Loading...In this post I would like to tie a couple of strings together that have been more or less hanging. In a couple of earlier posts I asserted my view that we were probably as “close to the originals” of the New Testament writings as we are ever likely to get, that barring some spectacular new discoveries (such as the original themselves!) or some fantastic changes in method, we simply are not going to be able to know whether we are right or wrong in the textual decisions we have made about which among the many thousands of textual variants (most of which are completely insignificant and meaningless, but some of which are very important indeed) are probably original and which are later scribal alterations.
It’s not that I think we must now have the original text. I don’t think we be sure. But I also don’t think we will come to know how close we are to the original any better in the future than we do now — unless something drastically changes.
And it’s also not that I think we all agree on everything now. We don’t. There are still lots of textual variants that are up for grabs. But they will continue to be up for grabs unless either our evidence or our methods change. And neither has changed drastically for decades. Yes, we do find new manuscripts, especially early manuscripts, all the time. But these almost never change our minds about much of anything.
And so a number of my readers have asked: Why Then Bother? That is, why bother to become a scholar in a field that is almost certainly not going to produce a better product than the one that has already been produced?
I myself have wondered about that question. Let me be the first – the very first! – (well, OK, others have said it before me…) – to say that…
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Are you saying that by continuing to pursue the study of textual criticism, we will be able to gain a better understanding of how Christianity developed and evolved? From what you’ve previously written before, I understood that all these different forms of Christianity sprang up together, and that what we would consider “orthodox” Christianity is the form of Christianity that “won out”. I’m having difficulty harmonizing the two views. Unless you mean that, the more manuscripts we have, the better we can study how all these different forms of Christianity developed and evolved individually and apart from each other.
Yup. See today’s post.
So it can be said that as Christianity was evolving, more important, upper crust people got involved in the “corruption” of Scripture?
Yup.
You do realize that most of the time you post on your blog you make it seem as if the new testament is so hopelessly corrupt that we cant trust a word it says. It’s one thing to say we don’t know *beyond a shadow of a doubt*, or whether its indubitable that we have to original text in its perfect form, but Dr. Ehrman, in all due respect, you make it seem as if nothing can be trusted. I mean, shoot, your book “Misquoting Jesus” has “Who Changed the Bible and Why?” Doesn’t this seem completely misleading?
I’m sorry you read me this way. Virtually every time I mention all the variants in the manuscripts I stress that the vast majority of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, and don’t matter for anything more than showing that scribes in antiquity could not spell any better than people can today. THat’s about as clear as I can make it. Would you suggest I put it some other way?
Thank you for your response. I respect that you interact with people, so thank you for that! I guess a point I could point further out is that with books like, “Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted and The Orthodox Corruption of scripture” are books that scream that the bible cannot be trusted and that it completely evolved and changed and that the originals (which you *scream* are impossible to know in debates and blogs) are so far-gone lost and with the 400,000+ variants, its completely hopeless. I mean look at the majority of your followers. Militant anti-heists and Muslims which most think (from your writings) that the bible cannot be trusted a lick. I actually do enjoy reading your blog and like reading “both sides”, but it’s quite sad actually. Of course, since we have sooooo many variants, we have a mile-high pile? The more manuscripts the more variants. Of course! I don’t see that as a problem though. Imagine if we approached all of history. We don’t have “originals” from *any* ancient document and if we did there is still no way to know. I just don’t think this hyper-skeptic view is really rational. Don’t you see it as misleading? I am not mad at you, so don’t think I mean this with rudeness or anything. I respect you as a scholar. It just irritates me. Have a nice day! 🙂
I think you are reading my books and comments through tinted lenses. This is not really the emphasis of either Misquoting Jesus or Orthodox Corruption.
I am curious. In what sense do you mean ‘trust’?
JEffler, I’m amazed how anyone who’s been reading this blog has failed to see Bart’s repeated (and recent) statement that the vast majority of textual variants have no significance whatsoever.
Bart has done as much as any scholar on the planet to defend the New Testament as a valid source of historical information, against a sect of atheists who want to believe it’s completely made up, and that Jesus never existed.
It is stupid to assume that any ancient document that describes past events is 100% accurate. And that’s what we should view the gospels as–ancient texts written by people who did not have any deceptive agenda, but who certainly were shaping the narrative to their own ends, and who in most if not all cases had not witnessed the events in question.
Interesting…
I am looking forward to your forthcoming book that is looking at the first couple of decades after the death of Jesus and what kind of conclusions you reach regarding the original followers and apostles. I accept that the latter were illiterates of the lower social orders. One’s stereotype of such folks is that they’re simple, basic people, almost certainly incapable of much deep thought let alone subtle analysis on theological matters. Or, alternatively, to revisit the image of the highly articulate peasants that were ‘oppressed’ by King Arthur in a brilliant scene in the now decades old film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, perhaps that stereotype is quite wrong. However, as life was pretty basic, with the threat of catastrophe ever present, and an overwhelming focus on survival, one does wonder how much cranial capacity and time was available for thinking. Given this foundation, it has always made sense to me to have the whole thing taken over by those higher up the economic and social ladder. Someone like Paul. Christianity without Paul is inconceivable. Christianity without James and Peter is quite doable.
Much resides on the economics of the time and the individuals involved and I don’t know much about that – perhaps the disciples had more than adequate resources and hence time to think and pontificate. Hopefully your book will touch on this side of things to the extent they’re discernible from the evidence.
Does it seem curious to you that very few (none?) of our substantial NT texts predate Constantine. Is there any thought that perhaps he made an effort to ‘clear out’ any dissenting writings as part of his effort to standardize christian teachings.?
No, I don’t think it’s curious. They were not as numerous as later copies and since they were not always seen as sacred scripture they were not preserved with the same care. It is true for virtually every ancient text that early copies are exceedingly rare. There’s nothing to suggest tha tConstantine cleared out our manuscripts…
It should be remembered, a lot of people are not so hard and fast in their convictions regarding the early history of Christianity. They may have been indoctrinated in one way or another, as most of us are at some point (you can be indoctrinated as an atheist as well), but the indoctrination doesn’t always take.
I was raised a liberal Catholic in a liberal Vatican II parish. We went to church every week. I was a lector at mass, along with my father. I went to CCD class. I should perhaps mention my father studied to be a priest–had he completed his studies, I wouldn’t be typing this.
I always felt dissatisfied with religious teaching, but at the same time, I felt there were things of value in it–truths concealed behind falsehoods. I knew Jesus was important, that he was saying things that mattered to me, but I also knew there were a lot of contradictions in what I was being told about him.
I read Elaine Pagels, and my understanding of my religion’s past improved–but Pagels didn’t talk much about Jesus, she was dealing with the people who came after him. It was when I happened across a copy of Michael Grant’s “Jesus: An Historian’s View of the Gospels” that I simply decided that I did not believe Jesus was God, or Messiah, or divinely begotten, or believed he was any of those things. But I nonetheless agreed with Grant’s conclusion (written as a non-believer) that Jesus’ life was the most significant ever lived.
And then, if you’d believe it, I found “Misquoting Jesus” lying on a sidewalk on my street, in a pile of other books–somebody had thrown it out. I still have that copy. I have actually bought copies of your books since then, I hasten to add.
So now I’d say my views are fairly set, but who knows what I might read next?
If minds never changed, Christianity wouldn’t exist. Paul can attest to that.
Makes sense to me.