Introduction
A year and a half ago, Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why was released. No one at the time could have predicted that it would become a New York Bestseller. It’s a book that essentially introduces textual criticism to a general readership. There are some serious problems with the book, as I have noted in reviews posted on www.bible.org, in Christian Research Journal, and in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. In general, Ehrman suggests a gloomy prospect of recovering the original text, and further, that what we thought was authentic often turns out not to be—most significantly, in passages affirming a high Christology.
Critiques of Ehrman’s Book
As much as I disagree with Ehrman over these issues, there’s one thing that I think he is right on target about. He speaks about some passages that scholars for a long time have considered to be spurious, yet for a variety of reasons are still left in the Bible. Two in particular are noteworthy: Mark 16.9-20 and John 7.53-8.11. These two texts—the two longest variants in the New Testament—are almost always marked out in modern translations with notes such as “Not found in the oldest manuscripts.” However, the passages continue to be printed in the Bibles, in their normal locations. The marginal notes are ignored by most readers.
Ehrman’s Impact
Evidence of this is seen in the many interviews Ehrman has had over his surprising bestseller. He routinely brings up the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53-8.11), arguing that it’s not part of the original Gospel of John. There are gasps in the audience (e.g., when he was on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show) when he makes such a revelation.
As I noted in my review in JETS, “keeping these two pericopae in our Bibles rather than relegating them to the footnotes seems to have been a bomb just waiting to explode. All Ehrman did was to light the fuse. One lesson we must learn from Misquoting Jesus 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 for giving us a wake-up call.”
Gibbon’s Analogy
In that article, I used the analogy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: in the eighteenth century, when he wrote his masterpiece, he spoke glibly about the KJV reading of 1 John 5.7-8 (“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one”). This passage (or, more specifically, the mention of the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit), which in the KJV becomes an explicit affirmation of the Trinity, is not found in the great majority of manuscripts. In fact, there is no evidence that it was written in any Greek manuscript prior to the sixteenth century. Gibbon’s matter-of-fact denial of the authenticity of the verses in the KJV sent shock waves through England. Yet today, those two verses aren’t found in any major English Bible (apart from the KJV and NKJV), and they rarely merit a marginal note. Modern translations instead have: “For there are three that testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are in agreement” (NET Bible).
Tradition of Timidity
When it comes to the story of the woman caught in adultery or the long ending of Mark, why is it that translators are still hesitant to relegate these verses to the margin? My sense is that there is a tradition of timidity. The problem is that when layfolks learn that these verses are almost surely not authentic, it sends panic through their ranks. I assume that the RMM crowd is a bit more sophisticated than that. Hence, I am taking the risk of talking openly about these passages. If you want to see the arguments against their authenticity, simply check out the NET Bible’s notes on them (at bible.org).
Preference on Handling
The irony is that between these two doubtful passages, if most Christians had to choose, they would rather have John 7.53-8.11 in the Bible than Mark 16.9-20. Yet, the textual pedigree of the John passage is far worse than the Mark passage. To put it bluntly, the story of the woman caught in adultery is my favorite passage that’s not in the Bible.
This blog is not meant to get into the debate over whether these verses are authentic. I will simply ask you to look at the literature on this if you’re interested. It is certainly not too much to say that the great majority of New Testament scholars, including evangelical scholars, would reject both passages as later additions to the Gospels. However, no cardinal truth is lost if these verses go bye-bye. No essential doctrine is disturbed if they are MIA.
Conclusion
What I want to ask is a different question: In light of the scholarly consensus, how should translators address these passages? What would you prefer? Would you want the texts to remain in their place, with only a tiny marginal note that, like the small print in consumer products, is hardly noticed by the reader? Would you want these verses expunged from the text entirely with no trace? Would you want them relegated to footnotes with explanation? Ultimately, what I’m asking is, How honest do you want biblical scholars to be? Would you rather hear this sort of news from those who are enemies of the faith or from those love Christ and are willing to go to the wall for the scriptures? What say you?
Updated by C. MICHAEL PATTON 1/24
82 replies to "My Favorite Passage That’s Not in the Bible"
Correction: the gospels were not, of course, written “within a couple of decades” after the events of Herod and the slaughter. That was just some loose writing, but I think you gather my meaning.
Vance,
When I brought up the story of Herod I was just mainly wondering if I’d missed some extra-Biblical evidence. It appears that I haven’t. I have a slight familiarity with Herod’s reign and he was a pretty bad guy all around and certainly his well documented character argues against the possibility that he couldn’t or wouldn’t have ordered such a huge slaughter.
I think scholars do themselves a huge disservice by only treating the Bible as a theological document. We know through the numerous manuscripts available, that the books as we have them have been passed on for thousands of years and contain the passages as the original authors originally intended. Right there is one thing in favor of at least seriously investigating the scriptures as reliable witnessesses. At least a few of the events recorded in the Gospels and other Biblical books are a corroborated by outside evidence. These two reasons alone seem to me to be enough reason to at least give the Bible a critical & serious evaluation as a viable historical document.
I know for a long time many scholars claimed the Exodus was a myth and that no Hebrews had ever lived in ancient Egypt. I saw a show on the Discovery channel I believe where another scholar argued that everybody’s dating for the Exodus was off by several hundred years. His research which included previously overlooked evidence, placed the Exodus much earlier and in another pharoah’s reign. He said it would be like looking for evidence of WWII fighting in the 2000s and when none is found claiming it never happened. Of course I don’t know if other scholars have accepted this new dating, but he seems to make a good case.
Anyhow, thanks for that reference on St. Paul. I’ll have to see if I can track that book down. It sounds quite interesting.
ChadS
Felicity, you said, “If you intend to offer personal advice on my literary voice, I would humbly suggest you remove the log from your own eye prior to attending to the speck in mine.” Felicity, I have more than one log in my own eye, of that I am acutely aware! But can you offer me specifics? I’d like to know how I offended you in my comments. If it was my pointing out some were being a bit too pugilistic, I don’t think that to make that comment is itself pugilistic. If I didn’t mention you by name it was because the comment applied to more than you. You do seem to take things very personally, and the tone of your comments doesn’t seem to irenically engage with others. You’re a very intelligent person, but if you continue down a path of seeming to think that you’re always right and that the rest of us are always wrong unless we agree with you (not something you’ve said, but certainly the tone many have picked up from what you’ve written), I don’t think you’ll do much to influence folks. I am hoping for a more positive exchange of ideas, a completely civil discussion among Christians.
It is true that I have not responded to certain details of your argument; at the same time, you have not responded to any of the details of mine. I didn’t get your opinion about Cardinal Carlo Martini’s work on the New Testament (but in general, you seemed to condemn his posture which, frankly, surprised me), nor about what standard we would use to determine which readings are authentic and which are not? As for the inerrancy issue, I think a distinction needs to be made between inerrancy and inspiration. Human beings make inerrant statements all the time; we don’t make inspired statements (in the sense of biblical inspiration), except of course when quoting scripture! By mixing these two categories, you set yourself for a position that is, I believe, indefensible. You claim that we need to accept the Bible on faith. However, the fundamental issue of which version of the Bible is not answered. Which Bible should I accept? And if I choose the wrong one, aren’t I in danger of embracing a text that is not inerrant according to you?
