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Loading...QUESTION:
When it comes to the gospels, how do we define the ‘original text’? Do we define it as the original manuscript that was first penned by the author, or do we define it as the gospels in their most settled canonical form?
RESPONSE:
As it turns out, this is a complicated and endlessly fascinating question that, so far as I have been able to work out over the past twenty years of thinking about it, has no clear and obvious answer!
By way of very simple background for readers not completely on top of the textual situation we are confronting when it comes to the Gospels (or any of the other books of the New Testament) (or of any ancient Christian writings at all) (or, in fact, of any writings of any kind at all that come down to us from antiquity) we do not have the “originals” (however we define that term: see below!). What we have are copies made from copies, which were themselves made from copies. Most of these copies are hundreds of years after the books were put in circulation, and all of the surviving copies contain mistakes of one kind or another. The task is to use the surviving copies – some of which are in all certainty more reliable than others – to determine the original text.
But what is the original text?
Here’s the problem, or at least part of it. You might think – for years I thought – that the answer is very simple. The “original” is …
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Yes, but nobody other than scholars gets excited over the original text of Plato’s Republic or Cicero’s letters. Even though both have exercised a powerful influence on posterity. Everybody gets excited about the gospels. Because, you know, they’re supposed to be gospel. When we use that word now, we’re at least as likely to mean “the unvarnished truth” as “good news.”
Fundamentalist Christians want to believe that the text they read–in their own language–is the text. Period.
And some non-believers just want to pare away at the text because it would bother the Christians, and because they’d like to just keep paring away until there’s nothing left, even the memory of Jesus. It’s an attack on the very principle that these words represent anything other than myth.
But of course, texts everybody now acknowledges as myth have the same problems, and so do texts we all acknowledge are based on the deeds of genuine historical figures. (And not just from ancient times, either.)
But at its core, this should be a matter for the scholars–the ones who want to know the answers for no other reason that they are the answers. The ones who want to know the gospel truth. For the truth shall set ye free.
Well, as you once wrote me, you can interpret “a” Bible literally, but there is no “the” Bible to interpret literally.
This is absolutely fascinating – many thanks, Bart!
Do you know what the usual practice was for reproducing and circulating the written gospels when first produced?
Were copies commissioned privately by wealthy Christians who wanted a copy for their church, for example, or did early centres of Christianity such as Rome, Ephesus and Antioch sponsor the reproduction of gospels to send out to smaller churches?
I ask, as it would be interesting to know if there was an ‘official’ hand behind the reproduction and circulation of gospels, as this may tell us if the larger churches had a part to play in authorising certain gospels, and perhaps editing them further.
Early on they would have almost certainly been circulated informally: when someone saw or knew of a Gospel that would be useful for his/her church, they figured out a way to get someone to copy it and then take it back home. It was only much later (third century?) that leaders became more active in procuring copies. For an insightful study of the circulation and distribution of early Christian literature, see Harry Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church.
I think the original was the one where John was at his desk, looked up and saw bright multicolored lights in the sky above his house. His pupils retracted to reveal glowing aqua-colored sclera and his hand began to write at lightning speed. After a few minutes, the multicolored lights disappeared and his eyes returned to normal, though his hand was still smoking a bit. And when he looked down at his desk, there it was, a complete inerrant gospel. That one’s the original.
I hate to quibble with such a convincing account, but there is zero evidence anyone in that era of history used desks.
😉
Did the Church Fathers ever quote from the Gospels or Paul’s letters anything that isn’t in the NT today?
Yes, there are quotations, for example, that appear to derive from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of the Hebrews, and other books.
Yes, Fascinating.
Are the claims that Satan and demons can manipulate minds biblically supported
No.
Well put!
Most of the major changes in manuscripts were done by 300 CE. Can you or scholars in general estimate how many more changes had been done during the time we have no record of anything? I mean the time “before” oldest manuscripts we have were made and before church fathers writings etc. (How many changes, how big, simply what can we say about the original text’s sad childhood life?)
Many/most (?) of these pre-300 changes are in fact not found in mss from before 300. (On a big scale, for example, the woman taken in adultery and the last twelve verses of Mark: these problems are unattested before 300 — that is, we don’t have mss from then that evidence either the presence or absence of these verses, so that is “before we have a record” of anything, technically speaking). We know that the problems were created then for other reasons, that I’ve outlined earlier on the Blog.
