I need to slip this Skeptical Bible Study blog in here between my others on the book of Daniel. I'm doing this so that I can respond to a number of theists who have claimed that the New Testament deserves its undue credulity.
Giselaprz and ljmitchell are both impressed with the reliability of the bible. Anyone who has followed my Skeptical Bible Study blogs knows I’m not. So there is a difference of opinion. I will take this opportunity to respond to some of their assertions.
Gieselaprz and ljmitchell in the comment sections of blogs mention the number of early New Testament manuscripts and imply that that gives them some authority on being accurate. It is also a claim made by Homunculus in this thread which I did respond to. Much of this blog will repeat what I said there.
First of all, let me say that I think we do have fairly reliable translations of early Christian texts. However, geiselaprz and ljmitchell grossly overestimate the strength of their case. Gieselaprz mentions 5000 Greek manuscripts or the New Testament. In actuality there are probably millions of Greek New Testament manuscripts. But most of them are less than 100 years old. These obviously shed no light on what the original text was. Where did gieselaprz come up with the number 5,000? There are about 5,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts that can be dated to 1000 CE or earlier. Can these shed light on the veracity of the original manuscripts (of which we have none)? Yes, I think somewhat.
The closer we get in time to the original manuscripts the closer we get to what the original text said. 1000 CE is 970 years after Jesus’s crucifixion. That is not very close in time. New Testament scholars seeking to determine what the original text was usually limit themselves to the very earliest texts … those written prior to the council of Nicea in 425 CE.
How many of those texts exist? The answer drops off quite precipitously … 67! Most of those texts are tiny fragments. Quite a few come from a garbage dump located in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. Each only contains a few verses. Therefore they are not of much use in determining the original text either.
Gieselaprz refers to the earliest text being dated to 100 CE. This is a fragment like those described in the paragraph above. It is actually dated some 25 years later, 125 CE. Its text appears to be from the Gospel of John. However it is about the size of 4 or 5 postage stamps.
How many texts are of sufficient size to aide in determining the original text? The answer is that only 9 of the 67 early manuscripts are of sufficient length to really help us out here. The earliest is datable to about 200 CE. That is still 170 years after Jesus’s death.
Here is a list of all the papyruses that have sufficient text to be a useful aide in determining the original text of the New Testament:
P66 = written circa 200 CE is a copy of the Gospel of John
P46 = written circa 200 CE contains Romans - Hebrews
P45 = written circa 250 CE contains the Gospels and Acts
P4 = written circa 250 CE is a copy of Luke
P75 = written circa 250 CE contains Luke and John
P47 = written circa 250 CE is a copy of Revelation
P72 = written circa 300 CE contains James – Jude
That is 7 of them. What about the other 2? These are codices (singular; codex). Papyruses usually are scrolls. A codex is a bound book-like writing. Its pages are usually parchment (sheepskin). It is these two codices that give us almost all the information that we have to tell us what the original text was. They are both dated to about 400 CE … approximately 370 years after Jesus’s death.
So we REALLY do not have all that much to work with that dates back very closely to Jesus’s time at all. So when ljmitchell cites a figure of 99.8% accurate, it is meaningless. Yes, there is a lot of agreement but there is some interesting disagreements as well.
Let’s just compare the two codices, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are the only 2 reasonably complete early copies of the entire bible that we have. But Codex Sinaiticus contains in addition to the canonical books of the bible, two more --- THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS and THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. Whoever collated the codex considered these two books canonical as well.
Codex Vaticanus, on the other hand, adds the books of the apocrypha (which are included in the Catholic canon) except for MACCABEES and THE PRAYER OF MANNASSAS. Interestingly, it LEAVES OUT the canonical New Testament books of 1 TIMOTHY, 2 TIMOTHY, TITUS, PHILEMON, and REVELATION. So whoever collated this had a rather different idea of what should be canonical as well.
Other interesting findings include the omission of certain pericopes (biblical stories) in the canonical Gospels. For instance, no early manuscript includes the story of Jesus saving the adultress from stoning (“You, who are without sin, cast the first stone”). The traditional ending verses in Mark (Mark 16:9-20) are not found in the early manuscripts either. Included in these verses are the pericopes of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, Jesus appearing to two disciples, Jesus commisioning the disciples, and Jesus’s assention into heaven.
In fact, without this traditional ending the ending of Mark is quite awkward. It has caused a lot of people to wonder if there were another ending which was expunged. In 1958, Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University was on sabbatical in the old Greek Orthodox monastery of Hagios Sabbas. He found a letter in the back of an old manuscript supposedly from one of the early Church fathers, Clement of Alexandria. In that letter Clement discusses a “SECRET GOSPEL OF MARK” with a different ending. Smith photographed the letter, before it was lost again never to be seen since. The ending in this Mark is not one that would appeal to most Christians. In it a naked boy stays alone with Jesus through the night while Jesus teaches him the “mystery of the Kingdom of God”.
There is a great deal of controversy over the authenticity of the letter. Even though I am an atheist, I suspect it to be a forgery. But there are plenty of biblical scholars who accept it.
So what can we REALLY make of the early manuscripts? We know that there was a great deal of controversy concerning what was really written about Jesus. We now have a large number of early Christian (Christian in the sense that the authors believed they were presenting the teachings of Jesus Christ) writings that tell stories quite at odds with the canonical texts.