BTW, if any of you would like to see my treatment of how we can affirm the inerrancy of the original text without having the original text (where I also make a distinction between inerrancy and inspiration), I’ve posted it at 4truth.net: http://www.4truth.net/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=hiKXLbPNLrF&b=784441&ct=1799301
***From DW:
I’d like to know how I offended you in my comments.
REPLY:
I was not offended–merely pointing out that the tone you ascribe to me without any specific reference is unwarranted, and that by virtue of the diction you chose and I quoted, it may be helpful for you to reevaluate your own tone. I do not make personal comments about others—there is no need. Analysis of tone is very subjective, as is your suggestion that I “seem to take things very personally†and “think that you’re always right and that the rest of us are always wrong unless we agree with you.†All of that is your mere perception. We have the blog as a record—anyone interested in verifying your claims is welcome to do so. Having conviction of one’s position and backing it with evidence is certainly not pugnacious, nor haughty. Statements are statements—you are welcome to contradict the statements and evidence I offer contrary to the issue of this blog, but please do so with your own evidence (as you have) sans the critique of my personality or writing style. To be frank, it is really off topic, in my opinion bordering on appearing to be rhetorical red herrings in an attempt to discredit me, and of little interest to anyone but conflict gawkers. I merely want to discuss the error of Faith by Consensus and the inherent contradictions in the mode of religiosity that assumes man can access the mind of God by building a hermeneutic that resembles, in my opinion, the building of the Tower of Babel.
***From DW:
I didn’t get your opinion about Cardinal Carlo Martini’s work on the New Testament
REPLY:
I did not respond to that because it is irrelevant to the way I view Sacred Scripture. It is irrelevant that the text may have been –even likely was—written by someone other than Mark because what gives Scripture its authority is that those successors of the Apostles who were charged by Christ Himself with the authority to bind and loose on earth and in heaven, codified the text that contained that section of likely non-Marcan authorship—thus BINDING the text that include those verses as infallible—God-breathed—Holy Scripture. The origin is moot as is anyone’s (including a Cardinal’s) opinion on it.
Much of your post dealt with the assumption that opinions of individual Catholics, and especially those who hold high office in the Church, on the matter hold some weight or sway in and of itself. It does not. The Magisterium is a body of teachers—and they speak with one voice on matters that are intended to be binding—with the Pope, guided infallibly by the Holy Spirit, as the final word sanctioning such binding Dogmas. There are a minor number of overtly defined “Dogmas,†but the Canon of Sacred Scripture is one that falls under #IV.13 & 15 http://www.theworkofgod.org/dogmas.htm
***From DW:
nor about what standard we would use to determine which readings are authentic and which are not?
REPLY:
Again, I did. And I also referenced you back to it as well as summarized it. It is also a matter of record on this blog—(post #33)
***From DW:
You claim that we need to accept the Bible on faith.
REPLY:
We accept the Bible on the transmuted authority of those that codified it. That was also stated in the portion I referenced you to—(post #33)
***From DW:
However, the fundamental issue of which version of the Bible is not answered. Which Bible should I accept?
REPLY:
The one codified by those with apostolic authority who drew the texts together and first identified them as inspired Holy Scripture—(post #33)
***From DW:
And if I choose the wrong one, aren’t I in danger of embracing a text that is not inerrant according to you?
REPLY:
Absolutely.
Sincerely,
Felicity
Felicity, I’m trying to get my mind around what you’re saying to me. A fundamental question that I have asked is, Which Bible should I accept? You responded, “The one codified by those with apostolic authority who drew the texts together and first identified them as inspired Holy Scripture.†That’s a helpful comment on one level because it deals with the method by which you understand what scripture is. However, it doesn’t help me in terms of content. Can you direct me to the authoritative, divinely inspired Bible? Which version is it? Or, if not a version, which Greek or Latin manuscript(s)? You even said that if I choose the wrong one, I will end up with an errant text. So, obviously, it’s important to use the right text. Which one do you use? And if it is a non-English text, what edition is it?
From the Council of Trent:
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html
But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.
Currently the Latin translation that is approved for liturgical use in the Catholic Church is the Nova Vulgata, but if you’re interested in the oldest known copy true to Jerome’s translation and the basis for Trent’s Dogmatic statement, you will want to look to the Codex Amiatinus. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04081a.htm
I use the Revised Standard Version Ignatius Bible Catholic Edition for my personal study, but generally I will quote the preferred text (if I know it) of the person to whom I am speaking for their convenience—that is why when you cited ESV Bible online, I began using that one in my responses to you.
Sincerely,
Felicity
Thanks, Felicity. That’s very helpful. I have some follow-up questions. Since Codex Amiatinus is corrupt (though certainly less so than most other Pandect Vulgate manuscripts), how is it possible for Trent to declare that anyone not using “the said books entire with all their parts†as found in “the old Latin vulgate edition†is anathema if they are basing this statement on Amiatinus? I may have misunderstood you here when I thought you spoke of thismanuscript as “the basis for Trent’s Dogmatic statement.†That codex is lacking Baruch, and has, as all manuscripts do, several omissions and additions that do not reflect its original (in this case, I’m speaking of the original as the Vulgate of Jerome, even though Jerome’s translation and those others who worked on the Vulgate did not do a consistently decent job of translating from the Greek or even using the best Greek witnesses to do so). If it’s missing Baruch, how could it be the basis for the dogma of Trent? Wouldn’t that particular manuscript itself be condemned? And since it has demonstrable errors, does that also remove it as a reliable copy of inspired scripture? Further, let’s even assume that this lone eighth century manuscript got it all right (except for Baruch, of course). Who would have access to it? The pronouncement of Trent was still awaiting a decent printedcopy of the Vulgate. And the church would have to wait for centuries before one came along. What were Christians to use until that time? Not too many could travel to Florence to see Amiatinus, and even if they could, most would not be allowed into the Biblioteca Laurenziana to look over this copy of scripture. I have been there to study some of their manuscripts, and I must say it’s a marvelous library. I’ve also studied manuscripts in several other Roman Catholic monasteries and sites (I even spent a week with Codex Vaticanus in Rome six years ago), but I understand that for the most part unless one is a professor at the university level or higher (or an assistant to a professor), access to these manuscript libraries is forbidden. Five guards with AK-47s at the Vatican are a visual reminder of the tight security that we had to walk through! So, for all practical purposes, Amiatinus is off-limits.