Okay, now I understand that it is complicated to use “time scale”. You based your blog from Nov 5th on my question (thank you, btw.) that’s why I’m trying to formulate the second part of it in a way that it would make sense. I understand it this way – scholars have ways to come to something that is closest to the “original manuscript”. This is based on all the evidence that we have. Can you estimate how much does “this version they can get to” differ from the original version? Can you estimate how many scribal modifications are present “since the original”? You cannot say because there’s no evidence, but you probably do not think there are no more modifications just because there’s no evidence.
No, as you point out, I’m afraid there is simply no way to know. I think I’ll put the question in my mailbag and address it in a longer post.
If you’ve answered this elsewhere, please post the link and I will read it. If our earliest actual manuscript is p-52 (minus the elusive 90 ace mark segment only wallace & craig know about ????) and that has been dated early to mid 2nd century, how do scholars say that the gospels were written 45 – 65 years after jesus death? What is the earliest dated manuscript of an entire gospel that we posses? Minus radiocarbon dating and paleography that are used to date the papyrus and other material the texts are written on, what criteria do scholars use to take way older dated findings and ascribe them to earlier dates & times?
For every work from antiquity, the date is decided on grounds *other* than the ealriest surviving manuscript. Many of the Greek and Roman classics, for example, are found only in manuscripts of the middle ages. But the originals were necessarily many many centuries earlier than that. And so there are other grounds. I have talked about the “dating of the Gospels” before on the blog; if you search for that term, you’ll find some of the posts.
This is absolutely off the point, but I am reminded of an incident that happened to a friend of mine. The French department at her university brought to campus a young French woman to add to their faculty. But it was quickly discovered that her spoken English was not good enough to put her in the classroom right away. She was therefore given duties in the department office until her English improved. My friend had an idea for her next exam. She would write an essay in French containing all kinds of mistakes and pass these to her students with instructions for them to correct all the errors. Within a few minutes the best student in the class informed her that the essay was in perfect form, nary a mistake! My friend quickly looked at the essay and to her horror discovered that the student was right–there were no mistakes. Then it dawned on her that she had given the test to the young French woman to type and guess what….?
Are there any mss to support the possibility that more than one “original” ms got circulated? Suppose “John” never reused the papyrus on which one of his early drafts was written and it was found and circulated after his death
Ah, I have a theory about this with respect to the Gospel of John. I’ll add the question to the mailbag.
I saw a man who was arrested on TV say, ‘I didn’t kill nobody’. Which, of course is a confession that he killed someone. That is probably not what he meant to communicate of course, so the newspaper story the next day reported that he had said that he had not killed anyone, which is the opposite of what he said, but probably what he meant to say.
The original had him guilty.
Is the double negative a thing in Greek and Aramaic?
Double negatives in Greek make the statement emphatic, unlike in English.
I would be happy to have anything written directly by John or any other Gospel writer even if it was not the first version written by him (her?). So would (I think) every scholar.
If Jesus was teaching lessons from God for the Jew and Gentile to observe to do – to be “true”, they had to be in accord with the Jewish Holy Scripture of his day and the instruction of God regarding who He said to hear.
Why hasn’t Christian scholarship investigated their writings by the commandment and instruction of God on this vital topic? (Deut. 4, 12, 13, 18 and Jesus first teaching in Matthew that reflects that people should live by every word of God)
How many passages in the NT and Christian OT defy this evidential requirement?
I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re asking. Is it about how or whether Jesus’ teachings coincide with what is taught in the Hebrew Bible? That has been something Christian scholars have studied intensely for many centuries.
Interesting discussion!
What ‘bothers’ me is that many interpretations of stories in the bible continue to be misrepresented (by you too Bart!) even though all of the translations clearly (to me) shows it to be false.
For example, I am now reading your book “Jesus Before the Gospels.” I am really enjoying it so far and find the discussion on what we know about memory and how that relates to the writing of the Gospels to be fascinating.
