F.F. Bruce (1910-1990)

• Greek Professor: University of Edinburgh and the University of Leeds
• Chaired Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield
• Honorary Doctor of Divinity from Aberdeen University
• Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism & Exegesis at the University of Manchester
• Authored over 40 books
• Editor of both The Evangelical Quarterly and the Palestine Exploration Quarterly

“The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the N.T. affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.”¹

“In view of the inevitable accumulation of such errors over so many centuries, it may be thought that the original texts of the New Testament documents have been corrupted beyond restoration. Some writers, indeed, insist on the likelihood of this to such a degree that one sometimes suspects they would be glad if it were so. But they are mistaken. There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.”²

“Something more ought to be said, and said with emphasis. We have been discussing various textual types, and reviewing their comparative claims to be regarded as best representatives of the original New Testament. But there are not wide divergencies between these types, of a kind that could make any difference to the Church’s responsibility to be a witness and guardian of Holy Writ.”³

“If the variant readings are so numerous, it is because the witnesses are so numerous. But all the witnesses, and all the types which they represent, agree on every article of Christian belief and practice.”⁴

“If the very number of manuscripts increases the total of scribal corruptions, it supplies at the same time the means of checking them.”⁵

Bruce Metzger (1914-2007)

• Scholar of Greek and NT Textual Criticism
• Late Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary (46 years)
• Recognized authority on the Greek text of the New Testament
• Served on the board of the American Bible Society
• Driving force of the United Bible Societies’ series of Greek Texts
• Chairperson of the NRSV Bible Committee
• Widely considered one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20^th century

“[E]ven if we had no Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together the information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the contents of the New Testament. In addition to that, even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth of the early church fathers.”⁶

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901)

• Biblical scholar, theologian, textual critic
• Bishop of Durham
• Held the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge
• Co-edited The New Testament in the Original Greek

Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892)

• Textual critic
• Irish theologian
• Professor at Cambridge
• Co-edited The New Testament in the Original Greek

“With regard to the great bulk of the words of the New Testament…there is no variation or other ground of doubt.”⁷

“[T]he amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text.”⁸

“Since there is reason to suspect that an exaggerated impression prevails as to the extent of possible textual corruption in the New Testament…we desire to make it clearly understood beforehand how much of the New Testament stands in no need of a textual critic’s labours.”⁹

“[I]n the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writing.”¹⁰

“The books of the New Testament as preserved in extant documents assuredly speak to us in every important respect in language identical with that in which they spoke to those for whom they were originally written.”¹¹

“[T]he words in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament.”¹²

J.W. McGarvey (1829-1911)

• Minister, author, educator
• Taught 46 years in the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky
• Served as President from 1895 to 1911

“All the authority and value possessed by these books when they were first written belong to them still.”¹³

Benjamin Warfield (1852-1921)

• Professor of Theology at Princeton Seminary (1887 to 1921)
• Last of the great Princeton theologians

“[S]uch has been the providence of God in preserving for His Church in each and every age a competently exact text of the Scriptures, that not only is the New Testament unrivalled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use, but also in the abundance of testimony which has come down to us for castigating its comparatively infrequent blemishes.”¹⁴

“The great mass of the New Testament…has been transmitted to us with no, or next to no, variation.”¹⁵

Richard Bentley (1662-1742)

• English classical scholar, critic, and theologian
• Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
• First Englishman to be ranked with the great heroes of classical learning
• Known for his literary and textual criticism
• The “Founder of Historical Philology”
• Credited with the creation of the English school of Hellenism

“[T]he real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edition, but is dispersed in them all. ‘Tis competently exact indeed even in the worst manuscript now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them.”¹⁶

“Make your thirty thousand various readings as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum; all the better to a knowing and serious reader, who is into the context, are so far from shaking the faith of the Christian, that they on the contrary confirm it.”¹⁷

Samuel Davidson (1806-1898)

• Irish Biblical Scholar
  • Professor of Biblical Criticism at Royal College of Belfast
  • Professor of Biblical Criticism in the Lancashire Independent College at Manchester
• Authored—

1. A Treatise on Biblical Criticism
2. Lectures on Ecclesiastical Polity
3. An Introduction to the New Testament
4. The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament Revised
5. Text of the O.T. & Interpretation of the Bible
6. Introduction to the Old Testament
7. On a Fresh Revision of the Old Testament
8. Canon of the Bible

“Having shewn the various attempts made to restore [the text] to its pristine purity, we may add a few words on the general result obtained. The effect of it has been to establish the genuineness of the New Testament text in all important particulars. No new doctrines have been elicited by its aid; nor have any historical facts been summoned by it from their obscurity. All the doctrines and duties of Christianity remain unaffected…. [T]he researches of modern criticism…have proved one thing—that in the records of inspiration there is no material corruption. They have shewn successfully that during the lapse of many centuries the text of Scripture has been preserved with great care; that it has not been extensively tampered with by daring hands…. [C]riticism has been gradually…proving the immovable security of a foundation on which the Christian faith may safely rest. It has taught us to regard the Scriptures as they now are to be divine in their origin…. [W]e may well say that the Scriptures continue essentially the same as when they proceeded from the writers themselves. Hence none need be alarmed when he hears of the vast collection of various readings accumulated by the collators of MSS. and critical editors. The majority are of a trifling kind, resembling differences in the collocation of words and synonymous expressions which writers of different tastes evince. Confiding in the general integrity of our religious records, we can look upon a quarter or half a million of various readings with calmness, since they are so unimportant as not to affect religious belief…. [T]he present Scriptures may be regarded as uninjured in their transmission through many ages.”¹⁸

Frederick H.A. Scrivener (1813-1891)

• Important textual critic of the New Testament
• Member of the English New Testament Revision Committee (Revised Version)
• Graduated Trinity College, Cambridge
• Taught classics at several schools in southern England
• Edited the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis
• Edited several editions of the Greek New Testament
• Collated the Codex Sinaiticus with the Textus Receptus
• First to distinguish the Textus Receptus from the Byzantine text

“[O]ne great truth is admitted on all hands—the almost complete freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare suspicion of wilful [sic] corruption; the absolute identity of the testimony of every known copy in respect to doctrine, and spirit, and the main drift of every argument and every narrative through the entire volume of Inspiration…. Thus hath God’s Providence kept from harm the treasure of His written word, so far as is needful for the quiet assurance of His church and people.”¹⁹

Sir Frederic George Kenyon (1863-1952)

• Widely respected, eminent British paleographer and biblical and classical scholar
• Occupied a series of posts at the British Museum
• President of the British Academy from 1917 to 1921
• President of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem
• Made a lifelong study of the Bible as an historical text

“One word of warning…must be emphasized in conclusion. No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. Constant references to mistakes and divergencies of reading…might give rise to the doubt whether the substance, as well as the language, of the Bible is not open to question. It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church is so large, that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.”²⁰

“It is true (and it cannot be too emphatically stated) that none of the fundamental truths of Christianity rests on passages of which the genuineness is doubtful.”²¹

“The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.”²²

“Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.”²³

“The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear of hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, faithfully handed down from generation to generation throughout the centuries.”²⁴

Summary/Conclusions

• The nature of this subject is such that it matters not that we consider what scholars from a century or more ago have said—because if the integrity of the Biblical text was established and authenticated at that time, it remains so today.
• We can confidently affirm that we have 999/1000^ths of the original New Testament intact; the remaining 1/1000^th is inconsequential.
• The Bible has not been corrupted in transmission.

Endnotes

¹ F.F. Bruce (1975 reprint), The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), pp. 19-20.

² F.F. Bruce (1963), The Books and the Parchments (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell), p. 178.

³ Ibid., p 189.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid., p. 181.

⁶ Interview in Lee Strobel (1998), The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), p. 59.

⁷ B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort (1882), The New Testament in the Original Greek (New York: Harper & Brothers), p. 2.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid., pp. 2-3.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 278.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 284.

¹² Ibid., p. 565.

¹³ J.W. McGarvey (1974 reprint), Evidences of Christianity (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate), p. 17.

¹⁴ Benjamin B. Warfield (1886), An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton), pp. 12-13.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 13.

¹⁶ Richard Bentley (1725), Remarks Upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking (Cambridge: Cornelius Crownfield), p. 68-69.

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 76.

¹⁸ Samuel Davidson (1853), A Treatise on Biblical Criticism (Boston, MA: Gould & Lincoln), pp. 147-148.

¹⁹ Frederic H.A. Scrivener (1861), A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co.), pp. 6-7.

²⁰ Sir Frederic Kenyon (1895), Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode), pp. 10-11.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 3-4.

²² Sir Frederic Kenyon (1940), The Bible and Archaeology (New York: Harper & Row), pp. 288-289.

²³ Ibid., pp. 288-289.

²⁴ Our Bible…, pp. 10-11.

The post Has the Bible Been Corrupted?—What the Scholars Say appeared first on Apologetics Press.

“My son, who we raised to believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, became liberalized some years ago. He claims that there are ‘thousands of inconsistencies and contradictions’ in the Bible. After some discussion, I at last challenged him to give me a list of ‘inconsistencies and contradictions’ that he considered significant, and I would try to give him an answer as to why they are not what he claims. He only respects theologians and scholars who have a Ph.D. in Greek or Hebrew. Please find his allegations below, taken from his email. Thank you for your willingness to help!”

#1: 1 John 5:7-8 is often referred to as the Johannine Comma because it was also obviously added by a later scribe and was not included in our most reliable and oldest manuscripts. The removal of this passage has two implications: (a) on the divinity of Jesus, and (b) on the existence of the trinity (see point #2).

Answer:

It is true that the Comma Johanneum is spurious.¹ However, neither the divinity of Jesus nor the existence of the Trinity is at stake, since both of these doctrines are taught in other passages that are not under dispute. The deity of Christ is taught repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, the Gospel of John is devoted entirely to the topic (see the thematic statement in 20:30-31), as is Colossians with its forthright affirmation: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (2:9, NIV). The doctrine of the Trinity is clear from such passages as Matthew 3:16-17 and 28:19.²

#2: John 1:1-18 is often called the Prologue of John’s gospel. However, the passage is missing from most of our oldest and most reliable manuscripts. Its absence could significantly impact the theological understanding of Jesus as God and who has existed from the beginning with the Father.

Answer:

I am puzzled at the claim that the prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-18) is “missing from most of our oldest and most reliable manuscripts.” That is simply not true. There are scattered textual variants³ within that pericope, but the section itself is not missing from the “oldest and most reliable manuscripts.” For example, in Codex Vaticanus, Luke ends at the bottom of the 2nd column. John begins at the top of the 3rd column and contains John 1:1-14 (vss. 14ff. continue on the next page). See Figure 1.

What’s more, the discovery of p⁶⁶ and p⁷⁵ only strengthens the case for the deity of Christ in John 1:18. Both of those papyrus manuscripts (which date from the 2^nd/3^rd centuries) have theos (God) instead of uios (son), as indicated in the NASB: “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him”—a tremendous affirmation of Christ’s deity.

#3: Regarding Jesus’ humanity, there is significant evidence that numerous passages were added by later scribes in an effort to bolster the tenet of Jesus’ humanity in response to certain docetic “heresies” (specifically Marcion) during the 2^nd century.

(a) In Luke 22:43-44 Jesus is said to be in agony in prayer to the point where his “…sweat became like drops of blood…” Most textual critics believe this is an addition to articulate Jesus’ humanity. It is also missing from most of our most reliable manuscripts.

Answer:

It is true that Luke 22:43-44 has strong manuscript support against its authenticity (although a majority of the committee for the UBS Greek Text decided to retain the passage due to its evident antiquity). However, once again, neither the humanity nor deity of Christ is jeopardized by this passage, whether the verses are genuine or not. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus, being God, became flesh (John 1:14). So I fail to see how the addition of verses by well-meaning scribes that emphasize Jesus’ humanity in any way jeopardizes the authenticity of the New Testament.

(b) Luke 22:17-19, another well-known account of Jesus’ humanity (which also has some doctrinal implications regarding salvation), is Luke’s account of the last supper. Most of our oldest Greek manuscripts, as well as many Latin translations, render the passage, “And taking a cup, giving thanks, he said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves, for I say to you that I will not drink from the fruit of the vine from now on, until the kingdom of God comes.’ And taking bread, giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body. But behold, the hand of the one who betrays me is with me at the table.’”

However, after Jesus says, “This is my body…” later manuscripts have added (and these additions are now reflected in most of our current translations) “‘…which has been given for you; do this in remembrance of me’; And the cup likewise after supper, saying ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you.’”

The absence of this passage de-harmonizes the gospels, removes Jesus’ institution of Communion, removes Jesus’ claim that it’s his blood that saves us, and removes one more “evidence” of Jesus’ humanity. The fact that the validity of this passage is suspect poses a problem for many theologians.

Answer:

The UBS Greek Text committee supports the longer reading as genuine in Luke 22:17-20. As Metzger noted: “the longer, or traditional, text of cup-bread-cup is read by all Greek manuscripts except D and by most of the ancient versions and Fathers.”⁴ Even if verses 19b-20 should be omitted, they in no way alter New Testament teaching, since almost the same words occur in 1 Corinthians 11:24b-25. The cup-bread-cup sequence was aptly explained over a century ago by Sir Frederick Kenyon,⁵ and neither the inclusion nor omission of 19b-20 “de-harmonizes the gospels.” Nor do they “remove” the Lord’s Supper, since the same is taught in Matthew 26:26ff., Mark 14:22ff., and 1 Corinthians 11:23ff. Nor is Jesus’ claim that His blood saves us removed, since the same is affirmed elsewhere repeatedly in the New Testament, including Matthew 26:28, 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:25, and 1 Peter 1:19. And, again, Jesus’ humanity is hardly jeopardized. Read John 6:51, Colossians 1:22, Hebrews 10:5, 1 Peter 2:24, and 1 John 4:2-3.

(c) Luke 24:12 has been added in most recent manuscripts though this passage is not present in our oldest manuscripts. Additionally, the style of the writing is significantly different than the rest of Luke. Not only does the passage evidence Peter’s belief that Jesus had risen, but also provides strong evidence that Jesus was human.

Answer:

Luke 24:12 is supported overwhelmingly by the external evidence, including p⁷⁵ (3^rd century), the “Big Three” (Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, and Sinaiticus), as well as a host of other uncials, minuscules, and versions. So the claim that it is “not present in our oldest manuscripts” is mistaken. The difference in style is explicable on the grounds that both Luke and John received essentially the same information from the Holy Spirit. After all, John 20:3-6 reports the same details. Certainly, no reason exists to conclude that Peter’s belief in the resurrection or Jesus’ humanity are in jeopardy. Peter witnessed several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in addition to the Luke 24:12 incident, e.g., Luke 24:34,36ff., John 20:19,26, Acts 1:9,22, and 1 Corinthians 15:5.

(d) Luke 24:51-52 is also not present in our oldest manuscripts. The style of writing is significantly different than what most scholars consider to be the “original” Luke. The absence of this passage decreases the argument for the humanity of Jesus as well reducing the argument for Jesus’ resurrection.

Answer:

Luke 24:51-52 is, once again, supported by the most prestigious Greek texts. Both verses are supported by p⁷⁵ as well as Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and a host of other Greek manuscripts, versions, and patristic writers. Writing style is somewhat subjective. But, again, the main point is that the doctrines of Jesus’ humanity and resurrection are in no way jeopardized by either the inclusion or exclusion of these verses.

Conclusion

Observe carefully: The solutions to these differences are detectable. Even if we were unable to decide between two readings of a passage and determine with certainty which one was the original, we know we have the Word of God—since the original reading is one or the other of the readings. The fact is most variants are solvable. But even if they were not, be reminded that absolutely no doctrine of Christianity is at stake in any textual variant. The vast majority of textual variants involve minor matters. The rest do not affect doctrine as it relates to one’s salvation. Even in those passages where an important doctrine might be deemed involved, that doctrine is affirmed in other passages where no variant is involved. I repeat: no doctrine of the Christian religion that has anything to do with salvation is in jeopardy due to the existence of textual variants. We can say with complete confidence that we have the New Testament as God intended. The Bible has not been corrupted.

The foremost textual critics of the last 200 years—the very men who are most familiar with this subject and who literally devoted their lives to poring over Greek manuscripts and becoming experts in textual criticism—have forthrightly declared the truth on this entire affair. Here are a few:

“[T]he superstructure of religion may be built with full hope and confidence that it rests on an authentic text.”⁶

“The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the N.T. affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.”⁷

“All the authority and value possessed by these books when they were first written belong to them still.”⁸

“The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.”⁹

“[T]he great bulk of the words of the New Testament stand out above all discriminative processes of criticism, because they are free from variation, and need only to be transcribed…. [T]he words in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament.”¹⁰

Did you catch that? Westcott and Hort, prominent textual critics at the end of the 19^th century, declared that—even at that time—we could confidently affirm that we have 999/1000^ths of the original New Testament intact. The remaining 1/1000^th is of no doctrinal consequence. Nothing has occurred since that time that alters their conclusion. The millennia-old allegation that the Bible contains “thousands of inconsistencies and contradictions” is simply not true. Case closed.

Endnotes

¹ For an excellent treatment of this variant, see Guy N. Woods (1962), A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude (Nashville, TN:  Gospel Advocate Co.), pp. 324-326.

² For a discussion of the Trinity, see Kyle Butt (2015), “The Trinity,” Reason & Revelation, 35[10]:110-112,116-119.

³ I.e., conflicting readings between manuscripts involving a word, verse, or verses. For more on this subject, see Dave Miller (2019), “Has the Bible Been Transmitted To Us Accurately?,” Reason & Revelation, 39[10]:110-113,116.

⁴ Bruce Metzger (1975), A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies), pp. 173-174.

⁵ Sir Frederic Kenyon (1912), Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: Macmillan), second edition, p. 349.

⁶ Ibid., p. 369.

⁷ F.F. Bruce (1975 reprint), The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), pp. 19-21.

⁸ J.W. McGarvey (1974 reprint), Evidences of Christianity (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate), p. 17.

⁹ Sir Frederic Kenyon (1940), The Bible and Archaeology (New York: Harper & Row), pp. 288-289, emp. added.

¹⁰ B.F. Westcott & F.J.A. Hort (1885), The New Testament in the Original Greek (London: Macmillan), pp. 564-565, emp. added.

The post Q&A: Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Bible? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Why did God wait approximately 20 years after the Church was established to begin writing the New Testament? Why such a long span of time?

A:

Normally when we discuss the penning of the New Testament, we do so in view of the fact that God inspired men to write about Jesus and His will for the Church within only about 20-65 years of the Savior’s death and resurrection. Perhaps even more impressive is the abundant amount of evidence for the New Testament’s first-century origin. Due to the volume of ancient manuscripts, versions, and citations of the New Testament documents, even many liberal scholars have conceded the fact that the New Testament must have been completed by the end of the first century. Whereas the extant copies of Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, Tacitus, and many others are separated from the time these men wrote by 1,000 years, manuscript evidence for the New Testament reaches as far back as the early second century, which has led most scholars to rightly conclude that the New Testament is, indeed, a first-century production.¹ As Irwin H. Linton concluded regarding the gospel accounts: “A fact known to all who have given any study at all to this subject is that these books were quoted, listed, catalogued, harmonized, cited as authority by different writers, Christian and Pagan, right back to the time of the apostles.”²

Still, some wonder why God chose to wait approximately 20 years to begin writing the New Testament. Why didn’t the first-century apostles and prophets begin penning the New Testament as soon as the Church was established?

The simple, straightforward answer is that we cannot say for sure why God waited two decades to begin penning the New Testament. [NOTE: Conservative scholars generally agree that the earliest written New Testament documents, including Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, were likely written between A.D. 48-52.] We could ask any number of things regarding why God did or did not do something: Why did God wait some 2,500 years after Creation and some 1,000 years after the Flood to write a perfect, inspired account of these events? Why did God only spend 11 chapters in the Bible telling us about the first, approximately 2,000 years of human history, and 1,178 chapters telling us about the next 2,000? Why did God discontinue special, written revelation for over 400 years (between Malachi and the New Testament)? There are many questions, even specific ones about the makeup of God’s written revelation, that we would like to know about that He simply has not specifically revealed to us.

Having made that disclaimer, we can suggest a few logical reasons why God waited to inspire first-century apostles and prophets to pen the New Testament. First, the early Church had the treasure of the Gospel “in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7). That is, the apostles were miraculously guided by the Spirit in what they taught (Galatians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16). The Spirit of God guided them “into all Truth” (John 16:13). Also, those on whom the apostles chose to lay their hands in the early churches received the miraculous, spiritual gifts of prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, etc. (Acts 8:14-17; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11). Even though the Church was without the inspired writings of Paul, Peter, John, etc. for a few years, God did not leave them without direction and guidance. In a sense, they had “walking, living New Testaments.” When the miraculous-age ended (1 Corinthians 13:8-10),³ however, the Church would need some type of continual guidance. Thus, during the miraculous age, God inspired the apostles and prophets to put in permanent form His perfect and complete revelation to guide the Church until Jesus’ return (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Second, it was necessary for God to wait a few years to write the New Testament, and not pen it immediately following the Church’s establishment, because the books and letters that make up the New Testament were originally written for specific audiences and for specific purposes (though they are applicable to all Christians). For example, the epistles that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth could not have been written until there was a church at Corinth. If the church at Corinth was not established until the apostle Paul’s second missionary journey (ca. A.D. 49-52), then Paul obviously wrote to the Christians in Corinth after this time. Furthermore, since in 1 Corinthians Paul dealt with specific problems that had arisen in the church at Corinth (e.g, division, immorality, etc.), he could not have explicitly addressed these matters in detail until after they had come to pass. Thus, there was a need for time (i.e., a few years) to pass before the New Testament documents were penned.

Although some may be bothered by the fact that God waited approximately 20 years to begin penning the New Testament through His inspired writers, we can rest assured that He had good reasons for this relatively brief postponement. Admittedly, God did not explicitly indicate why He delayed putting His last will and testament in written form. Yet, logical reasons exist—most notably, the fact that the documents that make up the New Testament were written to specific peoples and for specific purposes.

Endnotes

¹ Cf. F.F. Bruce (1953), The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), fourth edition; Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix (1986), A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago, IL: Moody), revised edition; Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett (2001), The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House).

² Irwin H. Linton (1943), A Lawyer Examines the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), sixth edition, p. 39.

³ Cf. Dave Miller (2003), “Modern-Day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation—Extended Version,” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=1399.

The post Why So Long for the New Testament to be Written? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[Editor’s Note: This article is the third installment in a three-part series pertaining to the integrity of the biblical text through the centuries. AP auxiliary writer Dr. Rogers serves as Director of the Graduate School of Theology at Freed-Hardeman University. He holds an M.A. in New Testament from FHU as well as an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Hebraic, Judaic, and Cognate Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.]

The Old Testament was written over a span of about 1,000 years by approximately 30 different authors (most of whom are anonymous) in at least three different countries (Egypt, Israel, and Babylon) in two different languages (Hebrew and Aramaic). We have nothing that any of the biblical authors personally wrote, nor do we even have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. In fact, we cannot know for certain how many steps removed our earliest manuscripts are from the originals. All of these facts pose serious challenges to those who wish to know what the Holy Spirit originally inspired (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16).

Sensing vulnerability, critics of the Bible continue to pound away at the anvil of skepticism. They deny the possibility of any knowledge of the original text of the Bible. They remind us that some literature (especially the Prophets) originated orally, and allege we cannot know how accurately it was written. We cannot know whether or not the Bible substantially changed over the course of its transmission through time. We cannot know whether some inspired books were lost (the Bible makes numerous references to books we no longer possess). Therefore, we cannot know what to believe. How do people of faith respond to such assertions?

Can we know with any degree of confidence that we have the Bible? Can we use the evidence available to reconstruct the text of the Old Testament? These simple questions involve complex answers. In this article we shall attempt to emphasize the challenges inherent in establishing the text of the Old Testament. We shall also argue that, despite these challenges, we can, indeed, have confidence in how we got the Old Testament.

The Manuscripts of the Old Testament

The two great codices of the Hebrew Bible are the Aleppo Codex (10^th century A.D.) and the Leningrad Codex (11^th century A.D.). These both represent the Masoretic text type, and are excellent copies. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars and textual critics who sought to preserve the traditional pronunciation of the Hebrew text. This led them to develop a system of vowel “points” to assist in pronunciation. The value of their work is that they did not wish to change the consonantal writing of the text (Hebrew, even today, is not traditionally written with vowels). The system of k^etiv (pronounced, k-TEEV) and q^ere (pronounced k-RAY), the former meaning “what is written” and the latter “what is read,” explains that the Masoretes recognized there were transcriptional errors in the Bible, but these were not to be read since most make no sense at all in Hebrew. The fact that the Masoretes were willing to preserve the text, even when they knew it contained copying mistakes, tells us how seriously they took their work. They viewed themselves as mere transmitters, like modern copy machines. They transmitted exactly what they received.

Although the Masoretes worked in the Middle Ages, most scholars believe the basic text with which the Masoretes worked had become standard by the first century A.D. In fact, of the biblical manuscripts discovered in the area of the Dead Sea (excluding the site of Qumran), all of them match the later Masoretic text. This should give us a great deal of confidence in the text of the Old Testament. At Qumran, the so-called “proto-Masoretic” text type is the most prominent, although a greater variation can be observed here than at other Judean desert sites. This points to the careful copying of the Hebrew Bible.

All English translations today are essentially reflections of the Masoretic Hebrew text, and, if the Dead Sea Scrolls are consulted at all, they are usually accounted for in the footnotes (see especially the RSV and ESV). This is due to the fragmentary nature of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the uncertainty of using the ancient translations (such as the Septuagint) as a means to reconstruct what the Hebrew might have said. While we would love to discover the original autograph of any biblical book, the closeness of most of our earliest biblical manuscripts to those of Medieval times furnishes us a reason to have confidence in the accuracy of the transmission of our Old Testament.

The Aleppo Codex

The Aleppo Codex has a fascinating history. It was carefully copied sometime in the early 10^th century A.D., and contains what was then the recent refinement of Masoretic vowel points by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (10^th century A.D.), whom the Jews regard as the greatest of Masoretic grammarians. A book of great value, it was housed in Jerusalem during the First Crusade (A.D. 1096-1099) before it was taken by the Crusaders and held for ransom. Finally released undamaged, the Codex came to rest in Egypt for the next 200 years. After this it was apparently taken to Aleppo, Syria, where it was carefully guarded for the next 600 years. Even the great textual critic Paul Kahle, former editor of the standard academic edition, Biblia Hebraica, was denied access to the Codex.

