new testament textual criticism and the true significance of the variants - by wildcat

8/4/2019 New Testament Textual Criticism and the True Significance of the Variants - By Wildcat

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New Testament Textual Criticismand the True Significance of the Variants

Wildcat

OUTLINE

I. G eneral Text-Critical Issues A. The Living Text B. Between Autograph and Earliest MSS C. Conjectural Emendation & The Tenacity of Textual Variants

D. P laying the P ercentages II. Variants that Affect Crucial Christian Doctrines

A. Mark 16:9-20 B. Luke 22:17-20 C. J ohn 1:18 D. I J ohn 5:7-8

III. Appendix I: On the Reliability of Oral Tradition IV. Appendix II: Three Implicit Indications in the G ospels of J esus¶ Divinity

A. J esus as P re-Existent B. J esus as Wisdom Incarnate C. J esus the Son of Man

INTRODUCTION

For many years since the internet debates have been unfolding (and for centuries prior to theinternet age), Muslims and Christians have been grappling with the all-important matter of the integrity (or lack thereof) of the Biblical text. In light of recent attacks on the integrity of the Biblical text, especially the New Testament, this essay seeks to examine the implicationsof the textual variations that exist in the New Testament manuscript tradition.

In response to Islamic accusations of Biblical corruption, Christians commonly tout the greatquantity of New Testament manuscripts (MSS) that have been discovered (i.e. approximately5,750 Greek MSS; perhaps as many as 24,000 total MSS when including translations intoLatin, Syriac, Coptic, etc. ± this number includes both partial and full manuscripts ± aquantity virtually unparalleled by other ancient documents) and the relatively short amount of time that exists between the composition of the original documents and the earliestmanuscripts (again, compared with other ancient documents). While there is a very largenumber of textual variations among the extant manuscripts, a very high percentage of theoriginal text is recoverable from an analysis of the currently-available MSS, and in almostevery case (save perhaps for a few), the original reading is believed by textual critics to be



extant among the known textual variants. Most importantly, it remains the case that no major Christian doctrine is in doubt as a result of the textual variations.

New Challenges

Within the past few years, either the significance of the above assertions or the assertions

themselves have been challenged. The general integrity of the text has especially been calledinto question since New Testament textual critic Bart Ehrman has popularized his scholarshipregarding the New Testament manuscripts (especially in his widely-sold "Misquoting Jesus").Additionally, Muslim polemicists have published several articles utilizing materials takenfrom Ehrman as well as other NT textual scholars in order to discredit the integrity of the

New Testament text. Here are links to a few that are representative: [ 1], [2], [ 3], [ 4].

Before proceeding with our critique of the approaches taken by such polemics, we canconcede some credit where it is due. Contrary to most polemics regarding issues relevant toChristianity we find from critics (whether it is from Muslims, atheists, anti-missionaries,etc.), Muslim polemicists have managed to piece together a substantial amount of scholarly,thought-provoking material in their articles on NT textual criticism. Accordingly, they utilizethe relevant sources, i.e. legitimate New Testament scholars, particularly textual critics.Finally, I think it is even fair to state that their polemics demand Christian apologists do morehomework on this crucial subject in order to counter the new challenges that have arisen.Merely pointing out the great wealth of NT manuscripts in existence and stating that noChristian doctrine is in doubt from the variations that exist is no longer adequate, by itself, to

properly address the important issues that have been raised. Now, let us proceed with adiscussion of some of the issues.

On the surface, certain statements found in works like Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" as wellas quotations from scholars found in the recent spate of writings from Muslim polemicistsgive the impression that the New Testament has been corrupted to the point of hopelessness.Consider the following, for instance:

"Scholars differ significantly in their estimates²some say there are 200,000 variants known,some say 300,000, some say 400,000 or more! We do not know for sure because, despiteimpressive developments in computer technology, no one has yet been able to count them all.Perhaps, as I indicated earlier, it is best simply to leave the matter in comparative terms.There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the NewTestament." (Ehrman 2007; 89-90)

While seemingly impressive at surface-level, another New Testament textual scholar tellswhy, in direct response to the above paragraph, this does not cause NT textual critics to hitthe proverbial panic-button:

"That is true enough, but by itself is misleading. Anyone who teaches NT textual criticismknows that this fact is only part of the picture and that, if left dangling in front of the reader without explanation, is a distorted view. Once it is revealed that the great majority of thesevariants are inconsequential²involving spelling differences that cannot even be translated,articles with proper nouns, word order changes, and the like²and that only a very smallminority of the variants alter the meaning of the text, the whole picture begins to come intofocus. Indeed, only about 1% of the textual variants are both meaningful and viable. Theimpression Ehrman sometimes gives throughout the book²and repeats in interviews²is that



of wholesale uncertainty about the original wording, a view that is far more radical than heactually embraces." (Daniel Wallace; [ Source ], accessed 11/30/08)

And so, while such sound bites regarding textual variations in the New Testament aretechnically true, it is what is NOT said in these works that assault the integrity of the NT text(such as the important qualifying-remarks by Daniel Wallace) that paints a very misleading

portrait for the reader.

Of course, many textual variations in the manuscript record are important and do involvevital Christian doctrines. Such variations are utilized by Muslim polemicists in order to castdoubt on the overall integrity of the text. In what follows we seek to discuss a few of the mostsignificant textual variations and the significance they play for the overall debate, not onlyfor the question of Biblical corruption but also for that of the historical foundationsunderlying important doctrines. This article will not serve as an introduction to the science of textual criticism, but simply will seek to clarify three important issues: 1) what the evidencetells us of the overall state of the NT text; 2) how variants affecting certain importantdoctrines impact the theology of the New Testament text as a whole; and 3) how suchvariants affect the historical foundations upon which these doctrines are based.

What this article ultimately hopes to demonstrate is the following: 1) Despite the issues raised by both non-deliberate and deliberate corruptions of the New Testament text, we may speak of the NT text as generally well-preserved; 2) Crucial Christian doctrines that lead to much of the impasse between Christian and Islamic theology are not negated either textually or historically by textual variants; and 3) The results require Muslims to either a) assert a degreeof corruption of the NT text that not only is out of sync with the evidence that does exist, butalso to which not even the most radical of NT textual critics would concur, b) redefine whatMuhammad meant when he referred to ³the Gospel´ (e.g. a non-canonical document?) andwhat theological and historical foundations exist to make such a redefinition intellectuallyfeasible, or c) reinterpret Islamic theology (somehow) to accommodate the relevant Christiandoctrines with which it is currently at odds.

The reader should note that there are certain facts alluded to in the internet articles we listedabove with which we are not in fundamental disagreement, such as the fact that only a smallminority of the existing thousands of manuscripts are used by textual critics to determine theoriginal text, that translations of the Greek text and materials found in patristic writings areonly useful as supplementary (rather than primary) resources in terms of determining theoriginal text, and that, despite a few claims to the contrary, there is not good evidence for manuscripts to be dated to the 1 st century. We do not take issue with their arguments/criticisms regarding these matters and so obviously will not be attempting to refutethem.

THE LIVIN G TEXT

Our earliest manuscript that contains the whole New Testament is dated to the 4th CenturyA.D., though there are a number of partial manuscripts which contain substantial portions of some NT books from the period of about 200 A.D. Daniel Wallace notes that the twelveearliest manuscripts, which date to no later than about the early 3 rd century (i.e. withinapproximately 150 years of the time of original composition), contain about 43% of the NewTestament (Wallace 2008; cf. discussion in time slice 22:00 ± 23:00; see also here for a brief



discussion by Wallace of the 2 nd century manuscripts). Overall, however, the further back intime we go the fewer manuscripts we have. Moreover, textual criticism has demonstrated thatmany of the early manuscripts reveal that early scribes often did not copy the text in a word-for-word manner. Rather, the New Testament was found to be a "living text". Muslim

polemicists capitalize upon these facts in order to cast doubt upon the reliability of thetransmission of the text. MENJ has argued this latter point (see here ), citing several textual

authorities. One such quote is taken from the Alands:

"Until the beginning of the fourth century the text of the New Testament developed freely. Itwas a 'living text' in the Greek literary tradition, unlike the text of the Hebrew Old Testament,which was subject to strict controls because (in the oriental tradition) the consonantal textwas holy. And the New Testament text continued to be a µliving text¶ as long as it remained amanuscript tradition, even when the Byzantine church molded it to the procrustean bed of thestandard and officially prescribed text. Even for later scribes, for example, the parallel

passages of the Gospels were so familiar that they would adapt the text of one Gospel to thatof another. They also felt themselves free to make corrections in the text, improving it bytheir own standards of correctness, whether grammatically, stylistically, or moresubstantively. This was all the more true of the early period, when the text had not yetattained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when Christians consideredthemselves filled with the Spirit. As a consequence the text of the early period was many-faceted, and each manuscript had its own peculiar character." (K & B Aland 1989; 69)

Yet this doesn't end the story. The Alands go on to say immediately following the above text:

"This can be observed in such papyri as P 45 , P 46, P 66, and so forth. The fact that this wasNOT the normative practice has been proved by P 75 , which represents a strict text justas P52 of the period around A.D. 125 represents a normal text. It preserves the text of the original exemplar in a relatively faithful form (and is not alone in doing so, cf. p.59) ." (ibid. 69; emphasis added)

Regarding the different text-types (or ³pre-types´, as we¶ll call them, for reasons to beelucidated just below) alluded to above, the authors write:

"Thus P 45 , P 46, P66 , and a whole group of other manuscripts offer a 'free' text, i.e. a textdealing with the original text in a relatively free manner with no suggestion of a program of standardization (or were these manuscripts also imported from elsewhere?). Some have goneso far as to interpret these 'free' texts as typical of the early period. But this cannot becorrect, as a fresh collation of all the manuscripts of the early period 10 by the Institutefor New Testament Textual Research has shown. The 'free' text represents only one of the varieties of the period. Beside it there is a substantial number of manuscriptsrepresenting a 'normal' text, i.e. a relatively faithful tradition which departs from its

exemplar only occasionally, AS DO NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRI PTS OF EVERYCENTURY. There is an equally substantial number of manuscripts representing a'strict' text, which transmit the text of an exemplar with meticulous care (e.g., P 75) anddepart from it only rarely. Finally, we also find a few manuscripts with a paraphrastic text,which belong in the neighborhood of the D text. Apparently it was not until the beginning of the fourth century even in Egypt that a standardization of the text occurred through thecirculation of numerous copies of a 'model text' from a central authority...



"Until the third/fourth century, then, there were many different forms of the New Testamenttext, including some which anticipated or were more closely akin to the D text, but not untilthe fourth century, following the decades of peace prior to the Diocletianic persecutions, didthe formation of text types begin." (ibid. 64, emphasis added)

And,

"8. Variant readings in the New Testament text which are not due to simple scribal error (or to the confusion of similar sounds when transcribing from dictation in a scriptorium) may beexplained by its character as a µliving text.¶ While it is true that from at least the third centurythe scribes tried to copy their exemplars faithfully to the letter, they also followed themeaning as they transcribed the text (which they knew practically by heart), and this gave riseto variants." (ibid. 69)

The Alands¶ designation of the text into the aforementioned ³pre-types´ (as I have termedthem) has been criticized by other textual critics such as Bart Ehrman on the grounds that thedesignations are based on circular logic. For instance, the ³strict text´ is said to be strict

because it contains the highest proportion of original readings, but this judgment in turn is based upon the assumption that the 26 th edition of the Nestle-Aland text in fact represents theoriginal NT text (cf. Ehrman, T extual Circularity, 1989). More useful is the typical scholarlyclassification system of the texts as Alexandrian, Mixed, ³Western´, etc. Eldon Jay Eppdemonstrates why these different text types (or ³textual groups´ or ³clusters´, as he prefers tocall them) were established early in the process of transmission. He writes:

³Yet, what makes this sorting process so natural ± and attractive ± is that several early papyridraw to themselves other later MSS and form three reasonably separable constellations withsimilar textual characteristics. Most significant is that the papyri in each group can beidentified textually with one or more major uncial MSS . Though this procedure mayappear to come perilously close to classifying MSS on the basis of the great uncials, it avoidsthat classic fault by first differentiating various papyri from one another according to their differing textual character, and only then seeking partners for them farther down the streamof NT MSS ± partners with similar textual complexions. Thus one can argue plausibly thatthree textual clusters or constellations emerge in our stream of transmission, each withroots in the earliest period. First, the clearest cluster can be identified (e.g., in the Gospels)in the P 75-Codex B line (along with P 66 , Sinaiticus [except in John], and the later L and 33 ± as well as P 46 and 1739 for Paul, etc.), which might be called the B text group (traditionallyknown as Egyptian, Alexandrian, or ³Neutral´). Second, three or four papyri and one uncial

prior to the fourth century containing portions of Luke-Acts (P 48 , P 38, P 69 , 0171, and perhapsP29) form a cluster that can be connected to Codex D, and later with 1739 (Acts only), 614,and 383. This has long been called ± though incorrectly in the geographical sense ± theµWestern¶ kind of text, which might better be designated the D text group . Third, a cluster

(for the Gospels) exists in P45

and Codex Washingtonianus (with e.g., f 13

), which might becalled the C text group because it stands midway between the B and D text groups (though nolonger to be called Caesarean). In addition, though not among the early clusters and thereforewith no early papyrus representatives, there is the later Majority or Byzantine text group,whose earliest major witness is Codex A (though only in the Gospels). Therefore, this might

be called the A text group in recognition of Codex Alexandrinus. This cluster does havesupporting witnesses among the papyri, but only from the sixth (P 84), seventh (P 68 , perhapsP74), and seventh/eighth centuries (P 42), and it is the only µtext-type¶ that the Alandsrecognize before the fourth century 49 .



³ Yet, once one understands the nature of text-types, it is plausible to argue that thethree textual constellations (in addition to the A text) also constitute threedistinguishable µtext-types¶ as early as the second century (with the C text group,however, ceasing with Codex W)«

³The case made here for early text-types may be summarized as follows: The dynamic

intellectual commerce demonstrated by the many papyrus documents ± to say nothing of other evidence ± permits us to envision a rather free and speedy transmission of letters anddocuments in the Greco-Roman world, including the NT writings on papyrus. This, in turn,permits us to postulate that the NT MSS unearthed in Egypt ± presuming the movementof their texts to and from and within Egypt ± may be judged to be representative of theentire spectrum of NT texts in the Mediterranean area in the first centuries of Christianity. Allowing these representative papyri to sort themselves into groups withsimilar textual complexions reveals three primary concentrations on the earliest textualspectrum, whose chief members connect readily with major uncials of the fourth and fifthcenturies and with other later MSS. Therefore, the existence, as early as the secondcentury, of the B , C, and D text-types, followed by the later A text, seems beyond areasonable doubt, and all of this finds its basis in the NT papy ri .´ (Epp, P apyrus

Manuscripts , 1995; 17-18; emphasis added; note that in Epp¶s later work, in [Epp, Issues, 2002; 41-43], the above statements are reiterated though with predominant reference to onlytwo primary text-types, the Alexandrian and ³Western´. The ³mixed´ or ³C´ type apparentlyhas been deemed a questionable category in at least some text-critical circles per n.49 in ibid.38)

Bruce Metzger illustrates how different text-types were likely to have developed as the NTtexts were transmitted:

³During the early centuries of the expansion of the Christian church, what are called µlocaltexts¶ of the New Testament gradually developed. Newly established congregations in andnear a large city, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Carthage, or Rome, were

provided with copies of the Scriptures in the form that was current in that area. As additionalcopies were made, the number of special readings and renderings would be both conservedand, to some extent, increased, so that eventually a type of text grew up that was more or less

peculiar to that locality. Today it is possible to identify the type of text preserved in NewTestament manuscripts by comparing their characteristic readings with the quotations of those passages in the writings of Church Fathers who lived in or near the chief ecclesiasticalcenters.

³At the same time the distinctiveness of a local text tended to become diluted and mixed withother types of text. A manuscript of the Gospel of Mark copied in Alexandria, for example,and taken later to Rome would doubtless influence to some extent copyists transcribing the

form of the text of Mark heretofore current at Rome. On the whole, however, during theearliest centuries the tendencies to develop and preserve a particular type of text prevailedover the tendencies leading to a mixture of texts. Thus there grew up several distinctive kindsof New Testament text, the most important of which are the following«´ (Metzger 1994; 4-5)

From this data a couple of observations are in order:



1) While there apparently were scribal traditions that ³freely-adapted´ and/or paraphrased thetexts of exemplars for various reasons (these traditions apparently accounting for most of thesignificant variants we see today), other scribal traditions just as ancient by and large did notdeviate from the original text. Note that regardless of whether or not we accept the paradigmof the existence of ³strict´, ³normal´, and ³free´ (pre-) text types by Kurt and Barbara Aland,our contention is unchanged. Regarding the apparent circularity used by the Alands in

defining what are ³strict´ and ³normal´ texts vs. ³free´ texts, this charge could befundamentally true yet the observation that certain MSS deviated more from the original textthan others remains relevant when we consider that it is the Alexandrian text-type that isgenerally considered the most faithful per the consensus of NT textual critics. Daniel Wallacewrites in regards to this:

³Although we do not have 100% of the NT attested in manuscripts from the second century,it is remarkable how minimally the manuscripts we do have differ from the great fourthcentury majuscules of the Alexandrian text, in which the entire NT can be found. Theevidence from the earliest Greek manuscripts, therefore, is quite strong that the text of the NTwas relatively stable in at least the Alexandrian stream of transmission, a stream that mostscholars would regard as the best group of witnesses to the original text of the NT. 8´(Source )

Obviously, the MSS that represent the (proto-) Alexandrian text are those that remain truestto the original text vs. the more paraphrastic ³Western´ text [cf. Metzger 1992; 215-219 for further discussion].

2) The fact that at least two text-types are traceable to as early of a period as the 2 nd centuryhas important implications for the study of the more significant textual variants. While the

bifurcation into text-types will, of course, result in the formation of variant readings (those peculiar to various regions of the then-Christian world), this in turn reinforces the integrity of the text where both types are essentially the same. As we will see below, the degree of agreement outweighs by a significant margin the degree of disagreement.

Let us briefly illustrate this latter point with a hypothetical example. Let's say we have 4manuscripts (A, B, C, & D) detailing an event that took place on a day in the life of a certaincanine:

A: "The dog ran down the street and into the grocery store, frightening the customers".

B: "The dog skipped down the street and went into the grocery store".

C: "Down the street the dog ran into the grocery store, scaring the patrons".

D: "The dog ran along the avenue, going into the supermarket and frightening the customers".

The differences among the various editions are substantial. 1) A different verb is used inmanuscript B for how the dog got down the street; 2) "Grocery store" is replaced by"supermarket" in manuscript D; 3) "frightening the customers" is replaced with "scaring the

patrons" in manuscript C; 4) "avenue" replaces "street" in manuscript D; 5) The dog's actionand his direction are inverted in manuscript C; 6) the "frightening of the customers" or

paraphrase is missing from manuscript B.



In our hypothetical example, while there are differences in every reading, the only questionstemming from them that really affects the meaning of the text is whether or not thecustomers were frightened, or if this was a later addition. All other things being equal, wecould make a case that the original text did contain such a phrase based on the fact that this isconveyed by the majority of manuscripts (3 of 4). On the other hand, one maxim of textualcriticism is that the probable original variant is the one that makes sense of the existence of

the others. Perhaps, one could speculate, "frightening the customers" was added later to a textlike manuscript B based on the historical memory that the dog did indeed frighten thecustomers (even if the original author did not write this). This would also make sense of whythere is an "alternative ending", i.e. "scaring the patrons", that was added independently by asecond scribe. Of course, other factors such as which manuscript(s) is/are of greatestantiquity would come into play as well in the decision-making process, as would which text-type is deemed by scholars to be the most reliable and which types characterize manuscriptsA-D. In any event, despite the marked differences among the extant readings we can bevirtually certain that the original text indicated that the dog ran (or skipped) down the streetand went into a business that sells groceries since all convey this basic message. As we willsee below, many (and probably most) of the potentially viable textual variants thatcharacterize the Greek New Testament are of this rather trivial category.

BETWEEN AUTO G RA PH AND EARLIEST MSS

While the original copies of the NT documents have not survived, it is commonly andcorrectly asserted that the time between the original penning of the various NT works and theearliest MSS evidence is essentially negligible. The earliest complete manuscript of the NewTestament is Codex Sinaiticus of the 4 th century A.D. whereas there are a number of earlier fragments dating to the early 3 rd (and perhaps late 2 nd) centuries. To fully appreciate thesignificance of this comparatively small gap in time between autograph and earliest MSS(along with the total number of partial and full manuscripts of NT works that exist), consider the following table.

HISTORIES OLDEST MSS NUM BER SURVIVIN G

Livy 59 B.C. ± A.D. 17 4 th Century 27

Tacitus A.D. 56 ± 120 9 th Century 3

Suetonius A.D. 69 ± 140 9 th Century 200+

Thucydides 460 ± 400 B.C. 1 st Century A.D. 20

Herodotus 484 ± 425 B.C. 1 st Century A.D. 75

NEW TESTAMENT c. 100-150 c. 5,700 G reek;10,000+ Latin, etc.

TABLE 1: Taken from Wallace in Komoszewski, Sawyer, & Wallace 2006; 71



Wallace writes in regards to the comparative wealth of NT manuscripts with other ancientliterature:

³One often hears the line, µWe really don¶t know what the New Testament originally said,since we no longer possess the originals and since there could have been tremendous

tampering with the text before our existing copies were produced.¶ Is this an accurateassessment of the data? Is that kind of skepticism true to the facts? Not exactly.

