A Few Notes on Textual Criticism

In my apologetics/worldview class that I am teaching we are using the book Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace.

The portion of the book specifically dealing with textual criticism was done by Daniel Wallace.  Using his material and other sources I put together the following handout for the class.

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Textual Criticism

“One lesson we must learn from Misquoting Jesus [by Bart Ehrman] is that those in ministry need to close the gap between the church and the academy.  We have to educate believers.  Instead of trying to isolate laypeople from critical scholarship, we need to insulate them.  They need to be ready for the barrage, because it is coming.  The intentional dumbing down of the church for the sake of filling more pews will ultimately lead to defection from Christ.  Ehrman is to be thanked fro giving us a wake-up call.”[1]

1.     Manuscripts

a.     Greek manuscripts (as of Jan 2006)[2]: 5,745

Papyri	Uncials	Minuscules	Lectionaries	Total
118	317	2,877	2,433	5,745

                                               i.     These date from the 2-16 centuries

                                              ii.     Earliest fragment: P⁵² which is dated 100-150 AD[3]

                                            iii.     10-15 manuscripts as early as the 2^nd century

b.     Versions (translations): 15-20,000

                                               i.     Latin: more than 10,000

1.     3-16 century

                                              ii.     Coptic (old Egyptian hieroglyphic language)

1.     Hundreds to 1,000

2.     Beginning of 3^rd century

                                            iii.     Syriac

1.     Hundreds to 1,000

2.     Early 3^rd century

c.      Church Fathers: over one million citations

Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.[4]

2.     Comparisons with Other Ancient Literature[5]

Author	When Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	Number of Copies
Caesar (Gallic Wars)	100-44 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,000 years	10
Livy	59 B.C. – A.D. 17	4th cent. Partial mostly 10 cent.	400 years 1,000 years	1 partial copy 19
Plato (Tetralogies)	427-347 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,200 years	7
Tacitus (Annals)	100 A.D.	1100 A.D.	1,000 years	20
Pliny the Younger (History)	61-113 A.D.	850 A.D.	750 years	7
Thucydides (History)	460-400 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,300 years	8
Suetonius (De vita Caesarum)	75-160 A.D.	950 A.D.	800 years	8
Herodotus (History)	480-425 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,300 years	8
Sophocles	496-406 B.C.	1000 A.D.	1,400 years	100
Catullus	54 B.C.	1550 A.D.	1,600 years	3
Euripedes	480-406 B.C.	1100 A.D.	1,500 years	9
Demosthenes	383-322 B.C.	1100 A.D.	1,300 years	200 (all from one copy)
Aristotle	384-322 B.C.	1100 A.D.	1,400 years	5 (of any one work)
Aristophanes	450-485 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,200 years	10
Homer (Illiad)	800 B.C.			643
New Testament	50-100 A.D.	100-150 (P52) 200 (book) 250 (most NT) 325 (full NT)	+/- 50 years 100 years 150 years 225 years	5,745

3.     Some facts

a.     No two copies of the Greek manuscripts agree completely.

b.     About 138,000 words in the NT.

c.      300,000-400,000 textual variants

                                               i.     Textual variant: Any place in the NT manuscripts where there is not uniformity of wording.

                                              ii.     How to count variants

d.     We must weigh the quality of the variants and not merely the quantity!

4.     Categories of textual variants

a.     Spelling differences and nonsense errors

                                               i.     Ioannes  vs  Ioanes (one “n” [nu] or two)

                                              ii.     Moveable nu (“n”): can appear at the end of words that precede a word that begins with a vowel (like or “a” or “an”)

                                            iii.     Nonsense: Codex W kai (“and”) instead of kurios (“lord”)

b.     Differences that do not affect translation or that involve synonyms

                                               i.     Use of article (“the”): Luke 2.16 “the Mary” “the Joseph”

                                              ii.     Word order changes: transposition

1.     Greek is an inflected language so word order does not determine meaning like in English (i.e., “Matt hit the ball.”  “The ball hit Matt.”)