After the United Nations resolved to form the modern State of Israel in 1947, anti-Jewish riots broke out in Syria, leading the Arab population of Aleppo to burn the Great Synagogue where the Codex was housed. After this point, the story becomes nebulous. What we know for certain is that the Codex was complete or nearly complete before the riot, and today, 196 of the original 491 pages are missing. Some allege that fire destroyed these pages, but those who have closely examined the Codex find little evidence of fire damage. Others allege that pages were intentionally torn from the Codex, perhaps in an effort to save as much as possible in the midst of a precarious situation. 118 of the 196 missing pages are from the Pentateuch (the oldest and holiest part of Scripture for the Jews), and a few individual leaves have emerged through the decades. This evidence suggests that concerned Jews did in fact tear pages from the Codex likely in an effort to save them. But whether these rescued pages will ever come to light is impossible to say.

The significance of the Aleppo Codex lies in its largely complete nature for many biblical books. 295 pages survive. Only 12 books are missing completely (Genesis–Numbers, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Obadiah, Jonah and Haggai), although others are missing parts (Deuteronomy, 2 Kings, Psalms, Song of Songs, Jeremiah, Amos and Micah). Still, it is the best Masoretic manuscript in existence.

The Leningrad Codex

The early 11^th century Leningrad Codex is today housed in St. Petersburg, Russia (“Leningrad” under the former Soviet Union). This copy, like the Aleppo Codex, belongs to the Ben Asher family of Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts, and serves as the basis for the standard Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the more recent Biblia Hebraica Quinta, the standard academic editions from which most modern Old Testament translations come. The Hebrew University Bible Project, on the other hand, has elected to utilize the Aleppo Codex as its primary base text. Although scholars generally regard the Aleppo Codex as more reliable, the two manuscripts are extremely similar. The Leningrad Codex holds the distinction of being the oldest complete Hebrew Bible known to exist, although it is not even 1,000 years old.

The Nash Papyrus

We now turn from more or less complete copies of the Bible to fragments. Acquired in 1902, the Nash Papyrus (so named from Walter Llewellyn Nash who purchased it) dates to the late 2^nd century B.C., and was the oldest copy of any part of the Old Testament text known before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The manuscript is small, being about 5.5 inches tall and a little over 2 inches wide (see Figure 1). Only 24 lines are legible, and these represent the Ten Commandments and part of the Shema‘ (pronounced sh-MAH) extracted from Deuteronomy 5 and 6. Some have suggested the text was a phylactery due to its size (cf. Matthew 23:5).

One interesting difference between the Nash Papyrus and the received Hebrew text is the former’s absence of “the house of slavery” in reference to Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:6). Some have alleged that, since the papyrus likely originated in Egypt, the scribe wished not to offend his homeland with such a reference, and so removed it. If the Nash Papyrus is a personal copy intended for private use, we might assume that the strict rules about the sanctity of every word of Scripture did not apply quite as strictly as it might for a synagogue copy (cf. Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 5:18). However, it is also possible (although less likely) that the parent-text (what the Germans call the Vorlage) did not contain these words and the scribe of the Nash Papyrus is copying what was in front of him.

The Silver Scrolls from Ketef Hinnom

In 1979 two small, silver scrolls containing the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:23-26) were found in an excavation near Jerusalem. The larger of these texts measures just one inch in width and not quite four inches in length. The smaller is a half-inch in width and about an inch and a half in length. Despite their size, these texts, which date to the 7^th century B.C., represent the oldest copies of any part of the biblical text we possess. Ironically, they seem to have been intended as amulets to ward off evil spirits (cf. Isaiah 3:20; Ezekiel 13:18,20).

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The oldest of the biblical manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls date to the mid-3^rd century B.C., and the latest date to the 1^st century A.D. 4QExod–Lev^f (4Q17) and 4QSam^b (4Q52) are the two oldest known to exist, and both date to the mid-3^rd century B.C. The former probably once contained the entire Pentateuch, but now includes only five fragments totaling 259 words. The latter contains about 23 fragments and represents various sections of 1 Samuel 12-23. The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a) is the only one of the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls to survive in its entirety. Because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence, it is impossible to compile a complete Hebrew Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, while of tremendous value, our ability to apply what we learn from the Dead Sea Scrolls is limited.

The fragments that do exist offer a number of variant readings. While none of these variants alters the theology of the Old Testament, many of them are noteworthy. For example, traditional English translations set the height of Goliath at six cubits and a span, following the Masoretic Hebrew Text (1 Samuel 17:4). But the oldest Hebrew copy of the Goliath story of Samuel, 4QSam^a, agrees with the Septuagint that Goliath’s height was four cubits and a span. This drops the height of Goliath from about nine and a half feet to about six and a half feet! The oldest reading is perhaps the original reading.

Another example can be provided from the Great Isaiah Scroll. In Isaiah 53:11 1QIsa^a agrees with the Septuagint, reading, “From the anguish of his soul he shall see light and be satisfied.” The Masoretic Hebrew, represented in most English translations, does not have the word “light.” It is uncertain whether the word “light” has been inserted into the Isaiah Scroll or removed from the Masoretic Hebrew. So, in this case, we cannot be certain what the original reading was.

There are a few occasions in which we know material is missing in the Masoretic Hebrew text. For example, Psalm 145 is an acrostic Psalm in which each line begins with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet (ד ,ג ,ב ,א, etc.). The problem is that the line beginning with the letter nun (נ) is missing. 11QPs^a, the only Dead Sea Scrolls Psalms manuscript to cover Psalm 145, has the nun verse: “God is faithful in his words and gracious in all his works.” It just so happens again that the missing verse matches what was already preserved in the Septuagint long ago. There is no question the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls preserve the original reading.

I do not wish to give the impression that the Dead Sea Scrolls always agree with the Septuagint. In fact, Emanuel Tov states that no single Qumran manuscript can be regarded as the parent text of any book translated into its Septuagint Greek form. Rather, Tov offers the following statistics: of the Pentateuch, only 46 manuscripts provide a sufficient basis for analysis. Of these manuscripts, 27 (nearly 60%) clearly anticipate the later Masoretic Text, while only one generally matches the Septuagint. The remaining 18 cannot be aligned with any known textual tradition (39%). Of the remaining books of Scripture, 75 manuscripts are sufficient for analysis. Of these, 33 anticipate the Masoretic Text (44%) while only five reflect the text represented by the Septuagint. Among these manuscripts Tov regards 37 as unaligned (49%). In other words, manuscripts matching the later Masoretic text are dominant.

Of course, the various textual traditions are not as divergent as one might be led to believe by these statistics. Textual criticism is concerned with minute details such as the presence or absence of letters or the division of words. For example, “valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4) assumes the Hebrew צל מות, but the Hebrew text actually has צלמות, meaning “deathly darkness.” The difference in definition hangs on a single space in a word, and not on a different text! Another example would be the spelling of Moses as משה or מושה, or David as דוד or דויד. These spelling differences count as variants, but in no way change the meaning. It should also be stressed that statistical analyses, such as those cited above, tend to be highly subjective, and many others are bound to disagree. Further discoveries could substantially alter what we think we now know. Humility is always appropriate in the field of textual criticism. Still, the plurality of various Old Testament texts at Qumran seems to match a similar variety with Old Testament quotations in the New Testament. There was no “authorized version” of the Bible at the time of Jesus.

Textual Plurality and New Testament Quotations

We have striven thus far to show the Hebrew Bible did not exist in one pristine form at the time of the New Testament. Were the New Testament authors aware of this situation? If so, how do they handle the textual variety? It seems clear that the New Testament authors both respected and utilized the textual variety in existence. The New Testament quotations sometimes match the Masoretic Hebrew exactly (e.g., Mark 14:23 ~ Isaiah 53:12), sometimes match the Septuagint exactly (e.g., Mark 7:6–7 ~ Isaiah 29:13), sometimes agree more with the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., Romans 15:10 ~ Deuteronomy 32:43 [= 4QDeut^q), and sometimes match nothing else known (i.e., they are “unaligned” in scholarly parlance; e.g., Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11 ~ Habakkuk 2:4).

There are times when the Greek translation is actually a clearer reflection of the Divine intent than the Hebrew original. For example, to refute the Sadducees, Jesus quotes the Septuagint form of Exodus 3:6: “‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). The Hebrew language has no present tense verb, and thus the “I am” verb is missing in the Hebrew text of Exodus 3:6 (note the NKJV italicizes the word “am” in Exodus 3:6, indicating its absence in the Hebrew text). In order to leave no doubt about the meaning, Jesus cites the Greek form of the verse (which specifies the present tense).

There are other occasions when the New Testament authors might generalize a verse by altering it slightly. Paul’s quotations of Habakkuk 2:4 could fall into this category. The Masoretic Hebrew reads, “The just shall live by his faith,” which can be understood either as the faithfulness of the just man or the faithfulness of God. The Septuagint clarifies, “The just shall live by my faith,” unambiguously referring to God. The difference between the possessive pronouns “his” and “my” is just one stroke of one letter in Hebrew (“his” = ו and “my” = י). These letters are often confused in Hebrew manuscripts (to the sympathetic comfort of many elementary Hebrew students!), and it appears Paul here wishes both to eliminate the textual confusion and generalize the truth of the verse with the more abstract, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11).

The way the New Testament authors used the various versions of the Scriptures is not unlike the way many preachers use English translations. I have heard the sermons of several who prefer the King James Version but switch to the American Standard Version when preaching on Psalm 119:160a. The former reads, “Thy word is true from the beginning,” while the latter states, “The sum of thy word is truth.” Since the Hebrew is ambiguous (literally, “the head of your word is true [or truth]”), either translation can be regarded as possible. But most would opt for the passage that “preaches” better or makes a clearer point. In the absence of certainty, perhaps it is not foolish to follow such a course, even though modern translators (and preachers!) do not have the benefit of inspiration. The bottom line is this: despite minor differences across the manuscripts, the Old Testament is remarkably—one might say providentially—preserved and transmitted.

Conclusion

The text of the Old Testament was both confirmed and complicated by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Septuagint likewise supports the basic content of the traditional Hebrew, but also contains some differences that need not be overlooked. Modern translations of the Old Testament generally take into account all of the evidence, exercising their best judgment when it seems there may be a mistake in transmission of the Masoretic Hebrew. For example, Genesis 47:21 in the Masoretic text seems to have mistaken the letter daleth (ד) for resh (ר), an understandable mistake, as these letters are very similar in appearance. The RSV and ESV have elected to follow the ancient versions (Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Latin Vulgate) while the KJV and ASV choose to translate the Masoretic Hebrew, in spite of its apparent mistake. Again, in 1 Samuel 1:24, almost all the modern versions read “three-year-old bull” as opposed to the KJV and NKJV which have “three bulls.” The KJV tradition follows the Masoretic Hebrew (even though it is difficult to imagine Hannah dragging three bulls to Shiloh!), while the modern versions follow 4QSam^a, the Septuagint, and the Syriac traditions. The oldest text makes better sense in this case.

The evidence suggests we should exercise good judgment in our reading of the Old Testament, as the New Testament authors seem to do. Only in a handful of cases are there differences in the textual traditions worth noting, and even then the differences concern minute details that, while important to textual critics, do not alter any major teaching of the Old Testament. It appears that God has provided us with an Old Testament text substantially accurate in all we need to know about His character and His will.

Critics who allege we cannot know the text of the Bible must resort to building mountains out of molehills. Let them produce one variant reading from the Old Testament that substantially alters a theological point affirmed by Jesus or the Apostles. The basic differences in the textual traditions of the Old Testament can be compared to the differences in English translations. While one person’s Bible might have a different word or phrase here and there, the substantial message of God’s Word remains the same.

Endnotes

¹ Just to cite a few examples, Numbers refers to the “Book of the Wars of the Lord” (Numbers 21:15). Joshua refers to the “Book of Jashar” (Joshua 10:13), and 2 Chronicles 9:29 alone refers to three different works: the “Words of Nathan the Prophet,” the “Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite,” and the “Visions of Iddo the Seer.”

² See Emanuel Tov (2001), Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press), second revised edition, p. 108.

³ For a fascinating account of the history of the Aleppo Codex, see Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider (2010), The Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex (Philadelphia, PA: JPS), and more popularly, Matti Friedman (2013), The Aleppo Codex: In Pursuit of One of the World’s Most Coveted, Sacred and Mysterious Books (New York: Algonquin Books).

⁴ For a convenient translation of the biblical Scrolls, see Martin G. Abegg, Jr. and Peter Flint (2002), The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English (San Francisco, CA: Harper).

⁵ 4QSama is a strange manuscript, containing 81 variants that match no other known Samuel text (see Donald W. Parry (2002), “Unique Readings in 4QSama,” in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries, ed. Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov [London: The British Library], pp. 209-217).

⁶ Tov, p. 108.

The post The Integrity of the Biblical Text (Part 3): Text of the Old Testament appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: AP auxiliary writer Dr. Rogers is the Director of the Graduate school of Theology and Associate Professor of Bible at Freed-Hardeman University. He holds an M.A. in New Testament from Freed-Hardeman University as well as an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Hebraic, Judaic, and Cognate Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.]

The numbers in Genesis 5 have long raised challenges for readers of Scripture. The most obvious problem is with the surprisingly long lifespans recorded of ancient humanity. Many moderns simply find it difficult to believe anyone could live for 900 years! So that raises questions about the basic credibility of the Bible, or at least of the primeval history (Genesis 1-11).¹ But Genesis 5 presents a more nuanced issue that does not appear obvious to readers of the Bible in modern translation. Because the standard modern-language versions translate the Masoretic Hebrew text primarily if not entirely, modern readers have no idea that the ancient translations vary quite strikingly in the numbers they provide. Before we begin our analysis of the situation, we might offer a brief word on the nature of the evidence. Then we will address the textual variations in Genesis 5.

The Masoretic Hebrew Text

The Hebrew Bible is extraordinarily ancient. The earliest parts were composed according to internal evidence as early as 1400 B.C. and the most recent around 430 B.C. This means the recovery of any original manuscript is all but hopeless. Indeed, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a remarkable peek into fragments of the biblical text as old as the third century B.C. However, not enough remains from the Dead Sea Scrolls for us to compile a complete Hebrew Bible.² This means we are reliant on the Masoretic Text. The Masoretic Text is very close to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls in many cases, and was probably standardized among the rabbis after the time of the New Testament. One confirmation is Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the Hebrew Bible (A.D. 390-410), which reflects with few significant variants the Masoretic Text.

The Septuagint

The “Septuagint” is the name assigned among ancient authors to the Greek translation of the Old Testament, although this is a misnomer. The term septuaginta in Latin means “70,” and the number comes from the 2^nd-century B.C. Letter of Aristeas which reports that 70 Jewish translators (or 72) were sent from Jerusalem to Alexandria, Egypt for the purpose of translating the Pentateuch. Ptolemy II (reigned 283-246 B.C.) requested the translation because he wanted the best books in the world contained in the library of Alexandria. Aristeas, however, speaks only of the Pentateuch (not the rest of the books), and modern scholars find Aristeas’ narrative fanciful and unreliable (the Hebrew scroll from which the Septuagint was translated was written with letters of gold, for example). It is now widely believed that the entirety of the Old Testament was translated into Greek sometime between the third and first centuries B.C. although we do not know where, why, and by whom.

The Samaritan Pentateuch

The Samaritan community (which still exists today) produced its own Pentateuch, which is the only part of the Hebrew Bible it regards as sacred. Like the Masoretic Text, whose earliest manuscript dates to the 10^th century A.D., the Abisha Scroll is the earliest preserved text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and it dates no earlier than the 12^th century A.D. It is commonly claimed that 6,000 differences exist between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic Text, but most of these are spelling variations and other minor variants. The Samaritan Pentateuch does, however, include explicit information that squares with its own theology against traditional Jewish doctrine, such as a command to worship on Mount Gerizim (cf. John 4:20). The Dead Sea Scrolls sometimes support readings that match the Samaritan Pentateuch in contrast with the Masoretic Text (although about a third of these match the Septuagint as well). This suggests that the Samaritan community sometimes preserves an ancient Hebrew recension³ transmitted in no other textual tradition.

Comparing the Evidence

The three textual traditions we have discussed all receive support from different manuscripts and biblical quotations found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, although the Masoretic Text is clearly the most dominant. Therefore, it is important for scholars to compare and contrast the ancient evidence in order to arrive at the earliest text. Much of the time such comparisons yield clear results. But in the case of Genesis 5 it is more complicated. The textual traditions disagree in many cases. The situation is further complicated by the unfortunate fact that the biblical manuscripts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls yielded no information sufficient for analysis in relation to the numbers of Genesis 5.

Table 1 offers a quick glance at the three texts. I take the Masoretic Hebrew as standard. Differences from the Masoretic Hebrew are noted in bold.

Several observations are in order. First, note that the Masoretic Hebrew and the Samaritan versions are largely in agreement. In only three places do we find discrepancies (Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech). Second, note that the Septuagint never agrees with the Samaritan version. This suggests no textual relationship between the two. It is true that the Septuagint agrees with the Hebrew version in its entirety only once. However, in every case except one, the disagreements concern the lesser numbers (the age of the patriarch at the birth of his first child plus the number of years from that point to his death). The Septuagint’s totals of the patriarchal lifespans are identical with the Masoretic Text (except with Lamech). Third, note that the ancient versions do not solve the alleged problem of the extreme ages of the patriarchs. The three differences in the Samaritan Pentateuch do in fact reduce the ages of three patriarchs, but is it any more believable that Methuselah, for example, lived to the age of 720 as opposed to 969?

How Did the Textual Corruption Occur?

A quick scan of the chart above obviously invites the question of textual corruption. All the texts cannot be right since they disagree. So which one is right, and how do we know? This question is impossible to answer with certainty, but perhaps we can offer a tentative explanation of how the corruption may have come to be.

First, according to our most ancient evidence (from Egypt and Babylonia), numbers were written pictographically. That is, numbers were symbols. This should not seem strange to us since the modern Arabic numerals are also symbols (1,2,3, etc.). Most ancient Near Eastern systems simply used tally marks for the first nine numbers (1= |, 2 = ||, 3 = |||, etc.). So to count 1–9 one needed simply to count tallies. The symbols change from there but the principle remains the same. In Hieroglyphic, for example, ⊓ is 10, but ⊓⊓ 20, ⊓⊓⊓ 30, and so on. The symbol changes again at 100, but the pattern repeats. Although symbolic variations exist among the various Near Eastern languages, the basic principles pretty well hold. This means by simply miscounting symbols, a scribe could be off by factors of 10 or even 100.

Most of the variations in the table above between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text can be accounted for by a single scribe miscounting a single symbol. Of the Septuagint’s 17 differences, all but five can be attributed to miscounting a symbol for 100. This is a reduction of the variation over 70%! Although the numerical writing system does not account for every difference, it greatly reduces the number of variants.

Second, even after numbers are spelled in full, they remain subject to corruption in ancient manuscripts (not just the Bible). For example, no one today writes “one thousand and five hundred and eighty-seven.” Reading that number is much more confusing than reading “1,587.” Likewise, in ancient Hebrew one reads “two ten years and nine hundred years” in Seth’s case (912 years). Even assuming the numbers were initially transcribed accurately from the original, they could easily have been corrupted in the later manuscript tradition. The fact that the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint reflect greater variation toward the end of the patriarchal list may indicate scribal fatigue. The need to copy laboriously one number after the other may help to explain some of the problems in the transmission of numbers in Genesis 5.

Which Text Do We Believe?

While all ancient evidence of the text of Scripture is important, not all evidence is to be weighed equally. As a Greek translation, the Septuagint is one step removed from the Hebrew it translates. Since we do not have the manuscripts from which the Septuagint was translated, we cannot always know when the Septuagint reflects a different Hebrew text or when the translator(s) has made a mistake. The Samaritan Pentateuch has the advantage of being a Hebrew text that traces its lineage back to a very ancient textual tradition. But the Masoretic (or proto-Masoretic) Text is far more prominent among the Dead Sea Scrolls than the Samaritan version. This indicates the Samaritan tradition may be based on a fringe text considered inferior by the majority of Jews. Finally, the judgment of basically all English Bible translators since Jerome is not likely to be wrong. They have elected not to follow the Septuagint or the Samaritan Pentateuch for good reason. It is for good reason that the Masoretic Text is taken as the standard base for virtually all mainstream translations of the Old Testament.

Conclusion

The reader must keep in mind that all discussions concerning scribal errors and variations among manuscripts of the Bible may leave the impression that the text has been so corrupted that we cannot know God’s Word. This misimpression is understandable since textual criticism tends to focus on alleged problems of transmission and to ignore the remarkable accuracy with which the Bible has been copied. Hebrew scholar Bruce Waltke stresses that “in every era there was a strongtendency to preserve the text,”⁷ and that about “95 percent” of the Old Testament text is sound.⁸ If Waltke is correct, then textual critics deal only with about 5% of cases, and most of these involve problems that are easily solved.

I will conclude with an illustration. I can consult with many medical doctors, all of whom have legitimate education and licenses. But when it comes to a rare medical condition, surely I do not assume all doctors speak with equal authority. I respect the opinions of every medical professional, but I go to the Mayo Clinic for a reason: the treatment is generally regarded as better. The doctors are better educated and better able to diagnose and treat rare conditions. The numbers in Genesis 5 happen to be a rare case. It is unusual to find so much textual variation in the ancient evidence. In order to “heal” the differences in the text, I prefer to consult the textual tradition that is (1) oldest and (2) with the longest track record of trustworthiness. The Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch are valuable textual traditions that ought to be respected. But they do not deserve the weight accorded the Masoretic Text. So, in the case of the numbers in Genesis 5, we cannot explain every variant (although we can give reasonable explanations for most). And all the numbers are extraordinarily high, at least from a modern perspective. Yet the Masoretic tradition deserves to be followed. You can trust your English translation.

Endnotes

The post Can I Trust the Numbers in Genesis 5? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: AP auxiliary writer Dr. Rogers is the Director of the Graduate School of Theology and Associate Professor of Bible at Freed-Hardeman University. He holds an M.A. in New Testament from Freed-Hardeman University as well as an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Hebraic, Judaic, and Cognate Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.]

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is widely regarded as the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20^th century. From 1947 to 1956 about 930 scrolls were found in 11 desert caves near Qumran, a site about 12½ miles southeast of Jerusalem. Other discoveries were made in about 11 other sites in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, but no place yielded the number of manuscripts as Qumran. The Qumran scrolls span four centuries, from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D., and are written in four languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabatean, in addition to discovered coins having Latin inscriptions. The Dead Sea Scrolls are important for the Old Testament in at least two major ways: (1) they allow us access to Old Testament manuscripts over 1,000 years older than we previously knew; and (2) they provide information about the formation of the Old Testament canon of Scripture.

The Discovery and Publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The story has been told often.¹ A Bedouin shepherd threw a rock into a cave, heard a crash, and discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. This story is not entirely true. First of all, the broken jar and discovery of the cave took place two days before the first scrolls were found. There was not one Bedouin shepherd, but three. One threw the rock, and another entered the cave two days later without the prior knowledge of his partners. The shepherds took only a few scrolls, and they had no idea what they were and how much they were worth. The scrolls removed from what became known as Cave 1 were the “Great Isaiah Scroll” (1QIsa^a), the Habakkuk commentary (1QpHab), and the Community Rule (1QS).² These were slightly damaged in transportation before they could be sold to a dealer of antiquities, and to a Syrian Orthodox monastery.

When the number and value of the scrolls were determined, other caves continued to be looted and their contents sold by the Ta‘amireh tribe to which the shepherds belonged. Once the importance of the scrolls was determined, both scholars and governmental organizations (initially, of Jordan, and later, of Israel) became involved in discovering additional caves and conducting formal excavations. The site of Qumran was excavated in five consecutive seasons under the leadership of Roland De Vaux of the Jerusalem-based École Bibliques (1951-1956). Eventually, 10 more caves were discovered in the area of Qumran, Cave 4 alone yielding fragments of nearly 600 manuscripts.³

The laborious task of deciphering, editing, and publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls is a drama unto itself. The original scholars entrusted with the task of publishing the Scrolls were exclusively Christian, and thus the interests of early researchers tended toward Christian backgrounds and the relationship of the Scrolls to the New Testament. This fact irked many non-Christian scholars, especially the Israelis. With the additions of Israeli scholars Elisha Qimron and Emanuel Tov to the publication team in the 1980s, this problem was rectified, and now scholars from all backgrounds work on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In addition to the racial issues, the early publishing team was small and very slow to do their work. Between 1950 and 1990 only seven of the eventual 40 volumes in Oxford University Press’s Discoveries in the Judean Desert series had been completed. In the 1990s alone, however, 20 additional volumes in this series appeared. There are two reasons for the proliferation in publication: First, Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem became the general editor of the series in late 1990. His appointment followed an anti-Semitism scandal that resulted in then-director John Strugnell of Harvard University being removed from the post. The scandal was provoked by Strugnell’s comments in the Israeli newspaper, Ha-aretz.⁴

Second, Ben Zion Wachholder of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the help of his student, Martin Abegg, produced a nearly complete text of the Scrolls from a previously published concordance.⁵ With the early use of computer databasing, Abegg was able to reverse-engineer the text of many Scrolls from the concordance. Although their publication was unauthorized both by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Oxford University, all agree their publication broke the hold on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and encouraged scholars to complete the work of official publication.⁶ Today all of the discovered, decipherable Scrolls have been published, and photographs of many of the Scrolls are available on the Internet.

This article provides two examples. Figure 1 is a photograph of two columns of the Great Isaiah Scroll, featuring Isaiah 53. This scroll is among the best preserved, and is not typical of the discovered manuscripts. Figure 2 is a more typical collection of fragments pieced together by specialists. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are, indeed, not so much scrolls as scraps.

Figure 1: The Great Isaiah Scroll ( ISaiah 53)	Figure 2: A Portion of the Temle Scoll

The Non-Biblical Manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls

It surprises many people to hear the majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls are non-biblical. Of the approximately 930 scrolls discovered in the Judean desert, only 222 are biblical (i.e., less than 25%). The percentage of biblical scrolls is much higher at Judean desert sites other than Qumran. The biblical texts of Masada, for example, represent 47% of the total number of scrolls discovered.⁷ We may conclude Jews living in desert communities read many different books, and were not readers of the Bible alone. This does not necessarily mean, however, that secular books were read more than the Bible. In my personal library I have hundreds of books, but my Bibles take up only about a shelf and a half. Most of these books I do not read regularly, but my Bibles are in constant use. A similar situation might have existed for the Dead Sea communities. Still, the non-biblical Scrolls have relevance for how the Old Testament was understood and interpreted by some Jews prior to the time of the New Testament.

In order to better examine the non-biblical Scrolls, further classification is needed. So we shall first discuss works most certainly not written by members of the Qumran community, what Protestants might term “Apocrypha” as well as the so-called “Pseudepigrapha.” Then we shall turn to the “sectarian texts” that were either written by members of the Qumran sect or were formative for their development as a community.

