In discussing the background to my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture I have so far been talking about the issue of early Christian diversity, so as to explain what the term “orthodox” in the title means. I now want to turn more fully to a discussion of the term “corruption,” and to do that I need to provide some basics about the general field of inquiry that the book is devoted to, the textual criticism of the New Testament.
The first thing to emphasize is that the term “textual criticism” is a technical term with a very specific meaning. Lay people often misuse the term, not knowing that it refers to a particular and highly specialized field of study. The term does *not* simply mean “the study of texts” or “literary analysis of texts” or anything similar. Thus, if someone is engaged, for example, in the interpretation of a text, that is *not* “textual criticism.”
Instead, textual criticism is the discipline that seeks to reconstruct the text that an author wrote when we no longer have his or her original, but only later copies. That is to say, it is the discipline that tries to establish what the original words were – or at least tries to decide which words to print if there are a variety of options. (In fact, it tries to reconstruct the text of the author even if we *have* the original. I’ll explain below.)
Suppose you have….
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I’m looking forward to learning more about something (textual criticism) I had no interest in before reading today’s post.
I love this stuff, Bart. Thanks for this very clear explanation!
Great topic. I’m looking forward to the rest of this series.
hello bart
i have heard you saying we dont know who wrote those 4 gospels . as muslim i found that ludicrous when christians accept those books and use them . in islam we have system called isnad which a list of authorities who have transmitted a report (ḥadīth) of a statement, action, or approbation of Muhammad, one of his Companions (Ṣaḥābah), or of a later authority (tabīʿ); its reliability determines the validity of a ḥadīth. The isnād precedes the actual text (matn) and takes the form, “It has been related to me by A on the authority of B on the authority of C on the authority of D (usually a Companion of the Prophet) that Muhammad said. before we accept one saying of the prophet we have to know who heard it from him . if we cant know who did then the saying is thrown out it will never make it in any book . so if we use this system with your gospels they will all be thrown out as forgery . do you think personaly this isnad system is good way or not ?
THAN YOU
There are scholars who have called into question the accuracy of the transmission of the sayings of Mohammed, but I’m not an expert in the field and so really don’t have anything to say about it.
those who have called into question the accuracy of the transmission of the saying of mohamed are not experts of hadith science therefore their opinion is an opinion of layman . nobody is saying that all thousands hadiths are 100 % true hadith are categorized as ṣaḥīḥ (sound, authentic), ḍaʿīf (weak), or mawḍūʿ (fabricated). Other classifications used also include: ḥasan (good). Mutawatir hadiths are the most accurate because they are narrated by such a large number in a manner that all the narrators are unanimous in reporting it with the same words without any substantial discrepancy and it has been narrated by a number of people in every level of the chain such that it is impossible for all of them to make a mistake or error.
more definition of Mutawatir hadith :
Mutawatir is that Hadith which has been narrated by so many whose agreement over a lie would have been impossible, (nor an error would be possible). Another condition is that the numbers should be found in every link of the chain of narrators. That is, from the Companions, down to a Follower, down to the time when it was recorded, at every link the number should be that large.
Going to be fun for future specialists in this field, when they’re dealing with texts that were 100% digitally composed and published.
Man, I love this topic! Thanks this was a particularly good and helpful post Bart. Looking forward very much to the next few posts.
John
So all of your work relates to determining what text might have been altered in order to fit the proto orthodox view and to refute those who wanted to go in another direction with what Christianity was supposed to be. So how many significant changes in the Gospels have been made to get everyone on the same page? ( approximately).
We’re talking about many dozens, not many thousands. But I’ll be discussing all that in subsequent posts.
I look forward to learning more about the “standard” criteria.
Hi Bart, I would like to know how scholars determine or estimate the date of the original manuscripts (when written) when clearly we do not have the originals to date by carbon 14 or by text styles? Scholars say Mark was the first gospel written and was penned 30 to 40 years after Christ’s death. I am new here, you may have covered this elsewhere, if so, please redirect me to the article.
It’s very difficult! In the case of Mark, it is often thought that Mark 13:1-2 indicates that hte author knew about the destruction of the Temple. If so, then it would date to a period after 70 CE. I will be dealing with the dating of the Gospels in my new book, coming out in March.
Thanks, looking forward to that.
Dear Dr. Ehrman,
I tried to find the answer to this question elsewhere on the blog, but doesn’t look like you’ve written on it? Apologies if you have.
I was doing some research into John 7:8 about “not yet” being fully present there or not (“I am not [yet(?)] going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” – NRSVue). The Center for New Testament Restoration puts “I am _not yet_ (ουπω) going to this festival” as 98% of the manuscripts, but the NA28 and most Bibles have just “I am _not_ (οὐκ) going to this festival” (ESV, NASB, NIV, NRSVue).
How, with such good MSS evidence, do translators – from such a range of translations, seem to think οὐκ is a better reading than ουπω? (I know the answer to “why”: it was introduced early on to harmonize with what is said two verses later. – NET footnote (7:8 [c])) Said a different way: what is the process used by textual critics to determine οὐκ over ουπω, when ουπω has such better MSS evidence?
Thank you for your work! 😀
– Rob
The way textual scholars determine which reading is “better” and therefore more probably “original” is not by counting the manuscripts that have one of the readings or the other. On the surface, it may seem sensible to take the majority reading as better, especially if it’s an overwhelming majority. But the vast majority of those 98% are from 800 years after the original, and those copies were made mainly from copies over 700 years after the original, which were made from copies over 600 years…. etc. So one major question is what do the *earliest* manuscripts say, expecially if most of them have the *same* reading that *differs* from the later one. That is especially important if the *early* reading is also the one that you would expect that scribes would WANT to change for obvious reasons. Thie reading “not” going to Jerusalem (as opposed to “not yet”) is an EARLY reading which very much is one scribes would WANT to change; and so hundreds of LATER manuscripts have the other reading, but that doesn’t mean it’s more likely original. Make sense?
Dear Dr. Ehrman,
Thank you for your response; I really appreciate it. Yes, I can see how the percentage can be skewed towards solidified interpolations; that makes sense.
In looking at the CNTR’s data, it does show that P66 and P75 do have ουπω; MSSs 03 (~340 CE), 032 (~440 CE), 029 (~400 CE) and 0323 (~400 CE) do as well. While just MSSs 01 (~340 CE) and 05 (~400 CE) have οὐκ. So, 6/8 earliest textual witnesses have ουπω > οὐκ (at least, the 8 displayed on CNTR’s website). The Translation Comment in the NET even muddles my understanding more:
“Most mss (P66,75 B L T W Θ Ψ 070 0105 0250 ƒ1,13 M sa), including most of the better witnesses, have ‘not yet’ (οὔπω, oupō) here. Those with the reading οὐκ are not as impressive (א D K 1241 al lat)…”
If the earlier and better MSSs have οὔπω > οὐκ, then why does the NA28 and most translations use the less attested reading?
This may be getting too specific – I’m just trying to understand 🙂 .
Again, thank you for your work! 😀
P.S. here’s the CNTR website: https://greekcntr.org/collation/index.htm
Because the internal evidence is deemed overwhelmingly in support of οὐκ as the more difficult reading.