                                            iii.     Synonyms

1.     Lectionaries: manuscripts that have assigned readings for various days

2.     Sometimes add clarification to the text

a.     Example: Mark 6.31-8.26 Jesus is not mentioned by name or title

b.     Lectionary readings add the name “Jesus” to help guide the daily readings

c.      Meaningful variants that are not viable

                                               i.     1 Thess 2.9 “the gospel of God”:  one late Medieval mss. has “the gospel of Christ”

This is meaningful, but it is not viable.  There is little chance that one late manuscript could contain the original wording when the textual tradition is uniformly on the other side of the reading.[6]

                                              ii.     Harmonization of parallel passages in Matt., Mark, and Luke

d.     Meaningful and viable variants à variants that change the meaning of the text to some degree

                                               i.     Romans 5.1: “We have peace”  vs.  “Let us have peace”

                                              ii.     1 Thess 2.17: “gentle”  vs.  “little children” à difference in Greek is one letter (epioi; nepioi)

                                            iii.     1 John 1.4 “so that our joy may be complete” vs. “so that your joy may be complete” à again, one letter difference in Greek

                                            iv.     Only about 1% of variants are “meaningful and viable” and none affect any foundational Christian beliefs!

5.     How to Count Textual Variants: Colossians 2.2 example (from http://bible-translation.net/page/how-to-count-textual-variants)

²that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ [tou theou Christou]. (ESV)

2ἵνα παρακληθῶσιν αἱ καρδίαι αὐτῶν συμβιβασθέντες ἐν ἀγάπῃ καὶ εἰς πᾶν πλοῦτος τῆς πληροφορίας τῆς συνέσεως, εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ θεοῦ, Χριστοῦ, (NA28)

Variants	Variant	MSS or Versions
NU	of the God of Christ	Standard Text
01	of the God	10 MSS[4]
02	of the Christ	01 MS
03	of the God who is Christ	04 MSS
04	of the God who is concerning Christ	02 MSS
05	Of the God in the Christ	02 MSS
06	of the God in the Christ Jesus	01 MS
07	of the God and Christ	01 MS
08	Of God the father Christ	04 MSS
09	Of God the father of Christ	05 MSS
10	Of God and Father of Christ	02 MSS
11	Of God father and of Christ	04 MSS
12	Of God father and of Christ Jesus	03 MSS
13	Of God father and of Lord of us Christ Jesus	02 MSS
14	Of God and father and of Christ	38 MSS
Total 14	14 Variants in 79 MSS	79 MSS

Another hypothetical example:

“In the above diagram, there are 26 total "documents" - designated by solid lines.  The red documents contain variants.  In this illustration there would be a total of nine variants in 26 copies.  But, we can see that they are really one variant that has been copied.  This illustrates why the Bible is actually extremely well preserved since we are able reconstruct the document tree and see where variants are introduced and then document them.”[7]

6.     Text types and geographical distribution

a.      Alexandrian: produced in Egypt, began in 2^nd century

b.     Western: produced in Rome and West, began in 2^nd century

c.      Byzantine: produced in East, later development based on Western and Alexandrian

d.     Important for the following reasons:

                                               i.     More regions that the reading is in: earlier reading (esp. for first four centuries)

                                              ii.     No one could have gathered all the manuscripts and changed them

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     [1] Daniel B. Wallace, “The Gospel According to Bart: A Review Article of Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman” JETS 49 (2006), 337. Online: http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/49/49-2/JETS_49-2_327-349_Wallace.pdf

     [2] These figures in this section come from NT scholar and textual critic Dan Wallace in the book Reinventing Jesus by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace (Kregel, 2006), p. 77.

     [3] See the online blog post by New Testament textual critic Dirk Jongkind, “What is the Oldest Manuscript of the New Testament?” Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (Tuesday January 13, 2015). Online: http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-is-oldest-manuscript-of-new.html

     [4] Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration 4^th ed. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 126—quoted in Reinventing Jesus, p. 81.

     [5] Information in chart compiled from Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix A General Introduction to the Bible rev. and expanded (Moody Press, 1986), p. 408; J. P. Moreland Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Baker, 1987), p. 135.

     [6] Reinventing Jesus by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Walllace (Kregel, 2006), p. 59.

     [7] Online: https://school.carm.org/amember/files/demo2/bible/reliable.htm

LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM--What?!

Ryan Anderson testified on March 16th before the Commission on Civil Rights.  His comments can be found in his Public Discourse essay Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Are Not Like Race: Why ENDA is Bad Policy.  In the midst of his comments he mentioned Wesleyan College's 15 letter acronym: LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM which stands for "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderfuck, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism."  

After reading this I came across Andree Seu Peterson's column in World Magazine entitled Acronym Absurdity.  Here a few choice comments:

Sometimes I wonder if the inventors of the other LGBT brand are a tad embarrassed. They keep having to add new letters to their acronym, and the more they tack on the weaker their case looks. In simpler days when it was merely an “L” and a “G,” their position seemed stronger because all they had to persuade us of was that some people are born with a hard-wired romantic orientation to the same sex. We were given assurances that if we granted “L” and “G” they would be happy and leave us alone, having achieved total self-actualization and a redressing of offenses against their long-aggrieved identities.