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

The term “apocrypha” is a Greek plural substantive meaning “things hidden.” The term is borrowed from the Church Fathers who used it frequently to refer to books outside of the canon of Scripture recognized by the church. The term “pseudepigrapha,” by contrast, properly refers to writings “falsely ascribed.” Based on this meaning, the term pseudepigrapha ought to be applied to books such as 1 Enoch (which was not written by the real Enoch), the Wisdom of Solomon (not written by Solomon), and so on. But the collection commonly called Pseudepigrapha now stands for almost any non-canonical book that does not belong to the Old Testament or to the Protestant “Apocrypha.”

Of the Catholic Church’s “deuterocanonicals” (in Protestant terms, “Apocrypha”), the Dead Sea Scrolls preserve five copies of Tobit, three of the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirah (Ecclesiasticus), and one of the so-called Epistle of Jeremiah (not actually written by Jeremiah). The position of the Pseudepigrapha is much better. The mysterious book of 1 Enoch is represented in 12 copies from Qumran, and the book of Jubilees in no less than 13 and possibly as many as 16 copies (depending on whether the fragments represent additional manuscripts). There are also at least five additional compositions related to Jubilees, further attesting its importance. By manuscript count alone, Jubilees is better represented than all but four of the canonical Old Testament books (Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Genesis). Some scholars have suggested that both 1 Enoch and Jubilees were accepted as canonical Scripture in Qumran. This is certainly possible, although perhaps it is best to leave the question open. Popularity does not require canonicity (see more below).

Sectarian Texts

The Dead Sea Scrolls discovery unveiled many works that were previously unknown. Since they are associated exclusively with the Qumran sect, they are normally called “sectarian.” Indeed, some of these works relate specifically to life in the sectarian community. The most important are the Damascus Document (CD) and the Rule of the Community (1QS), which best inform us about life in the community. Other texts are legal in nature, such as the Temple Scroll (11QT) and miksat ma‘asei ha-Torah (4QMMT), roughly translated “some matters of the Law.” This latter text lists grievances the Qumran community had with the Temple and its officials in Jerusalem.

It will surprise many readers to know that some of the Qumran scrolls were written in “cryptic scripts.” Scholars believe these scripts are, in fact, based on the Hebrew language, but have never deciphered them.⁸ The original editor of these texts distinguished three different cryptic scripts: “Cryptic A,” “Cryptic B,” and “Cryptic C,” respectively. As far as we know, these cryptic scripts are used nowhere else. But they were in prominent use at Qumran. The leader of the Qumran community (the maskil, or “understanding one”) most likely communicated in Cryptic A himself, which represents no less than 55 manuscripts. Cryptic B is found in two manuscripts, and the text of origin remains undeciphered. Cryptic C is found in only one manuscript. It utilizes the paleo-Hebrew alphabet and five additional letters that cannot be identified. The individual who manages to decipher these cryptic scripts will earn lasting fame in the pantheon of scholarship!

More relevant for the text of the Old Testament and how we got the Bible are two categories of writings: the so-called works of rewritten Bible and the commentaries (pesharim, or “interpretations”). Geza Vermes coined the term “rewritten Bible” to refer to Jewish works written in either Hebrew or Aramaic that paraphrase the Scriptures, and insert their own expansions and interpretations.⁹ He primarily had in mind the book of Jubilees, the so-called Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen), and Pseudo-Philo’s “Book of Biblical Antiquities.” The former two works were found among the Qumran scrolls.

These works of “rewritten Bible” are interpretive expansions of biblical literature. We learn many details, such as the name of Noah’s wife (“Emzara,” according to Jubilees 4:33), the reason why God chose Abram (he refused to participate in the building of the Tower of Babel, Pseudo-Philo chapter 6), and how Abram convinced Sarai to mislead about being his wife (he dreamt prophetically that she would save him, 1QapGen column 19). There is no indication that any of these expansions are to be accepted as legitimate, but they do teach us the ancient Hebrews were careful and inquisitive readers of the Bible. More importantly for us, the close following of the biblical text confirms that their Scriptures followed the exact story­line as ours. There is no evidence that the Bible has undergone massive changes over time, as some wish to allege. We read essentially the same Bible as they did.

The Old Testament Manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The most celebrated of the Scrolls have been the Old Testament manuscripts. Although some scholars have asserted that fragments of certain New Testament verses can be located, most scholars agree that no New Testament copies, quotations, or fragments exist among the Dead Sea Scrolls.While the Qumran community did in fact exist at the time of Jesus and the Apostles, there is no evidence that any of the Dead Sea Jewish communities were aware of the early Christian movement. This means our discussion of biblical evidence must focus on the Old Testament. We shall begin by discussing the numbers of manuscripts we possess before moving to consider issues relating to the canonicity of the Old Testament.

Biblical Manuscripts by the Numbers

All Judean desert sites show a special respect for the Law of Moses. The Pentateuch represents 87 of the some 200 biblical Qumran scrolls, and 15 of the additional 25 texts discovered outside Qumran are of the Pentateuch.¹⁰ In other words, 45% of the total number of texts from the Judean desert are Pentateuchal. The Major Prophets represent 46 additional manuscripts, and the Minor Prophets 10 more. So Prophetic books account for nearly one-quarter of the whole. This leaves 25-30% for the rest of the Old Testament.

The Historical Books did not fare as well, with only 18 copies. To illustrate, just one small fragment about the size of a human hand represents all of 1 and 2 Chronicles, and no copies were identified of the Nehemiah section of Ezra-Nehemiah (which is a single book in Hebrew) or of the book of Esther. The Poetic Books, excluding Psalms, represent 14 manuscripts. But 39 manuscripts of Psalms alone were discovered, 36 of which are from Qumran. Broadly speaking, the popularity and dispersion of biblical scrolls in the Judean Desert matches very closely what we observe among the books quoted in the New Testament.

Among stand-alone books at Qumran, Psalms takes the crown (39 manuscripts), followed by Deuteronomy (33), Genesis (24), Isaiah (22), and Exodus (18). Interestingly, four of these five books were in the “top five list” of books quoted by Jesus: Psalms (11), Deuteronomy (10), Isaiah (8), and Exodus (7). In fact, Table 1 compares the number of Qumran manuscripts with the frequency of explicit quotation in the New Testament. Although books can be used without necessarily being quoted, Table 1 provides an interesting point of comparison.

The Biblical Manuscripts and the Old Testament Canon

So far we have discussed mostly facts. But what do these facts mean? It is prudent to remember that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. In other words, if certain books are missing (such as Esther or Nehemiah) or are poorly represented (such as Chronicles or Ezra) among the Dead Sea Scrolls, we cannot on that basis alone conclude that the Qumran community rejected them from their biblical canon. And the opposite is true: if certain books are well represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls (such as Jubilees or 1 Enoch), we cannot on that basis alone conclude that the Qumran community accepted them into their biblical canon. What books people like to read and what books people consider inspired may, in fact, be different. We know from modern experience that certain books of the Bible are underappreciated and undertaught among Christians. Do we wish to exclude these books from the canon? Of course not. Again, popularity is not the same thing as canonicity.

The truth is that the Dead Sea Scrolls are of limited value in answering Old Testament questions of canonicity. They apparently did not think in those terms, and never addressed the question of which books were in and which ones were out. The better question is to ask what the Qumran sectarians considered authoritative. And in order to answer this question, we must move beyond simply counting manuscripts. We must attempt to understand how the biblical literature was used.

We shall start with the name of “Moses,” which occurs over 150 times in the sectarian manuscripts. All sections of the Pentateuch are quoted and interpreted as inspired literature. This should not surprise us, for the Pentateuch was the most popular portion of the Bible among all Jewish groups at the time of Jesus. But we can go further. The text of the Prophets is equally authoritative. The Pesher Habakkuk is a commentary that takes the book of Habakkuk as an inspired prophecy of the experiences of the Qumran community, and is interpreted clearly in this fashion. Other prophets, such as Isaiah and Ezekiel, are also quoted as authorities. While we cannot regard all of the prophets as equally authoritative based on the way they are quoted (Obadiah, for instance, is never quoted in this way), most of them can be regarded as both inspired and authoritative.

“David,” too, appears frequently as a sacred figure. The Qumran sectarians know the details of his life from Samuel and Chronicles. For example, “David’s actions ascended as the smoke of a sacrifice [before God] except for the blood of Uriah, but God forgave him” (CD 5.5–6). Such high estimation of David’s character explains how the Psalms he wrote would be considered authoritative. And the Psalms are frequently quoted as inspired in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, the Old Testament as a whole can be characterized as “the Law, the Prophets, and David” (4QMMT fr. 14). Since the Hebrew Bible is generally divided into three parts—the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings—this threefold division is extremely important. Jesus’ own division of the Old Testament into “the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms” is very similar (Luke 24:44).

Interestingly, although many books and parts of the Old Testament are quoted as authoritative, to my knowledge Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and none of the other Apocryphal or Pseudepigraphical books found among the Dead Sea Scrolls are quoted in this way. The sectarians may have borrowed language and ideas from these books, and may have been heavily influenced by their teachings, but they did not consider them on par with the books of the Old Testament. If these secondary books were considered in any sense authoritative, they appear never to be quoted as such and thus used as the basis for doctrine. This is telling. We can compare the situation to the role of a preacher in a church. Generations of congregants may know the preacher’s retelling of the Bible better than they know the Bible itself! Yet when asked if they consider their preacher as a voice on par with the authority of Scripture, they would likely reply with an indignant, “Of course not!” Acknowledged authority may well be different from unrealized influence.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Reliability of the Biblical Text

There is no doubt that the Bible has been transmitted faithfully to us through the centuries, and that the Dead Sea Scrolls further help to substantiate that truth. Some biblical apologists, however, have often exaggerated the “confirmation” the Dead Sea Scrolls offer the text of the Old Testament. Such comments are often made on the basis of the Great Isaiah Scroll alone, and are sometimes unwisely connected to a percentage evaluation. For example, I have heard several times, “the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm the text of the Old Testament in 99% of the cases.” Not only is such a figure untrue, this whole line of assertion paints an unrealistic picture of the evidence. First, most of the biblical Scrolls, as we have seen, are extremely fragmentary, and therefore cannot offer us a clear basis of comparison for the Bible as a whole. In fact, the only biblical book to be preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls intact is the Great Isaiah Scroll. Even in the Pentateuch and the Psalms, where the evidence is good, whole sections of the biblical text are completely missing or extremely lacunose. In these cases, the Scrolls cannot confirm anything. And we are speaking here of the best-preserved books. The situation is worse for the other biblical books.

Second, many apologists exaggerate the similarities and ignore the differences between the texts that can be compared. For example, the traditional Hebrew Bible preserved in the two major Medieval manuscripts, the Aleppo and Leningrad Codices, respectively (the so-called Masoretic Text), fixes the height of Goliath as “six cubits and a span” (1 Samuel 17:4). But 4QSam^a, a Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript dating to the first century B.C., reads in this passage “four cubits and a span.” This means Goliath is about six feet, four inches tall instead of the Masoretic text’s gigantic nine feet, four inches tall. Further, the reading of 4QSam^a agrees with the translation of the Greek Old Testament, which read “four cubits and a span” well before the time of the Medieval manuscripts. Should we revise the height of Goliath in our Bibles? Most modern translations have chosen either to ignore our oldest Hebrew copy of this portion of Samuel, or to relegate the information to a footnote. Why?

Another example from Samuel can be located in a mysterious passage. The traditional Masoretic text has it as follows: “Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh Gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, ‘Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you.’ And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, ‘On this condition I will make a covenant with you, that I may put out all your right eyes, and bring reproach on all Israel’” (1 Samuel 11:1-2, NKJV). Nowhere else in the Bible or in ancient Near Eastern literature do we read eye-gouging as a covenantal condition. This passage is exceedingly strange and impossible to explain. But if we look at the oldest Hebrew copy of Samuel, we gain a bit more clarity.

The NRSV is one of the few modern versions to use the text of 4QSam^a in their translation of this passage. As a prelude to 1 Samuel 11:1, the NRSV includes the words,

Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead.

This note, found in the oldest Hebrew manuscript of Samuel, explains two important details. First, it explains the demand for the right eyes of the Reubenites and Gadites. Second, it explains why the men fled to Jabesh-Gilead and why Nahash besieged it. Not only is this reading in the oldest Hebrew copy of Samuel, it actually aids our understanding of the Bible. Yet most modern English translations reject it.

One more example shall suffice. Hebrew poetry is intricately designed in ways that English readers simply cannot appreciate. One of the most complex of their poetic forms is the acrostic poem. The author will compose a coherent poem beginning each line, verse, or stanza with subsequent letters of the Hebrew alphabet from ’aleph totav. Psalm 119 is one of the most famous and indeed one of the most beautiful pieces of literature in world history. Psalm 145 is an acrostic as well. But there is one problem: a verse is missing. Psalm 145 walks through every letter of the Hebrew alphabet with the exception of the letter nun. The Greek Old Testament always had this missing line, but the later Masoretic manuscripts had lost it somewhere along the way. Alas, due to the discovery of 11QPs^a, the verse can now be restored: “God is faithful in his words and gracious in all his works.”

Let us pause here to make an important observation: these cases we have been discussing are unusual. In fact, there are relatively few examples of passages that are totally different in the Dead Sea Scrolls than they appear in the Medieval Hebrew manuscripts. And the majority of the passages that are different match some other known version of the Old Testament (usually the Greek translation). This means that the Old Testament has been copied and transmitted with remarkable accuracy. It is not a stretch to say the Hebrew Bible known to Jesus is essentially the same as the one known to us. All of this leads to the conclusion that the Dead Sea Scrolls sometimes complicate, but generally confirm, our knowledge of the Old Testament text.

Conclusion

The Dead Sea Scrolls are important for a number of reasons. First, they shed light on an otherwise known Jewish group. Actually, the people who wrote the Scrolls never refer to themselves as Jews. They are intriguingly vague about their identity. Second, the Scrolls indicate that certain books of the Bible were more popular than others, a conclusion we could draw similarly from the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament.

Third, the use of the Old Testament as an authoritative source for biblical interpretation and personal and community life matches material from the New Testament as well. Finally, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls allows us to access Old Testament manuscripts more than 1,000 years older than we previously possessed. Before the discovery of the Scrolls, the oldest complete manuscript of any Old Testament book dated to the 10^th century A.D. To be clear, if Moses wrote the Pentateuch in circa 1400 B.C., then our earliest copy of his complete work in Hebrew dated 2,400 years after it was written! It is with justification that the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by many the most important biblical archaeological discovery of all time.

Endnotes

The post The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[Editor’s Note: This article is taken from Appendix 1 of the author’s book The Quran Unveiled.]

The science of textual criticism is a field of inquiry that has been invaluable in ascertaining the original reading of the New Testament text. Textual criticism involves “the ascertainment of the true form of a literary work, as originally composed and written down by its author.”¹ The fact that the original autographs do not exist,² and that only copies of copies of copies of the original documents have survived, has led some falsely to conclude that the original reading of the New Testament documents cannot be determined. For example, Mormons frequently attempt to establish the superiority of the Book of Mormon over the Bible by insisting that the Bible has been corrupted through the centuries in the process of translation (a contention shared by Islam in its attempt to explain the Bible’s frequent contradiction of the Quran). However, a venture into the fascinating world of textual criticism dispels this premature and uninformed conclusion.

The task of textual critics—those who study the extant manuscript evidence that attests to the text of the New Testament—is to examine textual variants (i.e., conflicting readings between manuscripts involving a word, verse, or verses) in an effort to reconstruct the original reading of the text. What has this field of inquiry concluded with regard to the integrity and genuineness of the Bible?

Is the Old Testament still Reliable?³

If there are scribal errors in today’s manuscript copies of the Old Testament, many wonder how we can be certain the text of the Bible was transmitted faithfully across the centuries. Is it not possible that it was corrupted so that its form in our present Bible is drastically different from the original source?

The accuracy of the Old Testament text was demonstrated forcefully by the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. Prior to 1947, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of significant length did not date earlier than the ninth century A.D. However, when the Dead Sea scrolls were found (containing portions of all Old Testament books except Esther), this discovery pushed the record of the Old Testament text back almost 1,000 years. These copies were produced sometime between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100. One scroll found in the Qumran caves was of particular importance. It was a scroll of the book of Isaiah, which had only a few words missing. What was amazing about this scroll is that when it was compared to the text of Isaiah produced 900 years after it, the two matched almost word for word, with only a few small variations. In commenting on this comparative reading of the two texts, A.W. Adams observed:

The close agreement of the second Isaiah Scroll from the Dead Sea with the manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries shows how carefully the text tradition which they represent has been preserved…. We may therefore be satisfied that the text of our Old Testament has been handed down in one line without serious change since the beginning of the Christian era and even before.⁴

Amazingly, a comparison of the standard Hebrew texts with that of the Dead Sea scrolls has revealed that the two are virtually identical. The variations (about 5%) occurred only in minor spelling differences and minute copyists’ mistakes. Thus, as Rene Paché noted: “Since it can be demonstrated that the text of the Old Testament was accurately transmitted for the last 2,000 years, one may reasonably suppose that it had been so transmitted from the beginning.”⁵

Even within the various passages of Scripture, numerous references to copies of the written Word of God can be found. A copy of the “book of the law” was discovered in the Temple during the days of King Josiah (c. 621 B.C.), thus demonstrating that Moses’ writings had been protected over a span of almost 1,000 years (2 Kings 22). Other Old Testament passages speak of the maintenance of the Holy Writings across the years (Jeremiah 36; Ezra 7:14; Nehemiah 8:1-18).

During Jesus’ personal ministry, He read from a scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, and called it “Scripture” (Luke 4:16-21)—a technical term employed in the Bible for a divine writing. Jesus endorsed the truth that the Old Testament Scriptures had been preserved faithfully. Even though Jesus read from a copy of Isaiah, He still considered it the Word of God. Hence, Scripture had been preserved faithfully in written form. Furthermore, even though Jesus condemned the scribes of His day for their many sins, never did He even intimate they were unfaithful in their work as scribes. Indeed, Jesus gave approval not only to copies, but even to translations (e.g., the Septuagint) of the Old Testament by reading and quoting from them.

One of the great language scholars of the Old Testament text was Dr. Robert Dick Wilson. A master of over 35 languages, Wilson carefully compared the text of the Old Testament with inscriptions on ancient monuments. As a result of his research, he declared: “We are scientifically certain that we have substantially the same text that was in the possession of Christ and the apostles and, so far as anybody knows, the same as that written by the original composers of the Old Testament documents.”⁶

Is the New Testament still Reliable?

What about the integrity of the New Testament? One may say unhesitatingly and confidently that the uncorrupted preservation of the New Testament has been thoroughly established. In evaluating the text of the New Testament, textual critics work with a large body of manuscript evidence, the amount of which is far greater than that available for any ancient classical author.⁷ As of 2018, the number of Greek manuscripts—whole and partial—that attest to the New Testament stands at an unprecedented 5,874.⁸ This figure does not include the other sources of evidence such as the superabundance of patristic citations and ancient versions. The best manuscripts of the New Testament are dated at roughly A.D. 350, with perhaps one of the most important of these being the Codex Vaticanus, “the chief treasure of the Vatican Library in Rome,” and the Codex Sinaiticus, which was purchased by the British from the Soviet Government in 1933.⁹ Additionally, the Chester Beatty papyri, made public in 1931, contain eleven codices (manuscript volumes), three of which contain most of the New Testament (including the Gospel accounts). Two of these codices boast a date in the first half of the third century, while the third is slightly later, being dated in the last half of the same century.¹⁰ The John Rylands Library vaunts even earlier evidence. A papyrus codex containing parts of John 18 dates to the time of Hadrian, who reigned from A.D. 117 to 138.¹¹

Other attestation to the accuracy of the New Testament documents can be found in the writings of the so-called “apostolic fathers”—men who lived from A.D. 100 to 550, and who often quoted from the New Testament documents.¹² Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Tatian, Clement of Rome, and Ignatius (writing before the close of the second century) all provided citations from one or more of the Gospel accounts.¹³ Other witnesses to the authenticity of the New Testament are the Ancient Versions, which consist of the text of the New Testament translated into different languages. The Old Latin and the Old Syriac are the most ancient, being dated from the middle of the second century.¹⁴

The fact is, the New Testament enjoys far more historical documentation than any other volume ever known. Compared to the 5,700⁺ Greek manuscripts authenticating the New Testament, there are only 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad, which is undeniably the most famous book of ancient Greece. No one doubts the text of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, but we have only 10 copies of it, the earliest of which was made 1,000 years after it was written. We have only two manuscripts of Tacitus’ Histories and Annals, one from the ninth century and one from the eleventh. The History of Thucydides, another well-known ancient work, is dependent upon only eight manuscripts, the oldest of these being dated about A.D. 900 (along with a few papyrus scraps dated at the beginning of the Christian era). And The History of Herodotus finds itself in a similar situation. “Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS [manuscripts—DM] of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.”¹⁵ Thus Bruce declared: “It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament records than have many theologians.”¹⁶ Even as far back as 1968, Bruce Metzger, longtime professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton, stated: “The amount of evidence for the text of the New Testament…is so much greater than that available for any ancient classical author that the necessity of resorting to emendation is reduced to the smallest dimensions.”¹⁷ Truly, to have such abundance of copies for the New Testament from within 70 years of their writing is nothing short of astounding.₁₈

In one sense, the work of the textual critic has been unnecessary, since the vast majority of textual variants involve minor matters that do not affect doctrine as it relates to one’s salvation. Even those variants that might be deemed doctrinally significant pertain to matters that are treated elsewhere in the Bible where the question of authenticity and originality is unobscured. No feature of Christian doctrine is at stake. As Ewert noted: “[V]ariant readings in our manuscripts do not affect any basic teaching of the NT.”¹⁹ Old Testament scholar Gleason Archer wrote in agreement:

In fact, it has long been recognized by the foremost specialists in textual criticism that if any decently attested variant were taken up from the apparatus at the bottom of the page and were substituted for the accepted reading of the standard text, there would in no case be a single, significant alteration in doctrine or message.²⁰

Nevertheless, textual critics have been successful in demonstrating that currently circulating New Testaments do not differ substantially from the original autographs. When all of the textual evidence is considered, the vast majority of discordant readings have been resolved.²¹ One is brought to the firm conviction that we have in our possession the New Testament as God intended.

The world’s foremost textual critics have confirmed this conclusion. Sir Frederic Kenyon, longtime director and principal librarian at the British Museum, whose scholarship and expertise to make pronouncements on textual criticism was second to none, stated: “Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.”²² The late F.F. Bruce, longtime Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Manchester, England, remarked: “The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.”²³ J.W. McGarvey, declared by the London Times to be “the ripest Bible scholar on earth,”²⁴ conjoined: “All the authority and value possessed by these books when they were first written belong to them still.”²⁵ And the eminent textual critics Westcott and Hort put the entire matter into perspective when they said:

Since textual criticism has various readings for its subject, and the discrimination of genuine readings from corruptions for its aim, discussions on textual criticism almost inevitably obscure the simple fact that variations are but secondary incidents of a fundamentally single and identical text. In the New Testament in particular it is difficult to escape an exaggerated impression as to the proportion which the words subject to variation bear to the whole text, and also, in most cases, as to their intrinsic importance. It is not superfluous therefore to state explicitly that the great bulk of the words of the New Testament stand out above all discriminative processes of criticism, because they are free from variation, and need only to be transcribed.²⁶

Writing over one hundred years ago in the late 19^th century, and noting that the experience of two centuries of investigation and discussion had been achieved, these scholars concluded: “[T]he words in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the whole of the New Testament.”²⁷ This means that 999/1000^th of the text of the New Testament is the same today as when it came from the pens of the inspired writers. The miniscule portion that remains uncertain (1/1000^th) consists of trivial details that have no material effect on matters of faith or doctrine. J.I. Packer, Board of Governors Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, summarized the facts: “[F]aith in the adequacy of the text is confirmed, so far as it can be, by the unanimous verdict of textual scholars that the biblical text is excellently preserved, and no point of doctrine depends on any of the small number of cases in which the true reading remains doubtful.”²⁸ Indeed, again in the words of textual scholar F.F. Bruce: “By the ‘singular care and providence’ of God the Bible text has come down to us in such substantial purity that even the most uncritical edition of the Hebrew or Greek…cannot effectively obscure the real message of the Bible, or neutralize its saving power.”²⁹ Therefore, the charge alleged by Muslims (and Mormons), that the Bible has been corrupted in transmission, is completely false.

The Quran Compared

Anyone who has taken time to investigate the manuscript evidence that exists for ascertaining the original state of the Bible knows that we have the Bible in its near-original condition—a claim that has not been established for the Quran. The attention given to ascertaining the original state of the Quranic text pales in comparison to that given to the Bible in general, and the New Testament in particular. As John Gilchrist observed:

[T]here is no translation of the Qur’an to compare with translations of the Bible such as the Revised Standard Version or New American Standard Version. These were done by committees of scholars and the result has been a remarkably consistent and accurate rendering of the original. Every well-known translation of the Qur’an has been the work of an individual and, to one degree or another in every case, the value of the final product is tempered by the presence of the author’s own personal convictions and interpretations.³⁰

Of course, unsubstantiated claims are made for the transmission of the Quran: “[A]ll Muslims agree that the Quran is the verbatim revelation of God. They also agree about its text and content; that is, no variant texts are found among any of the schools.”³¹ The fact that Muslims claim unanimity of opinion regarding the purity of the Quranic text does not prove that the Quran has been exempt from the peculiar attribute of textual variation to which all documents from history are subject.