³If this supposition is true, then we must deny that most facts of ancient history can berecovered, because whatever doubts we cast on the text of the New Testament must be cast ahundredfold on virtually any other ancient text. The New Testament manuscripts stand closer to the original and are more plentiful than virtually any other ancient literature. The NewTestament is far and away the best-attested work of Greek or Latin literature in the ancientworld.´ (ibid. 70-71; emphasis original)

And,

³As noted above, approximately fifty-seven hundred full or partial New Testamentmanuscripts are known to exist at this writing. The number of sources is growing. Everydecade and virtually every year new manuscripts are discovered. Meanwhile, the averageclassical author¶s writings are found in about twenty extant manuscripts 10 . The NewTestament²in the Greek manuscripts alone ²exceeds this by almost three hundred times.Besides the Greek manuscripts, there are Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Gothic, Georgian,Arabic, and many other versions of the New Testament. The Latin manuscripts number over ten thousand. All told, the New Testament is represented by approximately one thousandtimes as many manuscripts as the average classical author¶s writings. Even the well-knownauthors²such as Homer or Herodotus²simply can¶t compare to the quantity of copies thatthe New Testament enjoys. Homer, in fact, is a distant second in terms of manuscripts, yetthere are fewer than twenty-five hundred copies of Homer extant today 11 .´ (ibid. 71-72;emphasis original)

³11. Homer was the earliest and most popular author of the ancient Greek world. Even with anine-hundred year head start, the Iliad and the Odyssey couldn¶t catch up with the NewTestament. Yet manuscripts of Homer are more plentiful than the average classical Greek author¶s by a hundredfold.´ (ibid. 276; end-note #11)

With this important background information in mind, let¶s examine some of the assertionsmade by M.S.M. Saifullah and company (from this article ) in response to the Christian claimregarding the large number of manuscripts and the relatively short period of time between thecomposition of the original writing and the earliest manuscript(s).

³A quick glance at the data shows that the Gospel of John has the earliest manuscriptevidence (P 52 , c. 125-150 CE) whereas the books 1,2 Timothy and 3 John have very latemanuscript witnesses ( , 4th century CE). Most of the earliest manuscript witnesses of the

books of the New Testament are quite fragmentary , at times containing no more than a coupleof verses or even less. The majority of the manuscripts date between 200-300 CE. Given thedata, it is hard to imagine how the dates of the µoriginal¶ composition and the earliest extantevidence are so small as to be negligible.´



In response, let¶s consider this in comparative terms. Recall that the time between the initialcomposition and the earliest manuscript of the writings of the ancient historians that Wallacelisted in ³Table 1´ (which we have reproduced above) is at best approximately 300 years (inthe case of Livy) and in some cases as many as 700-800 years (in the cases of Tacitus andSuetonius). With the New Testament, however, Daniel Wallace states that there are at least101 discovered manuscripts that date to no later than the 4 th century of the Christian era

(Wallace 2008; time slice 31:40 ± 32:50). This would be within about 300 - 350 years of thetime of the initial composition of all the NT documents (accepting the typical scholarly-dating of these documents to between about 50-100 A.D.). And so while we have nodocuments within the first 3 centuries for the writings of the aforementioned historians, wehave dozens within that time range for that of the NT.

The claim that many of these are ³quite fragmentary, at times containing no more than acouple of verses or less´ is true but such a statement does not reflect the fact that substantial

portions of the NT are in fact represented among these early manuscripts. We see this evenupon examination of only the Chester Beatty and Bodmer papyri. Glenn Miller provides thefollowing helpful summaries:

T he Beatty papyri .The major papyri in this collection are p45, p46, p47.

y p45 : 150-250ad; contains some (or all) of Mt 20, 21, 25, 26; Mr 4-9, 11-12;Lk 6-7, 9-14; Jn 10-11; Acts 4-17.

y p46 : 90-175ad; contains some (or all) of Rom 5-6, 8-16; all of I & II Cor, Gal,Eph., Philp., Col, I Thess 1,2,5; all of Hebrews.

y p47 : third century, contains Revelation 9:10-17:2

Depending on how one defines 'tiny', this set of mss ALONE comprise a 'non-tiny' fragmentcollection!

T he Bodmer papyri .The major papyri in this collection are p66, p72, p75.

y p66 : 150-200 AD, contains almost all of the Gospel of John!y p72 : 200's, containing all of I & II Peter, Judey p75 : 175-200 AD, contains most of Luke 3-18, 22-24; John 1-15. ( Source )

Recall also that, according to Wallace, the twelve earliest manuscripts (which would date towithin about 150 years or so of the original composition of the documents in question)comprise collectively approximately 43% of the NT (Wallace 2008; DVD time slice 22:00 ± 23:00). In response to the authors¶ statement that ³Given the data, it is hard to imagine how

the dates of the µoriginal¶ composition and the earliest extant evidence are so small as to benegligible´, it can be said that such a claim is made in comparison with other ancientliterature, the substantial preservation of which is generally not questioned. In other words, if the data we have for the NT is not sufficient to conclude that it has been essentially

preserved, then it would be very difficult to be certain of anything recorded by ancientclassical authors as well. Saifullah et al also write:

³Therefore, the fantastic claims found in the missionary and apologetical literature are dealt aheavy blow when we understand that slightly over 6% of the more than 5,000 Greek New



Testament manuscripts hail from before the 9th century! With no shortage of claims ascribing'ancientness' to the manuscripts, given that around 94% of the Greek manuscripts (Greek

being the "original" language of the New Testament) can be dated in excess of 800 years or so after the birth of Jesus, shows the sheer desperation of the missionaries. It is well knownamongst the textual critics that the great majority of the primary witnesses to the text of the

New Testament, (i.e., Greek manuscripts) are overwhelmingly from the medieval and late

medieval periods.´

Overall, I think the authors¶ statement on this issue is fair, as are a couple of claims madeearlier in the same article that only 10-18% of the manuscripts in existence are used bytextual critics in determining the original text, and that 80-90% of the manuscripts inexistence are of the least-reliable Byzantine text-type. Such qualifications are important and itwould behoove Christians that argue for the integrity of the NT text to be aware of such dataand resultantly fit the ³overwhelming manuscript attestation´ argument in proper contextrather than simply using it as a sound bite. At the same time, the value of these later manuscripts should not be completely dismissed. It is a well-known fact among textual criticsthat later manuscripts sometimes contain earlier readings at certain points. The importance of this will become more apparent in the next section where the phenomenon of the tenacity of textual variants and conjectural emendation will be discussed.

Of course, having in excess of 300 Greek manuscripts (i.e. 6% of 5,000) within 800 years of the birth of Jesus still yields a substantially better situation than what we have for other ancient authors. According to the data gathered by the authors, the GNT-3 used just in excessof 900 manuscripts while the 26 th edition of Nestle-Aland utilized 522. The reader shouldkeep in mind that this is excluding any important supplementary information that the versionsand patristic citations may have provided these committees when determining the originaltext ( note: despite the many problems involved with utilizing the patristic literature inregards to NT text-critical matters as pointed out by Saifullah et al, the situation is far fromhopeless and textual critics do indeed find the patristic literature to be a valuable source of data; see Fee, Greek Fathers, 1995 for an instructive essay on the matter). So, even if we paredown the numbers from thousands to hundreds, the data pool still exceeds (and in most casesstill vastly exceeds) that of what textual critics of other ancient authors have to work with, theone exception being perhaps that of the works of Homer (though even here I¶d imagine thatthe relevant textual critics would deem some of the manuscripts of more value than others,

just as we see with those that study the NT).

Before moving on, perhaps a word of clarification is also necessary regarding the Byzantinetext, which as noted correctly by Saifullah et al is the inferior manuscript tradition, notfinding representation among the earliest manuscripts (though comprising the vast majorityof manuscripts that are in existence). It is important to realize that the differences whichcharacterize the Byzantine textual tradition are not so significant as to yield a completely

different Jesus. To put it into proper perspective, the cautionary remarks of Kurt & BarbaraAland are worthy of quotation:

³On the whole it must be admitted that statements about the text of the New Testament,whether by amateurs or by specialists, have far too rarely reflected an overall perspective. Alltoo frequently the focus has been on variants found in particular manuscripts or editions. Thisis true for even the most fundamental aspects of textual criticism; when identifying the texttype of a manuscript it is all too easy to overlook the fact that the Byzantine Imperial textand the Alexandrian Egyptian text, to take two examples that in theory are



diametrically opposed to each other, actually exhibit a remarkable degree of agreement,perhaps as much as 80 percent! Textual critics themselves, and New Testament specialistseven more so, not to mention laypersons, tend to be fascinated by differences and to forgethow many of them may be due to chance or to normal scribal tendencies, and how rarelysignificant variants occur ± yielding to the common danger of failing to see the forest for thetrees.´ (K & B Aland 1989; 28; emphasis added)

Of the remaining 20 or so percent difference, one wonders how much of that is comprised of trivial variations that do not affect the meaning of the texts in question (regarding potentiallyviable, yet trivial variations in the manuscript tradition see the below ³Playing thePercentages´ section).

From here the authors go on to speak of the ³Athanasian Codex´ and the lateness of whendirect manuscript-evidence for this appears, a subject that is informative though irrelevant tothe question of the preservation of the NT books in general. They also speak of the³Orthodox Corruption of Scripture´, to utilize the title of the relevant book penned by BartEhrman, as well as the fact that the Early Church Fathers as well as the early skeptic Celsusspoke about the textual variants and corruption of the NT text that was being observed intheir day. Consistent with this latter point they point out the great fluidity of the text that has

been observed by textual critics to have existed within the first two or three centuries of thegenesis of the church. How these latter issues affect NT preservation as a whole we addressedin the above section (and also touch upon this issue indirectly in the next two sections).Regarding Ehrman and the deliberate scribal corruptions that can be observed in themanuscript tradition, made for the purpose of advancing a certain theological point of view,see the following discussion from James Patrick Holding:

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nttextcrit.html#ehrman

As a closing note, it should be reiterated that while our earliest full NT copies originate fromthe 4 th century at the earliest, with fragmentary texts being dated to as early as the late 2 nd and3rd centuries, that at least two of the major text-types (three if the ³mixed´, formerly called³Caesarean´, text-type is a viable concept) identifiable from the manuscript tradition canlikely be traced to the early-to-mid 2 nd century is significant. The differences from theoriginal in particularly the ³paraphrastic text-type´ (i.e. proto-Western text) should not beoverestimated. After all, a ³paraphrase´ by definition generally stays true to the originalmeaning of the text, and any significant variants that do exist can be found in the relevantcritical editions of the NT text mentioned often in this article (see below). That at least twotext-(proto-) types exist that, despite their characteristic differences, nevertheless for the most

part convey essentially the same text ( note: the situation is somewhat more pronounced in the³Western´ text of Acts, which is about 7-10% lengthier than the Alexandrian text of Acts; cf.the discussion in Metzger 1994; 222-236) and are traceable per Epp to as early as the 2 nd

century suggests a date of no later than the early second century before the ³split into text-types´ occurred. For texts that are essentially the same in all types we can be certain that thetext prior to this ³split´ was something like what we find represented by the readings found inthe major text-types (see again the ³canine example´ above). At the end of the day, this dataindicates that we can be confident of what the text essentially looked like to within no morethan approximately half a century or so of the time of composition of most of the NTdocuments, a situation unparalleled by other ancient histories. But what does the data fromtextual critics tell us about the reconstruction of the original text itself? It is to this topic wenow turn.



CON J ECTURAL EMENDATION & THE TENACITY OF TEXTUAL VARIANTS

One question that remains important in light of the introduction of textual variations into theMSS tradition is to what degree we may question how many original readings have been lost,not being accounted for among the textual variants that exist in the current manuscript record.

This is where the question of ³conjectural emendation´ arises. This term refers to the practiceof making educated guesses as to the actual wording of the original text when the variantreadings that survive in the manuscript record remain unsatisfactory for whatever reason.

Now, before delving into some of the specific data, it should be noted that, given the greatwealth of surviving manuscripts and considering the widespread distribution of early copies,it seems on the surface that this process would be for the most part unnecessary. Consider, asan example, Paul¶s writing of the epistle to the Galatians. After the letter arrived at itsdestination (i.e. Galatia), it was probably housed in one of the relevant churches and used for readings during services. Eventually, more and more copies of the letter would have beenmade and housed in other churches of the region (and eventually for churches in more remoteregions of the Empire), and in a few cases copies would possibly have been made for some of the more wealthy, aristocratic church members. And so, here is an important consideration. If Galatians would have been copied in what I¶ll refer to as a ³vertical´ manner from the

beginning, i.e. the original document was copied once, this copy was subsequently copied,and that second copy was copied next, etc., then one can imagine how mistakes would havecrept into the record that perhaps make some original readings irrecoverable. That is, if eachcopy from the original document onwards was used only once as an exemplar, this would bea conceivable result. This ³vertical model´ seems to be primarily what Bart Ehrmanenvisages (per his comments at the Greer-Heard Dialogue 2008 Pt 1; time slice 13:00 ± 16:15). However, this seems a highly unlikely scenario, particularly given that ancient scribeswould have been as aware of the problem of textual variants as we are today.

A more likely scenario is that the original document (as well as each succeeding generationof copies) would have been used as an exemplar many times. A Christian wishing to take acopy of Galatians to, say, Smyrna, would likely have desired to use the original document if still available, and if not one of the earliest copies. Eventually, copies of Galatians wouldhave been produced and distributed to all of the different points of the Roman Empire wherechurches existed. It seems much more likely than not that the original document would haveserved as the exemplar for many copies that eventually made their way to various regions of the Empire. It is too much to suggest that the original document would have served as theexemplar for all such early copies, due to such factors as the limited amount of time that theoriginal document survived and the inconvenience that using the original as an exemplar mayhave provided certain scribes (for whatever reasons). However, once copies of the originaldocument made their way to various regions of the empire, the distinctive variations

introduced into these various copies would have subsequently proliferated as subsequentcopies of these copies were made. And, of course, with each new generation of copies moreand more variants would have been produced. Thus, certain variations would have been

peculiar to certain regions of the Christian world.

Yet, this is the most important consideration. As it is highly unlikely that the same variationwould have been introduced into the same part of the text often by different scribes workingindependently on the same exemplar, this geographical spread of copies produced from theearliest exemplars would make the loss of the authentic reading at the worst a very rare



phenomenon. Certainly the original reading would have survived in multiple locations acrossthe Christian world (subsequently to be copied again and again), making its subtraction fromthe pool of variants an unlikely phenomenon. Daniel Wallace writes in regards to the earlytransmission of the NT text:

³But the copying of the New Testament manuscripts is hardly like this parlor game [i.e. the

³telephone game´]. First of all, the message is passed on in writing, not orally« Second,rather than having one line of transmission there are multiple lines or streams of transmission.Third, textual critics don¶t rely on just the last person in each line, but they can interrogateseveral folks who are closer to the original source. Fourth, patristic writers are commentingon the text as it is going through its transmissional history, and when there are chronologicalgaps among the manuscripts these writers often fill in those gaps by telling us what the textsaid in that place in their day. Fifth, in the telephone game, once the story is told by one

person that individual has nothing else to do with the story. It¶s out of his or her hands. Butthe original New Testament books were most likely copied more than once and many mayhave been consulted even after a few generations of copies had already been produced. Sixth,there was at least one very carefully produced stream of transmission of New Testamentmanuscripts, and there is sufficient evidence to show that even a particular 4 th centurymanuscript in this line is usually more accurate than any 2 nd century manuscript.´ (Source:Greer-Heard Dialogue 2008 Pt II; time slice 21:17-22:38)

Upon examination of the actual MSS tradition, our contention seems to find confirmation.Kurt and Barbara Aland note that variants within the MSS tradition are characterized bytenacity, suggesting that conjectural emendation should in essence not be necessary at all. Inregards to which they write the following:

"And yet balancing this, one of the characteristics of the New Testament textualtradition is tenacity, i.e., the stubborn resistance of readings and text types to change. The practice of concluding the gospel of Mark at 16:8, for example, continued to be observedin some Greek manuscripts as well as in versional manuscripts for centuries, although the'longer ending' of Mark 16:9-20 was recognized as canonical and its contents must have madeit extremely attractive. Other examples are quite numerous (the ending of Romans, the

pericope of the Woman Taken in Adultery, etc.; cf. pp. 297ff.). In fact, the very plurality of New Testament text types can be explained only by the tenacity of the New Testamenttextual tradition. Some 10 to 20 percent of the Greek manuscripts have preserved faithfullythe different text types of their various exemplars, even in the latest period when thedominance of the Byzantine Imperial text became so thoroughly pervasive. That is whatmakes it possible to retrace the original text of the New Testament through a broadrange of witnesses. " (K. & B. Aland 1989; 69-70, emphasis added)

The authors further write:

"The transmission of the New Testament textual tradition is characterized by an extremelyimpressive degree of tenacity . Once a reading occurs it will persist with obstinacy. It isprecisely the overwhelming mass of the New Testament textual tradition, assuming the

of New Testament textual criticism (we trust the reader willnot be offended by this application of 1 Tim. 1:10), which provides an assurance of certainty in establishing the original text . Even apart from the lectionaries (cf. p. 163),there is still the evidence of approximately 3,200 manuscripts of the New Testament text, notto mention the early versions and the patristic quotations -- we can be certain that among



these there is still a group of witnesses which preserves the original form of the text,despite the pervasive authority of ecclesiastical tradition and the prestige of the latertext ." (ibid. 291-292, emphasis added)

In what follows is a discussion of how this tenacity plays out in the textual tradition regardingthe Markan appendix. It is worth quoting the Alands at length here given that this illustrates

the importance not only of the early manuscripts, but also the important supplementary rolethat the translations and the writings of the Church Fathers can play regarding important text-critical matters:

"It is true that the longer ending of Mark 16:9-20 is found in 99 percent of the Greek manuscripts as well as the rest of the tradition, enjoying over a period of centuries practicallyan officially ecclasiastical sanction as a genuine part of the gospel of Mark. But in CodexVaticanus (B) as well as in Codex Sinaiticus (N) the gospel of Mark ends at Mark 16:8, as itdid in numerous other manuscripts according to the statements of Eusebius of Caesarea andJerome. The same is true for the Sinaitic Syriac Sy s, the Old Latin manuscript k of thefourth/fifth century, and at least one Sahidic manuscript of the fifth century, the earliestGeorgian, and a great number of Armenian manuscripts, while k (a manuscript representing atradition which derives from a quite early period) has the shorter ending in place of the longer ending. The widespread practice in the early Church of concluding the gospel of Mark at 16:8was suppressed by Church tradition, but it could not be eradicated. It persisted stubbornly. Aslate as the twelfth century in the minuscule 304 the gospel ends at 16:8. A considerablenumber of manuscripts add Mark 16:9-20 either with critical notations, or with a marginalcomment questioning its originality, even as late as the sixteenth century! This is a strikingexample of what is called tenacity in the New Testament textual tradition (cf. p. 291). Thetext of Mark 16:9-20 contains not only a summary account of the appearances of theresurrected Jesus, but also the command to evangelize in a form more radical than that inMatthew, and also an account of the ascension of Jesus. Despite the great, not to sayfundamental, importance of these statements in the theological and practical life of theChurch, a significant number of Greek manuscripts, including among them the two mostimportant uncials B and N, remained faithful to the transmitted text and preserved it throughthe centuries, at least calling attention to the doubts surrounding 16:9-20 -- a witness sharedalso among the versions and the Church Fathers.

"This tenacity is even more strikingly demonstrated by the persistence of what is called theshorter ending in k and elsewhere. The shorter ending is preserved as the sole ending, as wehave noted above, only in the Old Latin manuscript k. But there is a whole group of uncials(0112 from the sixth/seventh century, 099 from the seventh century, L from the eighthcentury, and ? from the eighth/ninth century) which preserve it along with 16:9-20, even

placing it first, i.e. resulting in the order 16:1-8, shorter ending, 9-20. In addition there isl\1602, an uncial lectionary of the eighth century and the miniscule 579 from the thirteenth

century which support this order. Outside the Greek tradition it is found also in the versions,in the Coptic and in the Syriac, as well as in the Ethiopic with its generally quite latemanuscripts. This is almost inconceivable because these two endings are rival and mutuallyexclusive forms. And yet they have been preserved side by side in manuscripts and versionsfor centuries, simply because scribes found them in their exemplars (however independentlyin each instance). The situation can be explained only by assuming that the ending of thegospel at 16:8 was felt to be unsatisfactory as its use spread through all the provinces of theearly Church in its early decades. In this form it tells of the empty tomb, but appearances tothe disciples are only foretold and not recounted. Therefore the gospel was provided with an



ending, certainly by the second century. The shorter ending was an ineffective solution, either because it was a very early stage of development or represented an outlying and relativelyundeveloped community, while the longer ending was far more effective because it wasformulated later and/or it represents a far more competent author. Both endings probablyoriginated quite independently and in different provinces of the Church. There can be nodoubt that the longer ending was superior to the shorter ending and would displace it in any

competition. And yet the shorter ending did exist at one time, and it continued to be copiednot only so long as the longer ending was unknown but even afterward, and it was generally

placed before the longer ending. Furthermore, even the original tradition of ending the gospelat 16:8 could not be effaced completely by the longer ending, however inadequately it wasfelt to serve the needs of the Church: it also survived through the centuries." (ibid. 292-293;the authors go on to discuss several other variants (of a less important nature) in subsequent

pages that further demonstrate this tenacity, cf. ibid 293ff.).

Similarly, citing the same important introduction to NT textual criticism by Kurt and BarbaraAland, Daniel Wallace states the following:

³The situation with New Testament textual criticism is entirely different: Virtually noconjectural emendation is required because of the great wealth, diversity, and age of thematerials we have .5 Most New Testament scholars would say that there are absolutelyno places where conjecture is necessary . Again, this is because the manuscripts are soplentiful and so early that in almost every instance the original New Testament can bereconstructed from the available evidence.