Then “B” came along, and they had to fairly sneak it in when no one was looking, because claiming that you have an orientation that goes both ways sounds a lot like saying you just like to fool around and you don’t care who with. Suddenly we are plunged from the high-minded early visions of ineluctable destiny to the shameful little man behind the curtain who used to cause knee-knocking with his smoke-and-mirror routine. There is a huge gap between campaigning on a manifest biological imperative (early “G” and “L”) and the later ravenous clamor for the right to anything-goes (“B”).

Nevertheless, “T” followed without fanfare, like a bill sneaked through Congress on a Friday afternoon, and I always have trouble remembering the new additions, which are (a quick online search tutors me) LGBTQQIAP. I personally do not agree that the canon is closed with these nine unholy fruits of an unclean spirit, unless you let the “P” (pansexual) also cover pedophilia, and the “B” in the third slot do double duty for bestiality.

In science there is a rule known as “death by qualification.” It is the idea that a theory about something loses its cogency when it gets whittled away by too many exceptions and contrary facts and when you constantly have to tack on new explanations to try to account for inconvenient evidence (evolution theory, for instance). The LGBTQQIAP movement will soon need a wheelbarrow for its alphabet. What started as a self-styled civil rights movement in the grand old tradition of social gains for African-Americans and women has metastasized into a free-for-all with no common denominator but the uninhibited acting out of all impulses and no cohesive agenda but the agenda to rebel against God in any way conceivable.

A Culture's Conception of God: Implications and Entailments

There is a fascinating essay over at Public Discourse on how a culture's view of God shapes its view of man, reason, and society.  Samuel Gregg's God, Reason, and Our Civilizational Crisis is profound in its cultural analysis.  Below are a few excerpts....

A particular religion’s concept of the Divine thus cannot help but profoundly influence the societies in which that faith prevails. The Greco-Roman world, for instance, generally lacked the biblical notion of God as the Creator. Consequently, it did not view humans as “co-creators” working to unfold a still-unfinished creation in human history. This is one reason why the Greeks and Romans, unlike the Jews, viewed manual work and commerce (as opposed to politics and war) as the responsibility of slaves, women, and other non-citizens.

Especially important, however, is the way a religion’s understanding of God affects its appreciation of man’s capacity for reason. This theme was central to Benedict XVI’s discussion of the relationship between violence and religion in his 2006 Regensburg address. If a religion does not regard God at some level asLogos—Divine Reason—rather than just an unmediated raw Will, then that faith’s capacity to dispute the reasonableness of those who, for instance, decapitate hostages, burn prisoners of war to death, gun down cartoonists, slaughter Jews shopping in kosher markets, and then claim religious warrants for doing so is, at best, questionable.

....

A World without Logos

Once, however, Logos as a prominent dimension of God’s nature starts fading from Western culture’s horizons, what is left? There appear to be three possibilities.

One is “God-As-Will,” but untethered to reason. This is a God who acts arbitrarily, one whom we must simply obey. Freedom is thus found in unquestioning submission, no matter how irrational the divine command. Another is “God-As-Love,” but without reasonableness. This is a being who, like an irresponsible parent, simply affirms his child’s choices, no matter how foolish or evil such decisions might be. A third possibility is “God-Beyond-Reason.” This produces a narrowed understanding of human reason itself: one that confines our rationality to the verifiable scientific method, and thereby declines to permit it to ponder the bigger questions opened by the intriguing possibility that Divine Reason exists.

If any of these conceptions of God prevails in a culture, we can hardly be surprised that attempts to answer why we make particular choices—moral, political, legal, and economic—become reduced to strongly felt feelings, utilitarian calculations, or, more recently, what the philosopher Tyler Burge calls “neurobabble.” Instead of seeking rational resolution of problems, we increasingly defer to reigning majority opinion, panels of experts, consequentialist rationalizations devised to legitimize all sorts of evil, or some type of force—whether expressed though democratically elected temporary majorities or outright coercion.

....

The Islamic world is struggling with a particularly virulent God problem. For everyone else, this matters, because while we can protect ourselves to an extent against those who want us to submit to a thoroughly voluntaristic vision of a Deity who acts unreasonably, at some point the cessation of Muslim violence is going to require many Muslims to change their minds about God’s nature. Yet anyone who cares about Western civilization should also remember that no matter how materially prosperous and technologically advanced we become or how much we celebrate concepts such as rule of law, the coherence of these achievements will be increasingly tenuous if our culture-forming institutions—ranging from families and universities to synagogues and churches—continue embracing sentimentalist conceptions of the Divine.