withallyourmind.net

This is part 8 of a critical review of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus.

Finally, even if all Ehrman’s illustrations are accepted as theologically motivated changes to the text, what does this accomplish? Kruger maintains that we have enough manuscripts in our hands to determine when these changes occurred and to spot them as additions. So, they in fact, accomplish little, if anything. Wallace concludes the following:

In sum, Ehrman’s latest book does not disappoint on the provocative scale. But it comes up short on genuine substance about his primary contention. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of. Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave this book with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain. A good teacher doesn’t hold back on telling his students what’s what, but he also knows how to package the material so they don’t let emotion get in the way of reason. A good teacher does not create Chicken Littles.

Before concluding this review I would like to address a couple of more issues. First, it seems Ehrman has reasoned erroneously to the conclusion that the Bible is merely the product of human effort, lacking divine inspiration. Here is how Ehrman explained he arrived at his conclusion:

If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don’t have the very words of scripture? …The fact that we don’t have the words surely must show, I reasoned, that [God] did not preserve them for us. And if he didn’t perform that miracle, there seemed to be no reason to think that he performed the earlier miracle of inspiring those words.

In response, it is a non sequitur to claim that God could not have inspired the text if it was not copied without error. His “inescapable conclusion” that God had not inspired the New Testament would also require that all translations into every language be errorless. Not only that, but since language changes over time, there would have to be continually updated errorless editions. Ehrman’s requirement would require that God miraculously intervene anytime a person writes or copies scripture for all of human history to make sure they do so without error. Does inspiration actually entail this? This seems obviously ludicrous.

This is the seventh post in a critical review of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus.

Ehrman’s next major contention, and perhaps the most interesting, is that the scribes not only made mistakes, but…

… that sometimes the texts of the New Testament were modified for theological reasons.”

New Testament scholars have long noted that there are good reasons to suspect that this is true. The issue is not whether or not this happened, but it is whether or not Ehrman’s conclusions concerning this practice are justified. Kruger once again raises three points on this issue. First of all, Ehrman does not at all address the numerical significance of these supposed alterations. Intentional alterations make up an extremely small amount of any variations in the text. The author conveniently fails to discuss numbers when it does not support his thesis.

Additionally, and very importantly, Ehrman makes too much of the theological significance of the passages he deals with. One of the passages Ehrman discusses is Mark 1:41 and the question of whether Jesus was compassionate or angry in this case. As New Testament scholar, Dan Wallace, points out in his review, it hardly matters if Mark 1:41 claims Jesus was angry since Mark 3:5 clearly states that he was angry. Another deals with Matthew 24:36, in which “nor the son” is found in some texts but not in others. Again, Wallace illustrates that Mark 13:32, a parallel account, clearly contains “nor the son”, so there is no issue here. Another deals with I John 5:7-8, in which is found an explicit statement about the Trinity. For centuries, scholars have known this passage was a later addition to the text and almost no modern translation includes this passage. The doctrine of the Trinity is not argued from I John 5:7-8. It stands or falls based on the whole teaching of Scripture.

Ehrman’s belaboring the fact that John 7:53-8:11 and the last 12 verses of Mark are almost certainly not part of the original text is also overblown, as this has been acknowledged by New Testament scholars for a long time. While Ehrman’s illustrations may serve to frighten the average layperson, nothing that alters central Christian doctrines is produced in Misquoting Jesus.