A little background on me -- I have taken two years of Greek and the entire second year focused on two things -- translation and textual criticism. I know the ropes and the basic arguments -- my problem with Ehrman is that his book is very one sided and like Jones I find his reasoning flawed.
In responding to Ehrman and Vinny (note Vinny did not say that he agreed with Ehrman but tried to speak for him) I and Jones would like to respond in the following manner.
(1) The rate of variants in the third century manuscripts is greater than the
rate of variants in the fourth century manuscripts. The rate of variants in
the second is greater than the rate in the third. Projecting the trend
backwards points towards the rate of variants being greater still in the
first century.
But what is the nature of those variants. 99% of them are, to be blunt -- insignificant and can be easily corrected -- that means only 4000 variants (roughly) are of any real significance. Of these many can be explained and the best reading discovered. The ones left (In my experience I found only about 25) where it is a toss up what it could read -- both sides of the reading were backed up by other Scriptures. I would also like to point out that as far as variants in the first and second century there are many of the insignificant type not very many significant ones. The fact is all variants can be explained in different ways but none of them is truly shaking to the basic tenets of Christian faith or undermines the history value of the documents.
(2) Origen indicates that the early copying practices were poor.
Yeah and Origen is one of the later church fathers -- he is not early on in the
question of the quality of the first and second century documents being a
late
second third century father. He also could be whining about the quality
of
what he had access to -- being only one witness though he stand alone.
(3) The quotations in the early Apostolic Fathers point towards instability in
the texts.
Instability of what kind -- small scribal errors or wholesale alterations? They really don't say. In think the significance of this is overplayed we don't know specifically at times what they are talking about.
(4) Scholars believe that ancient texts were most susceptible to corruption in
the first hundred years after they were composed.
Which Scholars -- sorry the basic tenet of textual criticism is -- older is better because of less chance of corruption, now were going to contradict this idea because Ehrman's says so? -- Ehrman's might say this but the fact is 'most scholars' is usually code for -- 'the ones that agree with me' See my post "Most Scholars Agree..." The fact is that scholarly debate this point is sharp and contested, a point that Ehrman's omits and I think on purpose.
(5) The earliest copyists might have thought the writings important, but they
did not think of them as scripture.
Jones smashes this notion as both Paul's writings and others are thought of as Scripture and are named as such by other writers including the church fathers. The fact is this is a big whopper of a lie. I have read the earlier church fathers and they refer to many writings of the apostles as 'Scripture". A such they would have been carefully preserved by someone -- to say all early Christians didn't consider these things as Scripture is contradicted by the early lists of books considered Scripture including the hostile witness of Marcion.
(6) Early pagan copyists would not have even had a concept of
“scripture.”
And. Even so a pagan scribe would have still done his job well if a rich client payed him -- his reputation would have depended on it. Rich Christians then could have not only preserved Scripture but hired good scribes to copy them -- a point Ehrman never considers.
In addition, Jones points out many other things that are problems with Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. Misquoting Truth is a good read. Read both books and make up your own mind.
(1) As I understand it, the majority of the significant variants date back to the third century or earlier and the rate of significant variants increases the farther back you go.
ReplyDelete(2) Origen was writing about the state of the manuscripts early in the third century which I think would depend on the copying practices of the second century, although I suppose that he might have been referring to a sudden burst of creativity that was very recent.
(3) I am afraid I don’t have a cite for you on the problems with reconstructing the texts based on quotations in the Apostolic Fathers. I will see if I can track it down.
(4) One such scholar is Michael Holmes, Chair of the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies at Bethel University, in a talk at the 2008 Greer-Heard Forum held at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. “It’s widely recognized in the ancient world that the first century or so of a document’s existence was a critical period for the transmission of the text, a time when alterations or disruptions, if they were to occur, were most likely to take place and for this crucial period in the transmission of the New Testament, we know relatively little.”
There is nothing contradictory between this and the idea that earlier is better. There will still be less corruption after one hundred years than after five hundred years and less still after fifty years. The point is that the total quantity of corruption that takes place from one hundred to five hundred years may be significantly less than the amount that takes place from fifty to one hundred years.
(5) I would be interested to know how Jones accomplishes this “smash.” Clement of Rome is the earliest father and he treats Paul’s writings very differently than the Hebrew scriptures. They may have been thought of as scripture by the time of Irenaeous, but I think that is an understanding that grew over time.
(6) I was thinking more of early pagan converts whose traditions did not include holy books like the Jewish tradition did. I don’t think Ehrman would discount the possibility that some wealthy Christians would have been able to hire good scribes to make their copies. On the other hand, there would likely also have been occasions where copies were made by members of the community with no scribal training.