³For example, Kurt and Barbara Aland, the first two directors of the Institute for NewTestament Textual Research in Munster, Germany (Institut fur neutestamentlicheTextforschung or INTF), wrote a standard textbook on New Testament textual criticism. Atthe INTF, over 90 percent of all Greek New Testament manuscripts are on microfilm. For the

past forty-five years, the institute has been more influential than any individual, school, or group of scholars anywhere else in the world for determining the exact wording of theoriginal New Testament. In short, they know their stuff. µ Every reading ever occurring inthe New Testament textual tradition is stubbornly preserved, even if the result isnonsense«any reading ever occurring in the New Testament textual tradition, from theoriginal reading onward, ha s been preserved in the tradition and needs only to beidentified .¶6

³The Alands go so far as to say that if a reading is found in just one manuscript, it is almostsurely not authentic: µThe principle that the original reading may be found in any singlemanuscript or version when it stands alone or nearly alone is only a theoretical possibility.¶ 7 Further, µtextual difficulties should not be solved by conjecture, or by positing glosses or interpolations, etc., where the textual tradition itself shows no break; such attempts amount to

capitulation before the difficulties and are themselves violations of the text.¶8

Their opinion inthese matters should be considered as that of expert witnesses. Most in the discipline sharetheir views. 9

³ This µnon-need¶ to guess about the wording of the original New Testament means thatin virtually every instance the original reading is to be found somew h ere in themanuscripts. That µsomewhere¶ can be narrowed down by the methods we discussed in thelast chapter. Further, since the original reading need not be guessed at, we have an actual



database²the pool of variants found in the manuscripts²that can be tested for theologicaldeviations.´ (Wallace 2006; 106-107; emphasis added)

J. K. Elliott, a textual critic of the school of ³thoroughgoing eclecticism´ (a school whichtends to accord much more weight to internal evidence than external evidence in resolvingtext-critical issues, even in cases where the external evidence against a proposed reading

appears overwhelming), states ³Even the most rigorous thoroughgoing critic balks atconjectural emendation´ (Elliott, T horoughgoing Eclecticism, 1995; 331). More recentlyElliott writes:

³But thoroughgoing eclecticism sees no need to resort to conjectural emendation, which oftenturns out to be a mere imaginative rewriting of the New Testament. Conjectural emendationof the New Testament was practiced in earlier periods, but few of these conjectures or guesses met with widespread scholarly acceptance. A decreasing number of some famousconjectures are still allowed to clutter unnecessarily the apparatus of the NA editions.Passages of great difficulty such as at I Corinthians 4:6 may haveto be accepted as primitive corruptions or obscure writing by the original author. (How oftenare our own written words always crystal clear?) Suggested emendations, some highlyingenious, are often improbable merely because of their ingenuity. At Mark 10:1 we wereable to restore and thus have a text that conformed to Mark¶s established usageelsewhere. There, of course, we had manuscript evidence available. We now ask thehypothetical question: What if every single manuscript known to us read ? Would wehave emended 10:1 to read merely because our rule told us what to expect? I answer no. If that had indeed been the case we would have had to justify and explain Mark¶sapparently maverick use of the plural here by saying, as, of course, commentaries on thecritical text do, that here and here only does Mark want to show that different and separatecrowds descended on Jesus. Then one would say that Matthew, if he were working on Mark,took over that Markan plural in his retelling of this passage. All of that makes sense. Onewould not need to emend the text to achieve an acceptable meaning. But Mark 10:1 doeshave a textual variant that needs discussion, and it is one that I hope I explained quiteconvincingly. Where a unique feature occurs firmly established in the manuscript tradition,one that does not conform to the author¶s normal usage elsewhere, then I suggest we merelymark that passage as an exception or as a difficulty and accept it as such. We should notexpunge exceptions by means of emendations. (Elliott, T horoughgoing Eclectisism, 2002;120-121)

J. K. Elliott and Ian Moir in another volume write the following:

³The overriding presumption and presupposition of NT textual criticism is that the originalreading has survived somewhere in the tradition²obviously not in any one manuscript or inone group of manuscripts. But it is assumed that by a process of detection the original can be

recovered from some of the manuscripts. In the classics and in OT textual criticism suchassumptions are not possible. There is sometimes too little evidence, too few or too latemanuscripts for us always to be able to reconstruct their text with confidence. With the NTthe position could hardly be more different. Not only do we have many manuscripts andmany manuscripts of an early date but recent scholarly attempts to edit the NT text aredone with a confidence that the original text is there to be discovered in themanuscripts. Sometimes editors reach different conclusions, sometimes an editorial

judgement is questionable, but behind the debate the assumption is that the manuscripts,



supported or supplemented by the versions and by quotations in the writings of the Fathers,will yield the original text.´ (Elliott & Moir 1995; 94, emphasis added)

Such ³tenacity´ finds further confirmation when considering the texts of Early ChurchFathers where variant readings are discussed. Bruce Metzger has studied in detail variantreadings alluded to by Origen (who, being a 3 rd century figure, was obviously working with

very ancient materials) as well as Jerome in the late 4 th/early 5 th centuries (who, though later than Origen, also would have probably had access to very early manuscripts). Metzger discusses 22 passages upon which Origen provides commentary in regards to variantreadings, only 2 or 3 of which does Origen attest to a variant that is not found in currently-extant MSS (Col. 2.15; 2 Tim. 4:6; possibly Matt. 24:19) [cf. Metzger 1968; 91-100]. Of the27 passages with variant readings that Jerome discusses (per Metzger¶s examination), itappears that all of the variants alluded to by Jerome are attested in extant MSS [Metzger 1979; 180-186]. Notably, in the vast majority of cases the variants are found in multipleextant manuscripts. Saifullah et al point out the fact that Church Fathers (especially Origen)lamented the corruption of the NT text in their day. However, an examination of the specificvariants discussed in their commentaries not only reveals, as a point of interest, somereadings that in many cases are still potentially viable today (e.g. Mt. 8:28-32; 27:16-17; Lk.23:45; Jn. 1:3-4, etc. in Origen (per Metzger 1968); Mt. 5:22; 11:19; 24:36; Mk. 16:9; Jn.7:53-8:11; Acts 15:29, etc. in Jerome (per Metzger 1979); regarding which see the relevantdiscussions in Metzger¶s textual commentary [Metzger 1994]), but also predictably do notyield any earth-shattering problems with regards to important Christian doctrines. The two or three variants discussed by Origen that do not find attestation among current MSS may wellhave been (and in my estimation probably were) non-original readings.

So, it is questionable as to whether or not the process of conjectural emendation is necessaryat all. There are, however, some that remain convinced that conjectural emendation still hasutility in New Testament textual criticism. Fortunately, such critics find that this process isonly necessary on (at the worst) the fewest of occasions. For example, Michael W. Holmes

believes it to be necessary in at least some cases:

³In practice and often in theory as well, the assumption is widespread that the original musthave survived somewhere among the extant MS testimony. Some, such as K. Aland, assertthis as a matter of principle 58 ; others do so by default, by declining to take seriously, even if only theoretically, the possibility of the need to emend the text of the NT«

³This failure amounts to a squandering of our sources, a neglect of evidence entrusted to us by the accidents of history that could, if properly used, enable us to penetrate beyond thelimits of the extant tradition. That there is considerably less need for emendation of the NTtext than of comparable documents is indeed true 59 , but we must not confuse less need withno need. For example, a survey of the UBS T extual Commentary reveals more than a few

places where the committee found itself unsure that any of the surviving readings representedthe original 60. Westcott and Hort marked in their edition some sixty-five places where theysuspected the presence of some primitive corruption antecedent to all extant witnesses, andrecognized in these cases the need for emendation 61 .´ (Holmes, Reasoned Eclecticism, 1995;348-349; emphasis original)

So what are some of the relevant passages and what issues are at stake? Daniel Wallace doesmention a couple of places where conjectural emendation may still be necessary:



³There are two places in the New Testament where conjecture has perhaps been needed. InActs 16:12 the standard critical Greek text gives a reading that is not found in any Greek manuscripts. But even here, some members of the UBS committee rejected the conjecture,arguing that certain manuscripts had the original reading. The difference between the tworeadings is only one letter. (See discussion in Bruce M. Metzger, A T extual Commentary onthe Greek New T estament , 2d ed. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994], 393-95; NET

Bible ³tc´ note on Acts 16:12.) Also, in Revelation 21:17 the standard Greek text follows aconjecture that Westcott and Hort originally put forth, though the textual problem is not listedin either the UBS text or the Nestle-Aland text. This conjecture is a mere spelling variant thatchanges no meaning in the text.´ (ibid. note 5; 285)

While being generally skeptical of the alleged need for conjectural emendation (see the abovequote), J. K. Elliott and Ian Moir discuss a few other places where textual critics have

proposed emendations to the text. Regarding I Corinthians 4:6, they note:

³At 1 Corinthians 4:6 the sentence is difficult to understand. NIV has µ«so that you maylearn from us the meaning of the saying, µDo not go beyond what is written¶. The Greek hereliterally means µ«so that you may learn from us to think not beyond what is written¶ or µthatyou may learn in our case the meaning of µnot above what is written¶. As a result, more thanone exegete has suggested that the passage is corrupt, and that what seems to have happenedis that a marginal note was accidentally incorporated into the text causing a nonsense reading.But not only is the difficult text found in every single manuscript read to date but (as is usualin such matters) the conjectures never achieved universal acclaim.´ (Elliott & Moir 1995; 94)

Other examples of passages thought by at least some commentators to require emendationdiscussed by the authors include the following:

1) J ohn 19:29 ± It is conjectured here that the original word for ³hyssop´ should have beenhyssos, meaning ³javelin´ rather than hyssopos, which is a bushy plant. It would make moresense for the former to be used to lift a sponge dipped in vinegar to Jesus (who was on thecross) than the latter (ibid. 95).

2) Luke 24:32 ± For whatever reason, the ³burning´ in the disciples¶ hearts (those walking toEmmaus) who encountered the risen Jesus has been emended, both in ancient and moderntimes, to such adjectives as ³heavy´, µblinded¶, and µterrified´ (as well as others) (ibid. 96)

3) Acts 2:9

³Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes andElamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia andPamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome´ (Acts 2:8-10)

According to the authors, some commentators offer conjecture here because the use of ³Judea´ in the above list ³seems wrong; it is grammatically and geographically out of place.´(ibid. 96) However, they also state ³These have seldom met with universal approval, and itstill behoves [sic] the reader to make sense of the text as transmitted in the manuscripts or atleast to admit that the author was inaccurate.´ (ibid. 96)

4) Acts 12:25 ± several variants appear regarding the goings-forward of Paul and Barnabas.Was it ³from Jerusalem´, ³out of Jerusalem´, ³to Jerusalem´ (as the actual manuscript



variants attest), or are none of these to be considered satisfactory? Apparently due to stylisticdifficulties with all of the readings a primitive error was suspected as far back as the 19 th century since Westcott and Hort (ibid. 96).

5) Acts 16:12 ± regarding this text Elliott and Moir write that in the Nestle-Aland and UBSeditions there is a conjecture that results in the translation ³A city of the first district of

Macedonia´ rather than ³The first city of the district of Macedonia´ as the manuscriptsindicate. Wallace notes that the difference in the above two translations is a single letter (seethe relevant quote above). The reason for the conjecture in the critical editions is that thewording of the latter rendering would be technically inaccurate (ibid. 96).

6) 2 Peter 3:10 ± the NIV translation regarding that everything in the earth will be ³laid bare´ also finds such possible alternatives as ³vanish´, ³be found´, ³be burnt up¶, ³be founddestroyed´. Metzger finds that ³none of the available readings seems to be original´ per hiscommentary (ibid. 96).

7) I Corinthians 14:34-35 ± These verses appear to enjoin women to remain silent while inthe church, a passage whose originality is questionable because 1) it seems contradictory toteachings earlier in the same epistle, e.g. 11:5, 13; and 2) there are indications in somemanuscripts that bring the verses¶ originality into question, such as the fact that the versesappear in some manuscripts at a different location, i.e. after vs. 40, as well as the fact that theverses are marked in some manuscripts (including the important Codex Vaticanus) bysymbols suggestive that there is a textual issue at that point in the letter (cf. ibid. 95).

Of these examples, it would appear with one possible exception that the points in the textwhere conjectural emendation has been made render rather trivial results (at least for theconsiderations relevant to this article). The last example may be more interesting since itcould affect the devotional practices of women during church services (on which see here and also here ).

To be noted from this survey is that modern scholars only resort to the practice of conjecturalemendation in the fewest of instances, probably substantially less than Westcott and Hort didin the 19 th century. And, as mentioned by Elliott and Moir, most to all of the proposedemendations have not gained universal acclaim among scholars. Even if Westcott and Hort,writing more than 100 years ago, were correct in suspecting as many as 65 such passages, thiswould still affect less than 1% of the verses in the whole NT corpus. Also to be noted is thatthe passages that have been subjected to conjectural emendation do not typically yield

profound changes in the text. This is not to say that the meaning is not affected. It is to say,however, that conjectures generally come down to a scholar suggesting minor changes withinthe text. To resort once again to a purely hypothetical example, perhaps one could argue thatthe original reading of a text detailing Paul¶s journey to Jerusalem was that ³Paul rushed to

Jerusalem´ instead of ³Paul walked to Jerusalem´ as our hypothetical extant MSS have it. Off the wall conjectures such that ³Paul walked to Jerusalem´ may have originally been ³Neroordered a pizza´ are not made by textual critics. This is important in that it indicates that thetheoretical need for conjectural emendation of the text of the NT does not warrant thesuggestion that completely unheard-of passages and sayings may have originally been presentin the text or that passages were introduced into the text that became so prolific as to leave noevidence of their initial absence from the text. I Cor. 14:34-35 may be the only place thatwould remotely support such speculation, though even here the case for an interpolation is

based on actual findings from manuscript data and the argument rests on highly questionable



³Comparing the above-named seven major critical editions, from Tischendorf to Nestle-Aland 26 , we can observe an agreement in wording of only 62.9% of the verses of the NewTestament. The proportion ranges from 45.1% in Mark to 81.4% in 2 Timothy. Let us take astatistical examination of the four Gospels ( Note: orthographic differences and differences of a single word not included in the assessment).

³The percentage agreement of the verses when all the four Gospels are considered is 54.5%.This is very close to the probability that a tail (or head) appears when a coin is tossed once(i.e., the probability that a tail or head appears when a coin is tossed is 50%!). It is still amystery to us from where exactly the evangelicals pick-up such fantastic "agreements"

between the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.´ ( Note: helpful tables of theaforementioned data can be found in the relevant section of the authors¶ article ( *); this dataderived specifically from K & B Aland 1989; 29).

In response, it can be said that determining the percentage of agreement among these pertinent critical editions is simply not an adequate way of determining what percentage of the text is actually in doubt. The span of time between the initial publication of these criticaleditions covers a period of approximately 100 years, the earliest being that of Tischendorf around 1869, to Westcott-Hort in 1881, von Soden at about the 1 st decade of the 20 th century,Vogels whose 1 st edition appeared in 1922, Merk, the first edition having been published in1933, Bover whose 1 st edition appeared in 1943, and finally the Nestle-Aland 25 th editionwhich is most recent. As more and more data has come to light from newer manuscriptdiscoveries it isn¶t surprising that there will be a wider range of disagreement among thevarious critical editions. To illustrate the potential impact that new discoveries can yield,consider the following comments of Epp:

³µGradually,¶ however, is the governing word here. Naturally, the earliest published papyricould have had little impact on critical editions such as Tischendorf¶s in 1869 or Westcott-Hort¶s in 1881. Yet von Soden¶s edition (1913) cited only twelve papyri out of twenty thenknown; Legg¶s edition of Mark (1935) cites only P 45 (though that was, at the time, the onlyknown papyrus containing Mark); his edition of Matthew (1940) uses six (when nine wereknown); and Nestle¶s sixteenth edition (1936) cites fifteen papyri (when nearly fifty wereknown). Succeeding Nestle editions cited twenty-eight in 1952 (21 st); thirty-seven in 1963(25 th, when seventy-five had been published); and finally in 1979 (26 th) and following, all the

papyri are cited. The first Greek NT to list all known papyri was also the first completely newcritical edition to be produced after the Bodmer papyri appeared: the first edition of theUnited Bible Societies¶ Greek New T estament (1966), signifying that the papyri now hadfully and officially come into their own 27 .´ (Epp, P apyrus Manuscripts , 1995; 11)

Thus it is scarcely shocking that the editions reveal a fairly large degree of divergence. Infact, given the range of time involved in the publication of the relevant editions as well as the

new manuscript discoveries that have been made during that time (and the increasingutilization of these new materials by textual critics), I tend to agree with J.P. Holding whenhe regards the amount of agreement that does exist as impressive:

³The agreement here is quite astonishing, considering that this is the combined result of seven different teams and/or persons over an extended period of time. That all 7 editionscompletely agree on close to two-thirds of the NT is a striking indication of how muchconfidence we may have in our present text. (Though not given, the next statistics would



show agreements on 6 out of 7, 5 out of 7, etc. - and if the trend above is followed, we mightwell reach that 99% agreement before going too far down the ladder!)´( Source )

To put some of this into further perspective, consider the following comments by the Alands:

³Only one further comment may be necessary to avoid a methodological misunderstanding.The number of instances where these various editions differ among themselves and from

Nestle seems quite high. In reality their significance is minor. Consider that the text of Nestle-Aland 25 comprises 657 pages. When von Soden and Vogels show 2047 and 1996differences from it respectively, this amounts to no more than three differences a page. Thischanges the perspective completely. Admittedly averages can be misleading; e.g., in theGospels the ratio is higher: for Nestle¶s 296 pages von Soden shows 1180 differences andVogels 1398, raising the ratios to 4 to 4.5 to a page, respectively. But then the ratio iscorrespondingly lower for other parts of the New Testament. The other editions show far fewer differences: Bover has less than 2 to a page, and Merk less than 1.2 to a page of Nestle.

³These statistics may suggest the objection that differences between the various editions havesimply been counted, and not weighed. But this objection is purely theoretical. From practicalexperience we find that µimportant¶ and µunimportant¶ variants are about equally distributedin the various editions, so that a simple numerical account actually provides a fairly accurate

picture. It is the only way an observer can gain an overall impression.´ (K & B Aland 1983;27-28; emphasis original)

More relevant when examining the integrity of the NT text is an examination of a moremodern critical edition, such as that of the United Bible Societies. Not only are practically allof the available materials utilized (unlike what was the case with most of the critical editionsalluded to above written as long as 130 plus years ago), but involved in the process is acommittee comprised of many of the top New Testament textual scholars in the world (rather than, again, various textual critics working independently of each other and with incompleteuse of the manuscript tradition). Saifullah et al do in fact appeal to the United Bible Societies¶

publications to further their argument against the ³appeal to percentages´.

Before proceeding to this, however, it may be helpful to quote the authors of GNT 4regarding textual decisions and classifications of the texts with viable variants:

³On the basis of the generally accepted principles of textual analysis the Committee took intoaccount the widest possible range of manuscript readings as well as all internal considerationsconcerning the origin and transmission of the text. But since in a number of instances theevidence from such sources points to the possibility of different solutions and thus involvesdifferent degrees of certainty with respect to the form of the original text, the letter A, B, C,or D has been employed within braces { } at the beginning of each apparatus item so as to

mark one of four levels of certainty, as representing in large measure the difficultiesencountered by the Committee in making textual decisions.

³The letter A indicates that the text is certain.

³The letter B indicates that the text is almost certain.

³The letter C, however, indicates that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variantto place in the text.



³The letter D, which occurs only rarely, indicates that the Committee had great difficulty inarriving at a decision.´ (GNT 4 1993; 3)

In regards to the UBS Saifullah et al write ( *) the following:

³If we remove the text that is virtually certain, rated as {A}, and take the percentage of the

New Testament text (total verses = 7947) that is in doubt, we see that the doubtful text isclose to 16.5% in all the three editions of the United Bible Societies' The Greek NewTestament. That brings textual µcertainty¶ to about 83.5% as suggested by the efforts of thecommittee of textual critics. Again, this is way off from µat least 95%¶ agreement between the

New Testament text in the manuscripts .´

Of course, 83% is already a substantial improvement from 63%. However, the authorsapparently feel some victory is to be gained in the fact that this is still far away from the 95-99% that is often stated by some Christian apologists. Yet I feel some further clarification isrequired regarding the verses that remain in doubt according to the UBS textual apparatus.

First, some verses contain multiple variations classified as B, C, and/or D readings. Takingthis into account would resultantly decrease the number of ³doubtful verses´ as calculated bySaifullah et al (since they divided the total number of B, C, and D readings into the totalnumber of verses, apparently not taking into account that some verses contain more than oneof such readings). However, the number of verses with multiple and potentially viablevariations is so comparatively small that the 83.5% number would likely not improve to morethan about 84% at the most.

More substantial is the fact that many (and probably most) of the ³doubtful verses´ containinconsequential variants, some of which clearly do not change the meaning of the text whilestill some others only questionably change the meaning of the text, while still some othersthat do clearly change the meaning of the text do not even relate to crucial Christiandoctrines. We will discuss a few passages that are deemed {B}, {C}, or {D} by the textualcommittee (meaning that there is at least a degree of reasonable doubt as to which is thecorrect rendering) presently.

For the sake of convenience I chose some variants that occur early in the Gospels of Matthewand Mark that I think provide us with some instructive examples.

Example 1

³This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to bemarried to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through theHoly Spirit.´ (Matthew 1:18)

This verse contains a couple of {B} readings, the first question being whether or not ³JesusChrist´ is original vs. simply ³Christ´. Per Metzger the textual committee prefers the former given its overwhelming manuscript support, but the possibility of the latter reading¶soriginality is not only that it does have some manuscript support but also that scribes tendedto expand either ³Jesus´ or ³Christ´ with the missing word and that the definite articletypically does not occur in front of the full name as it does here (Metzger 1994; 6-7). Theother {B} reading is regarding the Greek word for ³birth´, which is either gennesis or

genesis . The former term can also mean ³creation´ or ³generation´ or ³genealogy´ vs. the



latter which means ³engendering´ (ibid. 7). In this context it is clear that a simple birth is being described regardless of which word is used and so neither of the doubtful readings inthis verse amount to anything significant.

Example 2

³Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah,weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.´ (Matthew 2:17-18)

Another {B} reading is found in vs. 18 regarding the ³weeping and great mourning´, assubstantial manuscript support exists for an expansion to ³lamentation, and weeping, andgreat mourning´ (so GNT 4, 1983; 5-6 and Metzger 1994; 8). Metzger writes that the longer reading is likely a ³scribal assimilation to the Septuagint text of Jr 31.15 (LXX 38.15)´ (ibid.8) and so the shorter reading is likely to be original. In this passage Matthew associatesHerod¶s ³slaughter of the innocents´ with the Scriptural passage of Jeremiah 31:15, both

potentially viable variants of which essentially the same meaning is being conveyed.