Here’s the problem: If Amiatinus is king as far as the true manuscripts are concerned, then the entire Church for nearly 1500 years has had to rest their faith on inferior manuscripts. Few have had access to this lone copy. Does that cause a problem for you? Does it cause a problem for you to use the very scriptures in your own study (the RSV) that could be under the condemnation of Trent (in spite of them later getting the imprimatur)? I think if I read the words of Trent the way you seem to have (and again, I suspect I am wrong here in how you read the statement from Trent; but your quoting of Rev 22.18-19 with the emphasis on words being added to or subtracted from scripture suggests that this is how you view Trentine dogma), then every handwritten copy of scripture ever written in any language must be condemned.
And when it comes to what is printed, the various versions of the Vulgate differ in many and significant places. Gutenberg’s was hardly a masterpiece of textual fidelity, being based on simply the manuscripts at his disposal, which did not, as a whole, reflect the earliest form of the text very well. But this underscores again the state of chaos that existed prior to the Council of Trent’s edict. After Gutenberg, Stephanus, who is better known for producing four editions of the Greek New Testament, published four editions of the Vulgate between 1528 and 1540. Each differed from the last, and this version was never authorized. Then, the Council of Trent decreed in 1546 that any copy of the Vulgate be printed with the fewest possible errors and that such a Vulgate must follow the ancient text handed down to the church as carefully as it could. The first authoritative text to follow this was Pope Sixtus’ text (known as the Sistine Vulgate) in 1590. So, here was a text that, finally, we could say was authoritative, an exact copy of the Vulgate.
Not so. It had so many mistakes in it that the remaining copies were removed from circulation ten days after the pope died! Two and a half years later another edition was published by Pope Clement VIII (known as the Clementine Vulgate), and it changed the previous pope’s Vulgate in 3000 places! Apparently, the former one was done rather hastily; it apparently did not follow Trent’s decree of extreme accuracy. But the Clementine text created errors as well as disagreeing with the former edition. To the extent that the former edition was right and the Clementine Vulgate was wrong, Pope Clement may have been guilty of knowingly and deliberately condemning the traditional wording that he considered spurious. That’s a scary thought because, if true, it would mean he was anathema! This version of the Vulgate had to go through three editions before most of the errors were corrected. These are errors of wrong spelling, wrong wording, skipped words, and added words. Are these errors that Trent condemned and Pope Clement himself was responsible for? Did he really live up to the standard of Trent—printed with the fewest errors possible? And what about the deliberate changes to the text that number in the thousands? If you press the point about errors in wording, even to the detail of adding or subtracting a single word (a la Rev 22.18-19), it seems that you are inevitably led to see that a pope was responsible for creating a copy of the scripture that was damnable. Yet this translation, the Clementine Vulgate, became the official Latin Vulgate until 1979, when it was superseded by the Nova Vulgata. So, for four hundred years, one version of the Vulgate has been considered the inspired text of scripture—in large measure because it was faithful to the oldest traditions found in the earliest manuscripts, even thought it was known to be imperfect.
To this point in history we are left with no definitive Bible that can escape the scowl of Trent. And most ironically, it was the Clementine Vulgate that was declared the official Vulgate for hundreds of years, even while better, more faithful Vulgates were being produced. Take, for example, the Vulgate of John Wordsworth and H. J. White. The three-volume work, which took more than sixty years to complete, was based largely on codex Amiatinus, but not slavishly (especially not in places where the scribe of Amiatinus committed obvious blunders!). Here was a published text, though, that was closer to the original Vulgate and superior to the Clementine Vulgate, yet it never received authorization to supplant Clement’s work. I’m not sure why that is the case, but I wonder if perhaps it had something to do with the editors being Protestants. I don’t recall anything in the Trent document that says the editors of the Vulgate had to be Catholics (I strongly suspect it’s there; I just didn’t see it). But if it’s OK to be a Protestant and work on a Bible translation that could get papal imprimatur, then why didn’t the Wordsworth-White Vulgate get it? It’s based on the very manuscript that Trent endorsed. Why, then, was it overlooked? I can’t help but think that the decree of Trent either didn’t mean what it sounds like it means or else there is some ‘flexibility’ in how it has been applied (i.e., the most accurate Vulgate that was not produced by Protestants).
In passing, the Stuttgart Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem (1969), produced by an international and inter-confessional community of scholars, has had an outstanding role in Vulgate studies. It may well come the closest to the original Vulgate of any out there. But again, this one was simply passed over by the Catholic Church. Perhaps because the whole committee was not made up of Catholics.
Finally, the Nova Vulgata comes along, commissioned by Pope John Paul II in 1979. Is this based on the oldest, most reliable tradition, as Trent declared it must be? It certainly has given a good attempt at this! But it should be noted that this Vulgate is a critical edition, reconstructed on the same kinds of principles that scholars use to reconstruct the original Greek text. So, either critically-reconstructed texts cannot be considered all bad or else this pope doesn’t represent the magisterium. Can you help me, here, Felicity? This is so confusing to me, it’s hard to know what Vulgate text Catholics should be reading. (I ask this in all seriousness.) It is possible that this text, far more than any other, will come the closest to reflecting the wording of the original Vulgate—including both those portions that Jerome penned and those that he did not. But even so, who’s to say that it won’t continue to have mistakes? Who’s to say that it won’t have faulty decisions on the part of these critically-trained scholars? Who’s to say that it will, finally, after nearly five hundred years, live to up to the decree of Trent as to what the Bible should look like? If the last half millennium is any indication, the Church has authorized Bibles that were woefully imperfect and filled with errors. Why should we trust them to get it right this time? I personally think that these Vulgate editions, for the most part, are improving. But it would be a myth to claim that we have ever had, or have now, a perfect copy of the Vulgate that deviates from the original not even a single word. If that is the case, to this extent, would you say that our Bibles are errant, fallible?
One more curious fact about the Nova Vulgata: the scholars, who were rigorous in following the critical principles of modern New Testament textual criticism, were so rigorous that they rejected several of Jerome’s renderings of the Greek even though they knew this was to go against tradition. In other words, in the official Vulgate that is used in the Catholic Church today, there seems to be a violation of the Trentine decree that calls for Bibles to stay true to the “old Latin vulgate version.†Does not Trent say that those who would “knowingly and deliberately condemn the traditions†of this old Latin edition are to be considered anathema? If so, how is it possible that the pope could authorize the Nova Vulgata when the translators knowingly and deliberately corrected Jerome’s translation of the Greek in several places, resulting in a text that has never been traditional within the Latin Bible?
I, frankly, am very impressed by this bold move. It’s the same move that Erasmus took in 1516 when he produced the first Greek New Testament published on a printing press. It was a Greek and Latin diglot, and his Latin was a conscious, running corrigendum of Jerome’s translation. Of course, Erasmus’ text was never accepted by Catholics and it was in fact banned. But now, five hundred years later, the Nova Vulgata is doing the same kind of thing but under the endorsement of the Vatican. How can these things be?
