Would We Recognize an Original Manuscript?
June 26, 2012
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If, as you say (rightly I believe), that we cannot determine whether or not a given NT document is “original,” then the more pressing question becomes “How do we know whether and to what extent the words and deeds attributed to Jesus are ‘factual'”? Must we conclude, as most fundamentalist believers suggest, that “older” means “better” or that judgments made after-the-fact by Bishops of the Roman Church are more reliable, historically speaking???
Ah — you should read my book Jesus Interrupted!!
Okay — but you should read my book JESUS THE JEW NO KNOWS!!!
If there were different churches all communicating approximately the same oral tradition for any one gospel, is it not more plausible that some churches wrote multiple originals?
I’m not sure what you mean. That there were multiple originals of Matthew, and of Mark, and of… etc? I’m not sure how you’re imagining that happening. IN my view *someone* originally wrote the book that we call Matthew. It was not produced in different communities at different times by differnt authors. Those would all be *different* books….
If one oral tradition in a church (say near the Sumaria region) writes down Mt 13:24 and the oral tradition spreads to a church in Greece proper and they write it down. Wouldn’t they both really have original copies of Mt 13:24 without each other knowing?
No, the first penning of the verse is the original. The second is based on what is called “secondary orality,” in which the tradition may well have been changed before being written a second time.
This is a really interesting question. It has been suggested that P.Oxy. 17.2020 is an “author’s copy” of an anti-Jewish dialogue. Grenfell and Hunt wrote, “The authorship of the fragment remains unknown, but there is some reason for attributing it to a local writer. This is suggested by the frequent alterations which have been made in the text, apparently by the original hand, and are difficult to explain except on the hypothesis that we here have a fragment of the author’s own manuscript.” So that would be one reason someone could make an argument about having an “original” or even a “pre-original” (rough draft!) of a literary piece.
To Brent Nongbri or Bart,
Should we expect the autographs of the NT to be written in a cursive hand on a roll? Thus any MS written in a book hand on a codex can be automatically rejected as being the autograph? Or perhaps this is true for Pauls epistles, but a fine literary gospel (i.e. Luke) may have originally been written in a book hand on a roll? Or am I way off here?
I don’t know if the originals were on rolls or not. Even if they were, copies of them on rolls could look like them while being … just copies! But yes, I would guess they would be cursive hands rather than book hands (or than “reformed documentary”).
You indicated in one of your debates that 2 Corinthians are possibly five a mosaic of five letters of Paul, thus making the concept of an “original” problematic. It seems Performance Criticism has done away with the concept of an “original.” What would you see as an original? What do you think is the influence of ancient literacy on the concept of an “original” text (say of the NT)?
I think I’ve talked about this in some of my ealrier posts. “Original” is a highly problematic term, for reasons I spell out there. But in this post I’m referring to what conservative Christians are referring to when they speak, unproblematically, of an original (viz., the text as it left the hand of an author as he put it into publication).
Have you heard any word yet on the apparent newly found early NT Gospel of Mark fragment mentioned by Dan Wallace?
He refuses to spill the beans. I don’t know why!
I think two things would conclude if they were an original transcript or not: writing only on one side and no title to the Gospel (if we had the first page). I think?
No titles were given to the Gospels and the originals probably used scrolls. Also, they were not written on both sides of the manuscript. If they were written on both sides, it probably was included in a codex.
That brings me to another question Dr. Ehrman. P52 is wrote on the front and back. Meaning it was probably included in a codex. If its only 30 years (best guess) after John’s gospel was written, did they start tbounding them together in a codex that fast? Or just maybe just the Gospels?
On your first point: if the originals were made without titles (yes indeed!) and written only on one side (I imagine so, but am not sure), the early copies may have been as well. So we’re still stuck not knowing if a particular manuscript is one of the early copies or the original.
On P52: yes, it is from a codex. But there is nothing to indicate that this copy of John was bound in the same codex with other Gospels. All we have is the scrap!
Fascinating…I have to admit I have thought, “Well, maybe one day they’ll dig up the OG Gospel of Mark”, but it appears we wouldn’t know it if they did! And I’ve been mulling over why newly discovered documents are generally “heretical” not “proto-orthodox”; isn’t it likely that the “heretical” work was hidden or thrown away, like when that leader (I’m sorry I don’t have his name handy) sent out a letter saying to discontinue using certain books? I was under the impression the Nag Hammadi library was a result of that letter.
You’re referring to the 39th Festal letter of Athanasius — and yes, the Nag Hammadi documents may have been removed from a library because of it. New documents do show up on occasion, and they usually are (interestingly enough) non-orthodox, such as the Gospel of Judas a few years ago.
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
I came across some interesting quotes regarding Paleography:
“The so-called science of paleography often relies on circular reasoning because there is insufficient data to draw precise conclusion about dating. Scholars also tend to oversimplify diachronic development, assuming models of simplicity rather than complexity.”
W. M. Schniedewind, “Problems Of Paleographic Dating Of Inscriptions” in T. E. Levy, T. Higham (Eds.), The Bible And Radiocarbon Dating Archaeology, Text And Science, 2005, Equinox Publishing: London & Oakville, p. 405.
“This kind of precision dating defies the realities of scribal activity. The productive writing life of a scribe was probably around thirty or thirty-five years. Add to that the fact that the scribal profession was an apprenticed trade, with students learning a particular style from a teacher, and we find that a given hand may be present over multiple generations of scribes. Thus the “rule of thumb” should probably be to avoid dating a hand more precisely than a range of at least seventy or eighty years.”
B. Nongbri, “The Use And Abuse Of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls In The Dating Of The Fourth Gospel“, Harvard Theological Review, 2005, Volume 98, p. 32, footnote 27. The issue of uncertainty and imprecision has been long recognized as an issue in palaeography
“Until more rigorous methodologies are developed, it is difficult to construct a 95% confidence interval for NT manuscripts without allowing a century for an assigned date. If we use the 50-year period that is currently standard for the Oxyrhynchus series, then I would prefer AD 175-225 as the most probable date for P-46. But if we want a 95% confidence interval for P-46, then at present AD 150-250 is probably the narrowest range that we can use.”
B. W. Griffin, “The Paleographical Dating Of P46“, 1996 (November). This paper was delivered to the Society of Biblical Literature, New Testament Textual Criticism Section, New Orleans.
Hello, Dr Ehrman
If a person can calculate an age of a manuscript +-25 years approximately, how do you do that? I mean if we talk about Gospels for example, if they are written between 70-150 years CE. How would he know what kind of handwriting was like 1900 years ago in the first place?
Thank you
It’s the science of palaeography. I think Brent Nongbri has talked about it on the blog. Search for palaeography or his name.
In your post “Would We Recognize an Original Manuscript?” You talk about why we wouldn’t be able to, and you talk about the various ways that different people would interpret the manuscript. For example, if it is signed, a conservative Christian would say, “See, it’s signed! It’s authentic!” Whereas, a historian might reply, “But books never ended that way in antiquity!” Anyway (with my Pentecostal background), as I was reading this, I could very clearly see pastor at the pulpit saying, “Thus we have the “Spirit of Discernment.”
Checkmate, Historian!
Yup, once you bring a theological argument in, you can toss away any historical argument or reality.