"One of the axioms of classical textual criticism is brevior lectio potior, that is, the shorter of
two readings is probably original...The only comment which needs to be made here is that a comparison of the trends in the
textual criticism of the Iliad and the Mahabharata, two great national epics the transmission of which reveals certain parallels
to the transmission of the Gospels, is instructive for the New Testament
scholar. Textual critics of both these corpora of quasi-religious literature
are convinced that they are growing texts, and that no scribe deliberately
excised any considerable portion of either poem." (The Text of the
New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger, pp. 161-163).
Is the New Testament a 'growing text,' or has any portion of it ever been
'deliberately excised'? Tertullian reports that Marcion deliberately excised
those portions of Luke which recorded that Jesus was born of a Jewish mother:
"Marcion must even expunge from the Gospel, 'I am not sent but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel;' and, 'It is not meet to take the
children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs,' — in order, forsooth, that Christ
may not appear to be an Israelite.” (Tertullian, Five Books Against Marcion,
Book Four, Chapter 7). (An anonymous Latin treatise 'Against All Heresies'
accuses Cerdo, Marcion's teacher, of doing the hack job.) Marcion, a daring
heretic who denied that Jehovah revealed in the Old Testament is the same
God as is revealed in the New, did not venture to tailor the scriptures
to his cause by adding anything at all; rather, he eliminated. He tossed
out everything but Paul's letters and Luke's gospel, and performed radical
surgery on what remained. He justified his cutting by claiming that he
was cleansing the text of interpolations. It cannot seriously be maintained
that Luke's gospel, in its original, was devoid of any mention of Jesus'
Jewish origin. Marcion's vision of his new religion did not lack boldness.
Why was he obliged to proceed in this fashion: to prepare scripture for
his new religion by excising, not by adding to Luke's 'growing text'?
From the time the texts of the New Testament were written they were received as inspired by God. Readers did
not expect improvement upon the apostolic doctrine, which was delivered once for all to the saints: "Beloved, while
I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you
to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 1:3). Though partisans
of the bishop of Rome would later describe the apostolic office as a continuing one, the early church understood the role of
the apostles and their immediate followers to have been unique. Peter sought to replace Judas with a candidate who had also been
a personal witness of the Lord's ministry and resurrection: "Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time
that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one
of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection." (Acts 1:21-22). The New Testament was understood by the early
Christians as the record of the apostles and of those immediate followers of the apostles who wrote under the umbrella of
apostolic authority (Mark of Peter, Luke of Paul).
So Marcion did not contribute to a purportedly 'growing text' by adding
his own observations because he could not; his own followers would not
have accepted it. What he did, because it was what he could do, was to excise material. If you can succeed in convincing people that
a given passage is an interpolation, then all of their righteous indignation
is focused like a destroying laser against the now criminal passage. As
the lynch mob thunders past, one cries, 'I'm not tampering with scripture,
that guy over there, he tampered with scripture -- go get him!' There is
no way to add to scripture without risk of one's own followers turning
into a Frankenstein mob because no theoretical basis for so doing is laid
in the New Testament. It is not a 'growing text' to those who hear in it the voice of God.
Even those modern movements who have ventured to improve upon perfection
have not ventured to add a new passage for which no ancient exemplar can
be found. The Jehovah's Witnesses have 'restored' the Divine Name to the
New Testament, their evidence that what is 'restored' was lost being a
medieval translation of Matthew's gospel into Hebrew which contains, not
the Divine Name, but an 'h' emblematic of 'ha shem,' 'the name.' (The Jehovah's
Witnesses do not, however, care to use 'ha shem' any more than the Christians'
preferred substitute for the Divine Name, 'kyrios.') Their boldness in
dealing with the text cannot be questioned; yet even this group has not
ventured to add new material to the text. It can't be done.