Example 3

³As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven wasopened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.´ (Matthew3:16)

This text contains a couple of {C} readings, the first of which is questionably significant.Some texts add ³to him´ after ³heaven was opened´ (ibid. 9), making room for the possibilitythat only Jesus saw the Spirit ³lighting on him´, suggesting that this occurred in the context

of a vision rather than a public event. This understanding may be implied despite the absenceof the ³to him´ variant in the fact that the verse goes on to say that ³he saw´ rather than ³theysaw´. Nevertheless, the variant with ³to him´ could be argued to more explicitly indicate thatthis was a vision of Jesus rather than a public event and so it could be argued perhaps that themeaning is changed (though again this is questionable). Regardless of which variant isoriginal we don¶t seem to be dealing with anything which affects even indirectly Christiandoctrine.

The other {C} reading is the placement among some witnesses of the conjunction kai in frontof ³lighting´ (ibid. 9-10), which does not affect the meaning of the passage in any way.

Example 4

³Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those whomourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.´(Matthew 5:3-5)

Some witnesses here, including the quintessential ³Western´ text (i.e. D, or ³Codex Bezae´)reverse vss. 4 and 5 so that the beatitude regarding ³heaven´ (vs. 3) is juxtaposed to thatregarding ³earth´ (vs. 5) [GNT 4, 1983; 11]. Metzger states that it is unlikely that a scribewould have thrust vs. 4 in between vss. 3 and 5 if the two latter beatitudes had originally



stood together given the ³rhetorical antithesis of heaven and earth´ whereas it makes sensethat later scribes may have reversed vss. 4 and 5 to produce this antithesis (Metzger 1994;10). Regardless of which order we opt for this {B} reading contains no impact on meaning.

Example 5

³The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.´ (Mark 1:1)

The closing reference of the above verse to Jesus as the ³Son of God´ is not found in somemanuscripts, including the important Codex Sinaiticus, earning this passage a {C}classification (ibid. 62). Whether or not vs. 1 originally stated that Jesus is the ³Son of God´is in one sense irrelevant since Mark¶s viewpoint elsewhere clearly expresses the belief thatJesus is the Son of God (so e.g. Mark 1:11), though on the other hand we can say that thisrepresents an important omission. The reader of the original text may have had to wait until10 verses later to discover that Jesus is the Son of God (per Mark) if the title is not original toverse 1.

Example 6

³John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for theforgiveness of sins.´ (Mark 1:4)

The definite article ³the´ in front of ³John the Baptist´ is not to be found in some witnesses(so GNT 4, 1983; 117). Given the fact that John is referred to as the Baptist in other Markantexts (6:25; 8:28), along with seven texts in Matthew and three in Luke, it is considered more

probable that the definite article was added in 1:4 by some later scribes than that it wasoriginally present and subsequently deleted (Metzger 1994; 62). The question this variant

brings with it is a possible change of ³Baptist´ from a noun to a verb, i.e. is John ³theBaptist´ or did John ³come baptizing?´ This passage was classified by the committee as a{C} passage, and whichever rendering we take does not affect the meaning or implications of the passage.

Example 7

´And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying,µIf you are willing, You can make me clean.¶ Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched outHis hand and touched him, and said to him, µI am willing; be cleansed.¶´ (Mark 1:40-41)

For our final example we¶ll briefly discuss one ({B} reading) that clearly does affect

meaning. A minority of witnesses, such as D (i.e. Codex Bezae) [GNT 4, 1983; 122],indicates that the statement ³moved with compassion´ may have originally read ³beingangry´. It could be said, as has e.g. Bart Ehrman [cf. Ehrman 2005; 133-139], that becausethe latter reading is more difficult given that later scribes would more likely portray Jesus ascompassionate towards a man stricken with disease rather than angry at the man¶s request to

be healed, the change of the text was made in order to indicate a more positive attitude on the part of Jesus to the one requesting healing from leprosy. On the other hand, as Metzger pointsout, scribes did not feel the need to emend other passages which indicate that Jesus could

become angry (3:5; 10:14) [Metzger 1994; 65]. That Jesus could get angry according to other



texts also prevents us from making too much of this variant regardless of which one isoriginal. Metzger suggests that the change may have been due to the influence of Jesus¶³stern warning´ of verse 43 or ³arose from confusion between similar words in Aramaic«´i.e. Syriac ethraham (³he had pity´) vs. ethra¶em (³he was enraged´) [ibid. 65].

And so ends our brief sampling of verses. My purpose was to give several examples of

³doubtful verses´ in which the variants are inconsequential as well as a few that do affect, or might affect, the meaning of the text at least in some sense. In the case of the latter, we¶veseen that from at least these few examples the variants do not impact Christian doctrine, evenof the particular book where these variants are found. There are, of course, other verses towhich we could have made appeal (but did not) that could be more strongly argued to impacta given doctrine even to the point that one could question whether or not a given author evenespouses the doctrine in question (e.g. Matthew 24:36; Luke 22:19b-20; on the former seehere ; on the latter see below). However, I think the brief sampling provided should illustratean important fact: of the verses that are in doubt as to the precise wording of the original,many variants do not change the meaning of the passage at all while others can only beargued to change the meaning (such as e.g. example #3). Of those that definitely change themeaning of the text there are comparatively few that impact points of doctrine (on which seethe next section).

In light of this information what more can be said in terms of the ³percentage of certainty´?While it remains technically accurate to state that the text is only certain (per the UBS criticaledition and the calculations of Saifullah et al) in approximately 83.5% of the verses of the

NT, many of the remaining 16.5% can hardly be classified as ³corrupted texts´. Can it be saidwithout proper qualification that such texts where we are not certain merely if the originalverse read ³Christ´ or ³Jesus Christ´ are doubtful? The same question could be posed for

passages with essentially meaningless transpositions of verses (e.g. Mt. 5:4-5) as well asverses that may have simply originally lacked a definite article or a conjunction. It wouldseem to me almost equally gratuitous to regard such passages as Mt. 3:16 as ³corrupt´ (atleast without qualification) simply because we don¶t know if the heavens were simply³opened´ or ³opened to him´ (i.e. Jesus), even if in such a case one could make an argumentthat the latter reading lends credence to interpreting this verse as a private revelation asopposed to a public event. The true import of the passage that Jesus was baptized, receivedthe Holy Spirit at this time, and was declared ³Son of God´ by a voice from heaven is

preserved.

If we were to remove such passages as ³doubtful´, then that 83.5% certainty would beimproved even more substantially. If say only half of the {B}, {C}, and {D} passages fallwithin such a ³hardly doubtful´ category, then the percent certainty would exceed 91%. If 75% of the questionable passages fall within this category, then the percent certainty would

be nearly 96% (which would fall within the 95-99% range for which Saifullah et al chided

apologists for arguing). I suppose the only way to actually know what percent of the {B},{C}, and {D} readings fall within what I¶ve termed this ³hardly doubtful´ category is toanalyze all such readings (or at least perform a scientific, random sampling of hundreds of them in order to make an estimation) in the way we have above for 7 of the verses containingvariant readings and render a conclusion. Unfortunately, such a task would be extremelytedious and I think in the end unedifying for the reason I will espouse shortly. For what littleit may be worth, I¶d make an educated guess that a solid majority of the potentially viablevariants fall within this ³hardly doubtful´ category.



Now, our analysis to this point has been centered on the percentage of verses within themanuscript record that is untouched by potentially viable variants. What can we say regardingthe percentage of words that are not affected? It is in this category that Daniel Wallace

provides what (as pointed out by Saifullah et al) until recently modern apologists that use the³appeal to percentages´ seem to have lacked, i.e. a supporting claim from a modern, bona

fide textual critic regarding the percentage of certainty of the original text:

³Finally, as we noted earlier, when one looks at the actual details of the textual problems, thevast majority are so trivial as to not even be translatable, while the meaningful and viablevariants constitute only about 1 percent of the text. And even for this category, mostscholars would say that 1 percent uncertainty is an overstatement . (The majority of NewTestament scholars would say that the meaningful and viable variants constitute a smallfraction of 1 percent of the text.) As we have said many times throughout this section, thedogma of absolute skepticism is unjustified in the field of textual criticism (just as the dogmaof absolute certainty is).´ (Wallace in Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace 2006; text fromnote 1; 285; emphasis added)

Further, Wallace writes:

³The original documents of the New Testament have been lost, but their contents have beenfaithfully preserved in thousands of copies. Today we are certain of about 99 percent of the original wording . In no place is the deity of Christ or his bodily resurrection called intoquestion by textual variants. Although much of the wording of the text has undergone changeover the centuries, the core truth-claims of Christianity have remained intact.´ (ibid. 259;emphasis added)

In light of the number of verses that contain potentially viable variants I was curious as tohow Wallace arrived at the 99% certainty. So, on Tuesday, 1/06/09 @ 5:39 PM I sent thefollowing query via e-mail to Daniel Wallace:

³Given your contention that we can be certain of 99%, I'm wondering if that is an educatedguess on your part or if this is actually something that has been derived from scrutinizing allof the variants. One set of authors critical of the integrity of the text appeal to the number of verses affected by viable variants per the United Bible Societies classification system.Excluding the "A" readings, they calculate that approximately 16.5% of the NT text isaffected by viable variants (they arrived at this by dividing the total number of "B", "C", and"D" readings, i.e. 1300+ into the total number of verses in the NT, i.e. 7900+, and concludedthat about 16.5% of the verses are affected by significant variant readings). Now, I've lookedat this a little beyond the surface and have found that some of these viable readings arenothing more than questions of whether or not certain definite articles and/or conjunctionswere present in given verses, transpositions of verses (e.g. Mt. 5:4-5), and other such readings

that don't even affect the meaning of the text. I figured that if we exclude all of the verses thatcontain potentially viable, yet essentially meaningless variants, that that 16.5% could perhaps be cut in half or maybe even more than that. But, I don't know what the exact percentagewould be unless someone were to actually analyze every passage with potentially viablevariants and exclude those verses that have potentially viable, yet meaningless variants. Myeducated guess would not have been as optimistic as 99%, hence why I'm asking someonewhose educated guess would be much more informed than my own, a credentialed NT textualcritic.´



On the same day, Tuesday, 1/06/09 @ 6:00 PM, Wallace responded with the followingcomments:

³16.5% of verses doesn't mean that we can be confident of only 83.5% of the text. There are just under 8000 verses in the NT, but there are 138,162 words. Most variants involve a singleword or two words. Two variants involve a dozen verses; twenty or so involve one to two

verses. But I believe that none of these larger variants are really disputed by the majority of scholars. And you also noted that of the UBS variants a lot of them are truly meaningless, noteven affecting translation. Now, if 16.5% of the verses involve a textual problem that is givenless than an A rating in UBS, that means that 1320 variants at most are significant. And if these average one word, once you eliminate the variants that don't really affect much, thenyou have less than 1% of the total 138,162 words.

³That is roughly how I figured it out. BTW, my numbers have not been disputed even by BartEhrman.´

Thus a claim of approximately 99% certainty appears to be accurate regarding the words of the New Testament. However, the percentage of verses that are virtually certain would besomewhat less (which makes sense given that each verse is comprised of many words),

probably between about 91-96% once all of the verses containing only meaningless variantsare excluded from consideration (on which see the relevant discussion above).

At the end of the day, the Christian apologists (perhaps unwittingly in most cases) may nothave missed the mark by too much. However, the ³appeal to percentages´, while thought-

provoking when based on sound scholarship, remains only of secondary importance. Theimportant question to answer is how the variants that do exist (some of which are not onlyviable and significant, but also occur in passages espousing major Christian doctrines) impactthe core Christian beliefs. And it is to this important topic that we now turn.

THE REAL SI G NIFICANCE OF THE VARIANTS

Finally we reach the key aspect of this important debate. In response to the Christian claimthat the textual variations do not impact crucial points of Christian doctrine, polemicists will

point to certain passages that ARE in doubt that espouse important Christian doctrines. In thissection we will discuss a few passages often pointed to by critics that do impact points of doctrine and discuss the relevance this has for the overarching issues ± 1) whether or not thisresults in doubt over the textual foundation of a given doctrine (i.e. Is the doctrine espousedin the original texts?); and 2) how this impacts the historical foundation of a given Christiandoctrine. For the Christian, it is essentially question #2 that is most important. Even if wehave ample documentary support in the original text, it matters little if there remains

insufficient historical foundation for the doctrines in which we believe. On the other hand, theanswer to question #1 (independent of that of question #2) would seem to remain of vitalimportance for Muslims. Regardless of the historical foundation of a given Christian doctrine,the Islamic claim that the Bible was initially inspired, yet later corrupted, presents problemsfor Muslim polemicists if we have good reason to believe that the doctrines espoused thereinwhich seem to contradict Islam were present in the autographs. It is to the answer of thesetwo questions to which the rest of this article is devoted.



There are, of course, dozens of Christian doctrines (some more foundational than others).While such doctrines as Christ¶s virgin birth, his Messiahship, his miraculous ministry, andthe future general resurrection are important Christian doctrines, they do not representfundamental points of disagreement between Christianity and Islam. In this article we willrestrict our discussion to variants involving Christian doctrines that are fundamentally incontradiction to Islamic beliefs since this quite simply is the proverbial meat of the debate. It

seems that the main points of disagreement include the following:

1) The crucifixion of Jesus2) The atoning significance of Jesus' death3) The divinity of Jesus4) Trinitarian beliefs5) The resurrection of Jesus

And so we begin our survey (once again all Biblical quotations are from the NIV unlessotherwise specified):

Mark 16:9-20

³When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with himand who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she hadseen him, they did not believe it. Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of themwhile they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but theydid not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; herebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seenhim after he had risen. He said to them, µGo into all the world and preach the good news to allcreation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will

be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they willdrive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands;and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands onsick people, and they will get well.¶ After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was takenup into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preachedeverywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs thataccompanied it.´

Given that we've encountered this variant already in our discussion it seems like a natural place to start. The "Markan appendix" is one of the two most significant variants (the other being the so-called Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11)) in terms of the largest number of verses involved. Although the overwhelming majority of manuscripts contain the Markanappendix, the scholarly consensus rejects its authenticity. The major reasons include the

following:

1) Certain early and important manuscripts do not contain the verses (e.g. Codex Vaticanusand Codex Sinaiticus) and evidence from the Church Fathers attests to its early absence fromthe manuscript tradition ± on which see the relevant quotation of the Alands above in the³Conjectural Emendation´ section).

2) According to Metzger, the style and vocabulary of the appendix is non-Markan, includinga number of words not found elsewhere in Mark, and ³The connection between ver. 8 and



verses 9-20 is so awkward that it is difficult to believe that the evangelist intended the sectionto be a continuation of the Gospel.´ (Metzger 1994; 104-105)

3) The first few verses appear to simply summarize the post-resurrection appearances foundat the end of the other Gospels, which if true would suggest that the appendix is much later than Matthew, Luke, and John (this despite the fact that Mark is considered to be the earliest

Gospel by the scholarly consensus).

4) Most compellingly, when considering that the most probable authentic reading is the onethat accounts for the existence of all of the variant readings, we are forced to conclude thatthe Gospel originally ended at vs. 8.

While reasons 1-3 are important considerations, it is the 4th reason listed that would seem totip the scales heavily in favor of concluding that vss. 9-20 are not original to the Gospel of Mark. If these verses were original, one wonders how the variant that does not contain theappendix is to be found not only in very important Greek witnesses, but also is attested byEusebius and Jerome, and is also found in numerous translations (see in the prior section theextended quotation of Kurt and Barbara Aland). Then there is the 3rd variant, i.e. the shorter ending, which reads:

³But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred andimperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.´ (quote taken from Metzger 1994; 103)

Why would a scribe create an ending inferior to the more complete one found in vss. 9-20?On the other hand, if the Gospel originally ended at vs. 8, then it makes sense that scribeswould have sought to "improve" this by adding post-resurrection appearances. Apparently theshorter, more inferior ending, was added to the text independently of the scribal addition thatresulted in the Markan appendix (cf. the entire discussion in Metzger 1994; 102-106).

Whether or not Mark truly intended to end his Gospel at vs. 8 (or if he did not end it here andthe ending was somehow destroyed prior to copying) is a source of scholarly debate (see here for an argument endorsing the view that Mark did NOT end his Gospel at verse 8). In anyevent, we are safe in concluding that the most authentic ending is the one that ends at vs. 8.

With Mark widely considered to be our earliest Gospel, how significant is this in the proverbial grand scheme? Although Mark may not have provided us with post-resurrectionappearances, his Gospel still betrays the belief in their occurrence:

³You will all fall away,´ Jesus told them, ³for it is written: µI will strike the shepherd, and thesheep will be scattered.¶ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.´ (Mark

14:27-28)

³But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolledaway. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on theright side, and they were alarmed. µDon't be alarmed,¶ he said. µYou are looking for Jesus the

Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.But go, tell his disciples and Peter, "He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will seehim, just as he told you."¶ Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from thetomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.´ (Mark 16:6-8)



Moreover, there are several passages within the Gospel that indicate that Jesus foresaw hisimpending death and vindication:

³He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected bythe elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three daysrise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. µGet behind me, Satan!¶he said. µYou do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.¶´ (Mark 8:31-33,cf. also 9:9, 30-32, 10:32-34)

And so, the inclusion of Jesus¶ passion predictions, the narrative of the empty tomb, andJesus¶ and the angel¶s indication that the disciples would see him in Galilee in Mark¶s Gospel

betray the author¶s belief in the resurrection of Jesus and the post-resurrection appearances.

It is also prudent to point out, of course, that there are sources which pre-date the Gospel of Mark that inform us of the belief in Jesus¶ post-resurrection appearances to the disciples.Scholars (including highly-skeptical ones) are unanimous in concluding that I Cor. 15:3-7 is

based on creedal material that is to be dated to within only a few years of the crucifixion. It isalso probable that the speeches of Acts contain pre-Lukan material, quite possibly dating tothe earliest days of the church (Stanton 1985; 67-85 is instructive in this regard). Within thesespeeches we find implications of post-resurrection appearances. In Acts 2:32 and 3:15 Peter speaks of the disciples being ³witnesses´ to Jesus¶ resurrection. In Peter¶s speech toCornelius this is more explicit:

³We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. Theykilled him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day andcaused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God hadalready chosen²by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.´ (Acts 10:39-41)

And so, we can certainly be confident that the early church spoke widely of the post-resurrection appearances (the consensus of NT scholars, both conservative and liberal, agree

± though how the appearances are explained is scholar-dependent), and despite their absence(in narrative form at least) from Mark¶s Gospel we can be certain that the original NewTestament text spoke at great length about Jesus¶ death and resurrection from the dead.

The most skeptical claim that some scholars make regarding the fact that our earliest sources(e.g. I Cor. 15:3-8; Gospel of Mark; Acts¶ speeches) do not contain narratives of post-resurrection appearances is that such narratives as we find in the later Gospels were not used

by the early church in order to preach Jesus¶ resurrection. While such an idea may seemattractive on the surface, it surely fails when considering such practical matters as what kind

of responses and questions that potential converts would have had when first hearing thechurch¶s remarkable proclamation that Jesus had been raised from the dead. It is clear that theresurrection was the lynch-pin of the early church¶s beliefs about Jesus. This is clear not only

by the ubiquity of the claims across the New Testament but also the fact that it is found insources embedded within the NT that can be dated back to the earliest Jerusalem church andthe original apostles of Jesus. It follows from this data that allusions to the post-resurrectionappearances were likely the key piece of evidence utilized by the early church in establishingthe case for the event¶s historicity. Certainly such claims would have evoked such curiositiesas to what these experiences were like, what did Jesus do and say during these appearances,



and likely scores of other questions . The apostles would have been forced to conveynarratives early and often when preaching the message of the resurrection even if for somereason they didn¶t care to do so (which would be another very dubious assumption). We cantherefore agree with the highly distinguished N.T. scholar Dale Allison when he writes:

³How likely is it that any Christian group was ever long content with sparse theological

assertions unattached to stories and so unillustrated? 1 Cor 15:3-8 must be a summary of traditional narratives that were told in fuller form elsewhere.

³Surely no one would ever have been satisfied with the short assertion, µJesus appeared toCephas¶ and µJesus appeared to five hundred people at once.¶ 140 This is no more plausiblethan urging that Christians at first said things such as µJesus went about doing good andhealing all who were oppressed by the devil¶ (Acts 10:38) and only much later enjoyedtelling miracle stories about him 141 ; or that while Paul and others preached Christ crucified,no supposed particulars about Jesus¶ martyrdom emerged until decades after the fact, wheninterest unaccountably set in 142 ; or that µhe appeared to Cephas¶ was ever proclaimed withoutexplaining who Cephas was if the audience knew nothing about him. (Later Christian creedsomit the appearances altogether, probably in part because the witnesses were no longer alive.)

³Surely Martin Hengel is right regarding 1 Cor 15:3-8; µA Jew or Gentile God-fearer, hearingthis formal, extremely abbreviated report for the first time, would have difficultyunderstanding it; at the least a number of questions would certainly occur to him, which Paulcould only answer through the narration and explanation of events. Without clarifyingdelineation, the whole thing would surely sound enigmatic to ancient ears, even absurd.¶ 143 Inharmony with this common sense, which rightly assumes simple human curiosity and a desireon the part of Christians to communicate rather than obfuscate, is the high probability that,although Paul says next to nothing about his own encounter with the risen Jesus in 1 Cor 15,he surely was not, in the right circumstance, averse to offering some details. The apostle doesthis three times in Acts, and we shall see below that there is every reason to suppose thatLuke got this particular right.´ (Allison 2005; 235-236)

Luke 22:17-20

³After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, µTake this and divide it among you. For I tellyou I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.¶ And hetook bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, µThis is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.¶ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup,saying, µThis cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.¶´

A variant that appears in some manuscripts of the above passage removes vss. 19b and 20,

resulting in the excision of the words of institution (³Do this in remembrance of me´) and thesubsequent words that spell out the atoning significance of the passage. It is thus argued thatthe Gospel of Luke does not attest to the doctrine of Christ¶s vicarious atonement. It is further argued that Luke betrays no explicit affirmation of this doctrine in either of his writings sincethe book of Acts likewise does not refer to it.