Ironically, the Quran itself offers both implicit and explicit endorsement of the integrity of the biblical text—at least in its condition at the time the Quran arose in the early seventh century:

And believe in that which I reveal, confirming that which ye possess already (of the Scripture), and be not first to disbelieve therein, and part not with My revelations for a trifling price, and keep your duty unto Me. Confound not truth with falsehood, nor knowingly conceal the truth…. Enjoin ye righteousness upon mankind while ye yourselves forget (to practice it)? And ye are readers of the Scripture! Have ye then no sense?…. O Children of Israel! Remember My favour wherewith I favoured you and how I preferred you to (all) creatures (Surah 2:41-42,44,47).³²

Or do they say, “He has forged it”? Say: “Had I forged it, then can you obtain no single (blessing) for me from Allah. He knows best of that whereof you talk (so glibly)! Enough is He for a witness between me and you! And He is Oft‑Forgiving, Most Merciful.” Say: “I am no bringer of new‑fangled doctrine among the Messengers, nor do I know what will be done with me or with you. I follow but that which is revealed to me; I am but a Warner open and clear.” Say: “Do you see? If (this teaching) be from Allah, and you reject it, and a witness from among the Children of Israel testifies to its similarity (with earlier scripture), and has believed while you are arrogant, (how unjust you are!). Truly, Allah does not guide a people unjust.” The Unbelievers say of those who believe: “If (this Message) were a good thing, (such men) would not have gone to it first, before us!” And seeing that they do not guide themselves thereby, they will say, “This is an (old,) old falsehood!” And before this, was the Book of Moses as a guide and a mercy: and this Book confirms (it) in the Arabic tongue; to admonish the unjust, and as Glad Tidings to those who do right…. “O our people! We have heard a Book revealed after Moses, confirming what came before it” (Surah 46:8-12,30).³³

Say: “O People of the Book! do you disapprove of us for no other reason than that we believe in Allah, and the revelation that has come to us and that which came before (us), and (perhaps) that most of you are rebellious and disobedient?…. If only they had stood fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that was sent to them from their Lord, they would have enjoyed happiness from every side. There is from among them a party on the right course: but many of them follow a course that is evil. O Messenger! proclaim the (Message) which has been sent to you from your Lord. If you did not, you would not have fulfilled and proclaimed His Mission. And Allah will defend you from men (who mean mischief). For Allah guides not those who reject Faith. Say: “O People of the Book! You have no ground to stand upon unless you stand fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord.” It is the revelation that comes to you from your Lord, that increases in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. But you do not grieve over (these) people without Faith. Those who believe (in the Qur’an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians and the Christians,—any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness,—on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve (Surah 5:59,66-69; cf. 2:62).³⁴

And if thou (Muhammad) art in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto thee, then question those who read the Scripture (that was) before thee. Verily the Truth from thy Lord hath come unto thee. So be not thou of the waverers (Surah 10:95).³⁵

These verses from the Quran provide confirmation of Muhammad’s belief in the accuracy of the Law and the Gospel (cf. Surah 87:18-19; 6:155-158). They even appeal to a Jew, contemporary to Muhammad, who verified that the Quran confirmed the Scripture that preceded it. Indeed, the Quran claims to be in unison and harmony with, and complementary to, previous Scripture (the Bible).

The underlying thought in all of these Quranic verses is that the Quran is to be accepted, reverenced, and obeyed every bit as much as the previous Scriptures (i.e., the Bible). These verses are worded in such a way that they assume the legitimacy and acceptability of the Bible. The Quranic criticism directed against Jews (and Christians) is not that they corrupted their Scriptures (cf. Surah 7:169-170). Rather, they are criticized for not concluding that Muhammad and the Quran were the confirmatory sequel to the previous revelations of Jews and Christians. In fact, when the Jews insisted to Muhammad that they had been given sufficient knowledge by means of the Torah—an admission made by the Quran itself [“Again, We gave the Scripture unto Moses, complete for him who would do good, an explanation of all things, a guidance and a mercy, that they might believe in the meeting with their Lord” (Surah 7:155)]—Muhammad responded with a new surah: “[I]f all the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea, with seven more seas to help it, (were ink), the words of Allah could not be exhausted” (Surah 31:27).³⁶ If the Quran endorses the integrity of the Bible, and we have in existence manuscripts of the Bible that predate the Quran, then the accuracy and authenticity of the Bible stands vindicated—not only by the voluminous manuscript evidence—but even by the Quran itself.

To repeat: We can know that the Bible has been transmitted accurately through the centuries. The Bible is, in fact, the Word of God.

The post Has the Bible Been Transmitted To Us Accurately? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

“Do you know if there’s any truth to the claim that Jesus should only be called ‘Yeshua’ or that the name ‘Jesus’ is a corruption done by pagans or occultists (it’s been claimed that KJV was influenced by freemasonry, or that it was supposed to sound like Zeus)? Additionally, what evidence is there that the NT was originally written in Greek (vs. Hebrew vs. Aramaic)?”

A:

The Hebrew word transliterated “Joshua” in our English versions of the Old Testament  (pronounced yeah-HO-shoo-ah) is equivalent to the Greek term “Jesus” (pronounced ee-ay-SOOS). Though God Himself miraculously instigated several new languages at Babel (Genesis 11), we do not know what those languages were nor do we know what single language was spoken prior to that event. God has given no indication whatsoever that Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek are “sacred” languages that must be emulated. Instead, what we learn from the Bible is that God fully expected His Word to be translated into the multitude of languages that He knew would come about gradually as societies, ethnic groups, and nations developed. There is no evidence in Scripture that God assigns special reverence to, or expects verbal exclusivity for, the names “God” or “Jesus” in a particular language. The Jews refused to pronounce the divine name (approximated by English words like “Jehovah” and “Yahweh”) and so historically did not know how to pronounce it. The claims of pagans and occultists are irrelevant. One must produce the evidence from Scripture that God commands a specific spelling or pronunciation. Hispanics have the same word, “Jesus,” which they name their children, pronounced “hay-SOOS.” It has the same spelling in both English and Spanish. By the reasoning of those cited, differing pronunciations of the same word are unacceptable. Their theory shows a woeful lack of understanding regarding the functioning of human language.

Regarding the second question, there are well over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, some dating back close to the first century. There is a mountain of evidence from historical and religious writers in the early centuries of Christianity that record the linguistic state of affairs at the time. Once again, where is the evidence that the New Testament was originally written in a language other than Koine Greek? The evidence does not exist. It is true that Jesus probably spoke Aramaic while He was on Earth. But God the Holy Spirit chose to communicate the divine will via the most common, prominent language of the day: Koine Greek. A host of Hellenistic Jews at the time spoke Greek and relied on the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint; cf. Acts 6). In fact, most of the quotes of the Old Testament found in the New Testament are from that version. When people postulate an imaginary Aramaic New Testament that lies behind the Greek New Testament that we have, they are merely speculating without solid, sufficient evidence—which they are under obligation to produce.

However, let’s suppose that those who make such claims are right, that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. Why did God not see to it that it was preserved and passed down to us? Answer: we must not need it! We can confidently say that we have God’s Word intact in our 21^st century based on the variety of proofs that exist by which the New Testament text has been recovered/ascertained (see Has the Bible Been Corrupted? available through AP).

The post Question and Answer: Should Jesus Be Called "Yeshua"? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

One astounding fact about the Bible’s transmission is that new information continues to come to light, silencing the skeptic, and bolstering an already irrefutable case. One such discovery was made in 1970 near the area where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. A scroll known as the En-Gedi scroll came to light, but was badly damaged by fire and was unreadable with the technology available at the time.² While the dating methods used to date the scroll are not completely reliable, experts place the date of the writing near A.D. 300. That means the scroll predates the Masoretic Text from which the King James Version was translated by about 500 years.

By using technology known as volume cartology, computer scientist Brent Seales and others were able to “map” the text and identify the writing. When they did, they found an ancient Hebrew text that coincided perfectly with the Masoretic Text of Leviticus 1:1-8. Newitz wrote:

What’s incredible about these chapters, according to archaeologist Emanuel Tov, is that they are virtually identical to the medieval Masoretic Text, written hundreds of years later. The En-Gedi scroll even duplicates the exact paragraph breaks seen later in the medieval Hebrew. The only difference between the two is that ancient Hebrew had no vowels, so these were added in the Middle Ages.³

Were this situation to have occurred with some other ancient text (such as the Quran or even the texts of ancient writers such as Herodotus or Thucydides), scholars would hail the event as unprecedented. In truth, however, this is a “run-of-the-mill” normal occurrence for the biblical text. The accusation that the biblical text has been miscopied or corrupted, in light of such evidence as the En-Gedi scroll, is vacuous and unsustainable.

Emanuel Tov went on to say this about the En-Gedi text: “[It is] 100 percent identical with the medieval texts, both in its consonants and in its paragraph divisions…. [T]he scroll brings us the good news that the ancient source of the medieval text did not change for 2,000 years.” Newitz added, “In other words, the Jewish community managed to retain some of the exact wording in passages from their biblical texts over centuries, despite massive cultural upheavals and changes to their languages.”⁴

Indeed, such text preservation is unparalleled when compared to all other ancient documents in the world. We should recognize and appreciate the Providential care by which the biblical text has come down to us. And we should let that knowledge spur us on to study the Holy Bible, knowing that the words we read are those that God inspired.

Endnotes

¹ Dave Miller (2015), “3 Good Reasons to Believe the Bible Has Not Been Corrupted,” Reason & Revelation, 35[8]:86-89,92, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=5196&topic=103. For more extensive information, see Neil Lightfoot (2003), How We Got the Bible  (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), third edition.

² Annalee Newitz, “One of the World’s Oldest Biblical Texts Read for the First Time,” https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/scholars-use-x-rays-to-read-ancient-biblical-text-for-the-first-time/.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

The post The En-Gedi Scroll and the Accuracy of the Bible appeared first on Apologetics Press.

My resources are limited to find a decent enough answer for the passage at Mt. 18:11. I would like to know why or why not it should be in our Bibles.

A:

During the early centuries of Christianity, copies of New Testament books were made by Christians as those books came from the hands of the apostles. Then copies were made of copies, and then copies of copies of copies, and so on. It was inevitable that slight/minor changes would occur in some copies. In later years, New Testament books were copied by monks and even by professional copyists who did so for their living. Those who became very familiar with the synoptic Gospel accounts sometimes unnecessarily attempted to harmonize them with each other in those passages that are parallel, even though the Holy Spirit used different wording in, say Matthew, than He did in Luke, where the same incident is reported. Hence, copyists sometimes introduced words from one Gospel account into another to force them to be uniform in wording. That is clearly what happened with Matthew 18:11. Somewhere along the line, a copyist who was very familiar with Luke introduced the words of Luke 19:10 into the copy of Matthew 18 that he was making. The words are authentic from Luke’s pen, but were not written by Matthew. Many manuscript copies do not contain the verse, but the copies that ultimately influenced the KJV were copies that had the interpolation introduced. Observe that no doctrine of Scripture is placed in jeopardy and no new information is added to the text by such variants in certain copies, and the original text is still preserved in the aggregate of manuscripts. See our article at: http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=5196&topic=103.

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Reason #1: The New Testament Greek Text has Been Authenticated

We know how the original New Testament books read because we have three surviving classes of evidence by which to reconstruct the original New Testament: Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic citations. The current number of Greek manuscript copies containing all or part of the New Testament now stands at 5,874. This amount of manuscript evidence for the text of the New Testament is far greater than that available for any ancient classical author. The time between the writing of the original books of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copies is relatively brief. Although no two manuscript copies agree in every detail, the degree of accuracy achieved by most scribes was remarkably high. The vast majority of textual variants involve minor matters that do not alter any basic teaching of the New Testament. No feature of Christian doctrine is at stake. Suitable solutions to these differences are detectable. Even if they weren’t, manuscript evidence is so prolific that the original reading is one of the extant options. Even those variants that some might deem “doctrinally significant” (e.g., Mark 16:9-20; John 7:53-8:11) pertain to matters that are treated elsewhere in the Bible where the question of genuineness/certainty is unquestioned. We can confidently affirm that we have 999/1000^ths of the original Greek New Testament intact. The remaining 1/1000^th pertains to inconsequential details.

Additionally, a wealth of ancient versions provides further verification of the purity of the biblical text, including Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Old Slavonic, and others. Textual critics through history have steadfastly affirmed the value of these ancient versions in reconstructing the New Testament text. For example, Vaganay observed: “After the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the versions constitute the most valuable source for writing the history of this text” (1934, p. 28; cf. Vogels, 1923, p. 84—“The versions are very valuable for establishing the original text of the Bible.”). Though noting the limitations, the Alands admitted: “[T]he importance of the versions is substantial” (1987, p. 182).

The same may be said for the wealth of textual materials available via the so-called “Church Fathers,” i.e., early Christian writers who quoted, paraphrased, and otherwise alluded to passages from Scripture in their letters, commentaries, and correspondence. This latter source of information is so prolific that Metzger affirmed: “Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament” (1968, p. 86).

These contentions have been verified by the greatest textual critics and linguistic scholars of the past two centuries. Their conclusions have not become outdated, but remain as valid today as when first formulated. If the integrity of the text of the Bible was fully authenticated in their day, it remains so today. Consider the following statements by some of these world class authorities.

Scholarly Verification of the Purity of the New Testament Text

F.F. Bruce (1910-1990) was a biblical scholar who taught Greek at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leeds, chaired the Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield, received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Aberdeen University, and served as the Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester. He wrote over 40 books and served as Editor of The Evangelical Quarterly and Palestine Exploration Quarterly. Bruce declared: “The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the N.T. affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice” (1975, pp. 19-20, emp. added). He also stated:

In view of the inevitable accumulation of such errors over so many centuries, it may be thought that the original texts of the New Testament documents have been corrupted beyond restoration. Some writers, indeed, insist on the likelihood of this to such a degree that one sometimes suspects they would be glad if it were so. But they are mistaken. There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament (1963, p. 178, emp. added).

Bruce further insisted:

Something more ought to be said, and said with emphasis. We have been discussing various textual types, and reviewing their comparative claims to be regarded as best representatives of the original New Testament. But there are not wide divergencies between these types, of a kind that could make any difference to the Church’s responsibility to be a witness and guardian of Holy Writ…. If the variant readings are so numerous, it is because the witnesses are so numerous. But all the witnesses, and all the types which they represent, agree on every article of Christian belief and practice (1963, p. 189, emp. added).

Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was also a scholar of Greek, the New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism, serving as professor at Princeton Theological Seminary for 46 years. Described by prominent biblical scholar Raymond Brown as “probably the greatest textual specialist that America has produced” (as quoted in Ehrman and Holmes, 1995, p. xi), Metzger was a recognized authority on the Greek text of the New Testament. He served on the board of the American Bible Society, was the driving force of the United Bible Societies’ series of Greek Texts, and served as Chairperson of the NRSV Bible Committee. He is widely considered one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20^th century. Concerning ancient versions, Metzger stated:

…even if we had no Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together the information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the contents of the New Testament. In addition to that, even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth of the early church fathers (as quoted in Strobel, 1998, p. 59).

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) was a British bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham and holding the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge. His colleague, Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892), was an Irish theologian who served as a Professor at Cambridge. Together, they pioneered the widely recognized Greek text The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. They are still considered to be renowned textual critics. They forthrightly asserted:

With regard to the great bulk of the words of the New Testament…there is no variation or other ground of doubt…. [T]he amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text. Since there is reason to suspect that an exaggerated impression prevails as to the extent of possible textual corruption in the New Testament…we desire to make it clearly understood beforehand how much of the New Testament stands in no need of a textual critic’s labours (1882, pp. 2-3, emp. added).

These peerless scholars also insisted: “[I]n the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writing” (p. 278, emp. added). They add: “The books of the New Testament as preserved in extant documents assuredly speak to us in every important respect in language identical with that in which they spoke to those for whom they were originally written” (p. 284).

Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921) was a Professor of Theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. He is considered to be the last of the great Princeton theologians. In his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Warfield insightfully observed:

[S]uch has been the providence of God in preserving for His Church in each and every age a competently exact text of the Scriptures, that not only is the New Testament unrivalled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use, but also in the abundance of testimony which has come down to us for castigating its comparatively infrequent blemishes…. The great mass of the New Testament, in other words, has been transmitted to us with no, or next to no, variation (1886, pp. 12-13,14, emp. added).

Richard Bentley (1662-1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian who served as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and was the first Englishman to be ranked with the great heroes of classical learning. He was well-known for his literary and textual criticism, even called the “Founder of Historical Philology,” and credited with the creation of the English school of Hellenism. Here are his comments on the integrity of the New Testament text:

[T]he real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edition, but is dispersed in them all. ‘Tis competently exact indeed even in the worst manuscript now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them (1725, pp. 68-69, emp. added).

Marvin Vincent (1834-1922) graduated from Columbia University and became professor of New Testament Exegesis and Criticism at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in the late 19^th century. He is best known for his Greek analysis of the words of the New Testament in his Word Studies in the New Testament. Regarding the integrity of the text, he observed:

The vast number of variations furnishes no cause for alarm to the devout reader of the New Testament. It is the natural result of the great number of documentary sources. A very small proportion of the variations materially affects the sense, a much smaller proportion is really important, and no variation affects an article of faith or a moral precept (1899, p. 7, emp. added).

Sir Frederic George Kenyon (1863-1952) was a widely respected, eminent British paleographer and biblical and classical scholar who occupied a series of posts at the British Museum. He served as President of the British Academy from 1917 to 1921 and President of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. He made a lifelong study of the Bible as an historical text. In his masterful Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, Kenyon affirmed:

One word of warning…must be emphasized in conclusion. No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. Constant references to mistakes and divergencies of reading…might give rise to the doubt whether the substance, as well as the language, of the Bible is not open to question. It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church is so large, that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world (1895, pp. 10-11, emp. added).

In his monumental The Bible and Archaeology, Kenyon further stated:

The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established (1940, pp. 288-289, emp. added).

Indeed, “the Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear of hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, faithfully handed down from generation to generation throughout the centuries” (1895, pp. 10-11).

Samuel Davidson (1806-1898) was an Irish biblical scholar who served as Professor of Biblical Criticism at Royal College of Belfast and Professor of Biblical Criticism in the Lancashire Independent College at Manchester. He authored many books on the text of the Bible. Referring to the work of textual criticism, Davidson concluded:

The effect of it has been to establish the genuineness of the New Testament text in all important particulars. No new doctrines have been elicited by its aid; nor have any historical facts been summoned by it from their obscurity. All the doctrines and duties of Christianity remain unaffected.… [I]n the records of inspiration there is no material corruption…. [D]uring the lapse of many centuries the text of Scripture has been preserved with great care…. Empowered by the fruits of criticism, we may well say that the Scriptures continue essentially the same as when they proceeded from the writers themselves (1853, 2:147, emp. added).

Frederick H.A. Scrivener (1813-1891) was a prominent and important New Testament textual critic of the 19^th century. Having graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, he taught classics at several schools in southern England. His expertise in textual criticism is self-evident in that he served as a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee (Revised Version), edited the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis and several editions of the Greek New Testament, collated the Codex Sinaiticus with the Textus Receptus, and was the first to distinguish the Textus Receptus from the Byzantine text. In his A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Scrivener admitted:

[O]ne great truth is admitted on all hands—the almost complete freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare suspicion of wilful [sic] corruption; the absolute identity of the testimony of every known copy in respect to doctrine, and spirit, and the main drift of every argument and every narrative through the entire volume of Inspiration…. Thus hath God’s Providence kept from harm the treasure of His written word, so far as is needful for the quiet assurance of His church and people (1861, pp. 6-7, emp. added).

J.W. McGarvey (1829-1911) was a minister, author, educator, and biblical scholar. He taught 46 years in the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky, serving as President from 1895 to 1911. He summarized the point: “All the authority and value possessed by these books when they were first written belong to them still” (1974, p. 17).

Elias Boudinot (1740-1821) was a prominent Founding Father of America. He served in the Continental Congress (1778-1779, 1781-1784), as its President in 1782-1783, and was the founding president of the American Bible Society. In his refutation of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, Boudinot explained: “[T]he facts upon which the Christian religion is founded, have a stronger proof, than any facts at such a distance of time; and that the books which convey them down to us, may be proved to be uncorrupted and authentic, with greater strength than any other writings of equal antiquity” (1801, p. 239, emp. added). This Founding Father’s view of the purity of the text of the New Testament was the view of the vast majority of the Founders.

With all the kindness one can muster, these eminent, well-studied, competent, peerless scholars, whose expertise in the field of Textual Criticism is unsurpassed, are far more qualified and accurate in their assessment of the credibility, integrity, and authenticity of the biblical text than any alleged scholar or skeptic living today. Truthfully, God knew that the original autographs would not survive, and that His Word would have to be transmitted through the centuries via copies. The transmission process is sufficiently flexible for God’s Word to be conveyed adequately by uninspired, imperfect copyists. Indeed, the original text of the New Testament has been thoroughly and sufficiently authenticated.

Reason #2: The Translation Process Works

God knew that the vast majority of the human race could not learn Greek or Hebrew. He knew that His Word would have to be read in translation in the language of the common people. The translation process is sufficiently flexible for God’s Word to be conveyed adequately by uninspired, imperfect translators. While some English translations may well seek to advance a theological agenda, generally speaking, most translations do not differ on the essentials. Most English versions convey these essentials: (1) what one must do to be saved and (2) what one must do to stay saved. As imperfect as translations might be, most still convey this basic information. This fact is verified by Jesus and the apostles’ own use of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew text en vogue in first-century Palestine. Some think this translation was achieved by 72 Jewish scholars who were invited to Alexandria, Egypt roughly two and a half centuries before Christ. Though considered by scholars as an imperfect translation of the Hebrew, most of the direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament are taken from the Septuagint. Hence, the Bible gives implicit divine endorsement to the use of imperfect, manmade translations, further implying that God’s Word has been adequately transmitted down through the centuries via translation.

A host of books have been published over the years that discuss principles of Bible translation (e.g., Nida, 1964; Beekman and Callow, 1974; Ryken, 2009; Grant, 1961; et al.). All human languages share in common a variety of linguistic features that may be suitably utilized to transmit God’s meanings. The United Nations stands as an indisputable testimony to the fact that meaning can be conveyed from one language to another. Indeed, messages all over the world are effectively translated into different languages every day. Likewise, the meanings of the words, grammar, and syntax of the biblical (parent) languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek have been amply transferred to English Bible translations. Even when English translations differ with each other on any given passage, further study will enable the Bible student to ascertain the meaning(s) intended. As with the transmission of the Greek text, the translation process provides the individual with the possibilities when more than one meaning is possible. When all is said and done, one may confidently say that God’s message has been suitably transferred from the original biblical languages into English.

Reason #3: The History of English Translation Demonstrates Preservation

All languages are in a constant state of flux. Thus new translations are inevitable and necessary. But though the Greek text has been verified, and though we know that translation can be done accurately, how do we know that today we have God’s Word available since the translating has been done by many different people over several centuries? Answer: Because the history of English translation has been traced and verified. We know that the Hebrew and Greek texts were translated into Latin early on, and eventually began to be transferred to English in the 14^th century. The hall of fame of great Bible translators in the English-speaking world verifies the accomplishment of this transference of God’s Word to the present: John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, John Rogers (the Matthew’s Bible), Richard Taverner, the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, Matthew Parker (the Bishop’s Bible), the King James Bible (1611), the English Revised Version (ERV—1888) and its American counterpart, the American Standard Version (ASV—1901), and the host of English translations that have appeared in the 20^th and now 21^st centuries (cf. Lewis, 1991). We know the Bible has not been corrupted because we have the English translations generated through the centuries that enable us to examine and verify the text of the Bible. Coincidentally, even if we did not know English translation history, we can take the authenticated Greek text and make a completely new translation in English.

Conclusion

The evidence is available and it is decisive. Currently circulating copies of the Bible do not differ substantially from the original. Those who reject the Bible’s divine authority must do so for reasons other than their ability to know what God intended to communicate to the human race.

All human beings can know the truth and be saved. All can know that God exists and that the Bible is His Word. All can know that Christianity is the only true religion and that all must obey the Gospel of Christ in order to be forgiven of sin and saved. All can know that we must live the Christian life, worshipping God correctly, and living faithfully to God in daily behavior.

REFERENCES

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland (1987), The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Beekman, John and John Callow (1974), Translating the Word of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Bentley, Richard (1725), Remarks Upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking (Cambridge: Cornelius Crownfield).

Boudinot, Elias (1801), The Age of Revelation (Philadelphia, PA: Asbury Dickins), http://www.google.com/books?id=XpcPAAAAIAAJ.

Bruce, F.F. (1963), The Books and the Parchments (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell).

Bruce, F.F. (1975 reprint), The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Bruce, F.F. (1988), The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).

Davidson, Samuel (1853), A Treatise on Biblical Criticism (Boston: Gould & Lincoln).

Ehrman, Bart and Michael Holmes (1995), The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Grant, Frederick (1961), Translating the Bible (New York: Seabury Press).

Kenyon, Sir Frederic (1895), Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode).

Kenyon, Sir Frederic (1940), The Bible and Archaeology (New York: Harper & Row).

Lewis, Jack (1991), The English Bible from KJV to NIV (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), second edition.

McGarvey, J.W. (1974 reprint), Evidences of Christianity (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).

Metzger, Bruce (1968), The Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press).

Nida, Eugene (1964), Toward a Science of Translating (Leiden: E.J. Brill).

Ryken, Leland (2009), Understanding English Bible Translations (Wheaton, IL: Crossway).

Scrivener, F.H.A. (1861), A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co.).

Strobel, Lee (1998), The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Vaganay, Léon (1934), Initiation à la critique textuelle néotestamentaire (Paris: Blond & Gay).

Vincent, Marvin (1899), A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (New York: MacMillan).

Vogels, H.J. (1923), Handbuch der neutestamentlichen Textkritik (Munster: Aschendorff).

Warfield, Benjamin B. (1886), An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton).

Westcott, B.F. and F.J.A. Hort (1882), The New Testament in the Original Greek (New York: Harper & Brothers).

The post 3 Good Reasons to Believe the Bible Has Not Been Corrupted appeared first on Apologetics Press.

In ascertaining the genuineness of a textual variant, several factors are taken into consideration. The external evidence of age and geographical diversity of Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic citations are examined. Internal evidence is also weighed, taking into account transcriptional and intrinsic probabilities. The latter criterion centers on the style and vocabulary of the author in the book, as well as the usage of the author elsewhere and in the gospel accounts (cf. Metzger, 1978, pp. 209ff.).

Non-Markan Style?

The most persuasive piece of evidence that prompts some textual scholars to discount Mark 16:9-20 as genuine is the internal evidence. Though the Alands conceded that the “longer Marcan ending” actually “reads an absolutely convincing text” (1987, p. 287), in fact, the internal evidence weighs more heavily than the external evidence in the minds of many of those who support omission of the verses. Observe carefully the following definitive pronouncement of this viewpoint—a pronouncement that simultaneously concedes the strength of the external evidence in favor of the verses:

On the other hand, the section is no casual or unauthorised [sic] addition to the Gospel. From the second century onwards, in nearly all manuscripts, versions, and other authorities, it forms an integral part of the Gospel, and it can be shown to have existed, if not in the apostolic, at least in the sub-apostolic age. A certain amount of evidence against it there is (though very little can be shown to be independent of Eusebius the Church historian, 265-340 A.D.), but certainly not enough to justify its rejection, were it not that internal evidence clearly demonstrates that it cannot have proceeded from the hand of St. Mark (Dummelow, 1927, p. 73, emp. added).

Listen also to an otherwise conservative scholar express the same sentiment: “If these deductions are correct the mass of MSS [manuscripts—DM] containing the longer ending must have been due to the acceptance of this ending as the most preferable. But internal evidence combines with textual evidence to raise suspicions regarding this ending” (Guthrie, 1970, p. 77, emp. added). Alford took the same position: “The internal evidence…will be found to preponderate vastly against the authorship of Mark” (1844, 1:434, emp. added). Even Bruce Metzger admitted: “The long ending, though present in a variety of witnesses, some of them ancient, must also be judged by internal evidence to be secondary” (p. 227, emp. added).