Some evidence of a 'growing text' can be found in the manuscript tradition. However in some of
these cases, where explanatory material giving geographic or biographical detail has found its way into the
text, it may be that the scribe who first contributed the material did not intend it to enter the text, but
wrote it in the margin, where notes and comments were written as well as corrections. 'Pious forgery' of the
New Testament text itself does not fall within the scope of what readers are willing to accept. In those cases
of 'pious forgery' even of extra-biblical texts where the author was uncovered, as was the writer of the 'Acts
of Paul and Thecla,' infamy was the reward for his troubles.
Advocates of modern translations speak like those with an alcoholic family
member. Much is not mentioned. There is an elephant in the living room,
but no one sees him. Comparing the newer translations with the KJV, readers
are struck by the abundance of explicit references to the deity of Jesus
Christ in the latter, their scarcity in the former. Either these references
were added at some time by over-zealous advocates of the deity of Jesus
Christ, or they have been subtracted by detractors. The systematic character
of the divergence does not allow the possibility that these are accidental
or undirected mutations.
Which is likelier: addition or subtraction? To answer, let's examine the
behavior of partisans of the other side. Arianism had the patronage of
emperors like Constantius; Bibles were prepared under the guidance of Arian
bishops. Where are all the Arian interpolations, the texts reading, 'By
the way Jesus is a creature; there was a time He was not'? They are absent.
As are the texts explicitly stating His deity in Bibles prepared under
Arian auspices, some of which, it would seem, survive. This is the corner
into which Christian heretics are backed: they can remove verses they find
troublesome, but they cannot add new ones.
Marcion subtracted because that is what he could do. Was he sincere? If you have never stood close
enough to a Jehovah's Witness to feel the heat of their indignation against those who tampered with the New Testament
by removing the Divine Name, you might wonder how they can justify tampering with the New Testament by adding
the Divine Name, when no manuscript evidence exists in their favor. Marcion
concluded from his study of the Old Testament that the God of the Jews
was an evil genie and not the same God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.
The God of the Old Testament ordered the destruction of the inhabitants
of Canaan down to the last innocent babe, while the God of the New ordered
His followers to turn the other cheek. Convinced on a priori theological grounds that Jesus could not be the predicted Messiah of the
Jews, he saw himself restoring the integrity of the gospel as he hacked
away. By contrast, a heretic who proposes to add to scripture a paragraph
he wrote five minutes ago cannot possibly perceive himself as anything
but a common forger. This is the beauty of tailoring a text by excision;
those who take this tack can sincerely believe they hold the high ground.
For this reason, the possibility that the shorter text results from a theologically
motivated excision cannot be overlooked.
While Homer begins the Iliad by invoking the Muse's assistance, there is no suggestion of his unique calling or commission by these ladies. Nor does he claim to have been an eye-witness to the events he reports. It is difficult to see a clear barrier to adding to his work comparable to, "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Revelation 22:18-19). So the proffered analogy between the New Testament and the Iliad does not seem compelling.
Let us hope no mutilated Marcionic text surfaces in these latter days,
because if one were to do so, it would have to be accepted as the legitimate
text of the New Testament. The methodology leaves no room for deletions
from the text except it be a 'typo' that happens when the scribe loses
his place. This scary thought should be enough to drive people away from
the newer Bible versions. Is it not apparent that the methodology is defective,
when it blows up in its handlers' faces when tried out against known historical
circumstances?
Window of Opportunity
The search for the original text of the New Testament has preoccupied Christians
for millennia. The difference between the early church scholars who embarked
upon this quest and modern seekers is that the former possessed evidence,
the latter do not.
Suppose a murder case decided many years ago. The jury has spoken. All
the DNA evidence has deteriorated past use, all the witnesses have died.
Yet nagging questions remain. Should the case be reopened? What are the
odds a jury unable to examine the evidence will decide the case more fairly
than the jury which did examine the evidence?