Before pointing out a few observations in response, it should be noted that even if the variantthat does not contain vss. 19b and 20 is original, the atoning significance of the Last Supper is well-attested elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul quotes this tradition in I Corinthians



11:23-26 . It is also found in Mark 14:22-24 and Matthew 26:26-29 . Since a similar passageoccurs in Biblical documents (including 2 Gospels) in which the text is not disputed, Muslim

polemicists cannot conclude upon text-critical grounds that the doctrine of Christ¶s vicariousatoning death is not found in the original New Testament. The only possible recourse I couldsee for the Muslim with this being the case would be to argue that the ³original Gospel´ towhich the Qur¶an alludes and endorses is solely the Gospel of Luke. Of course, even if this

could be accomplished and they were somehow to come away with a small victory in thisregard, Muslims would still have lost the proverbial war since they would still have tocontend with the fact that Luke speaks at great length about Jesus¶ predictions of eventualdeath and subsequent vindication, his passion and crucifixion, subsequent burial by Joseph of Arimathea, the empty tomb, and post-resurrection appearances (and I would argue divinity aswell).

And yet, while we cannot be certain about the originality of vss. 19b and 20, probability fallson the side of authenticity:

³There exists, however, a textual issue over the Lukan version, as some have argued thatLuke 22:19b-20 is a later interpolation and not part of what the evangelist originally hadrecorded. The fact that the disputed text contains the crucial atonement theology associatedwith the Last Supper makes the question of whether or not Luke 22:19b-20 is originalimportant. In favor of the shorter text Metzger lists the following factors: 1) A general tenetof textual criticism is that the shorter reading is to be preferred; 2) The words in the disputedtext are very similar to Paul's words in I Cor. 11.24b-25, which suggests that I Corinthiansmay have served as the source for a later interpolation into the Lukan text; and 3) Thedisputed text is characterized by several "non-Lukan" linguistic features (Metzger 1994; 150).

³The evidence in favor of the longer text, however, appears to be very strong. First, theexternal evidence vastly favors it. Metzger writes, µthe longer, or traditional, text of cup-

bread-cup is read by all Greek manuscripts except D and by most of the ancient versions andFathers;¶ and µThe external evidence supporting the shorter reading represents only part of the Western type of text, whereas the other representatives of the Western text join withwitnesses belonging to all the other ancient text-types in support of the longer reading.¶ (ibid.148) Second, Metzger points out that it is more likely that a Bezan editor would eliminate therepetition characterizing Luke's version of "cup-bread-cup", despite the inverted order of "bread-cup" that would remain, than that a later editor would try to correct an inverted order

by bringing in from Paul the second mention of the cup while keeping the first mention in thetext (thus introducing the repetition in the first place). Finally, Metzger notes that the shorter version µcan be accounted for in terms of the theory of disciplina arcana , i.e. in order to

protect the Eucharist from profanation, one or more copies of the Gospel according to Luke, prepared for circulation among non-Christian readers, omitted the sacramental formula after the beginning words.¶ (ibid. 149-150).

Metzger concludes on the matter regarding the opinions of the textual committee:

A minority preferred the short text as a Western non-interpolation« T he majority, on theother hand, impressed by the overwhelming preponderance of external evidence supporting the longer form, explained the origin of the shorter form as due to some scribal accident or misunderstanding . T he similarity between verses 19b-20 and I Cor 11 .24b-25 arises from the

familiarity of the evangelist with the liturgical practice among P auline churches, a



circumstance that accounts also for the presence of non-Lukan expressions in verses 19b-20 . (ibid. 150)

Prominent textual critics Kurt and Barbara Aland concur:

Most (though not yet all) of the exegetes under the influence of nineteenth-century theories

have yielded to the overwhelming evidence attesting the originality of Luke 22:19b-20 in theGospel text, recognizing that for the presentation and perspective of the gospel of Luke it isnot the "shorter," but the "longer" account of the Last Supper that is authentic . (K. and B.Aland 1995; 311; emphasis the original) [15] (Source )

Even if vss. 19b-20 are not authentic, however, it is still likely that Luke accepted thedoctrine of Christ¶s vicarious atonement. For one, Luke was probably a traveling companionof Paul [see the discussion of the ³¶we¶ passages in Acts´ in Hemer 1990; 312-334]. As such,Luke was certainly familiar with the widespread interpretation of the Eucharist as indicatingJesus¶ death as a means of atonement for sinners. If he took issue with the doctrine of theatonement, it would have been better to not even narrate the Eucharist in the first place.

Second, Luke¶s summary of one of Paul¶s sermons in Acts 20:28 may indicate that Christ¶sdeath served as atonement for sin:

³Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made youoverseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood .´(emphasis added)

While this passage does not explicitly spell out atonement theology, it does indicate thatChrist¶s death was necessary for the genesis of the church. It is probable, though not certain,that here we have an allusion from Luke to the doctrine of Christ¶s vicarious atonement.

Third, Luke refers to Isaiah 53 in relation to Jesus. Before proceeding with this thought a fewwords of caution are in order. A straightforward reading of Isaiah 53 would seem to leadinexorably to the conclusion that the text speaks of the vicarious atonement brought about bythe servant¶s death, resulting (at some point) in his exaltation. This is the view typically held

by both modern proponents of an ³individual´ interpretation and the modern proponents of a³corporate´ interpretation. The ancient evidence, however, suggests that interpreters of Isaiah53 increasingly emphasized the servant¶s exaltation while the aspect of the servant¶s suffering

became a decreasing point of emphasis. This becomes increasingly evident as we approachthe 1 st century. At the same time, however, there does exist evidence (scant though it may be)of the belief in a suffering (Messianic?) figure in pre-Christian Judaism, particularly in lightof the Isaiah 53 passage. For an exposition of these issues, see Hengel, Effective History, 2004; 75-147. A brief discussion of some of Hengel¶s findings can be found here . And so

while the ³suffering´ motif of the passage may have been increasingly de-emphasized, it wasnot completely suppressed. With these thoughts in mind let¶s consider some of the relevantLukan references. Explicit references are found in Luke 22:37 & Acts 8:30-35. Further, in theearly speeches of Acts, Luke refers to Jesus several times as ³servant of God´ (cf. Acts 3:13,26; 4:27-30), representing probable allusions to the Servant Songs of Isaiah.

Regarding the ³servant motif´ in the speeches, specifically in Peter¶s speech in Acts 3, I.Howard Marshall writes:



³Peter goes on to affirm that this God µhas glorified his servant Jesus¶ ( edoxasen ton paidenautou Iesoun) . The wording reflects Isa. 52:13, ho pais mou« doxasthesetai sphodra , wherethe speaker is God. The use of the term pais for a servant of God is found with reference to awide variety of people, including prophets, Abraham, Moses, and kings, especially David (cf.4:25), and also it is a self-designation of the righteous sufferer in Wis. 2:13. It is used for Jesus also in 3.26; 4:30. The mention of David as God¶s servant in the same context (4:25)

has raised the question of whether all that we have here is an application of David¶s title toJesus. However, the combination with doxazo is found only in Isa. 52:13, and this must beregarded as decisive (the term µhanded over¶ [ paredokate ] is also used in Isa. 53:6,12, buthere it applies to Yahweh¶s action). The point is confirmed by the use of µservant¶ languageelsewhere of Jesus (cf. the combination of suffering and glorification in Luke 24:26; seeWolff 1984: 88) and by the possible echo of Isa. 52:14 in 3:10 (Witherington 1998: 179 -180;cf. Hooker 1959: 110; Bock 1987: 188).

³The original context of the citation is, of course, the passage in Isa. 52:13-53:12, in which a person described as the Lord¶s servant is the object of great suffering and abuse, although insome way he is bearing the sins of others and suffering because of them; his role is upheld byGod, and ultimately he will be glorified. The original significance is much discussed anddisputed. It is perhaps impossible to discover what the prophet¶s hearers and readers wouldhave made of the passage or what the prophet himself had in mind.

³In the present context the language is used to establish who Jesus is and the fact of hisglorification. This glorification may be seen in what has taken place²the resurrection andexaltation of Jesus (cf. Luke 24:26; see Rese 1969: 112-113)²or in Jesus acting powerfullyin healing the lame man, or in a combination of these (Bock 1987: 189-190); Peter appears to

be saying that it was because God had exalted Jesus that he now was able to do such a mightywork, so that the healing is evidence for the glorification. But the statement also serves toset the scene for the later use of a citation from Isa. 53 in 8:32-33 . As it stands, the

passage comes from a speech by Peter very early in the development of the church, and thusit would reflect a fairly rapid recognition that Jesus was the Servant of Yahweh. There arescholars who think that this aspect at least of the Christology in Acts is from a later date,reflecting perhaps the developments seen especially in 1 Peter, and chiming in with the use of similar motifs in the apostolic fathers ( Did . 9:2-3; 10:2-3; 1 Clem . 59:2-4; Mart . P ol . 14:1;20:2; Barn . 6:1; 9:2 [so Barrett 1994-1998: 194]). However, the passages from the apostolicfathers show no links to Isaiah. In the Didache there is a David/Jesus typology; there isnothing Isaianic in 1 Clement and the Martyrdom of P olycarp ; only in Barn . 6:1 is there acitation of Isa. 50:8-9; the source of Barn . 9:2 is not identifiable. It is preferable to see herean earlier use of Isaiah through which perhaps the term µservant¶ found its way intoChristology´ (Marshall Acts ; 545 in Beale & Carson 2007; emphasis added).

Regarding the quotation of a portion of Isaiah 53 in the pericope of Philip and the Ethiopian

eunuch in Acts 8:30-35 , Marshall writes:

³The section of the prophecy that is quoted is concerned with the injustice perpetrated on theServant and with his patient acceptance of it without complaint. There is no explicit referencein this part of the text to the effects of the Servant¶s suffering. This omission is of a piecewith the general tendency in Acts to ignore the significance of the death of Jesus as avicarious sacrifice that opens up the possibility of forgiveness and salvation for repentantsinners (see, however, 20:28). However, the use made of the Scripture here is of a piece withthe emphasis both in the Gospels and in the evangelistic and apologetic speeches in Acts of



identifying Jesus as God¶s agent and accounting for the fact of his sufferings in terms of thedivine necessity expressed in Scripture. It was important to establish that Jesus is the Messiahand that his suffering is not at odds with this but is rather an essential part of his vocation

before going on to the question of the significance of his sufferings. Parsons (1998) suggeststhat the humiliation and rejection of Jesus are centered, since the point is that the eunuch canidentify with Jesus. He builds on a hint by Johnson (1992: 156) and further suggests that the

quotation stops where it does because µhis life was taken from the earth¶ could be ambiguousand refer both to his death and to his exaltation (cf. the metaphor of µlifting up¶ in John¶sGospel). A deliberate avoidance of the concept of atonement by Luke (so Rese 1969: 98-100)seems unlikely; more probably he is relating how the church at this early stage dealt with theoffense of the crucifixion by emphasizing that it was willed by God. One might as well arguefrom the fact that the Servant¶s vindication is not mentioned here that Luke was not interestedin it either!´ (ibid. 574-575)

Peter Stuhlmacher writes in regards to Luke¶s use of the servant motif in relation to Jesus:

³The old-fashioned language in Acts about Jesus as God¶s anointed Servant or [ pais theos ](Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27, 30), humiliated and put to death by his enemies according to God¶s will

but exalted by God and invested with Divine authority, refers back to Isaiah 61:1 and 52:13;53:11. Parallel to this, Jesus is called [ o dikaios ], the Righteous One, in Acts 3:14; 7:52;22:14 (cf. Isa. 53:11 and I Enoch 38:2; 53:6). Whether such expressions merely take upindividual motifs from the Servant tradition or rather represent a more comprehensive pictureof Jesus¶ ministry, suffering, and exaltation as God¶s Servant is a question that can beanswered by two considerations. First, the two titles predicated of Jesus are certainly pre-Lukan and must therefore be considered not apart from but together with the Jerusalemformulaic texts Romans 4:25 and I Corinthians 15:3b-5 (see above). Moreover, Luke hasused them not independently of his passion story but only in conscious connection with it (cf.Acts 3:13-16; 4:27-28; 7:32). Both considerations suggest that in the figure of Jesus a holisticconcept of God¶s Servant has been realized. Without such a larger concept it would beimpossible to understand the language of the forgiveness of sins that came through Jesus¶mission as the [ pais theos ], which Luke repeats almost stereotypically (cf. Acts 3:13, 19 with2:38; 5:31; 10:43, etc.). But the intercessions in Luke 22:32 and 23:34 together with Isaiah53:12 explain this language quite well. The exalted Christ will continue the ³intercession for transgressors´ which he began on earth, and even in the final judgment he will bring themforgiveness of sins through his vicarious death for sinners. 29´ (Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in theGospels and Acts, 2004; 156-157)

And so, even if Luke 22:19b-20 is not authentic, we find several indications within Luke/Acts(even if only implicit) that supports the assertion that Luke knew and endorsed Jesus¶ atoningdeath. Such implications are important for the historical foundations of the doctrine even if they provide, at best, only marginal help for establishing a textual basis for the doctrine in

Luke¶s work.

Regarding the historical foundations that underlie the doctrine of Jesus¶ vicarious atonement, beyond the Lukan references/allusions, we find further evidence in the New Testamentepistles that the early church applied the suffering servant motif of Isaiah 53 to Jesus. For example, Stuhlmacher argues that the Hebrew text of Isaiah 53:5, 11 (rather than theSeptuagint) served as the template for the traditional formula quoted by Paul in Romans 4:25,³He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification´, giventhe linguistic similarities to the former over the latter. This would indicate a probable



provenance in the early Jewish-Christian community. We would expect material thatoriginated from a later date or remote provenance to utilize the LXX (i.e. Septuagint) sinceGreek became the predominant language utilized by the church as it spread forth from itsPalestinian origins (as evidenced by e.g. the fact that the New Testament was writtenoriginally in Greek). Similarly, it is argued that Isaiah 53:5, 9-12 stands behind the very earlycreedal confession of I Corinthians 15:3b-5 (ibid. 154-155; cf. also the more thorough

discussion by Hofius, T he Fourth Servant Song in the New T estament Letters, 2004; 177-182). That portions of Isaiah 53 may stand behind these verses is very significant given thatscholars universally acknowledge that this creed originated within a few years of the genesisof the church, and represents the missionary teaching of the earliest disciples. In fact, Paultells us as much in I Cor. 15.11 (on the scholarly consensus see e.g. Habermas 2003; 17-18).Vermes seems to imply that because I Cor. 15:3 (along with numerous other NT texts) statesthat Jesus¶ suffering and death took place in accordance with the Scriptures , yet does notallude to any specific OT passages, the early church found it difficult to support their belief from actual Scriptural passages (Vermes 2003; 387-388). This argument, however, is difficultto accept. Along with other components of the Gospel kerygma, the claim of the apostles thatJesus¶ death and resurrection occurred in accordance with the Scriptures would beg thequestion to potential proselytes as to which specific Scriptures were in mind. It is impossibleto envision the early church preaching this message and yet either not encountering potentialconverts either inquiring what they had in mind or the disciples not being able to produce aspecific answer.

And, there are other references which likely have Isaiah 53 in mind, such as Hebrews 9:28 and I Peter 2:21-25 .

By way of summary, we have evidence from multiple strands of tradition as to the use of Isaiah 53 by the early church (e.g. Pauline, Petrine, Lukan, the author of Hebrews). Moreimportantly, dependence on Isaiah 53 can be found in early creedal material, possiblyincluding the very important formula of I Cor. 15:3b-5 ( note : even if this is not the case, thatChrist died for our sins demonstrates the earliness of the church¶s belief in the atonementdoctrine). The ³servant of God´ references we find in the speeches in Acts confirm this. Infact, the servant motif characterizes part of the so-called archaic Christological material thatleads many scholars to conclude that Luke is relying on early church tradition in comprisingthe speeches (So Hengel 1979; 103-106).

Regarding the importance of Jesus¶ death serving as atonement for sins we could go evenfurther. Rudolph Pesch has argued that Mark 14:12-26, which contains the Markan accountof the Eucharist, represents the oldest tradition of the early church (Pesch, T he Gospel in

Jerusalem, 1991). Furthermore, it remains the fact that the testimony of the early church isunanimous in declaring that the Gospel of Mark was based on Peter¶s preaching andtestimony, and that the tradition asserting this is likely very ancient, being traceable to the 1 st

decade of the 2nd

century at latest, and possibly all the way back to the apostle John in the late1st century (on this see especially the discussion in Gundry 1993; 1026-1045; also Hengel, P roblems , 232-238 and the extensive treatment in Bauckham 2006; 202-239). Additionally,Martin Hengel has demonstrated numerous markers internal to the Gospel of Mark whichconfirms the unanimous external evidence (Hengel, P roblems, 1991; 238-243; again Hengel,

Four Gospels ; 82-85; cf. also Bauckham 2006; 155-182). If this is the case, we have another line of evidence traceable to Peter¶s belief in Jesus¶ vicarious atonement (given Mark¶snarration not only of the Eucharist but also the passage in Mark 10:45). Then, of course, there



are the allusions to the doctrine of Jesus¶ atoning death in I Peter to which we¶ve alreadyalluded. Hengel writes:

³For example, it is striking that two writings which according to the tradition of the earlychurch ± in my view completely reliable ± must be assigned to the Petrine sphere of tradition,Mark and I Peter, stress the soteriological interpretation of the death of Jesus as an atoning

death in a marked way, I Peter by an explicit citation of Isa. 53 (2.17ff.; 3.18f.; cf. 1.18), andMark in two places in an archaic Semitic linguistic form.´ (Hengel 1981; 54)

The general scholarly consensus maintains that many documents in the New Testament are pseudonymous, with I Peter being a letter widely thought to be included within this particular category. However, even if this is the case, it is probable that the material in this letter accurately reflects Petrine theology, otherwise it is difficult to account for the fact that it,unlike II Peter, achieved such widespread acceptance by the early church. Moreover, despitethe current consensus on the issue, I think there are good reasons for questioning whether or not any of the NT epistles are pseudonymous (cf. Carson & Moo 2005; 337-350;Witherington III; 23-38; Komoszewski, Sawyer, & Wallace 2006; 135-149; on Petrineauthorship of I Peter in particular cf. Carson & Moo 2005; 641-646; Guthrie 1990; 763-781).See also the following by Glenn Miller and James Patrick Holding on these same issues:

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/pseudox.html http://www.christian-thinktank.com/ynotpeter1.html http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/pastorals.html

In conclusion, we can confidently trace the belief in Jesus¶ atoning death back to the earliestapostles by multiple strands of evidence. Now, given the importance of the belief in the HolySpirit¶s guidance in the ministry of the early church, establishing the historicity of the earlychurch¶s belief in Jesus¶ atoning death is sufficient for Christian belief. But can we go evenfurther than this? Prior to the crucifixion, did Jesus himself give any indication of hisimpending death, or if his death would serve as a vicarious atonement? We think for severalreasons this can be answered in the affirmative.

First, regarding Jesus¶ belief that he was the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, Stuhlmacher notes the following:

³The proposition to be refuted here is a different one: the communis opinio of recent NewTestament scholarship that µthe application of the Servant conception to Jesus was the work of the early church with very limited influence.¶ 4 Rather, as scholars including J. Jeremias, 5 H. W. Wolff, 6 O. Betz, 7 L. Goppelt, 8 and others have long since realized, it is the other wayaround: the Christological interpretation of Isaiah 53 that comes to the fore in Romans 4:25; ICorinthians 15:3b-5; I Peter 2:22-25; Hebrews 9:28, and so forth was not first and foremost

the fruit of post-Easter faith; its roots lie rather in Jesus¶ own understanding of his missionand death. He himself adopted the general messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 current inearly Judaism, 9 but he understood his sufferings quite independently of the prevailingtradition in the light of the word of God given to him from Isaiah 43:3-4 and 53:11-12. After the completion of Jesus¶ mission in the cross and resurrection, the song of the SufferingServant was applied in early Christianity consistently for the first time to a historicalindividual whose fate made the whole text transparent.´ (Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in theGospels and Acts , 2004; 148-149)



I have argued elsewhere at some length for the authenticity of Jesus¶ own belief in fulfillingthe role of the ³Suffering Servant´, the historicity of the Eucharist and the Gethsemanenarrative, and even his explicit passion predictions; see here .

To round off the discussion, one last observation by Peter Stuhlmacher regarding theundeniably-historical cleansing of the temple by Jesus is I think worthy of attention:

³As I have learned from my former student J. Adna and from the materials he has workedwith, the ransom saying of Mark 10:45 and its parallels coheres surprisingly closely withJesus¶ so-called temple cleansing (Mark 11:15-17 par.). 17 This symbolic messianic act

presented the temple priesthood with an alternative²either to continue to carry out thesacrificial cult without reference to Jesus and his message and thereby to become separatedfrom God once and for all, or to face up to this message and together with Jesus to approachµthe temple established by God¶s own hands¶ in the [ basileia ] (cf. Mark 14:58 par. with Exod.15:17-18). 18 With this incredibly provocative act Jesus knowingly risked his life, and this wasµin fact the occasion for the definitive official action against him.¶ 19 Jesus¶ action against thesellers of sacrificial animals and the money changers in Solomon¶s Portico was equivalent toan attempt to undermine the entire buying and selling of sacrificial animals as well as the

payment of obligatory contributions in the Tyrian temple currency. These contributions paidamong other things for the twice-daily tamid sacrifice («; cf. Exod. 29:38-46; Num. 28:3-8)

by which Israel could be redeemed from its guilt morning and evening (cf. Jub . 6:14; 50:11; P esi qta of Rab Kahana 55b; cf. Str-B 2:247 n.1). If one assumes that Jesus anticipated the priesthood¶s negative reaction to his deed, then from Mark 10:45 and its parallels it can beconcluded that he himself was ready to take the place of the sacrifices offered in vain by the

priests for Israel and to redeem the people of God from its guilt before God once for all withhis life. The close connection between Mark 10:45 par. and the temple cleansing providesdocumentary proof that Jesus entered the final disputes in Jerusalem decisively and ready tosuffer«

³If one contemplates the sequence of Jesus sayings in Mark 9:31 par.; 10:45 par.; and 14:22,24, all of which have been formulated with a view to Isaiah 53 (and Isa. 43:3-4), then thefigurative saying about the two swords in the Lukan special tradition, Luke 22:35-38, can becounted among the genuine sayings of Jesus based on the criterion of coherence. In Luke22:37, Isaiah 53:12 is cited not according to the Septuagint but according to the Hebrew text:³He was numbered with the transgressors´« The formulation of the saying is only partlyLukan, 22 and in it Jesus submits to the will of God revealed to him in Isaiah 53 no lessobediently than he does in the other sayings just mentioned. He was ready to let himself (andhis faithful followers) be µnumbered with the transgressors¶ and to end his life as God,through his word in Scripture, had determined for him. 23

³From the Jesus sayings examined up to this point it is safe to draw the following conclusion:

T he earthly Jesus himself understood his witness and his approaching death in the light of thetradition already given to him in Isaiah about the (vicariously suffering) Servant of God . Heunderstood the suffering laid upon him as an event in which God¶s will was fulfilled .(Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in the Gospels and Acts , 2004; 151-153; emphasis original)

J ohn 1:18



interpretation is irrelevant to the greater issue at hand. Similar as was the case with thedoctrine of Jesus¶ resurrection and atoning death, the divinity of Jesus is well-attested in non-disputed passages. Daniel Wallace notes four in particular that are found among the earliestmanuscripts where Jesus¶ divinity is explicitly attested: John 1:1; 20:28; Romans 9:5; andHebrews 1:8 (Wallace in Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace 2006; 116-117). He writes:

³Let¶s look at some of the verses in pre-fourth-century manuscripts that speak explicitly of Christ¶s deity. We are restricting our discussion to those verses in which Jesus is calledµGod.¶ Beyond these, there are dozens of other passages that affirm his deity implicitly (someof which we will discuss in the section µThe Divinity of Jesus¶). But here we want to showthat it is quite impossible for Constantine to have invented the deity of Christ when thatdoctrine is already found in manuscripts that predate him by a century or more.