I come back to my original question: Where is the Bible that you can point to as the authoritative word of God for a Catholic? From all I can see, it’s only one in theory, but the closest we can get to it is to follow the best critical scholarship, even as Pope John Paul II argued. In point of fact, the broad sweep of Vulgate history is that the editions are getting closer to what the original Vulgate said and, therefore, closer to the early Latin traditions, as they follow rigorously the best of critical scholarship. In the least, both the papacy and scholarship seem to be in league with each other.
Dr. Wallace:
There are two issues, basically, that I see in your post—one is the question of what exactly is Sacred Scripture, and the other is issues concerning specific manuscripts. I believe that an understanding of what Catholics consider Sacred Scripture will go far to answer your particular concerns.
***From DW:
If it’s [Amiatinus] missing Baruch, how could it be the basis for the dogma of Trent? Wouldn’t that particular manuscript itself be condemned?
REPLY:
I knew when I posted that worded that way and couldn’t go back and edit this would be what I would have to write. When I offered the Amiatinus as the “basis for Trent’s Dogmatic statement†I overstated and over simplified in an attempt to give you the material you are interested in. Trent is very clear, and hence I supplied the link to the document. The section concerning what texts are Holy Scripture is short and answers most of your points concerning my personal error in representing it. Go to SESSION THE FOURTH: DECREE CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html
If Trent had meant THAT particular collection of books in the Amiatinus—that paper and ink—it would have said so. Rather, the “Scriptures†are the writings themselves—the essence that is recorded on paper in ink. Trent said “the old Latin vulgate edition†not “the Vulgate housed at the Vatican†or any “particular†manuscript. The Amiatinus is the oldest example of the codified Scriptures, but to understand Sacred Scripture as some book somewhere under lock and key that is to be venerated as the one supposed perfect Word of God itself, is to view the book itself as the Logos and take that title from Jesus Christ—it would be idolatry.
One thing that is important to understand concerning the Catholic view of what is authoritative teaching is that three things work in tandem to produce what most perfectly conveys what God has revealed: Sacred Oral Tradition, the Holy Scriptures, and the Magisterium. In other words—Catholics do not put all their eggs in a “printed†text, but rather the Scriptures, and Tradition, and the means to understand them clearly and cogently, are provided for in the Catholic faith.
Ultimately, the New Covenant Revelation was entrusted to a particular group of men and given them through experience with the God-Man and through the words He spoke to them. The “actual†Revelation of God can only be conveyed imperfectly through various testimony (as Paul explains: “in a mirror dimlyâ€). However, all Christians have faith that the testimony they receive is incorrupt in that, though it is not our individual re-experiencing of the actual Revelation given only to the Apostles, it is the most accurate representation of that experience possible and that the essence is inerrant and infallible. That testimony comes to us FIRST through the Apostles themselves—then through their oral teaching, and then through the written word. To the Catholic—that testimony is equally conveyed through Sacred Oral Tradition and Sacred Written Tradition—the latter being what is known as Sacred Scripture.
***From DW:
And since it has demonstrable errors, does that also remove it as a reliable copy of inspired scripture?
REPLY:
To understand your position better, Are you saying should strive to find THE one single text that has all the books of Scripture bound together and without any humanly imposed errors such as a misplaced letter or a slip in spelling in order for you to consider it “reliable?†That rigidity is likely what led the author of the book you discussed in your opening to lose his FAITH.
Because Catholics can rely on the Church as well as the Traditional Scriptures, our faith is not bound to being able to point to the “perfect†written word and are rather free to worship the Perfect Word—as in Jesus. Again, Scripture is not the Logos—Jesus is. He revealed Himself to the Apostles, and they took Him to the whole world before anything was written of the New Covenant.
***From DW:
Who would have access to it? The pronouncement of Trent was still awaiting a decent printedcopy of the Vulgate. And the church would have to wait for centuries before one came along. What were Christians to use until that time? Not too many could travel to Florence to see Amiatinus, and even if they could, most would not be allowed into the Biblioteca Laurenziana to look over this copy of scripture. So, for all practical purposes, Amiatinus is off-limits.
REPLY:
To me… raising a “printed†copy to this level of adoration seems idolatrous.
The Amiatinus is merely a book—not God—nor in and of itself THE One Holy Bible. It is merely a representation—as all Bibles are—of what God has given man. Even if Jerome’s original text was found in perfect condition—it would still be a mere “copy†of the Sacred Scriptures. We cannot get our hand on the very letter of Paul to the Romans—it is lost to antiquity—and if we could, would that letter have no errors? I doubt it, Paul even remarks about his lousy handwriting! Further, the Revelation given Paul was experienced only by Paul on his journey to Damascus. We cannot experience God’s actual revelation as Paul did—we can know it only by his authoritative testimony to it. If you seek THE one piece of literature written by God’s very hand, you will have to find the ark of the covenant and locate those tablets from Mount Sinai. Traditional Scripture is the essence of God’s word—not God’s Word—that Word is Jesus, the God-Man.
***From DW:
Here’s the problem: If Amiatinus is king as far as the true manuscripts are concerned, then the entire Church for nearly 1500 years has had to rest their faith on inferior manuscripts.
REPLY:
That is only if the Scriptures are the manuscripts—they are not. They are the essence of what has been revealed and then taught through Sacred Tradition—the manuscripts are the means to know that revelation, but they are merely paper and ink and that is why Sacred Tradition is so “Sacredâ€â€”Jesus gave to His Apostles a weighty duty, but He provided them with the Advocate at Pentecost—Jesus DID NOT give His Apostles a manuscript imbued with His Glory.
***From DW:
(and again, I suspect I am wrong here in how you read the statement from Trent; but your quoting of Rev 22.18-19 with the emphasis on words being added to or subtracted from scripture suggests that this is how you view Trentine dogma),
REPLY:
That is correct, and I hope my above admission of overstatement and the link to Trent clarifies.
***From DW:
To this point in history we are left with no definitive Bible that can escape the scowl of Trent.
REPLY:
Because you are looking for ONE printed manuscript and Scripture is the testimony contained in texts that were codified—not the books or paper and ink themselves.
The history you convey of the printing of manuscripts is as accurate as I am aware, but again…Catholic belief concerning Scripture is not so rigid as apparently your position is and it is likely because we rely on Sacred Tradition in conjunction with the Sacred Scriptures. People are people—even popes and cardinals and bishops—error occur in the mundane minutia of human life. Human error of “printing†does not corrupt the testimony of the Apostles to the Revelation entrusted to them by God.
***From DW:
I don’t recall anything in the Trent document that says the editors of the Vulgate had to be Catholics (I strongly suspect it’s there; I just didn’t see it). But if it’s OK to be a Protestant and work on a Bible translation that could get papal imprimatur, then why didn’t the Wordsworth-White Vulgate get it?