No manuscripts now exist close in age to the autographs. The quantity of
manuscripts which survive from a later epoch is too meager to count as
a representative sample even for that age:
- “A special kind of information supplied by Church Fathers is the presence
of explicit references they occasionally make concerning variant readings
among the manuscripts known to them in their own day...In any case, however,
it is of considerable significance when the Father mentions that in his
day such and such a reading was current in a 'few' or 'many' or 'most'
manuscripts. This information may -- or, more likely, may not --- be matched
by the survival today of copies containing the reading in question.”
- (The Text of the New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger, p. 279).
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The manuscript evidence examined by the earliest editors no longer exists,
yet the verdict reached upon examination of that evidence remains in the
form of the majority text. What is the advantage of overturning a verdict
founded on evidence in favor of one which is not?
Let us post two men, one crouching behind the wall, one perched on a ladder from which he can see the plain spread out before him. If the observer stationed on the ladder reports that he sees the enemy hordes approaching, should the man crouched on the ground believe him, or reopen the question for himself, by studying what he can see from his station, the movements of birds in the sky? The man on the ladder, after all, might be lying. But the most rational procedure for the man on the ground is to believe his testimony. After the text began to be stabilized in antiquity, no one again can ever see what the man on the ladder can see.
To make an assumption of bad faith on his part, as do the modern textual
scholars, is arbitrary and unfounded. The early Christians did passionately
care who had written the texts they read and revered. They accepted certain
texts on the conviction they had originated in apostolic circles:
"For in the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His apostles and
those who followed them, [it is recorded] that His sweat fell down like
drops of blood while He was praying, and saying, ‘If it be possible, let
this cup pass:’" (Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, a Jew, Chapter 103).
"And the Elder used to say this: 'Mark, having become Peter's interpreter, wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order, of the things either said or done by Christ." (Fragments of Papias, p. 316, 'The Apostolic Fathers,' J. B. Lightfoot and J.R. Harmer)
When an author provides, within the text itself, an authentication mechanism:
"The salutation with my own hand—Paul’s." (1 Corinthians 16:21).
Then is it not apparent persons familiar with Paul's hand-writing were
able to authenticate his autograph copies? No one beyond the early centuries
has any ability to do this, nor ever will again. Thus reopening the question
substitutes worthless evidence, or no evidence at all, for usable evidence.
Our entire legal system depends on testimony; if we adopt the rubric, 'most testimony is false,' we could never convict anyone of anything. Looking at the New Testament canon from the perspective of the easy cases rather than the hard,-- the four gospels and the letters of Paul,-- one realizes these works were accepted as scripture by the second century. Within this time frame, it was still possible to authenticate them, though it never will be again. Why assume bad faith?-- other than the sheer bigotry of modern critics' impression of first century people as children who told stories because they liked to tell stories.
Bart Ehrman says we should do just like the man on the ladder does: we should look out at the field and report what we see. Jerome, for example, is a man on a ladder, albeit a late-comer, and a translator at that. For all the beautiful musicality of the Latin Vulgate, it is a quirky, personal translation filled with odd translation decisions that populated the medieval cathedrals with statuettes of the horned Moses and the leprous Christ. Nevertheless, Jerome had what no modern textual critic will ever have: a library of early Bible manuscripts to study and compare. He did not look at two fourth century manuscripts and a handful of papyrus fragments and then pronounce upon the state of the original text. He had real evidence, not no statistically meaningful evidence such as survives today. So when Bart Ehrman suggests we do as Jerome did:
"On what grounds, though, did Jerome revise his text? On the grounds
of earlier manuscripts. Even he trusted the earlier record of the text.
For us not to do likewise would be a giant step backward -- even given
the diversity of the textual tradition in the early centuries." (Bart
Ehrman, 'Misquoting Jesus,' p. 103).
How are we doing "likewise" as Jerome did when he is looking
at evidence, and we are looking at none?
Court TV
One is hard pressed to imagine criminal defendants willing to stand trial
under the standards of evidence proposed by modern textual criticism:
- “The next step involves the examination of the relationship of the several
witnesses to one another. Manuscripts may be grouped and considered from
the standpoint of their genealogy. If, for example, of ten manuscripts
nine agree against one, but the nine have a common original, the numerical
preponderance counts for nothing.”