Anyway, in your discussion (of the memories) on Jesus causing a ruckus in the Temple you repeat the notion that Jesus used a whip to drive out the money changers – the PEOPLE.
How do *you* get that reading of it? I am no linguist but in the different (English) translations – and doing my own translation from the Greek – I have read it seems clear to me (and many scholars on the NT that I have read) that Jesus is driving out BOTH sheep and cattle – but NOT the people. That is, Jesus was not acting violently but using a whip to herd the animals out as is normally the case. For example, in the NIV :
John 2:15
“15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”
Why do people still insist that Jesus whipped any of the people there? Where does that come from??
Peace.
The Greek word PANTAS is masculine plural, and so is not referring to the animals but to the people. “He drove them all out, along with the sheep and oxen”
Hello. Thanks for the reply. Not to argue the point but it should be noted that you seem to be fairly unique in that interpretation.
A literal translation from the Greek I think would be best given by
‘having fashioned a whip [phragellion – in this context a drover’s stock-whip?] out of cords he drove all of both the sheep and the oxen out of the Temple…”
To invoke just one scholar here, J.D. Crossan (who emphatically insists it was only the animals being driven out with the whip), from the NRSV “corrected from the Greek”:
“making a whip of chords he drove all of them out of the temple both the sheep and the cattle…”
The ‘both’ seems to clearly refer to the two species of animals.
Peace.
Yup, that may be right!
in your opinion is the Jewish reaction to Jesus’ vandalism pacifistic ?
They say, after Jesus disrupts and vandalises temple economy :
“What sign have you to show us for doing this?”
In the temple ,whip would be required ANYWAY to control the animals, but who would control the people unless they weren’t whipped?
Edwin Abbott Johannine grammar p37
John is reffering to a previous statement that jesu s ‘found in the temple those that were selling oxen and sheep and doves’
What follows may mean that Jesus drove ALL [OF THEM] out of the temple , both sheep and oxen (Greek ommitted) I.e the men and what they sold , indicating that ‘all [of them] ‘ INCLUDED their belonging , ‘sheep sellers and ox sellers, sheep, and ox en’
Robertson’ such a clause , inserted in the midst of the sentence without proper syntactical connection, is quite common in the not.
Avalos: if so , then Abbott is declaring that (Greek omitted) reflects a parenthetical insertion that emphasizes that oxen and sheep are also INCLUDED, but not that ‘all’ is LIMITED to oxen and sheep
Questions:
Animals don’t desecrate , people do. Why did Jesus leave UNWHIPPED those who were desecrating ?
2.Matthew 21:12 says traders were driven out
If he is not using whip, how is he driving out sheep and traders? Is he whipping animals and throwing blows on traders? If no violence is being done, why didn’t the traders pin Jesus to the floor to prevent him from vandalizing temple???
G’day Bart. Could you clarify is your use of the word “original” in this post different from on page 252 in Misquoting Jesus were you seem to be refering to a reconstruction of the text based on manuscripts. Thanks.
“Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”
In that context I mean something like “the words that the authors themselves actually wrote.” It’s obviously problematic, but that’s the way Metzger generally meant it.
So your use of the word “original” in this paragraph from Misquoting Jesus does not include say John 21 or sections of text which may have been deleted by the compiler of 2 Corinthians? Is it concevably that if we were able to find letters from Paul dated 95AD they might look different from those in 200AD?
It depends what you mean by saying that you are looking for the words of the “authors.” If you consider the final compiler of our Gospel of John to be the final author, then yes, ch. 21 would be counted. If you mean the “first author” then you get into trouble: the author of the first 20 chapters? The author of each of the sources that this author used? The author of the oral traditions that lay behind the stories? So it gets massively complicated. I see a lot (a LOT) more grey area in all this than Metzger did. But if we simply look for the form of the text that lay behind our current Greek mss of John, then he and I would pretty much agree on 99% of the textual decisions to be made.
I’ve read all the comments above…..interesting. SO to boil it down, when we say Mark was written around 65 AD…Matthew and Luke 70- 80 AD and John 90 AD what we’re really saying is these are the dates of the earliest manuscripts we have..correct?
No, the earliest manuscripts are from centuries later. For those dates we’re talking when the book was first written. (That’s true for all books from antiquity — see today’s post.)