All of these are copies of copies (same as the early texts of the canonical New Testament). New Testament scholars search the texts diligently for clues to help them understand when the original text was written. Same as they do for the canonical texts. Most include much of the canonical text as the earliest Christian writings and the non-canonical texts as being much later. From my readings I think they are likely correct but the methods for dating generally do not allow us to determine the exact dating of the original text with any confidence.
I believe the following dates are about as good as we can come up with, but I would not hesitate to advise you to remain somewhat skeptical of any dates.
For Books included in the New Testament Canon:
(1) 1 Thessalonians – 50 to 60 CE
(2) Phillipians – 50 to 60 CE
(3) Galatians – 50 to 60 CE
(4) 1 Corinthians – 50 to 60 CE
(5) 2 Corinthians – 50 to 60 CE
(6) Romans – 50 to 60 CE
(7) Philemon – 50 to 60 CE
(8) Colossians – 50 to 80 CE
(9) Hebrews – 50 to 95 CE
(10) Gospel of Mark – 65 to 80 CE
(11) Epistle of James – 70 to 100 CE
(12) 2 Thessalonians – 80 to 100 CE
(13) Ephesians – 80 to 100 CE
(14) Gospel of Matthew – 80 to 100 CE
(15) 1 Peter – 80 to 110 CE
(16) Gospel of Luke – 80 to 130 CE
(17) Acts of the Apostles – 80 to 130 CE
(18) Revelation – 90 to 95 CE
(19) Gospel of John – 90 to 120 CE
(20) 1 John – 90 to 120 CE
(21) 2 John – 90 to 120 CE
(22) 3 John – 90 to 120 CE
(23) Epistle of Jude – 90 to 120 CE
(24) 1 Timothy – 100 to 150 CE
(25) 2 Timothy – 100 to 150 CE
(26) Titus – 100 to 150
(27) 2 Peter – 100 to 160
Things to note: Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus have been traditionally attributed to Paul. But scholars think all of them (with the possible exception of Colossians) was written well after Paul died. The reason for this is that all are considered forgeries. Likewise, the epistle of James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, and the epistle of Jude have been attributed to the writings of Jesus’s disciples. However, they too date from beyond their deaths. They too are considered forgeries.
Here is a list of non-canonical writings that we have text of and are datable to the same time period as are the canonical writings:
(1) Didache - 50 to 120 CE
(2) Gospel of Thomas – 50 to 140 CE
(3) Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel – 50 to 140 CE
(4) Sophia of Jesus Christ - 50 to 200 CE
(5) Egerton Gospel – 70 to 120 CE
(6) Gospel of Peter - 70 to 160 CE
(7) Secret Mark – 70 to 160 CE
(8) Fayyum Fragment – 70 to 200 CE
(9) Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs – 70 to 200 CE
(10) Mara Bar Serapion – 70 to 200 CE
(11) Epistle of Barnabas – 80 to 120 CE
(12) 1 Clement – 80 to 140 CE
(13) Gospel of the Egyptians – 80 to 150 CE
(14) Gospel of the Hebrews – 80 to 150 CE
(15) Christian Sybillenes – 80 to 250 CE
(16) Apocalypse of Peter – 100 to 150 CE
(17) Secret Book of James – 100 to 150 CE
(18) Preaching of Peter – 100 to 160 CE
(19) Gospel of the Ebionites – 100 to 160 CE
(20) Gospel of the Nazoreans – 100 to 160 CE
(21) Shepherd of Hermas – 100 to 160 CE
There are quite a few early non-canonical writings that claim to have within them the teachings of Jesus. The first thing to note is that the range in possible dates tends to be higher. Part of the reason is that these books have been less studied. I believe another part is ideological differences based on the scholar’s religious beliefs. Strong believers tend to date them much later than do the more liberal theologians.
Even so, based on the objective criteria of closeness to Jesus, many of these have as good or better claim to being the teachings of Jesus as do some of the canonical writings. But included in these texts are teachings that would be considered blasphemous today. They include such things as denying the divinity of Jesus, the virginity of Mary, and salvation through a belief in Jesus.
So what exactly WERE the REAL teachings of Jesus? No really knows. There is a group of 70+ liberal, (but still theistic) theologians … all experts in their respective fields, all with prestigious appointments at Seminaries and Departments of Religion at well known colleges and universities … who have started a project, the Jesus Seminar, designed to reach consensus on exactly that. They have looked at everything Jesus is supposed to have said according to the 4 canonical Gospels and also the Gospel of Thomas. Their findings … over 80% of what the canonical Gospels say Jesus said was actually unlikely to have been said by him. They find at least one saying in the Gospel of Thomas as likely to have been said by Jesus.
The Jesus Seminar is not without its critics. Evangelical scholars routinely call them atheists. I have read their book, THE FIVE GOSPELS, carefully. And I, being an atheist, don’t find their conclusions overly credible either. While I like that they spell out the exact criteria they used to establish authenticity, I still think it just boils down to, “What Jesus actually said is pretty much what I want to believe he said”. Having said that, I will go on to say that it is the best work that I have come across as to Jesus’s teachings. In other words, as bad as it is, everything else is worse. Instead of being, “What Jesus said is pretty much what I want to believe he said”, work by the evangelicals and others amounts to, “What Jesus said is EXACTLY what I want to believe he said DESPITE ANY EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY.”
Regards,
Darwin’s Beagle
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