³It is important to note that these three papyri are among our most important manuscripts of the New Testament. P 46 includes eight of Paul¶s letters and the letter to the Hebrews. P 66 covers most of John¶s Gospel. P 75 includes most of Luke and part of John. The later manuscripts from the fourth century²the manuscripts that Constantine allegedly corrupted² are very much in agreement with these manuscripts. Indeed, the manuscript that moderntranslations rely on as much as any other is Vaticanus, a fourth-century codex that has aboutthree-fourths of the New Testament. The agreement between Codex Vaticanus and P 75 is asgreat as any two ancient manuscripts. 38 Not only this, but in all the passages listed above,there are no significant variants from any manuscripts of any age .39 They all tell the samestory: Jesus is true deity´. (ibid. 116-117; emphasis original)

Thus, even if we eliminate the disputed texts like John 1:18 from consideration, the original New Testament still clearly attests to a divine Jesus.

This is enough in and of itself to cause major problems for Islamic polemicists regarding theissue of textual foundation, but what can be said regarding the historical foundation for thechurch¶s belief in Christ¶s divinity? On this question, Larry Hurtado, in his outstanding³ Lord J esus Christ ´ has persuasively demonstrated high Christological beliefs in all strandsof early Christianity, from the earliest Jewish-Christian church in Palestine, to the Qdocument, to the Pauline churches, the canonical Gospel communities, and beyond, and thatthis is reflected in virtually all of the relevant documents (both from proto-orthodox andunorthodox circles) from the first century and a half or so after the genesis of the church. For those interested in a shorter read, Hurtado¶s ³One God, One Lord´ and ³How on Earth DidJesus Become a God´ is helpful (if not as comprehensive). Richard Bauckham¶s recent ³Jesusand the God of Israel´ also proves helpful (see also the links listed at the end of this section).

Logically, if it can be established that Jesus was considered divine by his earliest followers, itseems much more likely than not that such considerations are based upon actual claims made

by the historical Jesus. So, before we even look at the evidence of the historical Jesus¶claims/sayings, it seems a priori likely that Jesus did claim to be divine, as shocking as suchclaims may have been. When we examine the evidence itself, it isn¶t surprising to find manyindications of this being the case. Here I will resist the temptation to reinvent the proverbialwheel, particularly since Sam Shamoun and others have published scores of articles detailingthe rich and varied evidence of Christ¶s belief in his divinity. In Appendix 2 I do discuss threecategories of implicit evidence which indicate Jesus¶ belief in his own high Christologicalstatus.



For some more relevant material on the Christology of the early church, see the following:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/jesusclaimshub.html http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/luke_preexistence.htm http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/biblicaljesus.htm http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/messiah_targums2.html http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/messiah_concept.htm http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/messiah_god.htm http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/jesus_walks_on_sea.htm http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/jesus_on_throne.htm http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/jesus_most_high.htm http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/qsayings.htm http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/jesus_divine_glory.html http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/carmen_christi.html http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/jesus_divine_name.html http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/jesus_proskyneo.html http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/petrine_christology.html

I J ohn 5:7-8

³For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: andthese 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.´ (KJV)

The so-called Johannine comma would be, if authentic, the most explicit affirmation of theChristian doctrine of the Trinity in the Scriptures. However, the reasons for rejecting itsauthenticity are even weightier than that of the Markan appendix. In fact, most moderntranslations omit ³the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.´ from thetext. Below is the translation provided by the NIV, for example:

³For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are inagreement.´

In his review of Ehrman¶s ³Misquoting Jesus´, Daniel Wallace discusses why the commacannot be authentic and briefly why this is not problematic for maintaining belief inTrinitarian doctrine:

³Finally, regarding 1 John 5.7±8, virtually no modern translation of the Bible includes theµTrinitarian formula,¶ since scholars for centuries have recognized it as added later. Only afew very late manuscripts have the verses. One wonders why this passage is even discussed

in Ehrman¶s book. The only reason seems to be to fuel doubts. The passage made its way intoour Bibles through political pressure, appearing for the first time in 1522, even thoughscholars then and now knew that it was not authentic. The early church did not know of thistext, yet the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 explicitly affirmed the Trinity! How couldthey do this without the benefit of a text that didn¶t get into the Greek NT for another millennium ? Constantinople¶s statement was not written in a vacuum: the early church putinto a theological formulation what they got out of the NT.



³A distinction needs to be made here: just because a particular verse does not affirm acherished doctrine does not mean that that doctrine cannot be found in the NT. In this case,anyone with an understanding of the healthy patristic debates over the Godhead knows thatthe early church arrived at their understanding from an examination of the data in the NT.The Trinitarian formula found in late manuscripts of 1 John 5.7 only summarized what theyfound; it did not inform their declarations.´ ( Source ; emphasis original)

Similar to other issues we¶ve discussed, that this verse is spurious does not negate the factthat Scripture teaches Trinitarian doctrine. For what it¶s worth, there are a few single versesthat mention the three Members of the Trinity:

³May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the HolySpirit be with you all.´ (2 Cor. 13:13)

³Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughoutPontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to theforeknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience toJesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.´ (I Peter 1:1-2)

However, the doctrine is best established through a wide-range of Scriptural verses andthemes found throughout the Bible. Consider the material in the following links:

http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/hartman/trinity_historic.html http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html http://www.tektonics.org/qt/quietthird.html http://www.christian-thinktank.com/trin01.html

CONCLUSION And so we reach the end of our survey. There are, of course, many other significant textualvariants that we did not discuss. However, we did encounter a few of the more theologically-relevant variants regarding Christian doctrines that are contradictory to Islamic beliefs. The

point of this discussion was simply to examine the significance of these variants in regards tohow it should impact our beliefs from both a textual and a historical perspective. Moreover,while Muslim polemicists have quote-mined relevant textual scholars in constructing their arguments against the integrity of the New Testament text, it is important to point out thatthese same scholars would not endorse anywhere near the degree of textual corruptionnecessary to support any claim that the original NT was once compatible with Islamic beliefsabout Jesus and/or the early church. We have already seen that Kurt and Barbara Aland are

very confident that the NT text can be reconstructed from our wide variety of manuscripts based on the phenomenon of the ³tenacity of the textual variants´ (see above). Along similar lines, textual critics believe that (with a few possible exceptions) the original text can bereconstructed from the pool of existing variants. Michael Holmes, for instance, endorses theneed for ³conjectural emendation´ in a few places while other scholars like J. K. Elliott andDaniel Wallace believe it to be necessary in possibly only the rarest of occasions, or possiblynot even at all. Furthermore, the Scriptural passages where it may be necessary do not affectany significant article of faith or devotion with the possible exception of I Cor. 14:34-35(which raises the question as to whether or not women should be silent in the church). We¶ve



seen that the common Christian claim of 95-99% certainty regarding the NT text findsconfirmation from textual critic Daniel Wallace (who argues in fact that 99% of the words of the NT can be reconstructed with certainty). In regards to the number of verses that remaincompletely intact (eliminating those that contain viable yet trivial variants), we can make areasonable estimate that the percentage of certainty falls to within about 91-96%.

In an interview with Lee Strobel, the late Bruce Metzger, arguably the top textual critic of this generation, was asked how his scholarly studies have affected his beliefs. To this hereplied:

³«it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which thesematerials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, veryancient.´ (Strobel 1998; 93)

In response to Strobel¶s question about whether or not scholarship has diluted his faith,Metzger responds:

³On the contrary, « it has built it. I¶ve asked questions all my life, I¶ve dug into the text, I¶vestudied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has beenwell placed« Very well placed.´ (ibid. 93; emphasis original)

Textual critic Daniel Wallace notes:

³We have noted throughout this section that the New Testament suffers from anµembarassment of riches¶ unparalleled by any other piece of ancient literature. Themanuscript copies of the New Testament are far more plentiful and earlier than any other Greek or Latin texts. In terms of manuscript data, any skepticism about the Jesus of theGospels should be multiplied many times for any other historical figure. We have more andearlier manuscript evidence about the person of Jesus Christ than we do anyone else in theancient world²including Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.´ (Wallace in Komoszewski,Sawyer, & Wallace 2006; 105-106)

And,

³There is simply no room for uncertainty about what the New Testament originally taught.Whether one chooses to believe it is a different matter, and that is taken up in other chapters.Our concern here is simply to show that the fundamental teachings of the New Testament areundisturbed by viable textual variants.´ (ibid. 117)

Martin Hengel, while not a specialist in textual criticism, but quite arguably the world¶s mostrespected New Testament scholar, notes:

³The text of the Gospels is the best transmitted in the whole of antiquity: about six Gospel papyri go back to the period around 200 or to the second century AD 122 , and a further nineteen to the third century; of course most of them are only small fragments, but somecontain larger parts of the text 123 . Together with the great uncials since the fourth century, thenumerous later manuscripts, and the early translations, the attestation of the original text is sostrong that practically all the secondary alterations to the text and interpolations can be pickedup in the unbelievably multiple textual tradition 124 . It is therefore extremely rare for conjectures or the removal of hypothetical glosses to be necessary.´ (Hengel 2000; 28-29;



note: the numbers Hengel uses above are based on (currently) outdated information; per Wallace there are up to a dozen manuscripts to be dated to the 2 nd century, another 39-59 to

be dated to the 3 rd century, and another 50 or so to be dated to the 4 th century (for a total of 101-121) ± from Wallace 2008; time slice 31:59 ± 32:29; this is somewhat different fromanother source where Wallace states that there are ³as many as a dozen manuscripts from the2nd century, 64 from the 3 rd, and 48 from the 4 th«´, for a total of 124 manuscripts [Source:

Ehrman & Wallace 2008, Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum Pt II; time slice 17:35 -17:57]).

Almost surprisingly, even the liberal NT textual critic Bart Ehrman (whose writings have,inadvertently or not, fueled much of the craze regarding the alleged uncertainty of the NTtext) does not dispute the general preservation of the text. In response to a question posedregarding his allegedly different position on the matter from his mentor, the aforementionedBruce Metzger, Ehrman stated:

³ The position I argue for in M isquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with P rof.Metzger¶s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textualvariants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. What he means by that (Ithink) is that even if one or two passages that are used to argue for a belief have adifferent textual reading, there are still other passages that could be used to argue forthe same belief. For the most part, I think that¶s true.

³But I was looking at the question from a different angle. My question is not about traditionalChristian beliefs, but about how to interpret passages of the Bible. And my point is that if youchange what the words say, then you change what the passage means. Most textual variants(Prof. Metzger and I agree on this) have no bearing at all on what a passage means. But thereare other textual variants (we agree on this as well) that are crucial to the meaning of a

passage. And the theology of entire books of the New Testament are sometimes affected bythe meaning of individual passages.

³From my point of view, the stakes are rather high: Does Luke¶s Gospel teach a doctrine of atonement (that Christ¶s death atones for sins)? Does John¶s Gospel teach that Christ is theµunique God¶ himself? Is the doctrine of the Trinity ever explicitly stated in the NewTestament? These and other key theological issues are at stake, depending on which textualvariants you think are original and which you think are creations of early scribes who weremodifying the text.´ ( Q & A with Bart Ehrman in Ehrman 2005; 252-253; emphasis added)

In response to an e-mail query about the corruption of the New Testament text, Ehrman hadthis to say:

³I do not think that the µcorruption¶ of Scripture means that scribes changed everything in the

text, or even most things. The original texts certainly spoke at great length about J esus'crucifixion and resurrection . The issues involved in the corruption of the text usually entailnuances of interpretation. These are important nuances; but most of the New Testament canbe reconstructed by scholars with reasonable certainty -- as much certainty as we canreconstruct *any* book of the ancient world .´ ( Source ; emphasis added)

While we do not have the original documents, we have a wealth of data in existence from thethousands of extant Greek manuscripts (along with thousands of extant Latin (and other translational) witnesses and countless quotations and allusions of the NT text by the Early



Church Fathers). Based upon the small amount of time between the original composition andthe earliest MSS (particularly in comparison with other ancient literature) as well as theestablished existence of various text-types traceable to the 2 nd century, we know that the textwas not substantially different prior to the split into text-types. In fact, textual critics areconfident in their ability to reconstruct most of the original text, the verses that remain indoubt in virtually all cases still having the original reading present among the existing

variants.

The fact that the oral traditions and apostolic testimony remained important to the earlychurch, even after the Gospels were composed (again cf. Bauckham 2006), negates thereasonableness of any idea that the early church would have so widely accepted the canonicalGospels in the mid-to-late 2 nd century if the traditions contained therein did not jibe with theoral traditions upon which the former were based. This is all the more true when we think interms of the foundational doctrines and beliefs of early Christianity. Even if we were toimagine that certain ³theologically-charged´ verses were interpolations into the original text(despite not leaving any evidence in the enormous manuscript-record of this occurring), it isfrankly impossible to imagine that new, theologically-foundational doctrines could havesomehow been wrenched into the text at some early period and this new perspectiveresultantly being accepted throughout the churches of the Roman Empire so widely anduncritically that, despite the thousands of texts that have survived, we see no evidence in themanuscript record that such was ever the case.

To make matters worse, it is worth pointing out that it is a highly-questionable claim madewidely by Muslims that Muhammad rejected the veracity of the Bible that existed in his ownday (i.e. 7 th century A.D.). If the contrary is true, then the case for the whole-sale corruptionof the Bible becomes that much more hopeless from within the point-of-view of even Islam¶sown sacred texts. While I think it highly untenable to maintain substantial corruption of theoriginal NT texts by the 2 nd or 3 rd centuries A.D., it is all the more impossible to maintain thatthe Bible was intact until at least the 7 th century, and only after this did it become hopelesslycorrupted. We won¶t even start to discuss such a complex issue here, but I think SamShamoun and company have put together a very impressive and diverse collection of evidence from the Qur¶an, Hadith, early commentators, biographers of Muhammad, andscholars of Islam that demonstrates that Muhammad did indeed accept the veracity of theBible in his own day. On this see the materials at the following link:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/ B ible/index.html

It seems that Muslim polemicists are left with a few options in light of the data. They are of course still free to assert that the New Testament has been corrupted beyond recognition andthat such doctrines as Jesus¶ atoning death, resurrection, and divinity were somehowintroduced into the New Testament texts without leaving any historical or textual footprints.

As we have seen, however, such an assertion not only would go against the overwhelmingevidence to the contrary that exists, but also would not find support from even the mostradical of New Testament scholars (including the liberal textual scholar Bart Ehrman).Frankly it would be an assertion of blind faith that flies in the face of substantial data to thecontrary.

A second option perhaps could entail redefining and/or refocusing the Qur¶anic allusions to³the Gospel´. In other words, is it possible to establish that Muhammad could have beenreferring to a non-canonical Gospel, perhaps even one that no longer exists to this day? This



would likewise probably prove to be an arduous task, for from a textual standpoint such atask would require providing evidence that such a Gospel existed and demonstrations as tohow it conforms (or conformed) to Islamic assertions. If that could be accomplished, thenthere would remain the historical problem, i.e. why should this Gospel be taken seriouslyover and against the canonical Gospels in regards to providing us with reliable historicalinformation about Jesus? Given that the canonical Gospels (along with Acts, the epistles of

Paul, and typically I Peter and I John) were widely accepted by the churches across theRoman Empire from at least the second century and onwards (with no non-canonical Gospelcoming close to achieving such a status) [for a thorough discussion of the NT canon seeMetzger 1987; for a lighter discussion cf. Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace 2006; 121-166], I wouldn¶t envy the one trying to argue for this option either.

Then, of course, a third option would be to reinterpret the Qur¶an and Islamic theology ingeneral in order to accommodate traditional Christian doctrines. Now, Muslim polemicistswill commonly argue that the canonical Gospels do not portray Jesus as divine. I would arguein response that such a line of argument not only contradicts the unanimous testimony of theearly church, including apostolic testimony (per once again cf. esp. Hurtado 2003), but alsoclear indications within the Gospels themselves (much of which is accepted as authentic bythe general scholarly consensus) that Jesus did in fact in many ways (even if mostlyimplicitly) claim to be divine (see the above section on ³John 1:18´, the links provided there,and Appendix 2 as well). On the other hand, the numerous references to Jesus¶ death, theatonement, and of course the resurrection are simply not open to debate. If option #2 is nottaken up successfully and Muslim polemicists wish to make an argument that isintellectually-sound, it seems that they would be forced to reinvent their theology at least onthese latter points, while at the same time trying to account for the rich and varied evidencethat indicates that Jesus and the early church claimed that Jesus is divine (once again anunenviable task).

Finally, at the risk of being accused of introducing a red herring, I feel it important to merelymention that the Qur¶an¶s textual history is not free from problems in some areas as well. Seee.g. the following links:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Text/index.html http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/quran_compilation.html

Muslim responses to some of the material above can be found at the following links:

http://www.mostmerciful.com/reply-ans-islam.htm http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/

Now, I don¶t bring up this issue to argue for substantial Qur¶anic corruption. In fact, I see no

reason to believe that the Qur¶an has not been essentially preserved (like the NewTestament). I allude to such data merely to point out that the Qur¶an, like the NT, suffersfrom its own textual problems, and I think it would be difficult for Muslims to be consistentin merely pushing aside the problems in the former while attempting to greatly amplify the

problems associated with the latter.

Has the New Testament been corrupted? Well, it depends on one¶s angle. We agree withMENJ in that the answer is ³yes´ in so much as there clearly have been a great, great manytextual variants discovered among the wealth of NT manuscripts, some of which were



apparently introduced deliberately for theological reasons (though these are in a very smallminority), and some of which are viable variants that affect passages that espouse crucialChristian doctrines.

However, when Christians who know something about the issues of textual criticism answer the ³Has the Bible been corrupted?´ question with a ³no´, it is likely that they understand the

questioner to be defining ³corruption´ as something like ³altered to the point of hopelessness´, almost giving the impression that the New Testament may have originally

been a recipe book for ancient Mediterranean baked goods. As such, to the extent that thevariants that do exist do not impact the overall textual foundation for the major doctrinesdiscussed in this article, and that the New Testament we have today is a reasonable facsimileof the original, we can answer that it has indeed been preserved.

A "sequel" to this article: Miscellaneous Issues in NT Textual Criticism

Recommended Reading

³Reinventing Jesus: What T he Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don¶t Tell you´ by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace (esp. pp. 53-117)

³The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theoryand Practice of Modern Textual Criticism´ by Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland

³The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration´ by BruceM. Metzger, 3 rd ed. (and/or the later edition also co-authored by Bart Ehrman)

³The Gospel According to Bart: A review of Bart D . Ehrman¶s Misquoting Jesus: The Story

Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why´ ( Source )³Textual Trysts: The Textual Reliability of the New Testament´ ( Source )

James Arlandson's series:

y New Testament Manuscripts: The Basic Facts y New Testament Manuscripts: the Right Stuff y New Testament Manuscripts: Discovery and Classification y The Manuscripts Tell the Story: The New Testament Is Reliable

Appendix 1: The P reservation of the J esus Sayings and Early Christian P rophecy

Although our main focus in this article (and the key question relevant to the debate) is whatthe original New Testament texts had to say, from a historical standpoint it is important toknow to what extent we can trust the oral transmission of the Christian traditions before theywere put into writing. In the ancient world where literacy was characteristic of the minority, itwas common for traditions (religious or otherwise) to be transmitted orally, often for centuries. In the case of the New Testament, especially the material in the Gospels, oraltradition was possibly the only medium through which the traditions were transmitted before



the composition of the Gospels about 40-70 years after the crucifixion. This is an issue thatdeserves a lengthy article of its own, but as the topic of oral tradition in the New Testament istangential to our main point of discussion, we will merely provide a brief overview of somereasons to trust in the accurate preservation of the oral traditions prior to their incorporationinto the Gospels.

