Loading...In my previous post I began a discussion of why textual variants (that is, different wordings of the verses of the NT) found in the manuscripts might matter to someone other than a specialist who spends his or her life studying such things. Most of the hundreds of thousands of variations are of very little importance for anything, as most people – even specialists – would admit. Only a minority really matter. And none of these seriously threatens any significant, traditional, Christian doctrine. But I’ve argued that this should not be the criterion used to establish their importance. Lots of things in life are important that have nothing to do with traditional Christian doctrines!
I would say that the variations in the manuscripts of the New Testament should seem important to three groups of people. If you’re not in one of these groups, then they probably are not all that important to you!
(1) Fundamentalist and conservative evangelical Christians who believe that the Bible is an inerrant or infallible revelation from God, with no mistakes in what it says;
(2) Scholars, students, and general readers who are interested in knowing what the various authors of the New Testament wrote and thought and proclaimed; and
(3) Scholars, students, and general readers who are interested in the historical, cultural, and social history of Christianity through the ages who would like to see how various social or theological forces affected the anonymous scribes who were committed to making copies of the New Testament.
I will take each of these groups in turn, devoting a separate post to each one.
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Hi Bart,
I have read “How Jesus Became God”, but I would love for you to summarise your position on the claims of divinity in the synoptic gospels, since I am a bit confused.
For example, Mark thought Jesus was the Son of Man. And the Son of Man is a divine figure. And Jesus talks about the Son of Man in Mark 14, which gets interpreted by his enemies as talking about himself (hence the blasphemy charge). We can assume Mark meant it as a reference to Jesus, since Mark though Jesus was the Son of Man.
Isn’t that an example of Jesus claiming to be divine (though not God) in Mark (regardless of whether it is a historic account or not)?
My understanding was that you held that Jesus himself is portrayed as making no claims of divinity outside of John (although the authors did consider Jesus divine).
Is your claim more specific (“Jesus made no claims of being God outisde of John, though he is portrayed sometimes as claiming to be divine”)?
Yes, I lay it all out pretty carefully in the book, so you may want to reread the relevant chapter. Short story: Jesus does not CLAIM to be God in matthew, mark, or luke, but all three thought he was a divine being in *some* sense (e.g., that God had exalted him to the level of divinity; or that he had been born to the union of a mortal with the Spirit of God)
Maybe God left the copyists uninspired to provide an out for those who do not want to believe?
It worked!
Professor, I think your wording is too implicit.
If you directly say: after long-term research, you believe that the New Testament is a a partially fictional novel created by humans and continuously revised afterwards, then readers will understand your true views more easily.
I’d probably say that directly if it was how I thought about it!
I would love to read or listen to what you think about the naked boy in Mark 14. Who on earth was this kid and what on earth was he doing with Jesus in the middle of the night with no clothes on?
He was a young man, and his appearance has generated lots of scholarly discussion over the years, as you might imagine. If you look up “Secret Mark” (Or Secret Gospel) you’ll see how I’ve dealt with the most (in)famous discussion of modern times based on an alleged discovery of an alternative Gospel. Here’s one of them, and you can look at some of my further discussions in posts done about the same date: https://ehrmanblog.org/the-naked-man-of-mark-1451-52-the-secret-gospel-and-a-pressing-question-did-jesus-engage-in-homoerotic-behavior/ My view is that the young man is meant to be symbolic. Jeus has been telling his disciples to leave “everything behind” to follow him; they never get it; nad here we have a reflection of how they act: someone who literally leads everything behind precisely to abandon him!
I’m just curious, how do you view, from a psychological perspective, fundamentalists’ claim of inerrancy? To me, it seems unfathomable that grown up, intelligent or even half-intelligent individuals gather up every year in conventions, seminars etc. and lay out their arguments on how it is that the Bible contains no mistakes.
I’d say that many completely bizarre beliefs make perfect sense to many people, and that in thirty years there will probably be people asking about our own psychological states for believing things we do that make perfect sense to us but by then will be known as nonsense…. In thi scase, my sense is thatmany people prefer to hold on to a compfortable idea that provides them for a solid foundation for their lives rather than use the same rationality to evaluate it that they use for other aspects of their thoughts and views.
I don’t understand how you connected the two parts of your answer; I believe these two points are separate and not interconnected. And I think you’re being too humble and diplomatic out of too much leniency towards these people. As you know way better than me, these people hold on to ideas that have been shown to be completely untenable since the 19th century – some even earlier than that. So, even though I don’t disagree with the notion that the weight and influence of certain ideas can change dramatically through time, and people in the future can find certain beliefs of ours to be ridiculous, I do believe that, at the end of the day, some ideas are just better than others, and that can be obvious to people, provided that they’re intellectually honest. For example, I believe that less fortunate people who suffer should be treated with kindness and love, and I don’t think that in 30 years this belief of mine will be thought of as nonsense. I totally agree with the latter part of your answer: some people prefer comforting falsehoods than discomforting truths.