REPLY:
Did the WW-Vulgate have what Catholics call the Deuterocanonical books and what Protestants call the Apocrypha? I’m certain there was much tension in the Church concerning what Luther and some others had done to the unity of the Church and I don’t doubt there was hesitancy to extend any sort of legitimacy to what is viewed as a heretical schism. however…your continued speculation on more modern bias is really just speculation and not particularly fair, in my opinion. Perhaps the Stuttgart (1969) isn’t used because it lacks punctuation and uses classic spellings and the purpose of “vulgate†is to have the text in the common language for ease of reading by the masses.
***From DW:
So, either critically-reconstructed texts cannot be considered all bad or else this pope doesn’t represent the magisterium. Can you help me, here, Felicity? This is so confusing to me, it’s hard to know what Vulgate text I should be reading.
REPLY:
Perhaps looking to what Scripture is, rather than to an individual manuscript, would be of benefit. And, perhaps reconsidering the means of God’s revelation in your life would be of benefit. God didn’t leave you with this mess of manuscripts—He gave you the Logos and He gave you a teaching authority protected by the Advocate—the Scriptures are the written form of that revelation, but not a “single†specific manuscript. The Tradition that underpins Scripture testifies to its authenticity—and concerning such passages in Mark you are personally willing to relegate to a footnote—the early Church Fathers have testified to their authenticity by their use of the text as profitable for teaching and instruction. Whereas you seem to only rely on what can be pointed to in a “particular text,†the Catholic Church “stand[s] firm and hold[s] to the traditions that you were taught…either by our spoken word or by our letter.†2Thes 2:15 .
Dr. Wallace,
Thank you so much for your link above to your article regarding “how we can affirm the inerrancy of the original text without having to the original textâ€. It was very insightful and helpful reading.
I have a couple of questions, some probably to long for blog setting, and if they are I would humbly ask if you could point me to a book or a link that you think would answer the question(s) the best.
My first question is, do you hold to inerrancy and if so, how do you define it, and what do you use to qualify that term?
Secondly (which may be the longer one), can you point me to something that describes how the formation of the cannon took place (i.e. the collection, translation, and organization [which books should be in/out] of our current Bible)? Because these are my thoughts after reading your paper:
“Ok I understand that the manuscripts warrant strong evidence for the authenticity for our current translations and I agree with your three points that diffuse the objection, but (if I am understanding you correctly) our current modern translations have been formed by literally thousands of different manuscripts and fragments, each with variants or discrepancies right?â€
So the question in my mind is this:
“How do we (and by we I mean the scholars who organized and translate our Bibles) know which “pieces†of those fragments and manuscripts should make it through to the Bible, in light of many of the issues that you raised where different fragments and manuscripts seem to clash together with one another. Does the older fragment or manuscript take priority, or what methology is used for determining the ultimate form and wording of Scripture?â€
Thank you for the wonderful ministry you do, you are truly a blessing.
Your brother in Christ,
-Josh
***From Vance:
So the question in my mind is this:
“How do we (and by we I mean the scholars who organized and translate our Bibles) know which “pieces†of those fragments and manuscripts should make it through to the Bible, in light of many of the issues that you raised where different fragments and manuscripts seem to clash together with one another. Does the older fragment or manuscript take priority, or what methology is used for determining the ultimate form and wording of Scripture?â€
REPLY:
I agree. That is the pertinent question in my mind as well. I would only add, “what is the criteria that determines ANY text (including those already in the Bible) is fit to be called ‘inspired?’â€
Just clearing up that it was Josh’s very interesting question that Felicity was quoting, not mine. 🙂
But, since I have a window open, I might as well add that I am concerned with the bits and pieces from a more organic and scholarly point of view, but not so much from a “Holy Scripture” point of view. Since my view of inerrancy is not as strict as some others’, and I view what was selected by the Church community as a “collection of the texts which contain the message” rather than the particular words used in every case, I can not get theologically wound up over it. I believe that God inspired the writings of PERFECT concepts using very imperfect men, so that the exact method of presentation, the exact words that were used, were human. This is why God directed the use of four of the Gospels, and letters with overlapping themes. The message is inerrant, the concepts and teaching and theology are Divine, but I think we get into trouble when we determine doctrine on the commas, so to speak. I think the writers of the NT were struggling at times to explain the divine revelation they were receiving in human language, and that is not entirely possible. To understand the ways of God in human language, we must realize that the language will be imprecise and incomplete allow the Spirit to guide us from there. Thus, we might find contradictions and difficult language in the various texts if we are looking for absolute perfection in imperfect language.
HOWEVER, the addition of an entire new text is another issue. If, as Felicity points out, this questionable text was present in at least some of the texts BEFORE the fourth century when God was directing humans in the collection of the texts He had chosen, then I have less theological concern over whether they were in the text as originally written. Again, if we accept that God directed these men in the choice of WHICH texts generally, then we must accept the form of the texts they chose. On the other hand, I think that an historical analysis of what WAS in the text they were particularly considering, regardless of whether it was present in SOME of the texts at the time, is still an important inquiry.
While I don’t hold to any strict magisterium or apostolic authority on this issue, I think that God was directing the leaders of the Church on this issue. And, of course, that is a matter of faith, not reason.
***From Josh pretending to be Vance pretending to be Josh:
Just clearing up that it was Josh’s very interesting question that Felicity was quoting, not mine.
REPLY:
Remember: I think I’m always right! 😉
(just kiddin’ 😀 Sorry ’bout the mix-up!)
Dear Dr. Wallace,
You wrote, “I am taking the risk of talking openly about these passages. If you want to see the arguments against their authenticity, simply check out the NET Bible’s notes on them (at bible.org).â€
Okay, let’s take a closer look at the note in the NET Bible at the end of Mk. 16:8. Let’s consider not only what those notes say, but what they do NOT say, and let’s consider how this affects the impression given to the readers. In the interest of brevity I will only hit some highlights.
NET: “The Gospel of Mark ends at this point in some witnesses (× B 304 sys sams armmss Eus Eusmss Hiermss), including two of the most respected mss (× B).â€
Aleph has a cancel-sheet on which is the text of Mk. 14:54-Lk. 1:56. We don’t have the original pages of Aleph where Mk. 15:54-Lk. 1:1-56 are concerned. Also, Aleph has a blank page after the Gospels — which could be merely a filler-sheet, or which could be the copyist’s way of leaving the option of adding absent passages (such as Mk. 16:9-20) open to the eventual owner of the manuscript. Why doesn’t the NET mention that Aleph has a cancel-sheet here?
B has a prolonged blank space after Mk. 16:8, which is only four lines too short to include the entire text of Mk. 16:9-20 if one begins writing, in the copyist’s normal lettering, at the end of 16:8. A copyist who compressed his lettering and slightly extended the margin of the final column of the page could fit the text of Mk. 16:9-20 into the blank space. Why doesn’t the NET mention that B has a prolonged blank space here? — The ONLY such deliberate blank space (unlike a few blank spaces in the OT-portion which are merely the “seams†where different copyists finished and began their work) in the entire manuscript?
