ends with John 7:52, “Search, and see that a prophet rises not from Galilee.” Then it picks back up at 35:23 with John 8:12 “Jesus addressed them again, and said, I am the light of the world.” No John 8:1-11.
Diatessaron 53:25 quotes Mark 16:9.
Diatessaron 55:3 quotes Mark 16:14
Diatessaron 55:8-11 quotes Mark 16:16-18
Diatessaron 55:16 quotes Mark 16:20
Newadvent.org/fathers
IMO easiest source to navigate
Interesting. Since we don’t actually have teh Diatessaron, and there are seroius disputes about what was in it (the scholarship is inordinately complicated) can you tell me where the New Advent is getting its informatoin? I know a couple of scholars who have written on the contents of the Diatessaron, and can ask what htey think of this (as I think I said, I’m out of town and don’t have any referene books with me).
I’m not sure where New advent.org got their information, it is a Roman Catholic run cite. Here’s a good source: earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html This next seems to be an over view consistent with other ai sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatessaron although I’m cautious when it comes to AI and Wiki. However, they confirm my original comments about Mark 16 and John 8. If anything, the Diatessaron totally supports your work refuting innerancy IMO. I tried to follow in Tatian’s footsteps and found a number of things that disagreed and the apologists answers I found to be lacking and unsatisfactory for the most part. Also, I wasn’t trying to refute Metzger’s observation, only pointing out what he had to say about Mark 16.
From new advent.org: New Advent is maintained by a Catholic layman named Kevin Knight.
From another site: Kevin explained that he watches about 500 feeds every day, and he receives links from writers around the country. New Advent offers a mix of cultural observations, Catholic topics, whimsical pieces and lighthearted stories. In choosing stories to cover, Knight tries to stay away from polemics, the standard talking points of one side or the other, for example, in the liturgy wars. He looks for writers who speak with the Church, and for Catholic news which is presented from a different angle.
Are we sure the duplicate text is from inattention? Could this have been a student practicing?
It doesn’t look like it, since the scribe was producing a lengthy manuscript, not just this passage.
Maybe a stupid question, but could the translator of our Muratorian ms had been a student tasked with translating the text twice by his teacher? And not being brilliant at it…
He didn’t copy the canon list twice, or the other documents in the book. Just this one text.
To copy out a whole section for the second time and not be aware of it, as this Muratori guy did, is truly baffling. He must have gotten used to those punishments schoolmasters gave in the old days. Since he was living when the printing press was already around, can you confirm that he was making a handwritten copy of this text, whose original was already in Latin (by Ambrose) contrary to the canon list before it that also had to be translated from Greek, and that unlike the original, we do have the actual Muratori manuscript (rather than yet another copy made of it)?
This is just so strange. Is there any chance that Muratori somehow had _two_ originals for the Ambrose text, that did not line up exactly, and that unable to decide which one was best he copied both, warts and all?
It doesn’t look likely, no. (It’s not Muratori who copied the manuscxript, btw; he’s the one who discovered it). The reason is that the scribe produced more than just this one text; it’s a collection of books.
J.B. Philips “corrected” a clerical error in the 14th chapter of 1st Corinthians.
Was Papias familiar with John 8:1-11? Gospel according to Hebrews?
We don’t know about John (though some scholars insistently insist he did). He is reported to have known about the Gospel of the Hebrews.
FYI back in my senior year in university I took a graduate-level course on English history. Part of it involved a presentation and paper I had to deliver about the Domesday Book. We were required to work from and quote only the Latin text. And the presentation included questions & answers where Latin citations were expected (where appropriate). I’d learned a little Latin previously, but had to scramble to get better mastery of it.
I knew better than to question this or complain about it, since I knew what my professor’s response would have been: “You wanted to take a grad course, well, this is a grad course!” So I got through it. And yes, I had to extemporaneously answer a question that included some Latin.
Whoa… That doesn’t sound like something that happened in 2009…. disabledupes{ac6bd5ae90470787107cfe31d518530c}disabledupes
You’re right! It didn’t happen in 2009. It happened in the 1980s. (There, I dated myself. Oops!)