So, in the minds of not a few scholars, if it were not for the internal evidence, the external evidence would be sufficient to establish the genuineness of the verses. What precisely, pray tell, is this internal evidence that is so powerful and weighs so heavily on the issue as to prod scholars to “jump through hoops” in an effort to discredit the verses? What formidable data exists that could possibly prompt so many to discount all evidence to the contrary?

Scholars direct attention to “the presence of 17 non-Marcan words or words used in a non-Marcan sense” (Metzger, p. 227). Alford made the same allegation over a century earlier: “No less than seventeen words and phrases occur in it (and some of them several times) which are never elsewhere used by Mark—whose adherence to his own peculiar phrases is remarkable” (p. 438). The reader is urged to observe carefully the implicit assumption of those who reject verses 9-20 on such a basis: If the last 12 verses of a document employ words and expressions (whether one or 17?) that are not employed by the writer previously in the same document, then the last 12 verses of the document are not the product of the original writer. Is this line of thinking valid?

Over a century ago, in 1869, John A. Broadus provided a masterful evaluation (and decisive defeat) of this very contention (pp. 355-362). Using the Greek text that was available at the time produced by Tregelles, Broadus examined the 12 verses that precede Mark 16:9-20 (i.e., 15:44-16:8)—verses whose genuineness are above reproach—and applied precisely the same test to them. Incredibly, he found in the 12 verses preceding 16:9-20 exactly the same number of words and phrases (17) that are not used previously by Mark! The words and their citations are as follows: tethneiken (15:44), gnous apo, edoreisato, ptoma (15:45), eneileisen, lelatomeimenon, petpas, prosekulisen (15:46), diagenomenou, aromata (16:1), tei mia ton sabbaton (16:2), apokulisei (16:3), anakekulistai, sphodra (16:4), en tois dexiois (16:5), eichen (in a peculiar sense), and tromos (16:8). The reader is surely stunned and appalled that textual critics would wave aside verses of Scripture as counterfeit and fraudulent on such fragile, flimsy grounds.

Writing a few years later, J.W. McGarvey applied a similar test to the last 12 verses of Luke, again, verses whose genuineness, like those preceding Mark 16:9-20, are above suspicion (1875, pp. 377-382). He found nine words that are not used by Luke elsewhere in his book—four of which are not found anywhere else in the New Testament! Yet, once again, no textual critic or New Testament Greek manuscript scholar has questioned the genuineness of the last 12 verses of Luke. Indeed, the methodology that seeks to determine the genuineness of a text on the basis of new or unusual word use is a concocted, artificial, unscholarly, nonsensical, pretentious—and clearly discredited—criterion.

CONCLUSION

For the unbiased observer, this matter is settled: the strongest piece of internal evidence mustered against the genuineness of Mark 16:9-20 is no evidence at all. Consequently, the reader of the New Testament may possess far more confidence that these verses are original than is typically given by current textual critics.

REFERENCES

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland (1987), The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Alford, Henry (1844), Alford’s Greek Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), 1980 reprint.

Broadus, John A. (1869), “Exegetical Studies,” The Baptist Quarterly, [3]:355-362, July.

Dummelow, J.R., ed. (1927), A Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York, NY: MacMillan).

Guthrie, Donald (1970), New Testament Introduction (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, third edition).

McGarvey, J.W. (1875), The New Testament Commentary: Matthew and Mark (Delight, AR: Gospel Light).

Metzger, Bruce M. (1978 reprint), The Text of the New Testament (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, second edition).

Miller, Dave (2005), “Is Mark 16:9-20 Inspired?” Reason & Revelation, 25[12]:89-95, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=572&article=433.

The post The Strongest Argument Against Mark 16:9-20 appeared first on Apologetics Press.

In a way, Eichenwald’s attack on the Bible is reassuring to the Bible believer for the simple reason that Eichenwald uses information that has been refuted literally for centuries. His article consists of warmed-over skepticism that has so often been easily refuted; we at Apologetics Press already have articles on virtually every subject he mentions (www.apologeticspress.org). In another way, however, his article is troubling. Why, if his arguments are so easily answered, does the author feel that they will resonate with his audience or cause others to question the Bible? The most reasonable answer seems to be that he knows his audience is ignorant of the responses to his attacks. The Proverbs writer once stated, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17). To those who have not given these matters much thought, Eichenwald’s information may seem legitimate and may cause one to doubt the Bible’s inspiration. However, when one examines this information, it will be seen for what it is—a thinly veiled, inept attack against the inspired Word of God.

The “Contradictions” in the Bible

The Birth of Jesus

One of the clearest examples of Eichenwald’s errant thinking is seen in his repetitious claim that the Bible is “loaded with contradictions.” In his section titled “No Three Kings,” he contends that the accounts of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke are contradictory. He writes: “Jesus was born in a house in Bethlehem. No wise men showed up for the birth…. No angel appearing to Mary…. Not born in a manger….” Then he asks the reader: “Not the version you are familiar with…? You may not recognize this version, but it is a story of Jesus’ birth found in the Gospels. Two Gospels—Matthew and Luke—tell the story of when Jesus was born, but in quite different ways. Contradictions abound.”

Is it true that the versions of Jesus’ “birth” are filled with contradictions? Not at all. Let us see how he proceeds to fabricate contradictions that are not there. First, notice how he begins his section: “Jesus was born in a house in Bethlehem.” Note that he did not provide a verse reference for that claim—for good reason: there is no Bible passage that claims that Jesus was born in a house in Bethlehem. The account in Luke makes it clear that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (2:4) and, contrary to Eichenwald’s charge, in a manger (2:7,16)—i.e., a barn-animal feeding trough. Did an angel appear to Mary? The Gospels make no such claim, and therefore, cannot be said to contradict one another. An angel appeared to shepherds in the field at the time of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8-13) and to Mary before Jesus was conceived (Luke 1:26-31), but this does not contradict any other passage. Did wise men come to the birth? When we turn to Matthew’s account, the chapter begins its narrative about the wise men: “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King…” (2:1). How long after Jesus was born in Bethlehem? The text does not say. In fact, king Herod asked the wise men what time Jesus’ star appeared (vs. 7), and based on that information, the evil king issued a decree to kill the young males in Bethlehem who were from “two years old and under” (vs. 16). Obviously, between the time the star appeared, and the time the wise men arrived, several months had elapsed. In fact, from Herod’s calculations to kill two year olds, it could have been as much as 18 months to two years. So, the story in Matthew 2 is not even a “birth” story. The Bible makes no claim that wise men were at Jesus’ birth. The only contradiction that can be levied concerning the appearance of the wise men is not a contradiction in the Bible, but a contradiction between what the Bible says and what people have erroneously claimed the Bible says—as with the case of the appearance of the angel to Mary.

Eichenwald has committed the very mistake that he accuses so many evangelicals of committing. Early in the article he bemoans the fact that many people who call themselves Christians do not even know what the text says. Sadly, he is right. Many Christians do not study the Bible as they should. He insists that his article is “designed to shine a light on a book that has been abused by people who claim to revere it but don’t read it.” Ironically, Eichenwald’s attack is filled with heat, but very little light. His examples of obvious “contradictions” in the “birth” accounts of Jesus are attacks against information that is not even in the Bible. In an article that purports to straighten out those who are biblically illiterate, to boldly proclaim that the Bible states that “Jesus was born in a house in Bethlehem”—when the Bible nowhere makes such a statement—is inexcusable, slipshod scholarship. [For more information, see the A.P. article: “When Did Jesus Go to Egypt?” (Lyons, 2011).]

In addition, Eichenwald claims that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’ bloodline through Joseph, “Except…Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ father…. Mary, the mother of Jesus, can be the only parent with a bloodline to David, but neither Gospel makes mention of that.” This allegation has been decisively answered in the A.P. article titled, “The Genealogies of Matthew and Luke.” Here is the short answer to this alleged discrepancy:

Here is the precise purpose of Matthew’s genealogy: it demonstrated Jesus’ legal right to inherit the throne of David—a necessary prerequisite to authenticating His Messianic claim. However, an equally critical credential was His blood/physical descent from David—a point that could not be established through Joseph since “after His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18, emp. added). This feature of Christ’s Messiahship was established through His mother Mary, who was also a blood descendant of David (Luke 1:30-32). Both the blood of David and the throne of David were necessary variables to qualify and authenticate Jesus as the Messiah (Miller, 2003, emp. in orig.).

Isn’t it interesting that Eichenwald left out the fact that Luke’s genealogy mentions Jesus “being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph” (Luke 3:24)? By using the phrase “as was supposed,” Luke demonstrates that Jesus was not the actual son of Joseph, just the perceived one. In addition, the Newsweek author neglected to mention that in Matthew 1:16, when the text says that “Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus,” the word “whom” (in the Greek) is in the feminine form. It could only be referring to Mary. Thus, neither of the genealogies states that Jesus was born to Joseph.

Alleged Contradictions in the Resurrection Accounts

Eichenwald continues his attack on the Bible, stating that the “stories in the four Gospels of Jesus’ death and resurrection differ as well.” He asserts: “And who went to anoint Jesus in his tomb? In Matthew, it was Mary and another woman named Mary, and an angel met them there. In Mark, it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, and a young man met them. In John, it was Mary alone; no one met her.” Supposedly, these “differing” accounts are so blatantly contradictory that no further examination need be applied to them. When we apply proper reasoning to this allegation, however, we see there are no contradictions.

For instance, what if John mentions one Mary while Matthew mentions Mary and another woman named Mary? This difference is not a contradiction. John would have had to qualify his statement by saying that “only” Mary or Mary “alone” went to the tomb. Did you notice that Eichenwald includes the word “alone” with Mary, but the biblical text never does? Just because one writer gives additional or supplemental information does not make him contradict the other account. [For more information, see the A.P. article titled, “The Resurrection Narratives” (Butt, 2002).] Consider Eichenwald’s own statement that at the Council of Nicaea, “Constantine arrived wearing jewels and gold on his scarlet robe and pearls on his crown.” Suppose that another person were to say that Constantine arrived with numerous courtiers and was wearing boots. Would that statement be a contradiction? Not in any way. Such accusations barely deserve to be answered—if it were not for their prevalence.

Two Accounts of Creation?

Eichenwald further suggests that “biblical scholars have concluded that two Jewish sects wrote many of the books. Each prepared its version of the Old Testament, and the two were joined together without any attempt to reconcile the many contradictions” (2014). Once again, the Newsweek writer conveniently mentions only those “biblical scholars” who happen to agree with him. What about the thousands of scholars that do not agree with this specious position? As an example of these “doublets,” he states: “The next time someone tells you the biblical story of Creation is true, ask that person, ‘Which one?’ Few of the Christian faithful seem to know the Bible contains multiple creation stories…. Careful readers have long known that the two stories contradict each other.” In truth, careful readers have long known just the opposite. As Wayne Jackson concluded: “When the texts of Genesis 1 and 2 have been considered carefully, one thing is clear: an objective evaluation reveals no discrepancies, nor is a dual authorship to be inferred. Devout students of the Bible should not be disturbed by the fanciful, ever-changing theories of the liberal critics” (See the A.P. article, “Are There Two Creation Accounts in Genesis?” [Jackson, 1991; Cf. McGarvey, 1910, p. 66]). [NOTE: In his section dealing with such doublets, Eichenwald mentions that “biblical scholars” have concluded that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. The evidence, however, reveals that Moses certainly did write these books. See the A.P. article “Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch—Tried and True” (Lyons, 2003; cf. McGarvey, 1902).]

The article also uses the Flood story as an example of doublets causing contradictions. Eichenwald says the “water flooded the earth for 40 days (Genesis 7:17), or 150 days (Genesis 7:24).” His careless use of the Scripture is painful to endure. The text does not say in Genesis 7:17 that the Flood stopped after 40 days. It simply details things that occurred at that time, such as the waters lifting the ark off the ground. The text in Genesis 7:24 specifically says that at the end of 150 days the water began to decrease. The previous 7:17 says nothing about the complete duration of the Flood or when the waters stopped rising. [NOTE: For an exhaustive list of answers to these types of alleged contradictions, see A.P.’s Web site category titled “Alleged Discrepancies.”]

Sunday As the Christian Day of Worship

The title of the Newsweek article, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,” explains much about the author’s method of bashing. He approaches the subject in light of the idea that many Christians do not read or understand the Bible. One of the author’s grievous faults, however, is that it is apparent that he does not read or understand the Bible either, and he writes in a way that betrays this fact. For instance, when discussing the Christian day of worship, Eichenwald suggests that Constantine was responsible for establishing it as Sunday instead of the Sabbath (or Saturday). He alleges:

Things that are today accepted without much thought were adopted or reinforced at Nicaea. For example, the Old Testament was clear in declaring that God rested on the seventh day, making it the Sabbath. The seventh day of the week is Saturday, the day of Jewish worship and rest. (Jesus himself invoked the holiness of the Jewish Sabbath.) The word Sunday does not appear in the Bible, either as the Sabbath or anything else. But four years before Nicaea, Constantine declared Sunday as a day of rest in honor of the sun God…. Many theologians and Christian historians believe that it was at this moment, to satisfy Constantine and his commitment to his empire’s many sun worshippers, that the Holy Sabbath was moved by one day, contradicting the clear words of what ultimately became the Bible (2014).

Notice the author’s tactic. First, he says that both the Old Testament and Jesus invoked the Sabbath (our Saturday) as holy. Then he states that the Bible never even uses the word Sunday. And, lastly, he implies that Christians were not “officially” worshiping on this day prior to Constantine, but that Constantine changed the day of Christian worship to Sunday.

Eichenwald’s assertions regarding the day of Christian worship contradict both biblical and historical fact—and are easily answered. First, he confuses the issue when he says that the word “Sunday” is not even used in the Bible, since none of our modern names for the days of the week are used in the Bible. The term “Saturday” does not appear. You will not read the terms “Friday” or “Monday” in the original text either. Such is to be expected. The real question is: did the writers of the Bible have their own designation for the day that we call Sunday? Of course they did; it was called “the first day of the week,” Saturday (or Sabbath), being the last or seventh day of their week. We could ask, then, do we read about anything in the New Testament happening on the first day of the week? Absolutely. In fact, Jesus rose early “after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn” (Matthew 28:1). Christians were to come together to give money to support the church’s work every “first day of the week” in the city of Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:2). And the book of Acts explains that the Christians gathered to partake of the Lord’s Supper (referred to as “breaking bread”) on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7).

Early Christian writers that lived in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries verify this truth. As Eric Lyons wrote in the A.P. article titled “Did Paul Want Christians to Come Together on Saturday or Sunday?”:

Ignatius wrote in his letter to the Magnesians (believed to be penned around A.D. 110) how Christians “have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day” (1:62, emp. added; cf. Revelation 1:5). And, in chapter 67 of his First Apology (written around A.D. 150), Justin Martyr noted how Christians would gather together “on the day called Sunday” to read the writings of the apostles and prophets, instruct, pray, give, and eat of bread and wine (2005; see also the A.P. article, “The First Day of the Week” [Lyons, 2006]).

Biblical scholar Robert Milligan wrote, “That the primitive Christians were wont to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on every first day of the week is evident…. During the first two centuries the practice of weekly communion was universal, and it was continued in the Greek church till the seventh century” (1975, p. 440).

In addition to these facts, Eichenwald seems to be totally unaware of the overwhelming testimony of the New Testament that the Old Testament has been fulfilled and removed. Yes, the Old Testament mandated worship on the Sabbath—for the Jews; but Christ’s death and resurrection changed the law. As the Hebrews writer so concisely observed, “In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete” (8:13). And again Paul wrote that the Old Law, “was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:25). Christians no longer sacrifice animals as the Israelites did, they no longer celebrate the Passover, and they no longer hallow Saturday as the Holy Day. Those are vestiges of the Old Law that have been removed. For Eichenwald to misunderstand such clear and repetitive New Testament teaching is disappointing to say the least. The testimony of the New Testament and early Christian writers proves that Sunday was the Christian day of worship centuries before Constantine arrived on the scene.

Jesus and Family Values

In the first paragraph of his article, Eichenwald caricatures certain “Christian” fanatics and caustically attacks them, demanding that “they are God’s fraud’s, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch.” As we have seen throughout this review, Eichenwald is often guilty of the very tactics he condemns others for using. As an example, consider his statements concerning Jesus and family values. He wrote:

Some of the contradictions are conflicts between what evangelicals consider absolute and what Jesus actually said. For example, evangelicals are always talking about family values. But to Jesus, family was an impediment to reaching God. In the Gospel of Matthew, he states, “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (2014).

Talk about cafeteria style Bible interpretation! Eichenwald conveniently fails to include the fact that one of Jesus’ dying statements was to ensure that His mother was taken care of after His death (John 19:26-27). He leaves out the fact that Jesus’ apostles insisted that husbands are called to love their wives and give their very lives to protect them (Ephesians 5:25). In addition, children are to honor their parents (Ephesians 6:1), fathers are to train and discipline their children (Ephesians 6:4; Hebrews 12:7-11), families are to financially support their own (1 Timothy 5:8), and wives are to love their husbands and their children (Titus 2:4). In addition, Jesus insisted that God is like a loving Father who longs for the return of His children (Luke 15:11-32). It is only possible to question Jesus’ and the apostles’ family values if a handful of verses are ripped from their context.

What is Jesus really saying when He mentions that His followers are to “forsake” families or homes for His cause? The easy-to-understand message here is that a relationship with Jesus must be the most important relationship in the life of His followers. That means if a spouse were to demand that a Christian participate in pagan idol worship or the spouse was going to leave, then with much sadness but firm resolve, the Christian should let the spouse leave and not join in the pagan idol worship. If Hindu parents insist that if their college son becomes a Christian they will disown him, that son should follow Christ and be disowned by his parents. We can all understand that a person should never commit murder, theft, or adultery to preserve a close relationship with family or friends. Jesus was merely stating that the relationship with Him is the most important. [See the A.P. article “Hate Your Parents—or Love Them?” Butt, 2004).]

Has the Bible Been Corrupted?

One of the longest sections of the Newsweek article deals with the idea that the Bible has been corrupted over time, that we do not really know which books belong in the Bible, and that translation errors are so plentiful that we do not have the original message. Yet these allegations have been confronted and refuted time and time again. [Cf. A.P.’s soon-to-be released video series titled, “Has the Bible Been Corrupted?” in which such assertions are debunked.] Many books over the years have masterfully answered the skeptic in this regard, including such volumes as J.W. McGarvey’s Evidences of Christianity, F.F. Bruce’s The Canon of Scripture, Bruce Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament, and a host of others. The Newsweek article manifests abysmal, inexcusable ignorance of the long established facts of the matter.

For example, Eichenwald states that we do not have the original message of the Bible because the originals are lost and the translations are filled with errors and variations. He claims that

no television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times (2014).

Supposedly, according to Eichenwald, since we don’t have the originals, and our translations are from copies that were written in other languages, there is no way we have actually read the Bible.

This naïve, uninformed view of message transmission cannot be maintained in light of the evidence. Are we to believe that since we have never seen Eichenwald’s original article that he personally typed or penned, then we cannot have the information he intended to present? Is it true that since some people read the article on-line, but others in printed form, then the original message is hopelessly lost? Is it true that anyone who reads the article in a language other than English has never really read the article, since it would be a translation? What Eichenwald and other skeptics are attempting to do is suggest that it is impossible to pass information accurately from one language to another, or from one printed page to another; but that suggestion is simply not true. If it is possible for a person to copy accurately a message once, it is possible to do so twice, and so on.

When we approach the Bible, we must simply ask, “Do we have the message that the original authors penned?” When we explore that question, we discover that the books of the New Testament are the most extensively verified books of ancient history. If we deny the Bible is verified, then we are saying that it is impossible for any information to be conveyed accurately from the past to the present. The skeptics’ attack is not against the Bible, per se; it is against the idea that we can know anything from ancient history. If it is possible to know what any writer has ever penned, then the skeptic’s accusations against the Bible cannot be sustained. When Eichenwald states, “And what biblical scholars now know is that later versions of the books differ significantly from earlier ones,” he implies there are so many variations in the manuscripts that the original message has been lost. This misleading exaggeration is a typical ploy by those who wish to discredit the integrity of the text of the Bible. What’s more, when he states, “Scribes added whole sections of the New Testament, and removed words and sentences that contradicted emerging orthodox beliefs,” he unwittingly admits that scholars have been able to identify and isolate those very words and sentences! In actuality, those manuscripts wherein scribes manifested doctrinal bias are in the small minority, do not represent the mass of manuscripts, and are identifiable.

Due to length constraints, a detailed analysis of textual variants is beyond the scope of this article. However, the sincere inquirer may easily access the analyses that have been made on each passage. For example, for a thorough discussion of the last 12 verses of Mark, see Miller, 2005; Scrivener, 1861, pp. 429ff; et al. For a discussion of the manuscript support pertaining to the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), see Scrivener, pp. 439-443; Woods, 1989, p. 162; McGarvey, 1974, p. 16; Metzger, 1971, pp. 219-222; Jackson, 2011, p. 161; et al. For 1 John 5:7, see Woods, 1962, pp. 324-326; Metzger, 1971, pp. 716-718. For Luke 22:17-20, see Metzger, 1971, pp. 173-177. Any standard text on textual criticism discusses these and many other variants (e.g., Aland and Aland, 1987). If the reader desires the truth regarding the authenticity and integrity of the Bible, the evidence is available—if the individual is willing to spend the time and effort to weigh that evidence and arrive at the proper conclusion (1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1).

What Eichenwald fails to divulge are several facts that completely undermine and discredit his attack on the integrity and transmission of the Bible:

1. God knew that the original autographs would not survive, and that His Word would have to be transmitted through the centuries via copies. The transmission process is sufficiently flexible for God’s Word to be conveyed adequately by uninspired, imperfect copyists.
2. We know how the original New Testament books read because we have three surviving classes of evidence by which to reconstruct the original New Testament: Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic citations.
3. The current number of Greek manuscript copies containing all or part of the New Testament now stands at 5,795. This amount of manuscript evidence for the text of the New Testament is far greater than that available for any ancient classical author.
4. The time between the writing of the original books of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copies is relatively brief.
5. Although no two manuscript copies agree in every detail, the degree of accuracy achieved by most scribes was remarkably high. The vast majority of textual variants involve minor matters that do not alter any basic teaching of the New Testament. No feature of Christian doctrine is at stake.
6. Suitable solutions to these differences are detectable. Even if they weren’t, the original reading is one of the extant options. And even those variants that some might deem “doctrinally significant” pertain to matters that are treated elsewhere in the Bible where the question of genuineness/certainty is unquestioned.
7. We can confidently affirm that we have 999/1000^ths of the original New Testament intact. The remaining 1/1000^th pertains to inconsequential details.

These observations have been verified by the greatest textual critics and linguistic scholars of the past two centuries. Their conclusions have not become outdated, but remain as valid today as when first formulated. If the integrity of the text of the Bible was fully authenticated in their day, it remains so today. Consider the following statements by some of these world class authorities.

Scholarly Verification of the Purity of the New Testament Text

F.F. Bruce (1910-1990) was a biblical scholar who taught Greek at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leeds, chaired the Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield, received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Aberdeen University, and served as the Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester. He wrote over 40 books and served as Editor of The Evangelical Quarterly and Palestine Exploration Quarterly. Bruce declared: “The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the N.T. affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice” (1975, pp. 19-20, emp. added). As if anticipating the Newsweek article, he also stated:

In view of theinevitable accumulation of such errors over so many centuries, it may be thought that the original texts of the New Testament documents have been corrupted beyond restoration. Some writers, indeed, insist on the likelihood of this to such a degree that one sometimes suspects they would be glad if it were so. But they are mistaken. There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament (1963, p. 178, emp. added).

Bruce further insisted:

Something more ought to be said, and said with emphasis. We have been discussing various textual types, and reviewing their comparative claims to be regarded as best representatives of the original New Testament. But there are not wide divergencies between these types, of a kind that could make any difference to the Church’s responsibility to be a witness and guardian of Holy Writ…. If the variant readings are so numerous, it is because the witnesses are so numerous. But all the witnesses, and all the types which they represent, agree on every article of Christian belief and practice (1963, p. 189, emp. added).

Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was also a scholar of Greek, the New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism, serving as professor at Princeton Theological Seminary for 46 years. He was a recognized authority on the Greek text of the New Testament. He served on the board of the American Bible Society, was the driving force of the United Bible Societies’ series of Greek Texts, and served as Chairperson of the NRSV Bible Committee. He is widely considered one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20^th century. Metzger stated:

…even if we had no Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together the information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the contents of the New Testament. In addition to that, even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth of the early church fathers (as quoted in Strobel, 1998, p. 59).

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) was a British bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham and holding the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge. His colleague, Fenton John Anthony Hort(1828-1892), was an Irish theologian who served as a Professor at Cambridge. Together, they pioneered the widely recognized Greek text The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. They are still considered to be renowned textual critics. They forthrightly asserted:

With regard to the great bulk of the words of the New Testament…there is no variation or other ground of doubt…. [T]he amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text. Since there is reason to suspect that an exaggerated impression prevails as to the extent of possible textual corruption in the New Testament…we desire to make it clearly understood beforehand how much of the New Testament stands in no need of a textual critic’s labours (1882, pp. 2-3, emp. added).

These peerless scholars also insisted: “[I]n the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writing” (p. 278, emp. added). They add: “The books of the New Testament as preserved in extant documents assuredly speak to us in every important respect in language identical  with that in which they spoke to those for whom they were originally written” (p. 284).

Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921) was a Professor of Theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. He is considered to be the last of the great Princeton theologians. In his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Warfield insightfully observed:

[S]uch has been the providence of God in preserving for His Church in each and every age a competently exact text of the Scriptures, that not only is the New Testament unrivalled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use, but also in the abundance of testimony which has come down to us for castigating its comparatively infrequent blemishes…. The great mass of the New Testament, in other words, has been transmitted to us with no, or next to no, variation (1886, pp. 12-13,14, emp. added).

Richard Bentley (1662-1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian who served as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and was the first Englishman to be ranked with the great heroes of classical learning. He was well-known for his literary and textual criticism, even called the “Founder of Historical Philology,” and credited with the creation of the English school of Hellenism. Here are his comments on the integrity of the New Testament text:

[T]he real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edition, but is dispersed in them all. ‘Tis competently exact indeed even in the worst manuscript now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them (1725, pp. 68-69, emp. added).

Sir Frederic George Kenyon (1863-1952) was a widely respected, imminent British paleographer and biblical and classical scholar who occupied a series of posts at the British Museum. He served as President of the British Academy from 1917 to 1921 and President of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. He made a lifelong study of the Bible as an historical text. In his masterful Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, Kenyon affirmed:

One word of warning…must be emphasized in conclusion. No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. Constant references to mistakes and divergencies of reading…might give rise to the doubt whether the substance, as well as the language, of the Bible is not open to question. It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church is so large, that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world (1895, pp. 10-11, emp. added).