First of all, do we have good reason to believe that the early church would have had thedesire to carefully preserve traditions about Jesus¶ teachings and deeds? Drawing on the work of Rainer Riesner, Synoptic specialist Craig Blomberg summarizes six reasons to answer thisquestion in the affirmative:

³(1) Jesus followed the practice of Old Testament prophets by proclaiming the Word of theLord with the kind of authority that would have commanded respect and concern to safeguardthat which was perceived as revelation from God. Just as many parts of Old Testament

prophecy are considered by even fairly skeptical scholars to have been quite well preserved,so Jesus¶ words should be considered in the same light. (2) The fact that Jesus presentedhimself as Messiah, even if in a sometimes veiled way, would reinforce his followers¶concern to preserve his words, since one fairly consistent feature in an otherwise diverse

body of first-century expectations was that the Messiah would be a teacher of wisdom. (3)The gospels depict Jesus as just such a teacher of wisdom and phrase over 90% of his sayingsin forms which would have been easy to remember, using figures and styles of speech muchlike those found in Hebrew poetry 3. (4) There is widespread evidence in the gospels of Jesuscommanding the twelve to µlearn¶ specific lessons and to transmit what they learn to others,even before the end of his earthly ministry. In addition to the obvious missions of Mark 6:7-13 and parallels (in this book abbreviated µpars.¶) and Luke 10:1-17, subtler hints appear inMark 13:28; Luke 11:1; Mark 9:10 and Acts 2:42 4. (5) Elementary education for boys until atleast the age of twelve was widely practiced in Israel in Jesus¶ day, so texts like Acts 4:13cannot mean that the disciples had no competence in reading, writing, and memorization. (6)Almost all teachers in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman worlds gathered disciples around themin order to perpetuate their teachings and lifestyle, so however different Jesus was from therabbis in other ways, he probably resembled them in this respect. If he envisaged his disciplesas in some sense continuing his ministry for any length of time (see pp. 33-35), then hecertainly would have been concerned that they preserve his message and mission intact.´(Blomberg 1987; 27-28)

Regarding point #3 made above, the outstanding Jewish scholar Joachim Jeremias discussesthese stylistic and linguistic phenomena of the sayings of Jesus in some detail, from the useof the so-called divine passive to ³antithetic parallelism´, rhythms (i.e. ³two-beat´ rhythms,³three-beat´ rhythms, etc.), alliteration, paronomasia , etc. (see Jeremias 1971; 8-37 for discussion). From this a couple of things stand out reflecting the importance of the

preservation of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels: 1) these styles emerge when the

sayings are set forth against their Aramaic background (ibid. 8), which places the probable provenance of at least most of these sayings in the earliest Palestinian church; 2) that Jesusspoke in such a manner is an indicator that he wanted his teachings preserved, requiring thedisciples from the get-go to make sure that it happened. Jeremias writes at the end of hissurvey:

³Not every occurrence of the characteristic expressions mentioned in [sections] 2 and 3 is initself a proof of authenticity. We must distinguish between ipsissima vox and ipsissima verba . The presence of a way of speaking preferred by Jesus ( ipsissima vox Jesu) does not relieve us



of the necessity of examining each individual instance to see whether we have a genuinelogion (ipsissimum verbum ). For example, to claim that the use of [ amen ] to introduce hisown words is the ipsissima vox Jesu does not of itself imply that all twenty-five instances inJohn (see p. 35, n. 8 above) are ipsissima verba . The question of authenticity cannot,therefore, be settled in a purely schematic way on the basis of the linguistic and stylisticevidence. We must also consider the content of the sayings. Nevertheless, we can say in

conclusion that the linguistic and stylistic evidence presented in [sections] 2-3 shows somuch faithfulness and such respect towards the tradition of the sayings of J esus that weare justified in drawing up the following principle of method: In the synoptic traditionit is the inauthenticity, and not the authenticity, of the sayings of J esus that must bedemonstrated .1´ (ibid. 36-37; emphasis added)

Other evidence exists to suggest that the early Christians were at pains not only to preservethe teachings of Jesus but also utilize them. James Dunn looks at a number of pertinentfactors, such as the prominence of early Christian teachers:

³Teachers, indeed, seem to have been the first regularly paid ministry within the earliestChristian movement (Gal. 6.6; Did . 13.2). Why teachers? Why else than to serve as thecongregation¶s repository of oral tradition? What else would Christian teachers teach? AChristian interpretation of the Scriptures, no doubt. But also, we can surely safely assume, thetraditions which distinguished house churches from local house synagogues or other religious, trade, or burial societies 20 «

³Nor should it be forgotten that, at least according to the tradition, Jesus himself wasregarded as a µteacher ( didaskalos) 22 , and was so regarded by his disciples 23 . Jesus may evenhave regarded himself as such (Matt. 10:24-25/Luke 6:40). That the disciples of Jesus areconsistently called µdisciples¶, that is µthose taught, learners¶ (Hebrew talmidim ; Greek mathetai ) ± should also be included 24 . The relation between Jesus and his disciples wasremembered as one between teacher and taught, with the implication that, as such, thedisciples understood themselves to be committed to remember their teacher¶s teaching 25 .´(Dunn 2003; 176-177; among the references Dunn lists to support that the disciplesconsidered Jesus as a teacher include Mark 8:35; 9:17; 10:17; 12:14, 19, etc. etc.)

Dunn also discusses the ³bearing witness´ and ³remembering´ motifs found in the NT. Onthe former he writes:

³The motif is particularly prominent in Acts and John. In Acts it is stressed that the role of the first disciples (or apostles in particular) was to be µwitnesses¶ ( martyres ) of Jesus (1.8).Particularly in mind were the events of Jesus¶ crucifixion and resurrection (2.32; 3.15; 5.32;10.41; 13.31) 26 . But it is clear from 1.22 and 10.37-39 that Luke understood the witnessing toinclude Jesus¶ ministry µbeginning from the baptism of John¶.´ (ibid. 177)

In regards to John and Luke, Dunn writes:

³The immediate disciples have a special responsibility to bear witness ( martyreo ) to Jesus,assisted by the Spirit (15.26-27), a responsibility which the Evangelist was deemed to becarrying out by means of his Gospel (19.35; 21.24) 27«

³«; in John 15.26-27 it is made clear that µfrom the beginning¶ embraces the whole of theoriginal disciples¶ time with Jesus (as with Acts 1.22)´ (ibid. 178)



³Luke had the same concern when he promised to narrate what had been µdelivered to us bythose who from the beginning were eyewitnesses 28 and ministers of the word¶ (Luke 1.1-2;cf. Mark 1.1) 29 .´ (ibid. 178)

On the ³remembering´ motif, Dunn writes:

³More striking still is the motif of µ remembering ¶, also important for identity information 32.Already Paul stresses the importance of his converts remembering him and the µtraditions¶which he taught them (1 Cor. 11.2; 2 Thess. 2.5). And close to the heart of the Lord¶s Supper tradition which Paul passed on was the exhortation to remember Christ ± µDo this inremembrance of me¶ ( eis ten emen anamnesin ) (1 Cor. 11.24-25; Luke 22.19) ± by no meansa merely cognitive act of recollection 33. 2 Timothy retains the motif with reference to well-established traditions (2.8, 14), the first (2.8) echoing the (presumably well-known) formulawith which Paul reassured the Roman believers regarding his own gospel (Rom. 1.3-4) 34 . Theimportance of post-Easter believers remembering Jesus¶ words is a repeated theme in Luke-Acts and John 35 ; the equivalence of John 14.26 and 15.27 indicates that µremembering all Ihave said to you¶, and µwitnesses with me from the beginning¶, are two sides of the samecoin. 2 Peter confirms that remembering the teaching first given was a central concern inearly Christianity (1.15; 3.2); similarly Rev. 3.3. 1 Clement uses the phrase µremember(ing)the words of the Lord Jesus¶ to introduce a brief catena of Jesus¶ sayings on two occasions(13.1-2; 46.7-8), as does Polycarp with a similar introductory formula, µremembering whatthe Lord taught when he said¶ ( P hil . 2.3). Here we should also simply note the famous Papiastradition, which repeatedly emphasizes the importance of µremembering¶ in the transmissionof the earliest traditions stemming from the first disciples (Eusebius, HE 3.39.3-4, 15;6.14.6), and Justin¶s concern to µbring to remembrance¶ teachings of Jesus ( Dial . 18.1; 1

Apol . 14.4) 36«

³In short, the witnessing and remembering motifs strengthen the impression that more or lessfrom the first those who established new churches would have taken care to provide and builda foundation of Jesus tradition. Particularly important for Gentiles taking on a wholly newlife-style and social identity would be guidelines and models for the different character of conduct now expected from them. Such guidelines and models were evidently provided by asolid basis of Jesus tradition which they were expected to remember, to take in and live out.´(ibid. 179-180)

Most important of all are the apostolic guarantors of the traditions in question. The originalapostles would most certainly have served as a repository of the relevant traditions and alsocould provide checks against deviations from these traditions when necessary. Again,consider the remarks of Dunn:

³More striking is the fact that a clear emphasis of the early chapters of Acts is the role of the

apostles as ensuring continuity between what Jesus had taught and the expanding mission of the movement reinvigorated afresh at Pentecost. The implication of the opening words is thatActs is a continuation of µall that Jesus began to do and teach¶ as recorded in µthe first part of his work¶, the Gospel of Luke (Acts 1.1). The instruction given to the apostles (1.2), theimplication continues, had just the same continuity in view 41 . Hence, when the traitor Judas isreplaced by a new twelfth apostle, the criterion for his election is that he should have beenone of their number throughout the ministry of Jesus, µbeginning from the baptism of John¶(1.21-22). Hence also the emphasis in 2.42, where the first mark of the new post-Pentecost



community is its continuation in and firm attachment to ( proskartereo ), µthe teaching of theapostles¶.´ (ibid. 180)

Dunn further remarks that the prominence of Peter, John, and James as key leaders of theearly church (see. e.g. Gal. 2.9; though here ³James´ refers to Jesus¶ brother rather thanJohn¶s brother, as the latter had likely been executed by this time, per Acts 12:1-2)

³correlates well with the remembrance of the Jesus tradition that Peter and the brother Zebedee had been closest to Jesus 43 and thus were accounted principal witnesses to andcustodians of Jesus¶ heritage.´ (ibid. 180-181; on Peter, James, and John¶s closeness to Jesuscf. Mark 5.37; 9.2; 13.3, 14.33)

The importance of the original disciples in serving as guarantors of the tradition, even after the Gospels were composed, cannot be underestimated. On this, the cumulative argument of Richard Bauckham in ³ J esus and the Eyewitnesses ´ is persuasive.

Regarding the oral tradition underlying the Gospels, a couple of important questions arise.First of all, whichever model of oral tradition one proposes one must be able to reckon withthe variations that exist among the Gospels that narrate the same event (this is especiallyrelevant among Synoptic Gospel narratives). Recent studies on oral tradition, including itsapplication to NT studies, indicate that it is typical (at least in some models) for every

performance of a given tradition to include variants (not necessarily accidentally). PaulRhodes Eddy and Gregory Boyd¶s comments in this regard are instructive:

³Among other things, we now know that variations in oral tradition do not follow linear,unidirectional µlaws¶ (as the literary paradigm assumes), but rather follow far more complex,multidirectional paths. Oral variations µdepend on the performance situation itself²and every

performance is, to one degree or another, different from the next.¶ 92 The same trident performing the same oral text may offer a longer, more elaborate version today, and a shorter,more stylized version tomorrow, depending upon the particular audience, time constraints,and countless other factors that attach to each individual performance. These are the sorts of variables not captured by µthe literary paradigm¶ and thus never considered by theBultmannian form-critical enterprise.´ (Eddy & Boyd 2007; 293-294)

I think the concept of variations in the performance of oral tradition also contains importantapplication upon consideration of the fact that some of the scribal traditions of the NT textalso betray a less-than-rigid copying-practice (see above, ³The Living Text´ section of thisarticle). If such variation was an accepted cultural phenomenon in terms of oral

performances, then it seems that such variations by way of paraphrasing would similarly beacceptable in written documents. This may help to account for why, according to at leastsome early scribal traditions, we find that the NT text was a ³living text´.

It seems reasonable to suggest that Muslims should be well aware of the concept of performance variation in regards to oral traditions given the testimony of the Islamictraditions to the seven Qira¶at (i.e. readings) of the Qur¶an. This unpacks a similar situation.

Now, some Muslims may argue that the variation associated with the NT is still problematicsince, in the case of the Qur¶an, all seven Qira¶at represent authentic divine revelation.However, a couple of issues should be kept in mind. The composition of the Gospels was notthought to be accomplished through direct dictation (as we find to be the case for the Qur¶an),

but rather through the use of at least several strata of (probably mostly Aramaic) oraltraditions and probably some written traditions (in any case the scholarly consensus accepts



that Matthew and Luke probably used Mark and Q). This would lead one to expect theevangelists to apply more flexibility in shaping the relevant traditions at hand (as long, of course, as historical accuracy was not compromised in the process) than what one mightexpect if the documents were thought to be composed by direct dictation. If in the oral cultureof 1 st century Palestine (and the greater Graeco-Roman world, for that matter), the norm wasto recite traditions in different ways, while preserving the core-importance of the various

teachings as well as the historical core of certain narratives that were being conveyed, thenthere should be no philological difficulties in accepting the possibility that texts reflectingsuch a practice are divinely-inspired, particularly if historical accuracy is generally preservedin each performance.

Interestingly, such performance variation on the part of the evangelists probably reflects thevery practice of Jesus during his ministry. Leading English NT scholar N.T. Wright writes:

³First, unless we are to operate with a highly unlikely understanding of Jesus and hisministry, we must assume some such picture as we find in Gerd Theissen¶s brilliant work,T he Shadow of the Galilean . Jesus was constantly moving from place to place, workingwithout the benefit of mass media. It is not just likely, it is in the highest degree probable,that he told the same stories again and again in slightly different words, that he ran intosimilar questions and problems and said similar things about them, that he came up with aslightly different set of beatitudes every few villages, that he not only told but retold andadapted parables and similar sayings in different settings, and that he repeated aphorisms withdifferent emphases in different contexts 14 . Scholars of an older conservative stamp used to tryto explain varieties in the synoptic tradition by saying cautiously that µmaybe Jesus said ittwice¶. This always sounded like special pleading. Today, once a politician has made a major speech, he or she does not usually repeat it. But the analogy is thoroughly misleading. If wecome to the ministry of Jesus as first-century historians, and forget our twentieth-centuryassumptions about mass media, the overwhelming probability is that most of what Jesus said,he said not twice but two hundred times, with (of course) a myriad of local variations 15 .

³«When we add to this the high probability that Palestinian culture was, to put it at itsweakest, more used to hearing and repeating teachings than we are today, and the observationthat much of Jesus¶ teaching is intrinsically highly memorable, I submit that the only thingstanding in the way of a strong case for Jesus¶ teaching being passed on effectively in dozensof streams of oral tradition is prejudice 16 . The surprise then, is not that we have on occasionso many (two, three, or even four) slightly different versions of the same saying. The surpriseis that we have so few. It seems to me that the evangelists may well have faced, as a major task, the problem not so much of how to cobble together enough tradition to make aworthwhile book, but of how to work out what to include from the welter of availablematerial 17 . The old idea that the evangelists must have included everything that they had tohand is always, at best, a large anachronism 18 .´ (Wright 1992; 422-423)

Then there is the question of the impact that early Christian prophets may have had on the preservation of the NT texts. Many critics since Bultmann have argued that many of thesayings found in the Gospels are the result of the incorporation of sayings of early Christian

prophets (speaking on behalf of the ³exalted Jesus´ or the Holy Spirit) into the Gospelnarratives, originally uttered to address important issues that were facing the early church.

N.T. Wright explains why this is problematic:



³A third misunderstanding concerns the belief of many early form-critics that the stories inthe early tradition reflected the life of the early church rather than the life of Jesus, in that theearly church invented (perhaps under the guidance of µthe spirit of Jesus¶) sayings of Jesus toaddress the problems in their own day. The main problem with this assumption is that the onefixed point in the history of the early church, i.e. Paul, provides a string of good counter-examples, which work in two directions 4.

³On the one hand, as is often pointed out, Paul regularly addresses questions of somedifficulty, in which he does not even quote the words of Jesus, in the synoptic tradition,which could have been helpful to him. Still less does he appear to attribute sayings to Jesuswhich were not his 5. Why was he so reticent, if µwords of Jesus¶ were regularly invented byChristian prophets, of whom Paul was assuredly one, to address problems in the earlychurch?

³On the other hand, as is not so often noted, Paul provides evidence of all sorts of disputeswhich rocked the early church but left not a trace in the synoptic tradition. From Paul, weknow that the early church was torn in two over the question of circumcision. There is nomention of circumcision in the whole synoptic tradition 6. From Paul, we know that some

parts at least of the early church had problems in relation to speaking in tongues. There is nomention of this in the main stream of synoptic tradition 7. From Paul, it is clear that thedoctrine of justification was a vital issue which the early church had to hammer out inrelation to the admission of Gentiles to the church. The only mentions of the admission of Gentiles in the synoptic tradition do not speak of justification, and the only mention of

justification has nothing to do with Gentiles 8. In Paul it is clear that questions have beenraised about apostleship, his own and that of others. Apostleship is of course mentioned in thesynoptic tradition, but so far is the tradition from addressing post-Easter issues here that itdoes not discuss the question of subsequent apostolic authority except for one passage²andin that passage it still envisages Judas sharing the glorious rule of the twelve. In Paul we meetthe question of geographical priority: does the church in Jerusalem have primacy over thoseworking elsewhere? In the synoptic tradition the criticisms of Jerusalem have to do with its

past and present failures, and with its wicked hierarchy, not with the place of its churchleaders within a wider emerging Christianity. So we could go on: slavery, idol-meat,womens¶ [sic] headgear, work, widows; and, perhaps above all, the detailed doctrines of Christ and the divine spirit. The synoptic tradition shows a steadfast refusal to importµdominical¶ answers to or comments on these issues into the retelling of stories about Jesus.This should put us firmly on our guard against the idea that the stories we do find in thesynoptic tradition were invented to address current needs in the 40s, 50s, 60s or even later inthe first century.

³Conversely, it has been shown often enough that the synoptic tradition has preservedmaterial which is not so relevant to, or so obviously taken up by, the first-generation church.

Well-known examples include the concentration on Israel10

; Jesus¶ attitude to women11

; andmany other features. As Moule concludes, µAspects of Jesus¶ attitude and ministry havesurvived in the traditions, despite the fact that the early Christians do not seem to have paid

particular attention to them or recognized their christological significance.¶ 12´

³(6) Apart, of course, from Jesus¶ own circumcision (Lk. 2.21). That sayings aboutcircumcision could easily be invented is clear from Gos. T hom. 53.

³(7) The ending of Mark is the exception that proves the rule: Mk. 16.17.



³(8) Gentiles (but not justification): e.g. Mt. 8.5-13. Justification (but not Gentiles): Lk. 18.9-14. (Wright 1992; 421-422)

Similarly, Dunn writes:

³On the other hand, despite the quite frequent references to prophets in the early Christian

tradition, there is no clear indication at any point that they spoke of or were expected to speak in the voice of Jesus within the gathered Christian assembly. Revelation 2-3 is hardly a modelfor what is envisaged. It would be surprising, for example, if no prophet in a Pauline churchever uttered a prophecy regarding circumcision; yet such an utterance is completely lackingin the Jesus tradition 81 . The role of prophets, vital as it was in Paul¶s eyes, was much morecircumscribed or modest (1 Cor. 14.3) than the above hypothesis envisages 82 . Moreover, inthe Jewish and Christian tradition prophecies are normally given in the name of the prophet,even when the prophet is confident that he speaks for God. Thus, no OT prophetic book names Yahweh as its author 83; Luke always names the prophet concerned (Acts 11.27-28;13.1; 21.9-14) and distinguishes Spirit speech (Acts 13.2; 21.11) from utterances of theexalted Christ (Acts 18.9-10; 23.11) 84; and Paul makes a point of distinguishing his owninspired opinion from the Jesus tradition (1 Cor. 7.10, 25, 40) 85 . All this suggests thatBultmann and Boring are overeager to find evidence of prophetic activity in the Synoptictradition 86 . The broader evidence suggests rather that such utterances were the exceptionrather than the rule.´ (Dunn 2003; 188; for a more extensive discussion of this issue cf. Dunn, P rophetic ³I´ Sayings, 1998 ; 142-169)

Consider further the pertinent remarks of German scholar Peter Stuhlmacher:

³The view suggested above in thesis form is confirmed when one situates the debated textswithin the formative process behind the synoptic tradition, as it has been newly explainedover the last thirty years by H. Schurmann, B. Gerhardsson, M. Hengel, and R. Riesner.According to this new view, the decisive origins of the synoptic tradition lie in the µschool¶ of Jesus, who taught as the µmessianic teacher of wisdom¶ (so M. Hengel). The or traditions of this school were transmitted to the primitive church in Jerusalem by the whom Jesus himself had called. These traditions then formed an essential part of the"teaching of the apostles" ( ) mentioned in Acts 2:42. 10 Since acarefully maintained continuity of tradition existed between Jesus' disciples and theJerusalem church, and since the apostolic guarantors of the Jesus tradition remained aliveuntil the outbreak of the first Jewish war, synoptic texts may be spoken of as subsequentµformulations of the church¶ only when it can be shown exactly who created them, when,why, and for what recipients they were created, and under what circumstances they wereaccorded equal authority with the Jesus tradition backed by the apostles. When one cannot

provide the answers to these questions, one must reckon with authentic tradition in thesynoptics.´ (Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in the Gospels and Acts , 2004; 149)

Here we¶ll end our brief discussion of oral tradition as it relates to New Testamentscholarship. There is fortunately a great deal of relevant scholarship on this issue to which wecould only scratch the proverbial surface in this article. However, the reader is encouraged toconsider the following resources for more information:

³The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition´ byPaul Rhodes Eddy & Gregory A. Boyd, particularly chapters 6 and 7



³Jesus and the Eyewitness: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony´ by Richard Bauckham

³Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making´ Vol. 1 by James Dunn; pp. 173-254 (thisresource is particularly valuable in that it includes an examination of a number of parallelnarratives of the same stories/sayings among different Gospels and their relevance to the

performance variation of oral tradition)

A couple of helpful on-line resources can be found at the following links:

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/orality01.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stil09.html (specifically the material under ³comment12´)

http://bible.org/page.php?page_id=5936 (contains some material relevant to the issuesdiscussed or alluded to in this appendix, cf. esp. parts 5-6 & 8-12 which are listed under thethird point)

Appendix 2: Indications of J esus¶ Belief in His Divinity from the G ospels

We mentioned that there are a number of implicit indications from the Gospels that Jesus believed in his divinity in the section where we discussed the variant readings of John 1:18.Here we will briefly discuss 3 such indications.