304 is a medieval manuscript which contains the text of Mark interspersed with commentary. When it ends, not only is the text of Mark truncated (at the end of 16:8), but the text of the commentary is truncated as well. (Part of Maurice Robinson’s comments about this are readily available online at R. Waltz’s “Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism.) Plus, the text of 304 is Byzantine. It seems clear to me that this is an accidental quirk-reading. Why doesn’t the NET mention these important features of MS 304?
The citation of Jerome’s mss (Hier-mss) gives readers no indication that Jerome was parroting Eusebius, which he clearly was doing! Jerome includes Mk. 16:9-20 in the Vulgate, and in “Against the Pelagians†II:14, Jerome quoted Mk. 16:14 when mentioning the Freer Logion to his readers, without any indication that they might not find it in their copies. Why doesn’t the NET mention that Jerome’s statements in “Ad Hedybiam†are heavily dependent upon an earlier writing by Eusebius?
NET: “This shorter ending is usually included with the longer ending (L Ψ 083 099 0112 579 al); k, however, ends at this point.â€
Error! 083 and 0112 are THE SAME MANUSCRIPT!
Plus, it’s a little misleading to write “al†when by simply adding 274 to the list, we would have an *exhaustive* list of all the Greek MSS known to contain the Short Ending.
NET: “Jerome and Eusebius knew of almost no Greek mss that had this ending.â€
That is not a valid statement as far as Jerome is concerned. Anyone who reads Jerome’s Ad Hedybiam (Epistle 120) and Eusebius’ Ad Marinus can see that Jerome was leaning very heavily on an earlier source.
NET: “Most mss include the longer ending (vv. 9-20) immediately after v. 8 (A C D W [which has a different shorter ending between vv. 14 and 15]â€
Error! The Freer Logion is not a “different shorter ending.†Such a description, frankly, makes no sense.
NET: “Several mss have marginal comments noting that earlier Greek mss lacked the verses.â€
Error! No Greek manuscript has a note that says “The early Greek MSS lack these verses.†The most that can be said is that the notes imply that mss earlier than the mss in which the note is written lack the verses. If one actually views the contents of the notes in f-1 and related copies, one will see that they typically say something like, “Some MSS lack these verses but most MSS contain them,†or, “Some MSS lack these copies but the early ones contain them.â€
NET: “while others mark the text with asterisks or obeli (symbols that scribes used to indicate that the portion of text being copied was spurious).â€
I’m curious. What exactly are these “others†which do not have a marginal note about Mk. 16:9-20, but which *do* mark them with asterisks or obeli?
NET: “Internal evidence strongly suggests the secondary nature of both the short and the long endings. Their vocabulary and style are decidedly non-Markan (for further details, see TCGNT 102-6).â€
Waitasecond: first, you say to see the NET’s notes for details. Then the NET’s notes tell us to read Metzger for details. I’ve read Metzger, and his comments, however well-spun, are not persuasive. Why doesn’t the NET share the other side of the internal evidence — for instance, by providing a link to Dr. Bruce Terry’s analysis of the internal evidence involved?
NET: “All of this evidence strongly suggests that as time went on scribes added the longer ending, either for the richness of its material†—
(Hmm; “richness of material,†“richness of material;†where have I read something like that before? Oh I remember: p. 126 of Metzger’s Textual Commentary: Mk. 16:9-20 is described as “so rich in interesting material†— where Metzger was adjusting Hort’s description (in Notes, p. 44, column 2), “rich in interesting matter.â€)
Is Mk. 16:9-20 truly full of rich material? Compared to the abrupt ending and the Short Ending, yes. But would anyone with access to Matthew, Luke, and John in the second century consider the Long Ending of Mark to have a “richness of material†considering that it relates Jerusalem-appearances instead of Galilean ones, and considering how it adds to the difficulty of harmonization, and considering its prominent mention of serpent-handling and poison-drinking?
NET: “All of the witnesses for alternative endings to vv. 9-20 thus indirectly confirm the Gospel as ending at v. 8.â€
Error! This reference to “alternative endings†is misleading. There is one and only one alternative ending to vv. 9-20: the Short Ending.
NET: “This first explanation is the most likely due to several factorsâ€
How can relative probability be gauged without exploring the likelihood of the other possibilities? Why doesn’t the NET consider how likely or unlikely it is that the Gospel-account was never finished (by Mark)?
Okay; thus concludes my exploration of the NET notes. Clearly, the NET — which fails to mention the support for the inclusion of Mk. 16:9-20 from Justin, Tatian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Macarius Magnes, De Rebaptismate, Aphrahat, Ambrose, Augustine, Doctrine of Addai, etc — is, as you said, the place to go “If you want to see the arguments against their authenticity.†If you want a thorough, balanced presentation of evidence, though, you need to go somewhere else.
DW: “This blog is not meant to get into the debate over whether these verses are authentic.â€
But it should! By avoiding such a debate, you’re not allowing one of your basic premises to be questioned. It’s like saying, “Where should we sail this ship?†without allowing us to look at the hull to see if it should be sailed at all.
DW: “I will simply ask you to look at the literature on this if you’re interested.â€
Almost all the literature on the subject of Mk. 16:9-20 is either very shallow, or else contains errors and inaccuracies. (In some cases, it’s shallow, AND it contains errors and inaccuracies.)
DW: “the great majority of New Testament scholars, including evangelical scholars, would reject both passages as later additions to the Gospels.â€
And in the great majority of commentaries by evangelical scholars that go into any detail about Mark 16:9-20, there are errors regarding the external evidence.
DW: “In light of the scholarly consensus, how should translators address these passages?â€
The first step, it seems to me, is clear: test the scholarly consensus.
DW: “I think they should be in footnotes rather than not being printed at all.â€
But it looks like you think that 083 and 0112 were two different manuscripts, and that the Freer Logion is a “different shorter ending.â€
DW: “When Westcott and Hort produced their magisterial Greek New Testament in 1881, there was a virulent reaction by the Dean of Chichester, John Burgon. He produced volumes about that the long ending of Mark needing to be retained.â€
Error! John Burgon’s book defending the legitimacy of Mk. 16:9-20 was written in 1874, quite a while BEFORE Westcott & Hort produced their Greek NT. (Hort cites Burgon’s book in “Notes on Select Readings,†p. 30, at the bottom of column 1.)
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James, I appreciate you comments concerning this passage. Obviously you are aware of the scholarship that goes into accepting Wallace’s proposal and therefore the support that it has among conservatives and liberals, therefore, your presentation and tone is very misleading. There are many good reference works that people can access to further explore this issue, but when Wallace said that this was not a debate, he was conceding to the mass scholarship that agrees with him and trying to draw out the implications. While you may disagree with the presuppositions Wallace has made, I ask you to respect the stated purpose of this particular post and not attempt to draw out a debate.
Thanks much.