In his monumental The Bible and Archaeology, Kenyon further stated:

The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established (1940, pp. 288-289, emp. added).

Indeed, “the Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear of hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, faithfully handed down from generation to generation throughout the centuries” (1895, pp. 10-11).

Samuel Davidson (1806-1898) was an Irish biblical scholar who served as Professor of Biblical Criticism at Royal College of Belfast and Professor of Biblical Criticism in the Lancashire Independent College at Manchester. He authored many books on the text of the Bible. Referring to the work of textual criticism, Davidson concluded:

The effect of it has been to establish the genuineness of the New Testament text in all important particulars. No new doctrines have been elicited by its aid; nor have any historical facts been summoned by it from their obscurity. All the doctrines and duties of Christianity remain unaffected.… [I]n the records of inspiration there is no material corruption…. [D]uring the lapse of many centuries the text of Scripture has been preserved with great care…. Empowered by the fruits of criticism, we may well say that the Scriptures continue essentially the same as when they proceeded from the writers themselves (1853, 2:147, emp. added).

Frederick H.A. Scrivener (1813-1891) was a prominent and important New Testament textual critic of the 19^th century. Having graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, he taught classics at several schools in southern England. His expertise in textual criticism is self-evident in that he served as a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee (Revised Version), edited the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis and several editions of the Greek New Testament, collated the Codex Sinaiticus with the Textus Receptus, and was the first to distinguish the Textus Receptus from the Byzantine text. In his A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Scrivener admitted:

[O]ne great truth is admitted on all hands—the almost complete freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare suspicion of wilful corruption; the absolute identity of the testimony of every known copy in respect to doctrine, and spirit, and the main drift of every argument and every narrative through the entire volume of Inspiration…. Thus hath God’s Providence kept from harm the treasure of His written word, so far as is needful for the quiet assurance of His church and people (1861, pp. 6-7, emp. added).

J.W. McGarvey (1829-1911) was a minister, author, educator, and biblical scholar. He taught 46 years in the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky, serving as President from 1895 to 1911. He summarized the point: “All the authority and value possessed by these books when they were first written belong to them still” (1974, p. 17).

Elias Boudinot (1740-1821) was a prominent Founding Father of America. He served in the Continental Congress (1778-1779, 1781-1784), as its President in 1782-1783, and was the founding president of the American Bible Society. In his refutation of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, Boudinot explained: “[T]he facts upon which the Christian religion is founded, have a stronger proof, than any facts at such a distance of time; and that the books which convey them down to us, may be proved to be uncorrupted and authentic, with greater strength than any other writings of equal antiquity” (1801, p. 239, emp. added). This Founding Father’s view of the purity of the text of the New Testament was the view of the vast majority of the Founders.

With all the kindness one can muster, these imminent, well-studied, competent, peerless scholars, whose expertise in the field of Textual Criticism is unsurpassed, are far more qualified and accurate in their assessment of the credibility, integrity, and authenticity of the biblical text than the author of the Newsweek article.

conclusion

Here is the deeply disturbing predicament of our day:

• Outstanding scholarship of bygone days fully demonstrated the authenticity and integrity of the text of the Bible, forcefully refuting the skeptics to the extent that the skeptics gained little traction in western civilization. The textual evidence that has come to light in recent decades has added even more weight to the arguments for biblical integrity.
• But in recent years, such honest biblical scholarship has been succeeded by those who do not possess the same burning desire to seek the truth, but instead want to maintain their own infidelic agenda.
• These biased unbelievers have the brazen effrontery to foist false information upon their unsuspecting victims who are completely unaware of the facts and ill-equipped to handle the onslaught.
• Due to the propaganda to which the average citizen has been subjected (in an education system that long ago abandoned the pursuit of the truth)—professors and magazine writers know they will go largely unchallenged by the bulk of society.

Indeed, it is unfortunate that such articles as Eichenwald’s even need answering. There was a time when this type of anemic propaganda against the Bible would have immediately been dismissed for the slanted, biased, foolishness that it is. IfChristians will arm themselves with the evidence, and “always be ready to give a defense” to those who are attacking the Truth, God may grant that we see those times again. [NOTE: Those who are fearful that the integrity of the text of the Bible is compromised by the reality of textual variants need to be reminded that the world’s foremost textual critics have demonstrated that currently circulating copies of the New Testament do not differ substantially from the original (see Miller, 2005a, “Is Mark…,” 25[12]:89-95; Miller, 2010).]

REFERENCEs

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland (1987), The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Bentley, Richard (1725), Remarks Upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking (Cambridge: Cornelius Crownfield).

Boudinot, Elias (1801), The Age of Revelation (Philadelphia, PA: Asbury Dickins), http://www.google.com/books?id=XpcPAAAAIAAJ.

Bruce, F.F. (1963), The Books and the Parchments (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell).

Bruce, F.F. (1975 reprint), The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Bruce, F.F. (1988), The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).

Butt, Kyle (2002), “The Resurrection Narratives,” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=294.

Butt, Kyle (2004), “Hate Your Parents or Love Them?” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=781.

Davidson, Samuel (1853), A Treatise on Biblical Criticism (Boston: Gould & Lincoln).

Eichenwald, Kurt (2014), “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,”  http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html.

Ignatius (1973 reprint), “Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians,” The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Jackson, Wayne (1991), “Are There Two Creation Accounts in Genesis?” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1131.

Jackson, Wayne (2011), A New Testament Commentary (Stockton, CA: Christian Courier).

Justin Martyr (1973 reprint), “The First Apology of Justin,” The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Kenyon, Sir Frederic (1895), Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode).

Kenyon, Sir Frederic (1940), The Bible and Archaeology (New York: Harper & Row).

Lyons, Eric (2003), “Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch—Tried and True,” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=36.

Lyons, Eric (2005), “Did Paul Want Christians to Come Together on Saturday or Sunday?” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=23&article=1575.

Lyons, Eric (2006), “The First Day of the Week,” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=2022.

Lyons, Eric (2011), “When Did Jesus Go to Egypt?” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=4132.

McGarvey, J.W. (1902), The Authorship of Deuteronomy (Cincinnati, OH: Standard).

McGarvey, J.W. (1910), Biblical Criticism (Cincinnati, OH: Standard).

McGarvey, J.W. (1974 reprint), Evidences of Christianity (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).

Metzger, Bruce (1968), The Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press).

Metzger, Bruce (1971), A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies).

Miller, Dave (2003), “The Genealogies of Matthew and Luke,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=932.

Miller, Dave (2005), “Is Mark 16:9-20 Inspired?” Reason & Revelation, 25(12):89-95, December, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=572&article=433.

Milligan, Robert (1975 reprint), The Scheme of Redemption (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).

Scrivener, F.H.A. (1861), A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co.).

Strobel, Lee (1998), The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Warfield, Benjamin B. (1886), An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton).

Westcott, B.F. and F.J.A. Hort (1882), The New Testament in the Original Greek (New York: Harper & Brothers).

Woods, Guy (1989), A Commentary on the Gospel According to John (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).

Woods, Guy (1962), A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).

The post Newsweek Article’s Attack on the Bible: So Misinformed It’s a Sin appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Perhaps the most dominant viewpoint in biblical studies concerning the biblical text is that the Bible contains significant amounts of mythology borrowed from Israel’s neighbors (although we should quickly add that truth is not determined by majority opinion). This presumption has dominated biblical studies for nearly two centuries. But as additional texts have surfaced, more cautious scholars have backed away from this viewpoint. Indeed, myth was once seen as pure fiction, but now scholars are beginning to realize that this may not necessarily be the case. The belief that myth may contain small nuggets of historical truth is gaining popularity, even if we recognize that tales of the gods were nothing more than the work of inventive scribes. So where does this leave the Bible? The question we must ask is this: is the Bible pure myth, or is it something else?

We must first determine what we mean by “myth.” It is a notoriously difficult term to define, and scholars use it with a variety of nuances (see Kreeft and Tacelli, 1994, pp. 212-213). Some define it as any story including the supernatural. Most separate myth from legend, with the former being stories about the gods, and the latter being stories—with varying degrees of historical truth—about human beings. In modern parlance, some use it to refer to fiction, especially the body of stories about a particular character (e.g., the mythology of Superman or Captain America). But if we look at the term as it bears on the sacred texts of the religions in the ancient Near East, it has a clearly defined usage.

In his book The Bible Among the Myths, Old Testament scholar John Oswalt notes the radical differences between mythological texts and the Hebrew Bible (2009). The Bible and ancient myth came from two fundamentally different worldviews. Although he identifies nearly a dozen different points, we will examine four in particular.

THE MORAL CHARACTER OF DEITY

In the Bible, God’s moral character is    identified with holiness and righteousness. To be more accurate, it is His character that defines holiness. His attributes set the standards for behavior. They are ethically and morally pure and upright. Furthermore, since He is perfect and cannot fundamentally change (Malachi 3:6), He can become neither any better nor any worse. His goodness is celebrated throughout the Bible (Psalm 16:2; 31:19; 107:1). He cannot be tempted or tempt another (James 1:17), or look upon evil with any measure of approval (Habakkuk 1:13). Individuals mirror God’s holiness, in part through ethical living (Leviticus 11:44; 1 Peter 1:16).

The gods of the ancient Near East often commit evil acts and frequently give themselves over to debauchery. In Egyptian myth, the chaotic god Seth murders his brother Osiris and dismembers the body. In an Egyptian myth titled “The Contendings of Horus and Seth,” Seth attempts to rape his nephew Horus during a contest over who will take Osiris’ place (Lichtheim, 2006, 2:219). Rape is a common theme in the Greek myths, where women and even goddesses are violated with a frequency that would shock many modern readers. In the Atrahasis Epic, the gods are outraged because humanity is keeping them awake at night. They attempt to silence humanity through various means, including disease and famine, and finally send a flood to destroy humanity for the sake of a good night’s sleep (see Foster, 1997). The gods are not above getting drunk, either. In one Ugaritic text, called “The Myth of El’s Banquet,” the Canaanite god El (or Ilu) becomes inebriated, and on his way home meets an unidentified animal which causes him to soil himself and fall down into his own excrement (see Pardee, 1997). Such inglorious stories are nowhere to be found in the Bible about God. The God of the Bible can in no way be compared to deities of human invention.

THE VIEW OF MANKIND

The biblical account of mankind’s creation is the most complete and noble of any in ancient Near Eastern literature. Other accounts of man’s creation must be pieced together from various fragments (as in Egypt), or else depict man as little more than an afterthought (as in Mesopotamia). Regardless of the specific tradition, the requirements are clear: man is created to serve the gods, to perform services for them, and, should they fail, incur divine wrath. As Walton observes:

while Israelites viewed man as created to rule, Mesopotamians viewed him as created to serve…. The fact that the Israelites viewed man as the centerpiece of creation afforded him a certain dignity, undergirded by the fact that he was created in the image of God. In contrast, Mesopotamians did not see man as created with dignity. Human beings achieved their dignity by the function they served (1989, p. 29).

He adds that humanity was originally created “in a barbarous state,” with humanity being “an unplanned afterthought, created for the sake of convenience” (p. 30).

The biblical account of Creation is vastly different from its Near Eastern counterparts. Man is the apex of creation. He has dignity because of who he is, not what he does. He is created as a kind of governor or viceroy charged with stewarding God’s creation (Genesis 1:28). Furthermore, this creation was prepared with man in mind (cf. Genesis 1:29-30), for his use and enjoyment. Although he is also created to worship his Creator, it is not a wearisome task. The New Testament further reveals that worship is also meant for the benefit of fellow believers (Acts 2:46-47; Ephesians 5:19), in addition to giving honor to God.

THE REQUIREMENTS OF DEITY

What the gods required of humanity in other cultures could not be known with any accuracy. The most a person could do was to infer the will of the gods based on their circumstances. If all was well and life was going smoothly, then it was apparent that the person was indeed doing the gods’ will. Should they suffer misfortune or tragedy, it must have meant that the person had offended the gods. It became their task to determine which god they might have offended through omens and offer the appropriate sacrifices. This was no easy task, and could be viewed as something of a guessing game. In contrast, God clearly outlined what He expected of mankind with precision through His spokesmen. His will is revealed clearly as a matter of public record, made known through readings to the people (Deuteronomy 31:9-13). The people were warned before punishment, rebuked afterwards, and told specifically what needed to be done to please God.

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The biblical authors had a worldview by which history was viewed as linear. The past, present, and future all had great importance. Specifically, the past served as a reminder, which God makes clear is important enough to signify with memorials, such as piles of stones (e.g., Joshua 4:19-24), or the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-39). The future is also important in the biblical worldview, as we see in the prophet Joel’s concern about the coming Day of the Lord (Joel 2:1-11), or Christ’s teaching about His impending return (Matthew 24:30; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The biblical writers considered all phases of time to be important.

There was virtually no understanding of history in the modern sense among the cultures of the ancient Near East. The Near Eastern view of history was cyclical and assigned little importance to the past or to the future. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484-425 B.C.) is called the “father of history” for good reason—prior to his time there was little or no recording or analysis of the past for its own sake. Historiography, as we know it, did not exist (an exception may be seen in the Babylonian chronicles, which record the history of Babylon from the eighth century through the third century B.C.). The past had very little importance outside its use as propaganda by monarchs interested in glorifying themselves (see Oswalt, 2009, pp. 111-137).

CONCLUSION

Mythology is much more than exciting stories filled with fantastic monsters, magic, and imaginative details. It is a way of thinking—a worldview. Careful comparison of the biblical text with myth makes it clear that the Bible and ancient Near Eastern mythology are not merely different from one another—they are radically so. Even a cursory reading is enough to give most people a feeling that the Bible and myth are quite different, even if they immediately may not be able to put their finger on why. Thanks to the discovery and study of ancient texts, the differences are easy to detect. The Bible, unlike Near Eastern mythology, has an air of dispassionate objectivity that puts it in a category by itself. The Bible and ancient mythology are so different from one another that any allegations of wholesale borrowing on the part of the biblical authors must be rejected by those who handle the ancient evidence with care.

REFERENCES

Foster, Benjamin R., trans. (1997), “Atra-Hasis” in The Context of Scripture, Vol. 1: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill).

Kreeft, Peter and Ronald Tacelli (1994), The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press).

Lichtheim, Miriam (2006), Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume 2: The New Kingdom (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).

Oswalt, John N. (2009), The Bible Among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Pardee, Dennis, trans. (1997), “Ilu on a Toot” in The Context of Scripture, Vol. 1: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill).

Walton, John H. (1989), Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

The post Did the Hebrew Writers Borrow from Ancient Near Eastern Mythology? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

One of the most curious success stories is that of Bart Ehrman. A professor at the highly respected University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ehrman took many people by surprise when his book, Misquoting Jesus, rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. No one could have ever predicted that a book about textual criticism would have been so popular. After writing several bestselling books, appearing on talk shows, and receiving invitations to speak all across the United States, he could nearly be called an academic celebrity.

Ehrman’s style is popular-level and easy to read. It is also highly critical of the Bible. Those who have followed Ehrman’s career will note that he has grown increasingly strident in his criticism over time. In Misquoting Jesus he argues that the New Testament’s authors were guilty of inserting errors, often by mistake. In Jesus, Interrupted he muses that Christian scholars and ministers are somewhat dishonest about the “problem texts” of the Bible. Now he says that the New Testament authors were not just mistaken—they were liars.

In Forged: Writing in the Name of God, Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, Ehrman contends that a number of New Testament books were forgeries created by others who had no connection to Jesus. His goal is to expose the alleged deception practiced by the early church, or at least those who wrote these supposedly fraudulent texts. Some of Ehrman’s assertions include: (1) Peter was illiterate and could not have written 1 and 2 Peter, (2) six of Paul’s epistles are forgeries, and (3) 1 Timothy is a forgery that has been used to oppress women. Throughout the book he claims repeatedly that he holds the same view to which the majority of scholars subscribe, although he rarely cites any authors who agree with him.

PSEUDEPIGRAPHY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

In Forged, Ehrman discusses the subject of pseudepigraphy—the writing of books under false names—in the first few centuries of the early church. Although he has addressed the issue in previous books, this is his most extended discussion of the topic. According to Ehrman, there were two different types of pseudepigraphical books included in the New Testament. First, some books were supposedly published anonymously but later had authors’ names attached, such as the Gospels (although this could not have been possible, since the early church was virtually unanimous on their authorship. If they had been published anonymously, there would be no end to the debate). Second, some were forged in the names of other authors, usually biblical figures of considerable significance. This practice abounded in the early centuries of the church. Examples include the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas, as well as numerous other gospels, apocalypses, and epistles. The second category is where Ehrman places six of Paul’s epistles.

Determining the authorship of any particular work is an oft-debated topic among scholars, given the fact that an author’s language may be influenced by a number of factors. While some scholars were incredibly skeptical of the Pauline authorship of several of the apostles’ letters a half century ago, scholarship has undergone some level of self-correction. Concerning Ehrman’s assertions that the majority of scholars deny the Pauline authorship of nearly half of Paul’s epistles, professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and St. Andrews University, Ben Witherington III states:

In fact the majority of English speaking commentators and specialists on documents such as 2 Thessalonians, Colossians and Ephesians think these documents also should be attributed to Paul, whatever scribes he may have used to produce them. I ought to know. I have researched and written commentaries on all these books. How many commentaries on books of the New Testament has Bart researched and written? None. Not one. And he should not be taken as a reliable guide on what the majority of commenting scholars think about these matters (2011).

In the case of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, as Witherington notes, scholars are becoming less dogmatic about the non-Pauline authorship of these letters. Donald Guthrie surveyed the Pauline authorship of these letters—as well as the difficulties in denying it—and concluded: “There has yet to be a satisfactory explanation of the composition of the Pastorals from the point of view of pseudonymous authorship” (Guthrie 1990, p. 62). Little has changed since Guthrie wrote those words. Ehrman does nothing to add to the discussion, doing little more than restating the same kinds of arguments that Guthrie and others since have found to be both tired and unsatisfactory.

NO DISCUSSION PERMITTED HERE

One of Ehrman’s constant problems is his refusal to admit that opposing opinions could be true. Rather than engaging in the kind of diplomatic language that is common among scholars, he dogmatically asserts his view as correct. There is virtually no interaction with opposing views. On the rare occasion when he might mention another viewpoint, it is dismissed quickly. He illustrates this approach in Jesus, Interrupted when he says that some of his conservative “students refuse to listen—it is almost as if they cover their ears and hum loudly so they don’t have to hear anything that might cause them to doubt their cherished beliefs about the Bible” (2009, p. 14). It does not appear to occur to him that his students may be intelligent in their own right and have investigated the issue for themselves. Apparently, conservative believers aren’t the only ones who allegedly engage in this practice. Those who write books critical of the Bible appear to be equally guilty.

Witherington has long been critical of Ehrman’s refusal to interact with scholars with whom he disagrees. This is especially true in the case of scholarly treatments of who scribes were and how they went about practicing their craft. Forged includes a discussion of the production of ancient documents, but Witherington notes that Ehrman seems to have given little thought to the role and duties of scribes in the ancient world. In other words, he is concerned with texts, but not with how they were produced or by whom. He explains:

I need to say from the outset and on first glance that there appears to be a rather large lacunae in the argument of this book, namely the failure to do this study after having studied in depth ancient scribal practices and the roles of scribes in producing ancient documents in ancient Israel.  For example, I see no interaction whatsoever in this book with the landmark study of Karel Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, in which it is demonstrated at length that scribes played a huge role in collecting, editing, and producing ancient documents, and that it was indeed a regular practice to name a scroll after either the originator of the tradition, or the first or a major contributor to the tradition (2011, italics and underline in orig.).

As in nearly all of his other popular-level books, Ehrman explains some of the things he considers to be contradictions. But the manner in which Ehrman describes these difficulties leaves the reader with the impression that in the last 2,000 years of biblical studies no one has ever thought through the difficult texts of the New Testament. To be sure, some of these problems are challenging (though none is without an adequate answer), but Ehrman leaves the impression that the only people who believe these supposed contradictions can be solved are those with a pre-commitment to biblical inerrancy. It is yet another example of Ehrman’s failure to interact with other viewpoints. Critics can accept the supposed reality of contradictions all too quickly, and Ehrman proves himself no exception. In an interview on the “Kirkus Reviews” website, Ehrman says:

The only people who take offense so far as I can tell are those for whom this kind of historical scholarship is blasphemy. My response to such people is that they need to look not only at the results of scholarship [as I lay them out in my books] but also at the evidence that makes these results convincing to scholars of all sorts of persuasions, Christian and non-Christian alike. The evidence that supports my claims in Forged is extremely compelling to most people who examine it (Pike, 2011, emp. in orig.).

As always, Ehrman presents his findings as the “result of scholarship,” implying that real scholarship—whoever or whatever that might be—agrees with him. In reality, numerous scholars disagree with him—not to mention the fact that the majority of his conclusions are simply false, regardless of the opinions of scholars. He consistently claims that his view is that of the majority, although he provides no defense of this assertion, nor does he point to other scholars who share his views. Instead, he engages in the curious habit of referring back to his own work rather than that of the mass of unnamed experts who allegedly agree with him.

In an article on the Huffington Post’s website, Ehrman insists:

Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible might contain errors—a faulty creation story here, a historical mistake there, a contradiction or two in some other place. But is it possible that the problem is worse than that—that the Bible actually contains lies?

Most people wouldn’t put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle—Peter, Paul or James—knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery (2011b).

Why is this alleged consensus of scholarship not forthcoming about the “truth” of these lies, mistakes, and contradictions? According to Ehrman, many scholars are ministers and professors who have to serve the needs of their clientele (see Ehrman, 2009, pp. 13-14). Ministers don’t want to be honest because either it conflicts with their personal faith, or they fear being fired by their elderships. Professors really do know the truth, Ehrman claims, but they cannot be honest about it, because they largely teach in colleges, seminaries, and divinity schools. They cannot denigrate the very texts they are teaching to Christian students without suffering repercussions from their constituency. Simply put, Ehrman implies Christian scholars are dishonest, if not duplicitous, and have engineered a conspiracy to keep the populace from learning the “truth.” Conspiracy theories like this have no place in any serious discussion of these issues.

THE CRITICS AREN’T ALWAYS CORRECT

On-line reviews of Ehrman’s work seem to fall into one of two main categories: (1) New Testament scholars who have critiqued Ehrman’s work and point out his tendency to sensationalize the issues, make unsubstantiated assertions, and downplay or ignore evidence that does not agree with his position, and (2) skeptics with an obvious lack of biblical knowledge who lament that the “fundamentalists” are too mired in their faith positions to take Ehrman seriously. That the latter group demonstrates little discernable awareness of the former is somewhat ironic.

In an interview on Salon.com, Gary Kamiya begins with the words, “Bart Ehrman’s career is testament to the fact that no one can slice and dice a belief system more surgically than someone who grew up inside it” (2009). Even so, those on the outside with little knowledge of the subject often make critical errors in their assessment of the situation. Like many other reviewers, Mr. Kamiya seems to be unfamiliar with the literature produced by scholars that answers Ehrman’s claims, points out his errors, and calls attention to the deficiencies in his work.

Though he is respected in academia for his work in textual criticism, Ehrman consistently proves he is no theologian. He continues to trot out some very strange arguments, such as the idea that the New Testament teaches women can only be saved by having children (2011a, pp. 94,100,103; see also 2006, p. 237). There is no question that 1 Timothy 2:15 is a difficult verse (Miller, 2005), but to think that Paul is actually saying that women can only be saved by bearing children borders on, if not crosses over into, the ridiculous. For Paul, salvation is not works-based (Ephesians 2:9). Surely Ehrman knows better than this, since he repeatedly touts his training at conservative denominational schools like Moody Bible College and Wheaton College. If he was as serious a student as he claims in his books, then he should know that this interpretation is both unbiblical and unsustainable.

Ehrman gives the impression that he is like other critics of the Bible who are interested in criticism rather than truth. While he claims to be a “happy agnostic” and repeatedly affirms that he is not a Christian, it seems that he has retained all the passion and zeal of an evangelist, if not an apologist. Indeed, a few have gone even farther and called him a “reverse fundamentalist.” This is not too far off the mark, as his tone over the course of the last couple of decades seems to have gotten much more combative. His earlier books had a softer approach, discussing the issue of unintentional “mistakes” and “errors” in the Bible. Forged straightforwardly and repeatedly labels the biblical authors as liars. One wonders if he has not taken a few steps down the same path as the new atheists, whose book sales are roughly proportionate to the amount of vitriol they contain. For example, as of July 2007, Richard Dawkins’ caustic The God Delusion vastly outperformed Daniel Dennett’s softer Breaking the Spell, selling 500,000 copies to Dennett’s paltry 64,000 at a rate of 9:1. If this is any indicator, then Ehrman’s new book should do well. This also brings up questions concerning Ehrman’s motivation for increasing public awareness about the “truth” of the Bible. In earlier works like Misquoting Jesus and Jesus, Interrupted he presents himself as a simple informer seeking greater levels of biblical awareness for the general public. Now he seems to be a crusader, or worse, a profiteer.

Ehrman is a highly entertaining storyteller. He has a vast knowledge of extrabiblical works full of fanciful miracle stories. He clearly believes that the Bible is not too different than these outrageous books, but his skill in pointing out their absurdities makes his own position more difficult to maintain. It is apparent that extrabiblical books were not inspired. Recounting their preposterous fictions only highlights their differences from the New Testament. The biblical authors did not include material featuring talking crosses, levitating virgins, bizarre miracles, and divine mischief. They concerned themselves with reporting historical facts. The uninspired authors seemed much more interested in telling weird stories.

Ehrman promises much but delivers little. Like his other published works, Forged makes grand claims supported with surprisingly little evidence, shows almost no interaction with other viewpoints, and, perhaps most importantly, continues to trot out the same tired arguments even though they have been answered by New Testament scholars in sources ranging from published books and articles to blogs and websites on the Internet. One of the strong points of Ehrman’s work is that he is a fine storyteller. For a respected academic, it is too bad that he has sullied his own reputation by offering materials that look less like the truth and more like tall tales.

REFERENCES

Ehrman, Bart D. (2006), Peter, Paul, and Mary: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Ehrman, Bart D. (2009), Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) (New York: HarperOne).

Ehrman, Bart D. (2011a), Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (New York: HarperOne).

Ehrman, Bart D. (2011b), “Who Wrote the Bible and Why it Matters,” March 25,  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/the-bible-telling-lies-to_b_840301.html.

Guthrie, Donald (1990), The Pastoral Epistles (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).