This is a good topic. For a non-believer like me (I was not brought up a Christian, but half Buddhist, half escaped Catholic turned Friends Quaker, nothing enforced), this duality is hard to comprehend. I try to subject all my beliefs to the same level of scrutiny. Most of them came to scrutiny pretty early on (reincarnation, for instance).
Hi, I know this is totally off-topic, but I was hoping for some help on a passage in Dr. Ehrman’s (excellent) book Armageddon.
In chapter 7, there is the following regarding materialism and what believers should expect in the after-life. “Birds don’t have to work to eke out an existence; God himself gives them their nourishment. The lilies of the field don’t worry about what they’ll wear, and yet God dresses them better than kings (Matthew 6:28–29). If God clothes the grass that lives a short while and then is burned, won’t he do so for those who follow him? There certainly have been Christians over the centuries who have taken Jesus at his word, but not many. I’ve never met one.”
I just do not understand the analogy. Maybe I am stuck on the grasses being burned part.
Thanks!
Mike
I”m not sure this statement is meant to say something about what the afterlife will be like? It’s talking about Jesus’ views about what to value in this life and what to abandon in order to gain life in the coming kingdom. One should live for teh comining kingdom and simply not worry about surviving here and now.
Thanks Dr Ehrman. That does seem to be a central theme in the book which I just finished and again is excellent. Appreciate the response!
Hi Bart
What do you think about the supposed occusary of Antigonus II Mattathias a Crucified King of the Jews Found in a Jerusalem Tomb? Multible specialist have done research, many people fou that the bones belong to a eldery women and he was not crusified but later microscopic reasearch found out that he/she was. Also they claim that if he was a women would he be crusified? Were women less crusified?
Do yo think if we found out that this was authentic then would it mean that jesus had a higher cange at getting a tomb? And if it is fake does it come from 1 centruy or later?
I’m not familiar with the case.
Here is the article – https://popular-archaeology.com/article/a-crucified-king-of-the-jews-found-in-a-jerusalem-tomb1/
“I became agnostic for completely other reasons,” I find that interesting because I became agnostic because of the inconsistencies that you have pointed out in your books, or at least, it pushed me over the edge of an already wavering faith. But I’m curious, do you think that the inconsistencies in the Bible are enough, alone, to cause one to question the faith? I guess I would think that one would expect to find ‘some’ issues in a belief system coming down to us from 2000+ years ago from different cultures, different languages, different copying techniques, etc. But do you think that the Bible goes beyond what would be considered to be ‘accepted tolerances’? I mean, maybe we should be astonished that the writings have come down to us in the state of congruency that they have. Maybe I (we) should ask ourselves exactly what would I (we) expect to see if these truly were the words or stories inspired by God, written by different men.
I’d say that inconsistencies DO lead some people to question their faith, but I don’t see why they should, unless their faith is not faith in Christ but faith in something else. Almost all the Christians scholars I know and hang out with agree there are inconsisistencies, and they don’t see them as contradictory to their faith. They believe in God and Christ, not in a human written book about God and Christ. Only fundamentalists insists that there can’t be any single problem with these human written productions.
Interesting answer!
On the supposed occusary of Antigonus II Mattathias , he is described as the son of judah but his father was not called judah but his grandfather was judah in hebrew. Is it almost impossible to think that the son of judah could mean grandson of judah on a occusary?
christians say that there cannot be mass level of corruption of the earliest manuscripts, but why isn’t this possible? how much did the roman and jewish war affect scribal practices? if the romans can spread false stories about jesus’ body being stolen and have the jews believe false stories till matthew’ day, why couldn’t the lying pen of the scribes done something similar? why do you need pwr to corrupt texts? why not infighting ? why not hatred of another heresey ?
if you never had marks gospel and all that was spread in roman empire was lukes version, would we know that jesus repeatedly begged god to save him? we would have the pen of luke changing what he did not accept in mark. my point is you don’t need pwr to change a written text.
I’m not sure I’ve heard Christians say there *cannot* have been mass corruption; I’ve heard them say that there were *not* — but that’s not hte same.
Is possible to write ban of ban in paleo hebrew as grandson?
I don’t know.