Dear C. Michael Patton,
CMP: “Obviously you are aware of the scholarship that goes into accepting Wallace’s proposal and therefore the support that it has among conservatives and liberalsâ€
There’s an axiom in textual criticism: “Manuscripts should be weighed, not counted.†The same could be said of scholars. Appealing to a “scholarly consensus†does not persuade me for the same reason that appealing to the “majority text†does not persuade Dr. Wallace.
CMP: “your presentation and tone is very misleading.â€
No it’s not. In what sentence have I misled you? The adjective “misleading†applies much more to the NET’s note at Mark 16:9 than it applies to anything I have written here.
CMP: “I ask you to respect the stated purpose of this particular post and not attempt to draw out a debate.â€
You presented the NET’s note. I asked questions about it:
(1) Why doesn’t the NET mention that in Aleph, the text of Mk. 14:54-Lk. 1:56 is on a cancel-sheet?
(2) Why doesn’t the NET mention that B has a prolonged blank space after Mk. 16:8?
(3) Why doesn’t the NET mention that 304 is a Byzantine-text, commentary-with-text-interspersed manuscript, and that not only its text of Mark but also its commentary seems to end abruptly?
(4) Why doesn’t the NET mention that Jerome’s statements in “Ad Hedybiam†are heavily dependent upon an earlier writing by Eusebius?
(5) Why does the NET present 083 and 0112 as if they are two different manuscripts?
(6) Why does the NET describe the Freer Logion as a “different shorter ending�
(7) What are the manuscripts which, according to the NET, do not have a marginal note about Mk. 16:9-20, but which *do* mark the passage with asterisks or obeli?
(8) Why doesn’t the NET mention Dr. Bruce Terry’s analysis of internal evidence?
(9) Why doesn’t the NET mention the patristic evidence in early and important sources such as Justin, Tatian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Macarius Magnes, De Rebaptismate, Aphrahat, Ambrose, the Vulgate, and Augustine?
Those questions are invitations for you and Dr. Wallace to either defend the veracity of a source you have cited — a source you have cited to support your position — or else to admit that the source is erroneous at some points and woefully unbalanced and incomplete at other points. Such a discussion about the NET’s note is not a debate about the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20. It’s a logical development in the discussion. The ball is in your court; either defend your source or abandon it.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
The basic issue has to do with this statement you made:
But it should! By avoiding such a debate, you’re not allowing one of your basic premises to be questioned. It’s like saying, “Where should we sail this ship?†without allowing us to look at the hull to see if it should be sailed at all.
The stated purpose of this particular post was NOT to debate the issues but deal with the implications. If you want to respond to a post that is not intended for debate, you need to create a blog and do so. All I am asking is that you respect the authors intentions on the Parchment and Pen blog. This is not a forum. You can certainly disagree, but you cannot draw people into a debate on this blog when their intentions state otherwise.
If we were to allow for such encounters when the purpose is stated otherwise, we would have endless challenges from JWs, KJV Only advocates and even legitimate disagreements such as yours may be. Yet we have to protect the intentions and time of the authors.
I hope you understand.
Dear C. Michael Patton:
Dr. Wallace re-stated his question in this way: “My question was whether we should remove such texts to the footnotes in light of the scholarly consensus.†Here’s my answer: No.
But that’s not the end of a discussion; it’s the beginning of one. Obviously that answer would elicit the question, “Why not?â€, to which my answer would be, because the scholarly consensus is poorly grounded. The literature on the subject of Mark 16:9-20 which has contributed to a very large extent to the current scholarly consensus about Mark 16:9-20 is riddled with inaccuracies, embellishments, and falsehoods, and it neglects important evidence. As one shining example of this we need look no further than the NET’s note on the subject. Nobody who could write such a note, or pass off such a note onto trusting readers as if it is a balanced and accurate presentation of the evidence, has a right to a firm opinion about Mark 16:9-20.
Thus ends my reply to Dr. Wallace’s question. If only I had fathomed that that sort of debate-free reply was all that Dr. Wallace had intended to elicit, I could have saved some time, eh.
Oh, one more thing:
DW: “The modern translations, on the other hand, are based on manuscripts that come from as early as the second century. And instead of half a dozen, we now know of almost 6000 Greek manuscripts (let alone tens of thousands in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and other ancient languages). In other words, modern translations are based on about one thousand times as many manuscripts as the KJV, and they predate the Greek manuscripts of the KJV by almost a millennium.â€
For Dr. Wallace’s last sentence there to be true, we would need to have 6,000 manuscripts written before the year 600. We do not have any such thing! You can’t just squish together the date of the oldest witnesses and the quantities of the available Greek mss; that’s not a case of putting the previous statement into other words; it is an entirely different (and fictitious) statement. Why should I, or anyone, trust a “scholarly consensus†if it can be shown that its best and brightest advocates are capable of this sort of ridiculous statement?
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
P.S. In a previous post I wrote that Burgon published his defense of Mark 16:9-20 in 1874. The correct date is 1871.
Yes, James, and the assumption was the the scholarly consensus was correct, therefore it is the implications that this blog sought to deal with, not the validity of the scholarly consensus.
Therefore, until the blog turns in such a way, I have to protect the time and intent of the authors, myself, Dan, Paul, and Ruth so that this does not become a place where people feel as if they can come and publicly call people out. There is a place for such things, but this blog is not it (unless such a correspondence is intended by the author).
As blog lord, I have to say that comments are meant to be comments, and not dissertations.
Jim Snapp Jr. – Without judging the validity of your comments, I must ask you to limit the length of your posts. As Michael said, this is not the time for another Southeastern Baptist Seminary debate. I was there and heard you have your say with Dr. Wallace, and I saw you hand out floppy disks of your work to everyone. Since you’ve already spoken to him on the matter, as well as given him the info on floppy, there is really no need to rehash it here.
Again, let me reiterate, I am not saying anything about the content of your post, only the length. Well, let me also say that your tone is fairly disrespectful, as well. Your “Error!” statements lack social grace, regardless of their veracity.
So, to you and others, limit the length of your post. If you ask me how long your comments can be, I’ll ban you. Just be good stewards of the author’s and other reader’s time.
Dear Richards,
I’ll be very careful not to ask you how long my comments can be.
Some perspective:
Post #65 was 423 words long (369 if you don’t count the quotations of CMP), and Post #67 was 403 words long (again, less if you don’t count the quotations of CMP and Dr. Wallace). So your objection to the length of my comments is not about those two short posts. It must be about Post #63, which was 1,497 words long (1,121 words, if you don’t count the quotations of Dr. Wallace and the NET).
Consider the length of Dr. Wallace’s comments (not including his initial post, which was 995 words long): Post #25: 674 words. Post #42: 1,359 words. Post #53: 431 words. Post #55: 146 words. Post #57: 2,009 words.
That totals 4,619 words in the comments by Dr. Wallace. Combine that with the 995 words of his initial post, and I faced 5,614 words to engage.