Kamiya, Gary (2009), “Jesus is Just Alright With Him,” April 3, http://www.salon.com/news/environment/atoms_eden/2009/04/03/jesus_interrupted.

Miller, Dave (2005), “Female Leadership and the Church,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/article/1407.

Pike, William E. (2011), “‘Forged’: Bart Ehrman on the Bible’s True Authors,” March 23, http://www.kirkusreviews.com/blog/question-and-answer/forged-bart-ehrman-bibles-true-authors/.

Witherington, Ben (2011), “Forged—Bart Ehrman’s New Salvo—The Introduction,” March 30, http://www.patheos.com/community/bibleandculture/2011/03/30/forged-bart-ehrmans-new-salvo-the-introduction/.

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Why did God wait approximately 20 years after the church was established to begin writing the New Testament? Why such a long span of time?

A.

Normally when we discuss the penning of the New Testament, we do so in view of the fact that God inspired men to write about Jesus and His will for the church within only about 20-65 years of the Savior’s death and resurrection. Perhaps even more impressive is the abundant amount of evidence for the New Testament’s first-century origin. Due to the volume of ancient manuscripts, versions, and citations of the New Testament documents, even many liberal scholars have conceded that the New Testament must have been completed by the end of the first century. Whereas the extant copies of Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, Tacitus, and many others are separated from the time these men wrote by 1,000 years, manuscript evidence for the New Testament reaches as far back as the early second century, which has led most scholars to rightly conclude that the New Testament is, indeed, a first-century production (cf. Lyons, 2007; Bruce, 1953, p. 16; Geisler and Nix, 1986, pp. 408,475; Comfort and Barrett, 2001). As Irwin H. Linton stated regarding the gospel accounts: “A fact known to all who have given any study at all to this subject is that these books were quoted, listed, catalogued, harmonized, cited as authority by different writers, Christian and Pagan, right back to the time of the apostles” (1943, p. 39).

Still, some wonder why God chose to wait approximately 20 years to begin writing the New Testament. Why didn’t the first-century apostles and prophets begin penning the New Testament as soon as the church was established?

The simple, straightforward answer is that we cannot say with certainty why God waited two decades to begin penning the New Testament. [NOTE: Conservative scholars generally agree that the earliest written New Testament documents, including Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, were likely written between A.D. 48-52.] We could ask any number of questions regarding why God did or did not do something: Why did God wait some 2,500 years after Creation and some 1,000 years after the Flood to write a perfect, inspired account of these events? Why did God only spend 11 chapters in the Bible telling us about the first approximately 2,000 years of human history and 1,178 chapters telling us about the next 2,000? Why did God discontinue special, written revelation for over 400 years (between Malachi and the New Testament)? There are many questions, even specific ones about the makeup of God’s written revelation, that remain unanswered, yet God simply has not revealed this information to us.

Having made that disclaimer, we can suggest a few logical reasons why God waited to inspire first-century apostles and prophets to pen the New Testament. First, the early church had the treasure of the Gospel “in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7), meaning the apostles were miraculously guided by the Spirit in what they taught (Galatians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16). The Spirit of God guided them “into all Truth” (John 16:13). Also, those on whom the apostles chose to lay their hands in the early churches received the miraculous, spiritual gifts of prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, etc. (Acts 8:14-17; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11). Even though the church lacked the inspired writings of Paul, Peter, and John for a few years, God did not leave His new Christians without direction and guidance. In a sense, they had walking, living New Testaments. When the miraculous age ended (1 Corinthians 13:8-10; see Miller, 2003), however, the church would need some type of continual guidance. Thus, during the miraculous age, God inspired the apostles and prophets to put in permanent form His perfect and complete revelation to guide the church until Jesus’ return (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Second, it was necessary for God to delay the writing of the New Testament, instead of penning it immediately following the church’s establishment, because the books and letters that make up the New Testament were originally written for specific audiences and for specific purposes (though they are applicable to all Christians). For example, the epistles that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth could not have been written until there was a church at Corinth. If the church at Corinth was not established until the apostle Paul’s second missionary journey (ca. A.D. 49-52), then Paul obviously wrote to the Christians in Corinth after this time. Furthermore, since in 1 Corinthians Paul dealt with specific problems that had arisen in the church at Corinth (e.g, division, immorality, etc.), he could not have explicitly addressed these matters in detail until after they had come to pass. Thus, there was a need for time to pass before the New Testament documents were penned.

Although some may be bothered by the fact that God waited approximately 20 years to begin penning the New Testament through His inspired writers, we can rest assured that He had good reasons for this relatively brief postponement. Admittedly, God did not explicitly indicate why He delayed putting His last will and testament in written form. Yet logical reasons exist—most notably, the fact that the documents that make up the New Testament were written to specific peoples and for specific purposes.

REFERENCES

Bruce, F.F. (1953), The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), fourth edition.

Comfort, Philip W. and David P. Barrett (2001), The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House).

Geisler, Norman L. and William E. Nix (1986), A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago, IL: Moody), revised edition.

Linton, Irwin H. (1943), A Lawyer Examines the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), sixth edition.

Lyons, Eric (2007), “Inspired Writers and Competent Copyists,” Reason & Revelation, 27[3]:17-23, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=587#.

Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern-Day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking, and Holy Spirit Baptism: A Refutation—Extended Version,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=1399.

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If the Hebrew language originally had no vowels, how do we know we have the Old Testament text as God intended?

A.

It is true that the Hebrew alphabet originally had no vowels. For many centuries, Jews wrote the language without any vowels. But that did not mean that there was any doubt or irresolvable uncertainty about the meaning of the words. When Jews grew up learning their language, just like Americans, they grew up learning how to pronounce words and how to write them. The only reason vowels (which are actually a system of points [dots] and other diacritical markings) were invented was so that Jews who did not speak Hebrew (like the Hellenistic Jewish widows of Acts 6) and non-Jews would be able to pronounce the words. The most widely used pointing system was developed by the Masoretes between A.D. 600-1000 (“The Masoretes and…,” 2002; “Aaron ben…,” 2010). Working primarily in the Palestinian cities of Tiberius and Jerusalem, as well as in Babylonia (modern Iraq), these Jewish scribes/scholars were meticulous in their efforts to preserve the Hebrew text in their transcriptions (known as the Masoretic text). We now know they did an outstanding job, because as the Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered in the 1940s) have gradually been examined, it has become apparent that the condition of the Hebrew text in the second half of the first millennium A.D. was virtually the same as reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls that date back to the first century B.C. Like the New Testament, the text of the Old Testament has been preserved to the extent that Christians may be assured that they are in possession of the Word of God as He intended.

REFERENCES

“Aaron ben Moses ben Asher” (2010), Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/benAsher.html.

“The Masoretes and the Punctuation of Biblical Hebrew” (2002), British & Foreign Bible Society, http://lc.bfbs.org.uk/e107_files/downloads/masoretes.pdf.

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[Editor’s Note: The following article was penned by J.W. McGarvey and originally appeared in the May 27, 1893 issue of Christian Standard, reprinted in McGarvey, 1910, pp. 36-39. While the specific occasion that elicited the article has long since passed, the principles have not, since they still afflict the thinking of modern liberal theologians. We commend this timeless article to your consideration.]

I believe it was Professor Briggs who first introduced the current use of the term “inerrancy” in the controversy about the character of the original Scriptures. If he did not, he at least has given it its chief conspicuity in recent discussions. It is well-known that no intelligent man claims inerrancy for the printed Bibles which we now use, whether in the translations or the original tongues. The question has never had reference to any other than the language of the inspired writers, as distinguished from the alterations and interpolations which have been introduced by copyists and editors. In other words, it has reference to the autographic writing of the authors of the books. Instead of meeting the question fairly, those gentlemen who are so fond of an errant Bible, have taken a great deal of pains to obscure the real issue by throwing dust into the air. Professor Warfield, of Princeton, has an excellent article in the Independent of March 23, in which he scatters this dust, and lays bare the real issue in a most intelligible manner. We quote him:

We have heard a vast deal of late of “the first manuscripts of the Bible which no living man has ever seen,” of “Scriptures that have disappeared forever,” of “original autographs which have vanished;” concerning the contents of which these controversialists are willing to declare, with the emphasis of italics, that they know nothing, that no man knows anything, and that they are perfectly contented with their ignorance. Now, again, if this were to be taken literally, it would amount to a strong asseveration that the Bible, as God gave it to men, is lost beyond recovery; and that men are shut up, therefore, to the use of Bibles so hopelessly corrupted that it is impossible now to say what was in the original autographs and what was not! In proportion as we draw back from this contention—which is fortunately as absurd as it is extreme—in that proportion do we affirm that we have the autographic text; that not only we, but all men, may see it if they will; and that God has not permitted the Bible to become so hopelessly corrupt that its restoration to its original text is impossible. As a matter of fact, the great body of the Bible is, in its autographic text, in the worst copies of the original texts in circulation; practically the whole of it is in its autographic text in the best texts in circulation; and he who will may today read the autographic text in large stretches of Scripture without legitimate doubt, and, in the New Testament at least, may know precisely at what rarely occurring points, and to what not very great extent, doubts as to the genuineness of the text are still possible.

The Professor might have added that this autograph, thus accurately preserved, and now in the hands of every reader of the corrected Greek text of the New Testament, is faithfully represented to the eye of every English reader in the renderings and marginal readings of the Revised Version. For while, as the textual critics make plain to us, seven-eighths of the words of the New Testament are now printed in the very form in which they came from the original penmen, and nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of it absolutely so in meaning; and while we can put our finger on every word about which there remains any doubt; the marginal readings of the revised New Testament enable the reader who knows not a word of Greek to put his finger also on these words, and to know that all the rest are precisely those of the autographs. It is a most mischievous and deceptive device, therefore, originating from the heat of controversy, to speak of the autographic writing of the apostles as though it were lost to the world, never to be known again except by conjecture. Thank God, we have it in a purer form than our fathers had, even back to the early ages of the faith; and with this autographic writing in our hands, we stand before those who would criticize its representations, and say: Gentlemen, show us an error here which by a fair logical process can be certainly charged to the inspired penmen, and we will concede that to this extent their inspiration failed to guard against error. You have not done so yet; for all the specifications which you have made fail of this essential condition. We would caution them also to remember that there is the breadth of the heavens between infinitesimal errors of detail in a very few instances, and such errors as they are constantly charging upon the Scriptures, errors in which multitudes of facts, arguments and inferences in every part of the Bible are discredited at the good pleasure of every opinionated critic. The former would be a puzzle worthy of profound consideration and an earnest effort at solution; but the latter makes the Bible less reliable as a record of facts than Macaulay’s History of England or Bancroft’s History of the United States. We want no such Bible as that, and the coming generation will have none at all if that is the alternative

REFERENCE

McGarvey, J.W. (1910), Short Essays in Biblical Criticism (Cincinnati, OH: The Standard Publishing Company).

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One of the most recent contributions of New Testament scholar and textual critic Bart Ehrman is a book entitled, Jesus, Interrupted. Released in 2009, this book picks up where his earlier work, Misquoting Jesus, leaves off. Ehrman continues his assault on the Christian Faith, assuring believers that his criticism does not controvert Christianity, but informs it. Since this information started him on the journey to agnosticism, it is easy to see how his assertions could be construed as disingenuous.

Raised in a “fundamentalist” Christian home, Ehrman graduated high school and attended the conservative Moody Bible Institute. He continued his studies at Wheaton College in Illinois, and later received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary under the watch of Bruce Metzger, one of the foremost textual scholars of the 20th century. Somewhere along the way, he became increasingly disenchanted with the Christian Faith. Although he was a denominational minister during his time in graduate school, Ehrman has now left his Christian upbringing far behind. He now considers himself a “happy agnostic” (2005, p. 258). Jesus, Interrupted goes farther than his previous work, claiming not only that the Bible is full of scribal errors, but that the gospel accounts are fraught with contradictions and late inventions. In this sense, according to Ehrman, the story of Jesus—the historical man—was “rudely interrupted” by late insertions into the text. Though it has been well received on the popular level, Ehrman’s work has not met with approval from those best quipped to evaluate his claims. In his blog, respected New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III critiques Ehrman’s book, saying,

It is mystifying however why he would attempt to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted which frankly reflect [sic] no in-depth interaction at all with exegetes, theologians, and even most historians of the NT period of whatever faith or no faith at all. A quick perusal of the footnotes to this book, reveals mostly cross-references to Ehrman’s earlier popular works, with a few exceptions sprinkled in…. What is especially telling and odd about this is Bart does not much reflect a knowledge of the exegetical or historical study of the text in the last thirty years. Even in a work of this sort, we would expect some good up to date bibliography for those disposed to do further study, not merely copious cross-references to one’s other popular level books…. The impression is left, even if untrue, that Ehrman’s actual knowledge of and interaction with NT historians, exegetes, and theologians has been and is superficial and this has led to overly tendentious and superficial analysis (2009, emp. added).

Ehrman spends a great deal of time demonstrating what he considers to be problems with the gospel accounts. The discussion includes the nature of authorship, supposed inconsistencies and contradictions, and the idea that the gospel accounts present different accounts of events in Christ’s life. This includes the assertion that no one knows who wrote the gospel records. It was not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as tradition claims, because Jesus’ disciples consisted of “[l]ower-class, illiterate, Aramaic-speaking peasants from Galilee” (2009, p. 106). Someone else far removed from the original historical setting must have written them.

Ehrman overplays the old chestnut that the gospel accounts were written anonymously. They are considered formally anonymous because none ever identifies their author. John’s gospel account gives the “Beloved Disciple” as the one responsible for its writing, and many believe that Mark mentions himself as the young man who runs away while Jesus is arrested (cf. Mark 14:51). Authors in the ancient world often referred to themselves indirectly in their work, and this is as close as any of the gospel accounts come to identifying their authors.

While the evangelists did not sign their work, this is a far cry from not knowing who wrote the gospel accounts. There was virtually no dispute in the early church over who wrote each one. If they had truly been written anonymously, there would be no end to the debate. In one sense we could compare the book of Hebrews to the gospel accounts. Like the gospel records, it, too, is formally anonymous. However, no one really knows who wrote it, and no less than a half dozen possibilities are cited as potential authors. If the gospel accounts were truly in the same category, the debate over their authorship would have continued to the present.

Ehrman notes that, “[s]tories were changed with what would strike us today as reckless abandon…. They were modified, amplified, and embellished. And sometimes they were made up” (2006, p. 259). He never explains why he chooses to believe that the stories concerning Jesus are legendary or fictitious. Biography, legend, and fiction are different genres, each with its own distinguishing characteristics. This is common fare for Christianity’s critics: to announce the Bible as fiction, legend, myth, or fairy tale without justification or supporting evidence. Ehrman notes:

For nearly twenty-five years now I have taught courses on the New Testament in universities, mainly Rutgers and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In all this time, the lesson that I have found most difficult to convey to students—the lesson that is the hardest to convince them of—is the historical-critical claim that each author of the Bible needs to be allowed to have his own say, since in many instances what one author has to say on a subject is not what another says. Sometimes the differences are a matter of stress and emphasis; sometimes they are discrepancies in different narratives or between different writers’ thoughts; and sometimes these discrepancies are quite large, affecting not only the small details of the text but the very big issues that these authors were addressing (2009, pp. 98-99).

One of the episodes Ehrman cites as a bona fide “error” in the gospel records is Christ’s cleansing of the Temple. John locates this event in the Passion Week, while the Synoptics present the incident early in Jesus’ ministry. So which is it? Which one made the mistake? Actually, it never would have crossed the minds of the ancient audience. The ancients did not insist on chronological accuracy in the same way moderns do. Ancient authors often arranged their material chronologically, but they also arranged it topically, and, in the case of the gospel accounts, theologically. To force an ancient work written in another culture to conform to modern Western standards is scholastic arrogance at its worst.

Many moderns put the Bible under a literary microscope, analyzing every chapter, every verse, every word. In the eyes of hostile critics, even the tiniest difficulties balloon into monumental testaments to the inaccuracy and unreliability of the Bible. Ben Witherington makes an interesting point in this regard. He says that we can think of the authors of the four gospel accounts much like painters. Each painted a portrait of Jesus based on his own perspective, as well as the purpose and rationale intended by the Holy Spirit. They selected the material to include in their work, a selectivity that is individualistic in nature. That the gospel writers would highlight different events, or give different angles on the same events, is expected. Modern biographers work the same way. Critics expect the authors to record the life of Jesus with a high-resolution, all-seeing lens. Rather than holding the biblical books to the same standards in use during the time they were produced, critics insist on modern standards in a way that is as unreasonable as it is irrational. To force the ancient text to conform to modern standards is bad interpretive method. It is a fundamental building block of reading ancient literature—the Bible included, of course—that one must seek to understand the context in which the literature is written. One cannot read ancient Greco-Roman literature by modern standards any more than one should read a modern newspaper with the same frame of mind as a citizen of ancient Rome. To continue Witherington’s analogy, this would be like criticizing Leonardo Da Vinci for not using a digital camera to photograph the Mona Lisa.

To point out one supposed contradiction highlighted in Jesus, Interrupted, Ehrman argues there is an irreconcilable difference concerning the death of Judas as recorded in Matthew and Acts. Matthew says that Judas hanged himself and the place became known as the Field of Blood because it was purchased with blood money (Matthew 27:3-9). In Acts, Luke claims that the Field of Blood is called that because, as Ehrman puts it, Judas burst open and bled all over the place. The reading in Acts is not as different as Ehrman suggests. Both accounts agree that the property is purchased with Judas’ money. Luke is ambiguous as to why the field was named the Field of Blood, while Matthew is explicit. Ehrman barely gives a passing nod to suggested attempts to reconcile the two, and downplays them accordingly. It is highly likely that Judas hanged himself, and after death, when the immune system is no longer working, bacteria began to multiply and produced gases that bloated Judas’ body. If the rope broke or Judas’ body fell when others were taking him down, Judas’ body would have ruptured upon striking the ground. This is not imaginative speculation, but the practical stuff of elementary biology.

Another problem in Jesus, Interrupted is the absence of comparative data concerning manuscript evidence from other ancient sources. Other Greco-Roman sources ranging from Greek philosophers to Roman government officials demonstrate far less attestation than the New Testament. The average classical author may have a work represented in only a couple of dozen manuscripts. The oldest copy of these works is often many centuries after the original date of writing. For instance, in the cases of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, their most famous works are represented by a handful of manuscripts dating to the medieval period. Comparing the New Testament to these writings, the Bible has well over 5,700 copies. Roughly a dozen date to within a century of the original authors, and about four dozen exist that date to within two centuries. The earliest copy of a New Testament text is P⁵², otherwise known as the John Rylands papyrus. Housed in the British Library, this fragment of John’s Gospel dates to approximately A.D. 115-135. The contrast between the textual evidence of the New Testament and the manuscript evidence from the classical world could not be more vivid. The noted historian F.F. Bruce recounts the words of Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director of the British Museum: “The interval between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence [is] so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed” (Bruce, 1972, p. 20).

Ehrman plays his hand with considerable calculation. In his The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, he asserts, “there is not a single reference to Jesus or his followers in pagan literature of any kind during the first century” (2008, p. 41). While technically correct, it is somewhat misleading. Josephus is Jewish—and therefore not pagan—yet he mentions Christ in two passages in his Jewish Wars at the end of the first century, references which are undisputed among scholars specializing in Josephan studies. If we were to include the first two decades of the second century, we would have to include several pagan authors: the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus, along with Pliny the Younger, governor of the Roman province of Bithynia.

The assertion that no references to Jesus and His followers exist in the first century has one important qualification that Ehrman seems to have omitted deliberately. While there are no extant references to them known to scholars today, Suetonius and Tacitus would have needed historical records or official documents in order to produce their biographies of the Roman emperors. While these documents no longer exist today, first-century records seem to have been readily available to historians. In other words, these documents did exist, but have perished with the passing of time. Ehrman’s rather misleading statement should have read, “there are no surviving references to Jesus or his followers in strictly pagan literature during the first century A.D. known to scholars presently.”

New Testament scholar Robert Yarbrough points out in Ehrman’s work the  “traditions of (much later) noncanonical gospels are consistently privileged vis-à-vis their canonical counterparts; the assumption is that we must treat their assertions as potential historical fact even though the assertions were not written down for a century, at least, after their putative origin” (2000, p. 366). Ehrman tends to elevate the non-canonical gospel records over those of the New Testament even though they were written centuries after the life of Christ. The constant claim that the gospel accounts cannot be trusted because they were written decades later than the events they describe vanishes, and the non-canonical gospels are considered relatively trustworthy despite the fact that the amount of time that separates them from the events they purport to describe is not decades as with the gospel accounts, but centuries.

As an example of his approach, Ehrman notes that the Gospel of Peter features “[a] giant Jesus and a walking, talking cross,” adding, “It’s hard to believe that this Gospel was ever lost” (2009, p. 209). He seems to think that Christianity was like any other religion, accepting the fantastic with little regard for reality. Many of the extracanonical gospels Ehrman prizes demonstrate the same features. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas has a number of odd miracle stories. The author appears to enjoy telling fantastic stories of weird happenings during the fictional childhood of Jesus, and the more bizarre the better. This provides a vivid contrast with the canonical gospel accounts, which record the happenings of Jesus’ life in sober fashion. It should be no wonder why the Christians dismissed the tall tales of gospels like Peter and Thomas. They preferred believable biographies to other “gospels” that were the ancient equivalent of science fiction.

As a text critic, Ehrman is quite good. As an interpreter he is abysmal. He insists on a rigidly literal interpretation of the text that does not allow for nuances or for passages from one book to complement those from another. In some cases, individual authors may state components of a biblical doctrine individually, but Ehrman forces them into different camps. It seems almost as if his method aims to pit the biblical authors against one another rather than allowing them to work together. In this way, Ehrman is able to create contradictions where none actually exist. In some places, he appears to deliberately distort the theological viewpoint of the biblical authors in order to manufacture divergent viewpoints. He typically notes that scholars have attempted to reconcile these positions, unsatisfactorily as far as he is concerned. After explaining what appear to be perfectly legitimate and convincing solutions to each problem he discusses, Ehrman then reverts to an unorthodox reading of the text and pronounces the difficulty unsolvable.

For Ehrman, the ultimate reason why more people do not know about these supposed contradictions is because the population is largely ignorant—the very problem he seeks to remedy. In his view, scholarship has not written popular-level books, and seminary-trained ministers are unwilling to share this information with their church members. When discussing his view that most of the New Testament books were not written by the actual authors, he asks with incredulity, “why isn’t this more widely known? Why is it that the person in the pew—not to mention the person in the street—knows nothing about this? Your guess is as good as mine” (2009, p. 137). It never seems to cross his mind that seminary-trained ministers and biblical scholars who know about these views find that they fail to agree with the evidence.

Yarbrough makes a powerful point about the cavalier attitude Ehrman takes toward the biblical text: “the early Christians who supposedly invented stories about Jesus…and then believed them were not deconstructionists engaged in teaching careers in comfortable university positions but tradesmen and professionals who knew the daily struggle for survival and were willing to die for their convictions” (2000, p. 370). For those living in the first century, the Christian faith was not a detached system of belief that could be adopted or discarded without consequence. Mistrust, discrimination, and even persecution ever loomed above the heads of the early Christians. Making the choice to follow Christ was a genuine commitment that had real—and often highly unpleasant—consequences.

The reader of Jesus, Interrupted must be careful to sort through Ehrman’s arguments. He is an accomplished textual critic, but allows preconceptions and personal bias to color his conclusions. Rarely, if ever, does Ehrman engage the opposing viewpoint. He seems to delight in manufacturing biblical contradictions and then refuses to allow them to be solved. His work makes it seem as if he has uncovered a secret hoard of biblical knowledge previously denied to all others. To those who are academically equipped to evaluate the truthfulness of Ehrman’s claims, this treasure trove of trade secrets is nothing more than fool’s gold.

Bruce, F.F. (1972), The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press).

Ehrman, Bart (2005), Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperSanFransicso). 

Ehrman, Bart (2006), Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (New York: Oxford University Press).

Ehrman, Bart (2008), The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press).

Ehrman, Bart (2009), Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) (New York: HarperOne). 

Witherington, Ben (2009), “Bart Interrupted—A Detailed Analysis of ‘Jesus Interrupted’ Part 1,” [On-line], URL: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2009/04/bart-interrupted-detailed-analysis-of.html.

Yarbrough, Robert (2000), “The Power and Pathos of Professor Ehrman’s New Testament Introduction,” Perspectives in Religions Studies, Winter, 27[4]:363-370.

The post Jesus, Rudely Interrupted appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article was written by one of A.P.’s auxiliary staff writers. Bryant holds two Master’s degrees, and is completing Master’s study in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, as well as doctoral studies at Amridge University. He has participated in an archaeological dig at Tell El-Borg in Egypt and holds professional membership in the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Archaeological Institute of America.]

Rarely does a scientific program spark interest in the religious community at large. NOVA, a television series noted more for winning awards than stirring controversy, has succeeded in igniting a great deal of discussion about the early origins of Israel and the Hebrew Bible with its landmark, two-hour documentary titled The Bible’s Buried Secrets. Originally airing last year, the documentary covers some of the most pressing issues in biblical archaeology, often coming to surprising and sometimes confusing conclusions.

Producer Paula Apsell said the program, which was in production for more than four years, “represents a mainstream academic perspective on the Hebrew Bible” (“A Q&A With…,” 2008). The majority of modern archaeologists do not believe the Bible is historically accurate, with many arguing that substantial portions of Scripture are legend or myth. This attitude is reflected by Duke University professor Carol Meyers, who said, “most of us start out as naïve Bible readers and take it at face value, not understanding enough or anything at all about how literature was produced in the ancient world where there was no consciousness about the construction of history as such” (NOVA: The Bible’s…, 2008).

Since modern historiography did not exist in antiquity, the prevailing attitude of some is that ancient documents must be approached with a high level of skepticism and even cynicism. This is especially true for documents that are religious in nature. In looking for the “intersection between science and Scripture,” the documentary makes some surprising claims. Unlike sensationalistic documentaries of dubious value, The Bible’s Buried Secrets affirms many biblical events and persons, although it disputes others.

Most Christians today may react with surprise upon hearing the assertion that there was no Exodus or Conquest and that the early Israelites were really native Canaanites. During the last half of the 20th century, mainstream scholarship increasingly adopted the view that ancient Israel was nothing more than Canaanites who developed a culture distinct from the surrounding environment. While documents dating to the period of the Divided Monarchy clearly show a distinct Northern and Southern Kingdom, the earliest period of Israelite history is an academic battlefield.