- (The Text of the New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger, p. 130).
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What, incidentally, is the evidence that manuscripts descend from a common
original? They are not, of course, date stamped! Why, the fact that they
agree: "The validity of inferences based on this procedure depends
on the genealogical principle that 'community of reading implies community
of origin.'" (The Text of the New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger, p.131).
So a parade of witnesses take the stand and testify that I was not in the
bank on the day in question. Their testimony is discarded, because they
agree. Aleph and Beta then rise to testify. No one knows these ladies'
shadowy past, but the fact that they agree with each other is given great
weight...though, recall, it was their disagreement with everybody else
that brought their testimony into prominence to begin with! They report
that I robbed the bank.
In my request for a mistrial, I note that this procedure inverts the normal
standards of evidence upon which all legal systems rest. Normally if many
witnesses agree, that to which they testify is thought likelier to be true,
not less likely. This principle was carried to its greatest extent by the
rabbis, who required witnesses to agree about even peripheral matters like
the time of day: "For many bore false witness against Him, but their
testimonies did not agree." (Mark 14:56).
"For it is a fundamental principle in the law of Evidence that the
very few are rather to be suspected than the many." (John W. Burgon,
p. 55, Causes of Corruption of the New Testament Text, excerpted from The
Traditional Text of the Gospels).
It is difficult to accept these principles, because they defy normal epistemology.
In addition, it can hardly be a matter of chance that some manuscripts
produce offspring and others do not. 'Survival of the fittest' must ensue
when readers look for the best manuscripts to copy, not the worst. A manuscript
held in such low esteem that no one copies it is not likely to be a better
copy but a worse. The system as set forth assigns a negative value to majority
agreement, which no plausible system for discovery of truth can do. Oddly
enough it also assigns a negative value to internal consistency and good
grammar, which are diagnosed as symptoms of editing, considered a form
of contamination. It seems tailor-made to award a few wild copies an authority
they could not otherwise claim.
The textural critics are ever solemnly warning against crediting majority
testimony, even though that is a normal way to verify truth-claims:
"It would be a grave mistake, though, to think that because later manuscripts agree so extensively with one another, they are therefore our superior witnesses to the 'original' text of the New Testament. For one must always ask: where did these medieval scribes get the texts they copies in so professional a manner? They got them from earlier texts, which were copies of yet earlier texts, which were themselves copies of still earlier texts." (Bart Ehrman, 'Misquoting Jesus,' p. 74).
Thus the fact that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are dead-end avenues: no one
wanted to copy these texts -- is not a problem for adherents of the minority text, but the very badge of authenticity
for their preferred text. But why did no one want to copy them, if they were the very living, breathing,
original text teleported into the fourth century? It is often demanded
of KJV-only advocates that they prove Vaticanus and Sinaiticus to have
been prepared under heretical auspices, as they sometimes suggest. Rather,
the shoe should be on the other foot: those who propose to rewrite the
Bible to conform with these two fourth-century manuscripts should prove
that they are faithful to the earlier manuscripts. Surely such a bold and
hasty undertaking requires some proof! But since there are no earlier manuscripts,
other than fragments, we will wait in vain for any such guarantee.
When scribes make copies of copies of copies, through iteration after iteration,
one must expect errors to accumulate and texts to diverge. And so they
do -- up to a point. Then the trend reverses, or so it did with the Koran,
the New Testament, and even the Iliad. As even Bart Ehrman admits, the
later manuscripts show a declining amount of variation, approaching to,
but never quite reaching, perfect agreement. What could possibly account
for this? At some point, the variation in the text distresses people. They
seek out the earliest exemplars to resolve the discrepancies. While there
still are early manuscripts in existence to be examined, this can be done
with some hope of success. Once there are none, it cannot be done at all.
To redo this work with no surviving early manuscripts to go by is to take
a wrecking ball to scripture.