J esus as P re-existent

First, there is the Synoptic evidence of a number of sayings of Jesus that presupposes his pre-existence. Simon Gathercole in ³The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of

Matthew, Mark, and Luke´, leaves little room for doubt in his excellent treatment of thissubject. This is particularly evident in Jesus¶ ³I have come´ sayings. Below we list some of the most relevant examples:

³Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolishthem but to fulfill them.´ (Matthew 5:17)

³Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother,a daughter-in-law against her mother in law ² a man's enemies will be the members of hisown household.'´ (Matthew 10:34-36)

³For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as aransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

³I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!´ (Luke12:49)

³For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." (Luke 19:10)



These examples seem especially pregnant with meaning given that they relate Jesus¶³coming´ in the sense of performing a task that encompasses his entire ministry. Gathercolewrites in regards to this:

³The reason the µI have come¶ sayings have attracted a certain amount of attention is that theyare summaries of Jesus¶ mission as a whole . Although some have argued that one or two of

the sayings above refer to Jesus coming to a particular location (e.g., Capernaum), no scholar has attempted to defend the indefensible by arguing that all of them have this sense. It isgenerally agreed that the sayings as a whole concern the entirety of Jesus¶ earthly ministry,and that the goals of his coming are his life¶s work.´ (Gathercole 2006; 85)

And later,

³The controversial point to be emphasized in the present chapter is that there is a strong prima facie case for seeing preexistence implied in the Synoptic µI have come¶ sayings.Specifically, because the sayings talk of coming with a purpose, they imply that the comingis a deliberate act. A deliberate act requires a before-and-after, and, in the case of a µcoming¶,an origin from which the speaker has come. 5 Hence the usual sense which one would attachto the statement µI have come to do such-and-such¶ would be that the person was previouslynot carrying out the task, but has come from somewhere in order to carry it out. Furthermore,if the person is referring to his whole earthly activity as the goal of the coming, the place of origin is logically somewhere outside of the human sphere. This is of course not watertight,since there may be some kind of idiom in operation. As a result, it is necessary to test thishypothesis, by examining the formula in its Jewish context to see what the most likelymeaning for the phrase would be. But at this point, the prima facie sense should at least beopen for discussion.´ (ibid. 87; emphasis original)

Subsequently the author spends approximately 25 pages responding to potential objectionsand other explanations used by scholars to account for the ³I have come´ sayings of Jesus. Asa result the author concludes that earthly figures, including prophetic and even Messianiclanguage, typically do not use such language to describe their whole life¶s work (ibid. 88-112).

Gathercole then spends a chapter examining the use of what he refers to as the ³'I have come' ±plus±purpose formula´ in Jewish texts of the ancient period as it is applied to angels. Acouple of examples are found in the book of Daniel:

³He [Gabriel] instructed me and said to me, µDaniel, I have now come to give you insightand understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.¶´ (Daniel 9:22-23; emphasis added)

³On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river,the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of thefinest gold around his waist. His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes likeflaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like thesound of a multitude« Then he continued, µDo not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day thatyou set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your wordswere heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdomresisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me ,

because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what



will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.¶" (Daniel10:12, 14)

Overall Gathercole gives 25 such references from Jewish literature from the time of thecomposition of ³Daniel´ to the later 1 st century apocalyptic texts like IV Ezra and II Baruch and into the period of the composition of the targums and midrash commentaries of the OT

(ibid. 119-145), subsequent to which he concludes:

³We have seen above, then, a strong tradition which begins very early, in the numerousreferences in Daniel. This tradition is then appropriated repeatedly up to our terminus ad quem in the time of Midrash Mishle and the Vision of Daniel . There is a consistent use of the³¶I have come¶ + purpose formula´ which is not conventionally used in early Judaism byhuman figures to describe the totality of their life¶s work .102 Instead, the formula refers to thetotality of the heavenly figure¶s earthly visit, and to the purpose of that visit . There is thus astrong comparison to be made between these Jewish traditions and the equivalent statementsin the Gospels. These advents of angels constitute parallels considerably closer than anyhypothetical prophetic or messianic tradition. Because of this, it makes sense to adopt a moreliteral, rather than idiomatic, interpretation of the sayings in the Synoptic Gospels as referringto a coming from µa¶ to µb,¶ and thus implying a place of origin, namely heaven.´ (ibid. 145-146, emphasis original)

As this brief summary can in no way do justice to the impressive case argued by Gathercole,the reader is encouraged to examine the full breadth of the author¶s case in pages 83-147 of his book.

Of course, establishing that the Synoptic Gospels implied Jesus¶ pre-existence is not enough, by itself, to prove that he was divine anymore than it proves that the angels to which theformula is applied throughout Jewish literature of the crucial period were thought to bedivine. The most that can be said for certain based on this data is that Jesus saw himself as

pre-existent, which of course is an essential (though not exclusive) attribute of deity.

J esus as Wisdom Incarnate

Although it is a controversial issue, a good case can be made that Jesus implied that he wasthe Wisdom of God Incarnate. So what is Wisdom ? James Patrick Holding provides us withsome crucial background material:

³ J esus, as G od's Word and Wisdom, was and is eternally an attribute of G od theFather. Just as our own words and thoughts come from us and cannot be separated from us,so it is that Jesus cannot be completely separate from the Father. But there is more to this

explanation, related to the distinction between functional subordination and ontologicalequality. We speak of Christ as the µWord¶ of God, God's µspeech¶ in living form. In Hebrewand Ancient Near Eastern thought, words were not merely sounds, or letters on a page; wordswere things that µhad an independent existence and which actually did things.¶ Throughoutthe Old Testament and in the Jewish intertestamental Wisdom literature, the power of God'sspoken word is emphasized (Ps. 33:6, 107:20; Is. 55:11; Jer. 23:29; 2 Esd. 6:38; Wisdom9:1). µJudaism understood God's Word to have almost autonomous powers and substanceonce spoken; to be, in fact, ³a concrete reality, a veritable cause.´¶ (Richard N. Longenecker,T he Christology of Early Jewish Christianity , 145.) But a word did not need to be uttered or



written to be alive. A word was defined as µan articulate unit of thought, capable of intelligible utterance.¶ (C. H. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel , 263. It cannottherefore be argued that Christ attained existence as the Word only µafter¶ he was µuttered¶ byGod. Some of the second-century church apologists followed a similar line of thinking,supposing that Christ the Word was unrealized potential within the mind of the Father prior to Creation.) This agrees with Christ¶s identity as God¶s living word, and points to Christ's

functional subordination (just as our words and speech are subordinate to ourselves) and hisontological equality (just as our words represent our authority and our essential nature) withthe Father. A subordination in roles is within acceptable Biblical and creedal parameters, buta subordination in position or essence (the µontological¶ aspect) is a heretical view calledsubordinationism.

³ Background: The background with Wisdom Christology is found in the concept of hypostasis. What is a hypostasis? Broadly defined, it is a quasi-personification of attributes

proper to a deity, occupying an intermediate position between personalities and abstract beings. In the ANE here are some examples:

y Hu and Sia, in Egyptian tradition the creative word and understanding of Re-Atum

y Ma'at, also Egyptian, a personification of right order in nature and society, acreation of Re

y Mesaru and Kettu, or Righteousness and Right, Akkadian hypostasesconceived of as qualities of the sun-god, or as gifts granted by him, or sometimes as personal beings or independent deities

y the divine word, which proceeds via the character of breath and wind, inSumerian and Akkadian literature

³Wisdom in Proverbs 8, and Wisdom in Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon, and Philo's logos,all fit hand in glove with these. Now let's look at some cites, starting with Prov. 8.

µ P roverbs 8:22-30 T he LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old . I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was . When therewere no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water . Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world . When he

prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: Whenhe established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he

gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when heappointed the foundations of the earth: T hen I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him ...¶

³This passage is one of several in the Old Testament (see Ps. 58:10, 107:42; Job 11:14) inwhich abstract qualities are personified, following an Ancient Near Eastern tradition of personification. (Derek Kidner, T he Wisdom of P roverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes , 44.) Here,and in other parts of Proverbs, Wisdom µmakes claims for herself which are elsewhere madeonly by, or for, God.¶ The verb used by Wisdom to call attention to its messages is the sameused by the prophets to call for returning to God in repentance. (R. N. Whybray, P roverbs ,44) The speech made by Wisdom in this chapter is µa lengthy self-recommendation in which(Wisdom) boasts of her power and authority and of the gifts she is able to bestow,¶ followinga known Ancient Near Eastern literary genre in which a divinity praises itself. µWisdom is



intended to be understood as an attribute or heavenly servant of the sole God Yahweh towhom he has delegated certain powers with regard to his relations with mankind.¶ Finally, tocomplete the picture, Proverbs 2:6 tells us, µFor the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouthcometh knowledge and understanding.¶ God is the source of Wisdom; Wisdom is one of God's characteristics and attributes. (Bruce Vawter, µProverbs 8:22: Wisdom and Creation,¶Journal of Biblical Literature 99/2 (1980): 205-216, argues that Proverbs 8 depicts Wisdom

as a separate deity that Yahweh µacquired.¶ I follow Hurtado in replying that µthis language of personification [used in Judaism as a whole] does not necessarily reflect a view of thesedivine attributes as independent entities alongside God.¶ Such personifications µmust beunderstood within the context of the ancient Jewish concern for the uniqueness of God, themost controlling religious idea of ancient Judaism.¶ Thus he regards claims like that of Vawter's, that Wisdom here is depicted as an µindependent deity,¶ as something that isµsimply unwarranted and imports into such passages connotations never intended by thewriters.¶ Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient

Jewish Monotheism , 46-7. For more on this verb, see here .) [Source ]

Simon Gathercole provides us with a succinct summary of the activities of Wisdom as foundin ancient Jewish literature:

³Lady Wisdom in the OT and Jewish tradition is a very richly characterized figure with along curriculum vitae . Some of the main features of her identity and functions are as follows:she (a) has a unique relation to God himself and remains unknown and mysterious to human

beings, (b) is a figure who, on God¶s behalf, comes to the human realm from heaven and (c)appeals to humanity to turn to her and God, often by sending prophets. However, since (d)she is a figure of impenetrable mystery, in the course of her visitation of the human realm,she (e) is rejected by the great majority, and, having experienced this general rejection, (f)returns to God in heaven.

³To tell the story in this way is to invite comparison with the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels.Jesus is depicted as a figure in a uniquely close relationship to God whom God has sent toannounce the kingdom of heaven and to summon people to enter it. However, the vastmajority of Israel reject his invitation, and this rejection is instantiated in particular in hisexecution. After this, however, he is raised from the dead and ascends to heaven. Where thecontroversy arises for our purposes, however, is in whether the use of Wisdom motifs byMatthew, Mark, and Luke leads to the conclusion that Jesus, like Wisdom, come from a

preexistence in heaven .´ (Gathercole 2006; 193, emphasis original)

Here we will briefly touch upon a couple of sayings attributed to Jesus in Q and the thoughtsof one of the most prominent supporters of the ³Jesus as Wisdom´ hypothesis, BenWitherington III.

First consider Matthew 11:16-19 (par. Luke 7:31-35)

³To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplacesand calling out to others: µWe played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang adirge and you did not mourn.¶ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, µHehas a demon.¶ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, µHere is a glutton anda drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.¶ But wisdom is proved right by her actions."



Witherington writes in regards to this passage:

³Let us return briefly to the Q material found in Matthew 11:16-19/Luke 7:31-35. Here wefind a deliberate contrast between Jesus¶ lifestyle and that of John. Jesus as the Son of Mancame eating and drinking, celebrating and dancing, while John came in ascetic fashion as if inmourning. Yet neither style seemed to please the audience. Jesus in particular was accused of

being a drunkard and a friend of toll collectors and sinners. 93 The passage ends with theremark µYet wisdom ( Hokmah ) is vindicated by her deeds.¶ In other words, though the Son of Man does not receive affirmation or confirmation from some of his audience, nevertheless hisactions indicate him as God¶s Wisdom. One may properly ask, How so?

³At this juncture, we must consider some samples from the Wisdom tradition. First of all wenote that this tradition has a good deal to say about eating and drinking, in particular about

banqueting (see, e.g., Sir. 31:12-32:6). Wisdom literature in general encourages one to have acertain joie de vivre, to enjoy eating, friends and the good things in life. But even more to the

point, we find traditions like that in Proverbs 9:1-6, which speaks of a feast set by Wisdomherself where she invites very unlikely guests to the table²the simple, those without senseand the immature²so that they may learn to be wise.

³Meals were the occasion for teaching in antiquity, both in the Jewish as well as in the Greco-Roman world, and this is important for understanding Jesus in context. If we ask why it isthat Jesus dined with unlikely clientele, just the opposite of those a respectable person mightwant for dinner guests, the answer must be because Jesus saw it as his mission to reach theleast, the last and the lost in his society. In the context of dining he could begin to impartwisdom to them, a wisdom which, as the Wisdom of Solomon puts it, could µsave¶ (cf. Wis9:18). In short, Jesus is seen acting out the part of Wisdom, and thus not surprisingly heconcludes with confidence that he will be vindicated for doing so, for his actions led to thesalvation of various people of God who had been given up for lost. In sum, John the Baptistcame across like a great prophet of judgment of old, like a Jeremiah or an Amos, but for themost part Jesus did not. This fact must be explained.´ (Witherington 1997; 187-188)

In Matthew 8:28 (par. Luke 9:58), we find the following passage:

³Jesus replied, µFoxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.¶"

Witherington comments on this passage:

³A second tradition, which seems innocent enough on first glance, is found in Matthew8:20/Luke 9:58: µFoxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hasnowhere to lay his head.¶ This has often simply been taken as a statement about the nature of

Jesus¶ itinerant ministry and the fact that Jesus did not always get a warm reception. But thisoverlooks the important fact that this image had been used earlier of Wisdom having no placeto dwell until God assigned her such a place (cf. Sir 24:6-7 to 1 Enoch 42:2), with Enoch speaking of the rejection of Wisdom (µbut she found no dwelling place¶). There is also thefurther tradition that raises the question of the credibility of an itinerant person: µSo who willtrust a man that has no nest, but lodges wherever night overtakes him?¶ (Sir 36:31 [36:26]).The mention of nests in both this saying and in Matthew 8:20/Luke 9:58 is striking. It onceagain suggests that Jesus envisions and articulates his experience in light of sapiential



traditions and especially in light of what happened to Wisdom according to the late Wisdommaterial in 1 Enoch 42.´ (ibid. 188)

Several other such passages could be discussed, but it is a number of factors peculiar toJesus¶ ministry that leads Witherington to the conclusion that Jesus claimed to be Wisdomincarnate:

³This is not the place to do a lot of detailed exegesis, but I want to now show the very diverseelements in the Jesus tradition that find a clear explanation if Jesus saw himself as both

prophetic sage and the embodiment of Wisdom on earth:

1. Jesus¶ use of the Father language for God, something not characteristic of Old Testamentexpression at all, is explained in view of the fact that we do find such language much morefrequently in Wisdom material (cf. Sir 23:1, 4; 51:10; Wis 14:3 and cf. 3 Macc 6:3, 8)

2. Jesus¶ use of kingdom of God language in conjunction with Wisdom speech and ways of looking at things is found almost exclusively in contexts like Wisdom of Solomon 10:10. 102

3. Jesus¶ exorcisms could easily have led to his seeing himself as, and being seen as, thesuccessor to or one even greater than Solomon. By the first century A.D. Solomon was

believed to have been an exorcist, and his wisdom was regarded as the key to exorcisms inthe present (cf 11QPs 91; Ant. 8.45).

4. Jesus¶ use of Son of Man language echoes not merely Daniel but the sort of esotericmaterial we find in the P arables of Enoch .

5. The many echoes of Sirach in the teaching of Jesus require and receive explanation if Jesussaw himself as sage and Wisdom (cf. Sir 11:18-19 to Lk 12:13-21; Sir 24:9 and 6:19-31 to Mt11:29-30; Sir 23:9 to Mt 5:34; Sir 28:3-4 to Mt 5:22; cf. Sir 29:11 to Mt 6:19; Sir 32:1 to Lk

22:26-27; Sir 36:31 to Lk 9:58).103

6. Jesus¶ willingness to portray himself in female imagery such as we find in the lament over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-39/Luke 13:34-35 is also explained by this hypothesis, since thisis the way Wisdom is portrayed in such crucial texts as Proverbs 8²9 and Wisdom of Solomon 8²9. 104

³To put things another way, the sage and Wisdom proposal is the only one I know of thatmakes sense of Jesus¶ teachings, Jesus¶ miracles as Son of David (i.e., one like Solomon cf.Mk 10:46-52), Jesus¶ self-presentation as Son of Man in bringing in the kingdom of God,Jesus¶ yoke and binding his disciples to himself, the connection between messianic concepts,sapiential concepts and Son of Man material and the development of Christology found in the

church as early as the Christological hymns (Phil 2; Col 1; Jn 1). In short, the vast majorityof all the material in the Synoptics, and especially its distinctive markers of parabolicteaching, Son of Man sayings, kingdom material, and miracles can be explained by thisapproach.´ (ibid. 193-194, emphasis original)

Now, certain objections to the Wisdom hypothesis have been raised. For example, SimonGathercole, despite arguing extensively for the positive case for Jesus¶ pre-existence in theSynoptic Gospels (see previous section), criticizes the use of Wisdom motifs to argue in favor of pre-existence (Gathercole 2006; 193-209). He mentions, for instance, that some scholars



see in Simon ben Onias (as portrayed in Sirach 50) the ³embodiment of this Wisdom.´ Yet,there is no hint of Simon¶s pre-existence in the chapter (cf. ibid. 196-197). Also, in Luke 7:35(par. Matthew 11:19), Jesus is said to have stated that ³Wisdom is vindicated by her children ´ rather than ³«by her deeds´. If this is so, it may suggest that Jesus is implying thathe is a prophet of Wisdom rather than Wisdom-incarnate (though cf. Witherington 1997; 184for response). Overall, however, Wisdom material (as it is attributed to Jesus) is so pervasive

throughout the New Testament (Witherington¶s whole discussion in ibid. 161-196 isinstructive, but his 400+ page tome on the subject in ³Jesus the Sage´ treats this matter verythoroughly) that I think, despite the criticisms, there are good grounds for accepting that Jesusthought of himself as Wisdom-Incarnate, and that this not only implied his pre-existence butalso his divinity. See also James Patrick Holding¶s material on Wisdom at the below link (included at the bottom of the page are more links that respond to some objections to thethesis, such as the compatibility of the hypothesis with Wisdom¶s being portrayed as female in the relevant literature):

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html

J esus the Son of Man

That the historical Jesus referred to himself as the ³Son of Man´ is historically probable.Raymond Brown notes:

³The Gospel usage of this title for Jesus presents statistics that are dramatically different fromthe statistics discussed in relation to µthe Messiah¶ and µthe Son of God.¶ The acceptance or usage of those titles during Jesus' lifetime is difficult to discern even from the surfaceevidence of the Gospels, in part because of their infrequency; but µthe Son of Man¶ appearssome 80 times in the Gospels and in all but 2 partially debatable instances (Mark 2:10; John12:34) clearly as self-designations by Jesus. It has been estimated that these constitute some51 sayings, 140 14 of which are in Mark and 10 in the Sayings-Source (Q). Outside the Gospelsthe phrase occurs only 4 times, viz., Heb 2:6; Rev 1:13; 14:14; Acts 7:56; and only in the lastof these (which is a Lucan borrowing from the Gospel usage) does it have the definite articleas in the Gospels. The debate whether the historical Jesus used this title of himself or whether it is a product of early church reflection retrojected into Jesus' ministry has raged throughoutthe last hundred years. If one takes the latter view, one faces two major difficulties: Why wasthis title so massively retrojected, being placed on Jesus' lips on a scale far outdistancing theretrojection of µthe Messiah,¶ µthe Son of God,¶ and µthe Lord¶? And if this title was firstfashioned by the early church, why has it left almost no traces in nonGospel NT literature,something not true of the other titles? (Brown 1994; 90)

As a result, the current scholarly consensus believes that Jesus did refer to himself as ³Son of

Man´, yet scholars are divided as to what he meant by it. However, despite the disagreementin the scholarly literature, I think it is clear that the Gospels indicate that Jesus, by referring tohimself as ³Son of Man´, was indicating that he represented the exalted figure of Daniel7:13-14:

³In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man , coming withthe clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. Hewas given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every



language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away,and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.´

By the late 1 st century, apocalyptic texts such as I Enoch and IV Ezra expanded upon the³Son of Man´ concept introduced in the passage from Daniel, demonstrating the exalted and

pre-existent status of this Messianic figure that shares the divine throne (so Collins 1995;

173-189). Interestingly, the ³Son of Man´ figure in the Similitudes of Enoch is the loneexample of a highly exalted angel, patriarch, or intermediary figure that arguably is includedwithin the divine identity, in this case receiving worship and executing Judgment whilesitting on the divine throne (cf. Bauckham 2008; 169-172). Witherington argues that thesources in the relevant portions of I Enoch likely pre-date the ministry of Jesus (cf.Witherington 1990; 234-236).

While Jesus utilizes the ³Son of Man´ language in several conceptual contexts, including thatof his impending suffering (see. e.g. Mark 9:31, 10:45), he also uses it to express imageryconsistent with what we might expect given the background of the Daniel 7:13-14 passage.Pertinent examples include the following:

³If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Sonof Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.´(Mark 8:38)

³Again the high priest asked him, µAre you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?¶ µI am,¶said Jesus. µAnd you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One andcoming on the clouds of heaven.¶´ (Mark 14:61-62)

³For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.´ (Matthew 12:8)

³When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on histhrone in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the

people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put thesheep on his right and the goats on his left.´ (Matthew 25:31-33; to be noted here especiallyis the resonance of this passage with Daniel 7 as a whole, the context of both being the FinalJudgment)

³For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the skyfrom one end to the other.´ (Luke 17:24)

³No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven ± the Son of Man.´(John 3:13)

Thus the Gospels, consistent with Jewish apocalyptic materials that were being published atabout the same time, indicate that Jesus is the ³Son of Man´, a highly exalted figure whoshares the heavenly throne to be derived from the imagery of Daniel 7:13-14. Obviously, this

presents a huge problem for Muslim polemicists in trying to argue that the original Gospelsdid not purport Jesus¶ divinity. For further discussion of this topic see the following article byJames Patrick Holding:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/sonofman.html



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