The single most significant find to date that bears on the earliest history of Israel is the Merneptah Stele. Discovered in 1896 by Sir Flinders Petrie, the monument was originally located in the pharaoh’s mortuary temple in western Thebes. Currently housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the stele mentions the triumph of Merneptah (1213-1203 B.C.) over nine different political groups in Canaan. In this priceless inscription, the pharaoh boasts:

The (foreign) chieftains lay prostrate, saying, “Peace.” Not one lifts his head among the Nine Bows. Libya is captured, while Hatti is pacified. Canaan is plundered, Ashkelon is carried off, and Gezer is captured. Yenoam is made into non-existence; Israel is wasted, its seed is not; and Hurru is become a widow because of Egypt. All lands united themselves in peace. Those who went about are subdued by the king of Upper and Lower Egypt…Merneptah (Hoffmeier, 2000, 2:41).

Dating to circa 1209-1208 B.C., the stele commemorates a military campaign into Canaan at a time when Egypt was still one of strongest military powers in the ancient Near East. With dramatic flair typical of Near Eastern kings, Merneptah boasts about crushing his enemies in Palestine—including Israel. Other political powers in Canaan are mentioned alongside Israel, further suggesting that it, too, is a recognizable entity. If Israel is large enough to be ranked among other established nations, it must have had a sizeable population. There would be little glory for the pharaoh to boast about defeating an obscure group of semi-nomads.

Is Israel nothing more than a group of Canaanites? The manner in which the name Israel is written is worth noting. In the inscription, a hieroglyph known as a throw-stick (used to signify foreign peoples) follows the name of Israel. This sign is followed in turn by a people determinative, a hieroglyph depicting a man and woman sitting down with three vertical strokes (indicating plurality) beneath them. This sign is used to reference a tribal or nomadic people lacking a centralized government. Combined together, these signs paint a portrait that is remarkably similar to the depiction of Israel in the books of Exodus through Judges: a foreign, nomadic, or tribally based people with no king.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets posits that a small group of Canaanite slaves may have escaped from Egypt, providing the kernel for something of a “big fish” story developed into a massive exodus by later scribes. Much of mainstream scholarship would admit this is possible. However, the evidence militates against this idea. Roughly 300 small settlements appear in the Judean highlands in the 12th-13th centuries B.C., dramatically increasing the population of the area. The documentary argues that a collapse of Canaanite city-states left a large number of “have-nots” to strike out on their own, forging a new identity. According to this view, the settlements that many archaeologists label as “Israelite” or “proto-Israelite” are simply nothing more than new Canaanite settlements. There is a great deal of difficulty harmonizing this view with the evidence.

If the settlers are simply Canaanites, why did they take it upon themselves to create a completely new cultural identity? God commanded the Israelites to maintain the difference between themselves and other peoples, including those inhabiting the land of Canaan. They were not to take foreign wives, adopt other religious customs, or make treaties with the native populations (Exodus 23:31-33; 34:12-16; Deuteronomy 7:3-6). This outsider mentality is reflected in one important piece of evidence: there appears to be a prohibition in the new Israelite settlements against pork. In these Judean villages, no pig bones are to be found, even when nearby settlements raised pigs. Kenneth Kitchen notes:

As food, pigs were popular in the Philistine-dominated area in southwest Canaan, were acceptable in the Transjordan…but were seemingly taboo in highland Canaan in the particular region that…is the habitat of earliest Israel in the narratives of Joshua/Judges. The [dietary] practices observed there…do indeed correspond to the limits set by the dietary laws of Lev. 11 (2003, p. 230, bracketed item added).

This restriction on pork is one of the most famous in the Bible (Leviticus 11:1-47; Deuteronomy 14:3-20), but it also serves as an important distinction between the population of Israelite settlements and the surrounding Canaanite culture. While the documentary argues that the Israelites were originally native Canaanites who developed a distinct ethnic identity over an extended period of time, the lack of pig bones in the archaeological record is a sharp break with the surrounding culture. One must explain why these supposed Canaanites stopped eating pork suddenly over a rather broad geographical area.

Avraham Faust of Bar-Ilan University explained in an interview: “The Israelites did not like the Canaanite system, and they defined themselves in contrast to that system” (NOVA: The Bible’s…, 2008). But this assertion goes beyond the archaeological record. It imputes motives to why the Israelites acted as they did, which cannot be located archaeologically and is only one possible interpretation of the evidence. Faust states that the Israelites had an ideology of simplicity, but this observation does not give sufficient cause for why a group of displaced Canaanites developed an identity that was distinct from their neighbors.

The Bible explains the evidence for the differences between Israel and Canaan just as easily, and more reasonably. The same evidence used to support a revolution of the Canaanite “have-nots” could apply equally to a nomadic collection of 12 ethnically and religiously distinct tribes. In contrast to other ethnic groups, Israelite settlements had no temples, palaces, elite residences, or monumental architecture. There is little attempt at artwork—which is consistent with the portrait of a nomadic people, who would not have had time for architectural and artistic pursuits. This lack of artistry matches the description of Israel in the Pentateuch and early historical books.

Some argue that there is little difference between Israelite and Canaanite material culture. The assumption is that the introduction of a new group (the Israelites) would be indicated in the archaeological record by a break in the material culture. Since such a break is not evident, it is assumed that the Israelites did not invade, and were perhaps nothing more than Canaanites. Noted archaeologist William Dever explains:

Archaeologists and anthropologists have developed a few simple, testable “rules” for recognizing when we are dealing with the immigration of new peoples into an area. (1) The new society and culture must have characteristics that are different and distinguishable, usually marked by observable discontinuities in material culture. (2) The “homeland” of the immigrant group must be known, and its culture well understood there. (3) The route by which the postulated immigration took place must be traceable, so that the actual process may be reconstructed. The infiltration/immigration model for early Israel satisfied none of these requirements (2003, p. 73).

While these “rules” are often presented as irrefutable proof against the reliability of the Bible, at least one other group in ancient history left behind little evidence of foreign occupation. Assyriologist Alan Millard points out that circa 2000 B.C. a mass movement of Amorites flooded into the Babylonian empire, taking over a number of cities and establishing their own dynasties (2008, p. 167). This is evident from a large body of written material from the period. Even after this influx of Amorites, the material culture gives no appreciable sign of change. Millard argues that the same thing could have happened with Israel. Since the Israelites were commanded to take over the material culture of Canaan (cf. Deuteronomy 6:10-11), it appears that a nearly seamless transition from the Canaanite culture to an Israelite one is easily explained.

One consideration raised by archaeologists is the introduction of the so-called “four-room house.” This particular architectural feature is so peculiar to ancient Israel that it is called the “Israelite house.” This structure is a typical home featuring a four-room floor plan. Manfred Bietak, the Austrian archaeologist who excavates at Tel el-Daba` (the ancient city of Avaris) notes that he has excavated houses bearing this very floor plan—in Egypt (2003, 29/5:41-49,82-83). If the story of the Exodus is mere fiction, then why is a structure peculiar to ancient Israel, that emerges in Canaan shortly after the time of the Exodus, also found in Egypt in the same region said to have been occupied by the Israelites in the book of Exodus?

Dever sums up the modern approach some scholars take concerning David: “Now, some scholars today have argued that there was no such thing as a united monarchy. It’s a later biblical construct, and, particularly, a construct of modern scholarship. In short, there was no David. As one of the biblical revisionists has said, ‘David is no more historical than King Arthur.’” Although Dever does not personally advocate this position, if David and his kingdom were no more historical than the fabled English king and his court at Camelot, one would expect no evidence of his existence. Yet, the program delves into an important discovery that mentions David by name.

In 1993, Gila Cook discovered a stone fragment with writing on it while working at the city of Tel Dan, whose excavation was headed by the late Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran. Known as the Tel Dan Stele, the documentary dramatizes its discovery, but no drama could adequately capture the monumental importance of the find. Written in Aramaic, the fragment reads: “I slew mighty kings who harnessed thousands of chariots and thousands of horsemen. I killed the king of the House of David” (Millard, 2000, 2:162). The fragment alludes to no less than eight biblical kings. Although some damaged portions must be reconstructed, the stele almost certainly refers to Hazael’s defeat of Joram and Ahaziah at Ramoth Gilead (2 Kings 8:28-29).

The inscription has generated controversy between scholars who believe that David existed and skeptics who would consign the Hebrew king to the realm of myth. Despite several attempts to provide alternate translations, the simplest way to translate it is as the “House of David.” An attempt by historian Philip Davies to translate the line as the “house of uncle” or “house of kettle” was even lampooned in an issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (Freedman and Geoghegan, 1995, 21:02).

While the documentary discusses the Tel Dan Stele at length, it leaves out another source mentioning the famed Israelite monarch. The Mesha Stele, also called the Moabite Stone, mentions the “house of David” (it also mentions the “house of Yahweh”). Found in 1868 in Dhiban, Jordan, this monument commemorates the successful overthrow of Israelite power in Moab during the reign of Mesha (2 Kings 3:4-9). In the stele, Mesha mentions that for 40 years Moab had been under the thumb of Israel, beginning during the reign of the Israelite king Omri and continuing through the reign of Ahab. Moab gained its independence from the Northern Kingdom in battle, during which Mesha ritually sacrificed his own son in full view of the Israelite army.

The Moabite Stone and Tel Dan Inscription independently reflect a contemporary practice of using the formula “The House of X” when referencing other national powers. This can be seen in Assyrian sources which refer to the Northern Kingdom as the “house of Omri” (Younger, 2000, 2:270), a designation which the Assyrians used in reference to Israel for over a century. Similarly, the reference to the house of David should be interpreted as referring to the actual monarch himself.

While The Bible’s Buried Secrets handles the issue of the United Kingdom in a fairly even-handed way, there are some difficulties with the material presented. The program asserts that there is no writing or monumental building from the period and concludes, “[S]uddenly the kingdom of David and Solomon is less glorious than the Bible describes…David [is] a petty warlord ruling over a chiefdom, and his royal capital, Jerusalem, nothing more than a cow town.” Israel Finkelstein, an accomplished Israeli archaeologist who is somewhat notorious for his controversial dating methods, argues, “David and Solomon did not rule over a big territory. It was a small chiefdom, if you wish, with just a few settlements, very poor, the population was limited, there was no manpower for big conquest, and so on and so forth” (NOVA: The Bible’s…, 2008).

Nevertheless, evidence suggests that the United Monarchy was considerable. The Amarna letters of the 14th century B.C., largely composed of correspondence between the royal court under Pharaoh Akhenaten and minor rulers in Canaan, indicate that Jerusalem (called Urusallim) is already a significant city. Other cities, such as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, have massive, six-chambered city gates bearing the same design, which Israeli archaeologist Amnon Ben-Tor takes as an indication that all three were built during the reign of Solomon (cf. 1 Kings 9:15). In an interview, he explained: “Here we have a wonderful connection of the biblical passages as it shows up in archaeology” (NOVA: The Bible’s…, 2008).

In order to determine the wealth of the kingdom, one must again turn to Egyptian sources. In circa 925, the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq (943-922 B.C.) invaded Palestine (1 Kings 14:25-26). His invasion is clear from a broken portion of a victory stele found at the city of Megiddo. The full name of Shoshenq (the biblical Shishak) is clearly visible on one fragment of the stele. According to the Bible, king Rehoboam of Judah bribed the invading Egyptian forces with tribute taken from the Temple and palace treasuries (1 Kings 14:25-26). Apparently satisfied, Sheshonq turned instead to other prime targets in Palestine. Shoshenq’s invasion is memorialized on the Bubastis Portal at the Karnak Temple in Thebes, where he is portrayed along with scores of cartouches bearing the names of places he looted—115 cartouches that still exist, apart from those that have been worn away over the passage of time.

Shoshenq died a year or two after the invasion. His son, Osorkon I (922-887 B.C.), ascended the Egyptian throne and donated some of the plunder to the Egyptian temples. It was customary for conquering kings to donate a portion of the loot to the temples, but the size of Osorkon’s donation sets it apart from all others. His is the single largest donation in ancient Egyptian history, comprising 383 tons of gold and silver. The question left for the skeptic is this: how did a loose confederation of poor, numerically inferior, semi-nomadic have-nots manage to stockpile such wealth? The evidence clearly argues for a kingdom that is small (in comparison to the larger empires of the Near East), but wealthy—the very portrait found in the pages of Scripture.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets argues that monotheistic religion did not simply burst upon the scene, but was rather the product of a long evolution punctuated by a devastating exile that drove the Israelites to recognize one God. According to this view, the Israelites had to find a way to explain this catastrophic event, which they believed resulted from their own failure.

The program states the commonly held idea that monotheism was purely a late Israelite invention. The proof for this claim, however, is not so convincing. It is true that an important objection to monotheism in the ancient world was the rejection of the idea that one god could manage the Universe single-handedly. The ancients believed it took hundreds, if not thousands, of gods to govern the created order—from objects as large as the Sun to much smaller items such as tools and farm implements. Religion in the ancient world was often an example of micromanagement at its finest.

The documentary reveals that thousands of small figurines depicting a female goddess have been found in Israel. While there is widespread evidence of a female consort being worshipped in addition to Yahweh, the documentary elevates the archaeological evidence over the biblical text. It is true that the discoveries of paganism suggest that many Israelites accepted polytheism in direct violation of God’s commands, but it hardly proves that they had no concept of monotheism. This is especially true when one considers that no physical representations of Yahweh have ever been uncovered, suggesting that the Israelites had some motivation for departing from the otherwise universal practice of depicting the gods. This departure from convention is easily explained by Scripture (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8-9; cf. Exodus 32:7-8), but has no suitable explanation from a purely naturalistic perspective.

Although people in the ancient Near East were accustomed to a plethora of deities, they understood the concept of a single god very early. Looking back at Egyptian history, there was a time when Egypt had something like monotheism during the reign of pharaoh Akhenaten (1350-1334 B.C.). The “heretic pharaoh” adopted the worship of the Aten (the Sun disc) as the sole god of Egypt, and went so far as to chisel off the plural word “gods” (ntrw) from monuments. This Egyptian version of monotheism dates back to the 14th century B.C., close to the time of Moses. The Hymn to the Aten, composed by Akhenaten himself, praises the Aten with language that sounds remarkably reminiscent of Psalm 104. Another important consideration is that monotheism existed—conceptually, at least—in some of the oldest Egyptian sources. For example, in the Egyptian creation stories, the Egyptians believed there was a time in which only the primordial god Amun existed. Although Amun went on to create other gods in the Egyptian myths, the concept of monotheism existed early in Egyptian thought. The assertion of the documentary that monotheism was strictly a late Jewish invention is untrue.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets handles some of the archaeological evidence competently, but viewers on both sides will be frustrated by the program’s even-handedness. Believers will find that the program upholds the belief that David and Solomon really lived. Believers will be frustrated by the denial of Mosaic authorship and the inspiration of Scripture. Critics will celebrate the program’s treatment of Genesis as myth, but lament the discovery of hard evidence that demonstrates the historical accuracy of the Old Testament.

An important consideration excluded from the program—necessary because it does not fall under the purview of archaeology—is the literary evidence from the Old Testament itself. Historical and archaeological evidence will never converge on all points, so there is a degree of caution that must be exercised when handling these sources. Historical texts from any age of human civilization mention a great deal that will be undetectable in the archaeological record, so the historian must use good sense in evaluating the truth claims of his sources. To this effect, one must ask two important questions: Does the story fit available data? And is the story internally consistent?

The heavy influence of Egypt on the Bible is undeniable. This would not be the case if the Pentateuch had been written later. During the 10th-6th centuries B.C., when Hebrew scribes allegedly invented much of the fictional history of Israel, Egypt was the sick man of the ancient Near East, while Mesopotamian empires were on the rise. It is a cultural maxim that lesser civilizations tend to borrow from greater ones. It makes the most sense that if Israelite scribes were inventing a history for the nation, they would have borrowed from Assyria and Babylon rather than from Egypt, whose glory days were far behind her.

In examining the primeval history of Genesis 1-11, one notices that the vast majority of the text is written in prose with very little poetry. This feature is in keeping with the Egyptian style, which used poetry very rarely. Mesopotamian literature, on the other hand, is almost exclusively poetic. The same goes for Canaan. The three great Canaanite literary works, the Baal Cycle, the Aqht Epic, and the Legend of Keret are all written in poetic style. It is most likely that Egyptian influence on Hebrew scribal practices—which fits perfectly with the Hebrews’ presence in Egypt as recorded in Scripture—affected the prose style of writing in the book of Genesis. God, therefore, inspired Moses to use the Egyptian style to which Israel was accustomed.

More evidence of Egyptian influence throughout the early portions of the Bible might be cited. Hoffmeier (1996, pp. 83-84) has compiled a body of evidence arguing strongly in favor of many recorded events, including such minute textual details as the correct price of 20 shekels for a slave in the early second millennium (cf. Genesis 37:28), the lack of mention of Pharaoh’s personal name (consistent with Egyptian custom of refusing to name one’s enemies [p. 109]), and Moses’ request for a religious holiday in Exodus 5:1, which is attested in Egyptian sources (p. 115). The conquest of Joshua 1-11 is written in the “daybook style” that pharaohs (notably Thutmose III) used to record the details of their military campaigns (Hoffmeier, 1994, pp. 165-179). These details, especially those that are time-sensitive, argue sufficiently for an early date of composition for the Pentateuch.

Many have pointed out that it would be odd for the Jews to have created a fictional history in which they emerge from such ignominious origins. Moses, Hur, and Phinehas all have Egyptian names, and Aaron and Miriam may as well. Much of the priestly material has distinct Egyptian parallels, with the tabernacle bearing an unmistakably Egyptian design (Kitchen, 2000, 16:14-21; cf. Homan, 2000, 16:22-33). While it is clear that the design of the tabernacle came from God’s instructions to Moses (Exodus 26), it does so in a way that is familiar to the experiences of a people living in Egypt during the late second millennium B.C. (and thus would be unfamiliar to peoples in other locations and times, disproving the argument that later authors invented the stories).

These facts evoke several questions: If the Israelites were really Canaanites, why the sharp break between the two in terms of culture, literary traditions, and religious ideas? Why does the Bible demonstrate such familiarity with Egyptian culture, especially if the Pentateuch was supposedly written at a time when the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, not Egypt, dominated the ancient Near East? Arguments against the Bible usually generate many more problems than they are able to solve. The fact is, the archaeological evidence corroborates the historicity of the biblical text.

By relegating the composition of the first books of the Bible to the 10th century and later, The Bible’s Buried Secrets effectively denies the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. According to the program, the books arrived at their final forms in about the 6th century B.C. Alleged discrepancies in the text are often cited to support the idea that a number of different authors are responsible for producing these works. According to Michael D. Coogan:

The Documentary Hypothesis is a theory to explain the many repetitions, inconsistencies, and anachronisms in the first five books of the Bible. In its classic form, it says that underlying the Bible are several different ancient documents or sources, which biblical writers and editors combined at various stages into the Torah as we have it today (as quoted in Glassman, 2007).

Proponents such as Richard Elliot Friedman confidently state:

The Documentary Hypothesis is still the most common view in scholarship, and no other model has a comparable consensus, but in the end the question is not a matter of consensus anyway. It is a matter of evidence. And the evidence for the hypothesis is, in my judgment, now substantial and stronger than ever (2008).

Friedman rightly argues that fact is not a matter of opinion, but of evidence. But is his evaluation of the evidence correct?

The Documentary Hypothesis, also known as the JEDP theory, states that there are four main documents of which the Pentateuch is composed, along with centuries of scribal additions and subtractions. Until the 17th century, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was unchallenged. In his 1753 book Conjectures sur la Genèse, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) first proposed that the use of different names for God revealed different documents beneath the text. He did not deny that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but merely stated that Moses edited several preexistent documents together. Over the next three centuries, scholarship became increasingly skeptical that Moses could have authored the material, pointing to such texts as Deuteronomy 34, which was written after Moses’ death.

Concerning the Documentary Hypothesis, The Bible’s Buried Secrets once again departs from the archaeological evidence. It delves into an examination of the text itself, while making selective use of literary evidence. If the Pentateuch reached its final form in the 6th century B.C., with substantial updating along the way, one would expect it to include updated language. In the 10th-6th centuries, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Near East. Since such was the case, one would expect a heavy Aramaic influence on the Bible; yet, the Aramaic portions of the Old Testament are infrequent. Furthermore, the Old Testament has virtually no Persian influence, even though Persia dominated Judean culture at the time critics claim the Old Testament was still reaching its final form. While the program states Israel remained ethnically distinct, we find numerous Egyptian loanwords in the early books of the Bible when Egypt was dominant, and Akkadian loanwords are found in the historical books when Mesopotamian empires ruled the Near East. The Bible shows a small measure of linguistic influence from powerful foreign nations, so it is inexplicable that, immersed as they were in Persian culture during the Exile, the Jews would fail to reflect Persian loanwords in the biblical text.

According to The Bible’s Buried Secrets, the Documentary Hypothesis accounts for supposed repetitions and contradictions that are found in the Pentateuch. There is actually a much simpler explanation. Scribes in the ancient world frequently told stories from different perspectives. For instance, the charge of two creation stories in Genesis (1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-25) is readily explained by the fact that the first covers the events from a cosmic-centered perspective, while the second covers many of the same events from an anthropocentric perspective (cf. Lyons, 2002). As for the alleged repetitions, scribes also told stories in similar ways. The three cases of a patriarch passing his wife off as a sister (Abraham in Genesis 12 and 20; Isaac in Genesis 26) are deliberately crafted in such a way as to call the reader’s attention to all three instances. It is in keeping with the Bible’s presentation of its characters “warts and all” by showing the humanity of the “father of the faithful” as being somewhat faithless on, not one, but two occasions.

The JEDP theory runs into another problem. Scribal practice in the ancient Near East was to copy documents with utter fidelity. An artifact that illustrates the scribes’ practice of copying canonical religious works with precision is the Shabaqo Stone. Named for the Egyptian pharaoh Shabaqo, it contains one version of the Egyptian creation myth. The text on the stone has a number of blank spaces (called lacunae) throughout the text. At the beginning of the inscription, the scribe who copied it says the pharaoh found a scroll “as something that the predecessors had made, worm-eaten and unknown from beginning to end” (Allen, 2000, 1:22). It is clear that the blank spaces of the text were deteriorated portions of the scroll. One immediately notices that there was no attempt to edit the document or fill in the blank spaces with additional material. Even if it meant copying blank spaces, the scribe was intent upon copying it exactly as he saw it.

The Hebrew scribes are frequently charged with editing several documents together, weaving them together into what we know as the Pentateuch. Analysis of the language is not friendly to this viewpoint. Scholar Richard Hess cites a number of studies of the Pentateuch in the last two decades that have dramatically undermined JEDP, ranging from computer analysis of the language to careful scrutiny of supposed duplications within the text (2007, pp. 49-59). Converging lines of evidence are making it increasingly untenable as a theory to explain the origins of the Pentateuch. Even so, the proponents of the theory are as tenacious as ever.

The question of the Bible’s reliability is one that directly impacts the life and faith of every Christian. It is difficult to see putting one’s trust in a book that fraudulently claims to be the Word of God. On the other hand, it is equally foolish to refuse to accept the Bible if it bears the marks of authenticity.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets does not attempt to prove whether the Bible is true, or delve into its claims to be divine revelation from God. Rather, its concern is to fit the biblical stories into their historical and archaeological context. It asks why and when the biblical authors wrote what they did. Yet the truth claims of the Bible are inescapable, and the consequences of accepting or rejecting them as the very Word of God are monumental.

Television documentaries of dubious value frequently guide the viewer along a predetermined path of evidence to arrive at a conclusion that is usually controversial. In this journey, viewers are not presented with other points of view or evidence for other sides of the debate. There is a minimum of intellectual cattle prodding in The Bible’s Buried Secrets, although it may be helpful to point out two key problems. First, the claims of the program are presented as hard science. This is true to an extent. All sciences require some level of interpretation, and archaeology requires more than most. The interpreter’s bias and assumptions can play a rather large role in the analysis of the information, which includes synthesizing massive amounts of data and requires dozens of specializations. Since archaeology involves degrees of subjectivity and ambiguity, it is impossible to claim that it proves the Bible to be the inspired Word of God (though archaeology can confirm and verify the Bible’s historical accuracy). The viewer is left with the impression that science can disprove that the Bible is God’s Word, which is equally impossible.

The documentary also limits itself to the intersection between science and Scripture, which means great quantities of other valuable data are omitted. The exclusion of portions of the full body of evidence impacts the conclusions drawn by the program. None of the program’s tenets is uncontested in scholarly circles, and many of the interviewees are decidedly left-wing. There are few, if any, conservative scholars interviewed, and it is not for a lack of believers involved in Near Eastern archaeology. While scholars on the extreme left get little time, believers get virtually none at all.

In one interview, Bill Dever said, “It’s a waste of time to argue with fundamentalists, and this film doesn’t do it. It’s designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind.” Open-mindedness is an important virtue, but if Christians are to change their minds about the historicity of the events recorded in the Hebrew Bible, a better case, supported by adequate evidence, would have to be made than the one presented in The Bible’s Buried Secrets.

Allen, James P., trans. (2000), “From the Memphite Theology,” in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill).

Bietak, Manfred (2003), “Israelites Found in Egypt: Four Room House Identified at Medinet Habu,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 29/5:41-49,82-83, September-
October.

Dever, William (2003), Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

Freedman, David and Jeffrey C. Geoghegan (1995), “‘House of David’ is There!” Biblical Archaeology Review, 21:02, March/April.

Friedman, Richard E. (2008), “Who Wrote the Flood Story?” NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets, [On-line], URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/flood.html.

Glassman, Gary (2007), “Writers of the Bible,” NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets, [On-line], URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/coogan.html.

Hess, Richard (2007), Israelite Religions: An Archaeological and Biblical Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic).

Hoffmeier, James K. (1994), “The Structure of Joshua 1-11 and the Annals of Thutmose III,” in Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in its Near Eastern Context, ed. Alan R. Millard, James K. Hoffmeier, and David W. Baker (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns).

Hoffmeier, James K. (1996), Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press).

Hoffmeier, James K., trans. (2000), “The (Israel) Stele of Merneptah,” in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill).

Homan, Michael (2000), “The Divine Warrior in His Tent: A Military Model for Yahweh’s Tabernacle,” Bible Review, 16:22-33, December.

Kitchen, Kenneth (2000), “The Desert Tabern-
acle: Pure Fiction or Plausible Account?” Bible Review, 16:14-21, December.

Kitchen, Kenneth (2003), On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

Lyons, Eric (2002), “Did God Create Animals or Man First?” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/513.

Millard, Alan R., trans. (2000), “The Tel Dan Stele,” in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill).

Millard, Alan R. (2008), “Were the Israelites Really Canaanites?” in Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? ed.
Daniel I. Block (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group).

NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets (2008), [On-line], URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/.

“A Q&A With Paula S. Apsell, Senior Executive Producer of NOVA” (2008), NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets, [On-line], URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/apsell.html.

Younger, K. Lawson, trans. (2000), “Black Obelisk,” in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill).

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