I’m interested in theories of the origins of the original Pauline collection. I listened on YouTube to an old debate you did with Daniel Wallace in which you recommended Harry Gamble’s The New Testament Cannon, which I read. And I found Edgar J Goodspeed’s New Solutions to New Testament Problems, which is a fascinating theory. My question is: in the debate you recommended Gunther Zuntz as writing on the origins of the collection, but I can’t find which of his writings is on this topic. Could you please recommend something on this by Zuntz?
Hmm, I’mnot sure what I was thinking! Zuntz’s majoor work on the NT is an incredibly erudite account of Paul’s Gospels that is very difficult indeed for non-scholars, and that even most scholars don’t even know about…. Have you looked at Metzger’s book on the canon? It’s still the classic, even though it isn’t organized in a way that desribes canonization of Gospels, of Paul, etc. as discrete topics.
I’ll take a look at Bruce Metzger’s book on the canon. Thanks so much! This is the section of your debate with Daniel Wallace that I was referring to where you talked about Zuntz: https://youtu.be/wyABBZe5o68?t=1144
An off-topic question please Dr Ehrman. I’ve been reading a book called After Jesus Before Christianity (which I think, broadly speaking, is a Jesus Seminar production). The book makes some pretty radical claims for Christianity in the first two centuries: it plays down the significance of Paul, dismisses early heresies, such as Gnosticism, as a misreading of Christians experimenting with their beliefs, dismisses many early writings as comparable to modern social media and suggests that the early Christian communities were quite informal with little or no ritual and virtually no hierarchy (I hope I haven’t mischaracterized their thesis). If you are familiar with this book, I would be interested to know what you thought of it? Many thanks.
I’m afraid I haven’t read it. The authors are very samrt and creative scholars with whom I usually disagree (extensively), but I can’t really comment on the kinds of argument/evidence they adduce. Sorry!
Hi Bart, I have a recommendation for you: the YouTube channel LegalEagle put out a video about the Scottie Scheffler Arrest which includes a very interesting analysis about the reliability of eye witnesses. It’s a case where the whole event was witnessed live by a van full of reporters, recorded on video from multiple angles and a reporter who was an eye witness still managed to get details wrong. This is obviously something you’ve talked about frequently before.
Ah, thanks. Yes, I was following the story when it broke!
Some lawyers do not like ancient documents and records as we cannot cross-examine the deceased authors…:)
It doesn’t seem right, but this seems to be where I was directed to ask a question that came up for me when watching one of the Misquoting Jesus podcasts. (I’m thinking that you might consider it as a topic for a whole show on that forum):
How is one’s being ‘saved’ via Jesus’ having “died for our sins” reconciled with the notion that we need to repent and stop sinning if we want to achieve ‘salvation’?
Not well. Tha’ts a topic of the book I’m writing now. If you look up “atonement” you’ll see I”ve addressedit on the blog (the relation of fortiveness and atonement): Here’s a post: https://ehrmanblog.org/when-is-forgiveness-not-forgiveness/
Early church leaders then decided which of these books with all the textual variations were to be considered sacred and included in what eventually became the New Testament. Can we assume that the leaders were divinely inspired to choose the right books, the ones that were themselves divinely inspired? If so, why did it take years, decades, even centuries to do so? Divine inspiration of the Bible is simply an enormous assumption.
I’m an agnostic so I myself don’t assume that they were divinely inspired in their decision. Those who think they were divinely inspired have a hard time explaining the historical contingencies of the entire process, I should think.
If the variants do not threaten significant doctrine, could one conclude that while God did not preserve the entire Bible from mistakes and variations over the ages, He did protect the important parts?
Yup, some have argued that. others have asked: what makes you think so? I.e., do you have any evidence/reason for thinking so other than what you’d like to be true? Good questions!
Do you believe there is (lowercase “r”) “revelation”?
I ask because as I’ve delved into this topic by reading and watching your work as well as others in the field, I have rejected the idea of revelation or revealed law. I just don’t think either exists. IMO, any author who claims “revelation”, my response is, to quote an offbeat Indy film from years ago, “well… that’s just, like, your opinion, man…” I’m not trying to be harsh with people who have faith, but I don’t think we can really prove anybody’s hand was guided by God in writing anything. Putting aside the textual variant problem, we couldn’t know that even if we sat there and watched the author write it. So I’ve come to believe that revelation cannot co-exist with reason. Reason is what God (if he exists) gave us to figure it all out. Everything. Over the years, I’ve noticed that you have been very kind in stating that you are not trying to change anybody’s beliefs. But it does seem to me you directly challenge the notion that revelation (as a general proposition) exists at all and that is fundamental to believe in the tenants of any religion, including Christianity.
Since I don’t believe in superhuman/supernatural powers, no, I don’t believe in revelation.