Loading...I think I first came to see precisely why textual criticism could be so important my first semester in my PhD program, during a seminar I was taking that had almost nothing to do with the study of the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. It was an “exegesis” course (i.e. focused on interpretation) on the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke – studied, of course, in the Greek). My realization of the importance of text-critical issues was not even connected to my own research. It had to do with what a friend and colleague of mine had discovered.
For that seminar we had to make a class-presentation of our study of a passage in the Synoptics. My fellow-first-year student Mark Plunkett (who later went on to teach at Ohio Northern University before deciding to scrap the academic thing and become a gynecologist) (really!) was devoting his term paper to the prayer of Jesus before his arrest as found in the Gospel of Luke.
As many readers of this blog know, Luke had as one of his sources for his account of the life and death of Jesus the Gospel of Mark. It is very interesting, and highly enlightening (I then learned and have since emphasized repeatedly) to compare Luke with Mark in order to see how he changed his source in a story he took from him. This is called “redaction criticism,” the study of how a redactor (= editor) changed the text he was copying in producing his own account.
In Mark’s version of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (14:32-42), after his Last Supper and before the betrayal of Judas, we are told that Jesus was deeply troubled and distressed. Oddly enough, even though Luke got his story from Mark, he does not…
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Really good. So much more interesting and relevant than the Armenian word for “staff”. How on Earth did this question get left so late? Was Mark Plunkett the first to spot this? Did Hortt have no awareness of an issue?
Oh no, scholars have long known about the textual problem. What Plunkett figured out was the chiasmus, and what I realized was that this could contribute to solving the textual problem.
I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard that emphasize the passage you mentioned above. The image of Jesus sweating drops of blood is so vivid that its uniquely suited for altar calls in evangelical churches. As we sang verse after verse of “Just as I am,” we would hear about Jesus sweating drops of blood at Gethsemane, then the pastor would launch into the “every knee bowed, every eye closed” thing, asking for a show of hands, etc. Its not as dramatic as the snake handlers who base their entire theology on a spurious addition to the Gospel of Mark, but its still kind of funny that the passage may not actually be in the Gospel.
The sad thing is that Jesus never even sweated blood. Even in the KJV it says: “and his sweat was AS IT WERE great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Yup!! That’s what hte Greek says, absolutely!
Fascinating stuff. I have often regretted that the New Testament does not present the gospels in the order we know they were written. When you know it was actually Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John–and when you know more about how each book changed over time, and about the sources they did and did not share–you understand the evolution of beliefs regarding Jesus so much more clearly.
Simply to read the four gospels in the proper order, one after the other is illumining–you don’t need any scholarly training to see what’s going on. Just an openness to the rather obvious fact that a story is being added to–and sometimes, as in this case you mention, subtracted from, because the author of a later version of the story is disturbed in some way by an earlier version, disagrees with it, finds it inconvenient to his vision.
How widely accepted is this view of this section of Luke?
It’s a hotly debated matter. (So when someone tells you that we are certain about what the NT authors wrote, ask them if Luke wrote these verses or not, and why there is not widespread agreement on the matter!)
I recently watched one of these prosperity ministers on TV talking about Jesus and his sweat of blood. He was grinding away up there so hard, one would think he was about to sweat blood. He worked in the idea that working hard will produce the kind of sweat Jesus had. Now, send me some money and it will be sure to happen for you, too. Whew! I just never knew how gullible people can be!
Bart, I’m a long-time subscriber and have all your posts on this site.
I especially enjoy your using stories like this to convey the content.
There was a scene in Firefly where the Shepherd finds River Tam ripping pages off his bible and editing it with a marker because it was “broken”.
“You don’t fix faith, River. Faith fixes you.”
Dr. Ehrman,
What other types of textual structures have been found in the scriptures? Anything else that is similar to the chiasmus? Thanks!
Much more common are various forms of parallelism, with poetic lines agreeing or taking converse sides one after the other.
Bart: You are a treasure. You are a true scholar who bridges the gap between those of faith with an agend and the unbelievers with an agenda. I am an unbeliever, but am intellectually interested in religion and myth because of its obvious influence on history and modern times. You are one of the few people who can be trusted to provide a scholarly opinion based on years of research. I want to thank you for this. I apologize if this is not the appropriate forum for such praise.
Thanks!
Fascinating little detail that changes the big picture.
First, about the hot debate. The NRSV crowd, including Metzger, if I read them right says (a) we conclude the sweat-blood passage is a later interpolation, but (b) out of deference to the tender sensibilities of many of our readers, we will keep the passage but double bracket it.
Second, is this right: atonement, the idea that Jesus suffered and died to remove from our shoulders the burden of sin, is about as big and central a Christian doctrine as there is, especially in evangelical circles. But the import of Luke’s downplaying the severity of Jesus’s suffering is that he does not buy into the notion Jesus died for our sins. His interpretation of the meaning of Jesus’s death on the cross is quite different. (Something to do with setting an example of rising above suffering? –I’m hazy on this.) So then the longest and most eloquent of the gospels is quite literally heretical–rejects a central tenet of what was to become orthodox Christian doctrine.
Yes, I think Luke both downplays Jesus’ agony *and* removes Mark’s emphasis on the death of Jesus as an atonement.
Thanks for this! I commented to a fellow Bible student in college (many years ago!) that I wanted to make four Jesus films, each based solely on ona different canonical gospel. He thought that was a crazy idea. I still like the idea.
You might check out the brilliant classic by Passolini, the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
In regards to the tidbit about your colleague deciding to leave behind his Biblical studies to become a gynecologist, did you ever think to yourself that this is all a waste of time and maybe I should be doing something better with my life? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you stuck with it because I’ve enjoyed reading your books and think you are making a valuable contribution to the understanding of religion, but I can’t help but wonder if you had such thoughts. Personally, I spent around 15 to 20 of my life intensely studying the Bible merely as a believing Christian wanting to understand things on my own and now I consider it mostly a waste of time and energy that could have been better spent. But you live and learn.
No, I never thought that!
Bart, can you give me a quick reason why you think it is plausible that the apostles did not start to preach the resurrection of Jesus until a year or so after his death (as opposed to 40 days later as recorded in acts)?
That’s not exactly my view. My view is that we don’t *know* when they started to preach it. (In Acts it is 50 days after his death.)
What makes you think they preached later?
I’m not sure what you’re asking. I earlier said that I don’t think we know *when* they started to preach.
During a debate with William Lane Craig you stated that the apostles preached the resurrection of Jesus a year or more later and by then the body had decomposed. It was the same debate where you and he talked about that equation that gave the resurrection of Jesus 0.97 out of 1, and you said something like that wasn’t going to convince you.
That equation is stupid, as I pointed out. No one buys it but people who believe in it in advance.
But to repeat my view: we don’t *know* when the earliest Christians started proclaiming that Jesus was raised from the dead.