In the course of my 1,497-word post, I engaged not only Dr. Wallace’s comments, but some of Dr. Patton’s as well. If we overlook very short comments made by Dr. Patton, and only consider posts # 15 (267 words), #24 (652 words), and #46 (200 words), then I faced 1,119 more words to engage.
In Post #63, where I wrote 1,121 words, and quoted 376 more words, I attempted to engage the most important aspects of Dr. Wallace’s 5,614 words and Dr. Patton’s 1,119 words. My post, as a response to material by Drs. Wallace and Patton which totals more than four times as many words, is therefore of a reasonable and understandable length, istm (especially in light of Dr. Wallace’s single 2,009-word post).
Richard: “Your “Error!†statements lack social grace, regardless of their veracity.â€
It is better to be slapped with the truth than to be kissed with an error.
Sometimes a certain nuance of alarm is necessary to get people to wake up and notice what you are saying. I could be gentler, but then I might have to sacrifice some brevity.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
I have often wondered why so many Baptists misquote that you must be “reborn of water and the spirit”. I have not found REBORN in a single copy of any Bible in existance, nor in the Greek versions that I have. Where I first located it was in a second century quote by Augustus of Hippo, and it has since become part of the Catholic cathechism. Even Pope John Paul II in 1986 misquotes it as “Reborn of water and the Holy Spirit” in his Dominum et Vivficantem (On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World). It seems that it was the Catholic church that changed “Born” to “Reborn”, and have never let go of that. Why is that important? Because according to the text, we are all born of water (what is born of the flesh is flesh), but we must now be REBORN of spirit. John the Baptist foretold of a NEW baptism of Fire and the Holy Spririt. Jesus himself breathed toungues of fire onto the Apostles and they received the Holy Spirit. Jesus never Baptised anyone with Water, and Paul regrets that he did. The element of Christian Baptism is the Holy Spirit not Water, but the misquote has altered the faith now for over 1900 years.
James Snapp, Jr. wrote:
Richard: “Your “Error!†statements lack social grace, regardless of their veracity.â€
It is better to be slapped with the truth than to be kissed with an error.
Sometimes a certain nuance of alarm is necessary to get people to wake up and notice what you are saying. I could be gentler, but then I might have to sacrifice some brevity.
A reading from the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ ”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and slapped him. “ERROR! You love your possessions, not God. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
The man went away fearful of Jesus. Seeing this, his disciples asked, “Why did you shout at him?”
Jesus replied, “Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with an error. Of course, better still to be kissed with the truth, but sometimes a certain nuance of alarm is required.”
One of the twelve said, “That thing you said about how what comes from the mouth arises from the heart…”
Jesus said, “Doesn’t apply to sarcasm. Or whatever I declare retroactively to have been a rhetorical tactic.”
Dear Jay H.,
Perhaps I should point out that my statement, “It is better to be slapped with the truth than to be kissed with an error†was meant to serve as an allusion to Proverbs 27:6 – “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.†I did not mean for it to be taken as an admission that I have slapped anyone in the way that you pictured Jesus slapping the rich young ruler. What I meant is that I am not trying to harm, but to improve. For improvement to begin, the need for improvement must be recognized; ergo my candid and specific identification of errors.
Regarding Mark 10:17-22: a case could be made that Jesus’ love for the man is what impelled Him to spur the young ruler to face facts that he had not yet acknowledged. That is similar to what I have attempted to do here.
I appreciate your desire to address my candid tone. I’ll try to be gentler here in the future. Meanwhile, I hope you have a similar desire to address the facts about Mk. 16:9-20, and to ensure that errors about the passage are not perpetuated by you or those you instruct.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
An early poster on the thread noted that part of Bart Ehrman’s problem was that he ‘was’ a fundamentalist. I would submit that Ehrman is STILL a fundamentalist ranting for certainty but playing on the opposite team and heading in the opposite direction. (This does beg the question that if we assume fundamentalists are ‘backwards’ as the stereotype alleges, does this mean agnostic fundamentalists are not only backwards but going in reverse? But I digress).
Ehrman is indeed a sad case, but it is where dogmatic fundamentalism ultimately leads. Ehrman is simply more honest with his soul about what troubles him than those who would deny the significance of textual variants (like I John 5:7 in particular) or who comfort themselves by restating the original argument with more force.
Yet despite Ehrman’s protestations, he’s still just as fundamentalistic in his approach as he was when he was a fundamentalist. He possesses the same dogmatic certainty about exaggerated claims, has the missionary zeal to attempt to convert people to the cause using the ‘you can’t answer my question’ technique, and bibliology sits on the center of his theological throne in place of Christology.
I don’t say any of what I state to in any way diminish Erhman’s obvious scholarship. The man clearly delves into his work and enjoys it, and his contributions to TC are excellent. But he is not the first nor will he be the last who follows a paradigm of how God ‘had’ to do something and abandons belief when the paradigm is faulty.
Amazing how such a conclusion presupposes the infallibilty of the paradigm and the fallibility of God.
Thanks for the article, Dr. Wallace.
M
General Question:
If Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are the two great unicals, why doesn’t someone just translate them into English?
Why simply note variants?
Thanks,
Jack
Jack, this is an excellent question. There are a couple of reasons why we don’t just follow these manuscripts slavishly. First, both of them are handwritten products and as such they each contain scribal mistakes. All scholars today are convinced that we should never follow just one MS all the time. And even the great proponents of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, Westcott and Hort, occasionally strayed from their combined testimony. Second, in thousands of places they disagree with each other. In such instances, what are we to do? Which MS should we follow? Third, Vaticanus does not contain the whole NT. The last several leaves have been lost, replaced centuries later by a text that deviated significantly from what Vaticanus would almost surely have read.
At bottom, scholars use the best manuscripts, versions, and patristic witnesses to reconstruct the text of the New Testament. But they don’t rely on just one MS or even a group of MSS all the time.
[…] should not be in the Bible (For more on the woman caught in adultery see Dan Wallace, “My Favorite Passage the is Not in the Bible“). But whether you take these two passages out or leave them in, Christianity is still […]
One advantage of teaching exegetically through a book of the Bible is that these types of issues can be dealt with in the context of the book.
One other question. Does your church have a means of allowing members/attenders to ask questions by email or web site? This has been a means of uncovering questions/issues that our body is facing.
[…] passage is practically impossible to defend as authentic. Dr. Wallace talks about both passages in this Parchment & Pen article. Wallace has also debated Bart Ehrman in the Greer-Heard Forum. What that debate showed is that the […]
[…] passage is practically impossible to defend as authentic. Dr. Wallace talks about both passages in this Parchment & Pen article (reclaimingthemind.org). Wallace has also debated Bart Ehrman in the Greer-Heard Forum. What that […]
[…] passage is practically impossible to defend as authentic. Dr. Wallace talks about both passages in this Parchment & Pen article. Wallace has also debated Bart Ehrman in the Greer-Heard Forum. What that debate showed is that the […]
Since all scripture is inspired, it has to be preserved by the One who wrote it.