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Loading...I indicated in my previous post that the overall character of the text (as opposed to the apparatus) of the Greek New Testament in 1981 was widely perceived by New Testament scholars in to be pretty much “set,” and not all much different from what it had been in 1881. I need to explain that a bit.
I chose 1881 intentionally (not just for personal reasons: by fluke, it happens to have been exactly a century before I finished my Master’s degree in which I focused on New Testament textual criticism). 1881 was a very big year for the field. It was the year that two famous New Testament scholars from England, named Fenton John Anthony Hort and Brooke Foss Westcott, published their highly significant edition of the Greek New Testament, which they called, with some temerity, The New Testament in the Original Greek. (Temerity because they were claiming to have solved virtually all the problems of establishing “the” original text.)
This was a huge event, as it turns out. But to make sense of why it was so huge I have to give a good bit of background. I think I can pull that off in a single post. (You can read more about all this in my book Misquoting Jesus.)
As is well known, throughout the middle ages, the Bible used in the Western (Roman Catholic) church was the Latin Bible, originally going back to translations of the Bible from Greek into Latin in the early fifth century (the so-called “Vulgate” produced, in part, by the famous church father and scholar extraordinaire, Jerome). Following the Renaissance, with its emphasis on the classics and its “rediscovery” of ancient authors in their original languages, and during the Reformation and the new found interest in knowing the “original” words of the New Testament, over which there was so much wrangling, editions of the Greek New Testament started to appear.
The first to be published was …
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Bart, another great post. The early history of Christianity is fascinating to me.
This is OT (I’m still reading the textbook!). But I can’t resist posting it.
I’ve never been convinced that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. I don’t doubt that he held the same or very similar views. And I’m not denying that he may have been baptized. I just think that it’s – at most – a 50% possibility.
If Jesus’s starting point was Nazareth, he would have had to make a week-long hike to Judea. He must already have known the nature of John’s teachings, and known he agreed, or he wouldn’t have considered it. So he could have become an apocalypticist in Galilee, whether or not he ever crossed paths with John.
That trek to Judea would make sense if he intended to stay there, and become a disciple of John.
It would also make sense if he believed baptism itself was important. In that case, he would have performed baptisms during his own ministry…and before John was arrested, urged others to go to him for baptisms.
But as far as I know, we’re not told he ever did any of those things.
It would also make sense if he expected John to take time away from his baptizing to have a long theological discussion with him. But since John almost certainly wouldn’t have done it, Jesus would have kept the story to himself.
The baptism makes better sense if Jesus’s starting point was Jerusalem…if he’d gone there for a Passover, and heard about John (probably for the first time). But if that was the case, it’s surprising that the Gospels don’t mention it.
The main argument for the baptism story is that Jesus’s followers wouldn’t have invented something that made it seem he was inferior to John. But when both men were dead, I think they might well have made it up…as a means of attracting John’s followers! It wasn’t as though John was a living rival.
An afterthought: Jesus might have made that trek to Judea to learn whether John was claiming to be the Messiah. (Whether or not he already believed he himself was the Messiah.) In that case, it’s possible that if he’d concluded John was the “anointed one,” he would have stayed in Judea and become his disciple.
But I still think it’s no more than a 50% possibility.
Just saw your Bible Secrets Revealed Made me think of this blog
CAN YOU POST THIS PLEASE BART
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter,b and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hadesc will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will bed bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will bee loosed in heaven.” 20Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
(13) Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”
Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”
Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”
Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.”
Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”
Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”
(13) Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”
Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”
Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”
Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.”
Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”
Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”
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46) Jesus said, “Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no one so superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered (before him). Yet I have said, whichever one of you comes to be a child will be acquainted with the kingdom and will become superior to John.”
28I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
(46) Jesus said, “Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no one so superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered (before him). Yet I have said, whichever one of you comes to be a child will be acquainted with the kingdom and will become superior to John.
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I was just listening to an interview of an eminent Jesuit theologian, Joseph Lienhard, in which he explained that as a young man, having been very interested in Greek and Latin from the start, he had to decide what to do with that. He said he considered New Testament studies, but he felt it was too limited a field–so few texts to work with, and at the time he was weighing his options–he’s 75 now–the attitude would be that most of the real heavy lifting in that field was already done, as you’ve been explaining to us the last few days.
He went into Patristics, studying the writings of the early Church Fathers in Latin and Greek (there’s also quite a lot in other languages), and as he said “They have a LOT of books.” It would be the work of a lifetime to seriously study just a fraction of what they wrote. But none of what they wrote as important as these few books written by far less learned men (maybe Augustine comes close)–and we don’t understand them nearly as well as we thought.
However, would somebody like Lienhard, with a sincere religious vocation, be able to do the work that needs doing in that field, and remain a priest? It isn’t that he’s shocked in any way by people having different religious beliefs than him, or none–Jesuits are a pretty tolerant bunch, I’ve found, and quite difficult to shock. It’s just that you don’t necessarily want to examine the core texts of your faith too closely, if you want to preserve the tenets of that faith. Probably nobody’s core beliefs really hold up to close scrutiny that well, because beliefs are emotional in their nature, irrational. And we all have them. We can’t really live without believing in things that can’t be proven.
He can be objective about the Church Fathers, because much as he may respect their contributions to his religion, they’re still just men, who argued vociferously among themselves, and apparently gossiped about each other like old fishwives.
I know there have been priests and other clerics who seriously examined the underpinnings of Christianity, who questioned the divinity of Jesus–but in so doing, they alienated themselves from the communities they came from, to a great extent.
And look who I’m telling this. 😉
Yes, he’s a very fine scholar. And yes, it is absolutely possible to remain a faithful priest and to work diligently and importantly in that field.