Textual Criticism: Bart Ehrman's Conclusion

What was the purpose? 

Whereas some readers have gone away from Misquoting Jesus with their faith shaken, I had to ask myself, was that appropriate? I could see someone who isn't educated on evidence, and critically analyzing their faith, getting the idea we can't have the originals. But is this really what Ehrman, the famous agnostic New Testament scholar, one of Christianity's greatest critics, thinks? Because he said this paragraph, all the emphasis's his:

"These are questions that plague textual critics, and that have led some to argue that we should abandon any quest for the original text--since we can't even agree on what it might mean to talk about the 'original' of, say, Galatians or John. For my part, however, I continue to think that even if we cannot be 100 percent certain about what we can attain to, we can at least be certain that all the surviving manuscripts were copied from other manuscripts, which were themselves copied from other manuscripts, and that it is at least possible to get back to the oldest and earliest stage of the manuscript tradition for each of the books of the New Testament. All our manuscripts of Galatians, for example, evidently go back to some text that was copied; all of our manuscripts of John evidently go back to a version of John that included the prologue and chapter 21. And so we must rest content knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the 'original' text. This oldest form of the text is no doubt closely (very closely) related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for our interpretation of his teaching." (1)

Later, he wrote, also with all the emphasis original:

"There are some places where we don't even know what the original text was, places, for example, about which highly intelligent and impressively trained textual critics continue to dispute. A number of scholars--for reasons we saw in chapter 2--have even given up thinking that it makes sense to talk about the 'original' text.

"I personally think that may be going too far. I do not mean to deny that there are difficulties that may be insurmountable in reconstructing the originals: for example, if Paul dictated his letter to the Galatians and the secretarial scribe writing down what he said misheard a word because someone in the room coughed, then the 'original' copy would already have a mistake in it! Stranger things have happened. Even so--despite the imponderable difficulties--we do have manuscripts of every book of the New Testament; all of these manuscripts were copied from earlier manuscripts; and the chain of transmission has to end somewhere, ultimately at a manuscript produced either by an author or by a secretarial scribe who was producing the 'autograph'-- the first in a long line of manuscripts that were copied for nearly fifteen centuries until the invention of printing. So at least it is not 'non'-sense to talk about an original text." (2) 

Obviously he is talking about the very first, completely original, not-copied-from-anything text. His book says scribes made changes. Not authors, scribes. And secretarial scribes, as explained in this quote, heard the information from the actual, first source and penned it down. 

On the next page, he says "we don't have the original words." I gather from the context that what he means by this is that we don't have the completely original words, i.e. the not-copied-from-anything text written by either a scribe close to the author or the early Christian author him-or-herself. He says that the words "had been changed, and, in some cases, lost." So changes do not at all mean not being the original words. Add this to where else he has talked about the vast majority ("far and away" as he put it) of changes being unintentional, and that very, very, very few words are actually lost or indiscernible shines through and true. He may overstate things negative for Christianity and understate what's positive ("in many places [scholars] don't even know what the original words of the Bible actually were," [3] but this "many" isn't relative to all the words and most differences) but that doesn't matter if one is at least enabled enough to sift through Misquoting Jesus.

Wallace said, "You can't interpret the text without certain biases, but we should challenge our biases as much as possible. One way to do that is to look for viewpoints that are shared by more than one group of people. The fact is that all scholars across the theological spectrum say that in all essentials--our New Testament manuscripts go back to the originals. Ehrman is part of a very small minority of textual critics in what he's saying." (4) Ehrman is one of Christianity's biggest critics, and even he doesn't think we can't get most of the original words. The scholars who argue talking about the originals is worthless remind me of Ehrman's contrast to the actual situation with "rational eclecticists" "...a group of odd, elderly, basically irrelevant academics holed up in a few libraries around the world" (5) No offense to them, they can argue their side. But I'm sorry, I think they are wrong, radical, and radically wrong. 

The case in Did Jesus Exist?

Here are some more things with Ehrman. They definitely didn't go along with information that could easily cast the question of textual reliability. Kostenberger and his fellow scholars acknowledge that in Did Jesus Exist?, when Ehrman argues against mythicists, he bases the case for Jesus almost completely on New Testament records. "He would not be able to make such arguments if he did not trust (at least in a general and significant way) the transmission of the New Testament." (6)  

I have a few examples I got just from skimming the book looking for actual quotes. He pointed out that whoever wrote Mark sometimes quoted the New Testament(7). He also once said, in Romans 1:18-32, "Paul states unequivocally." (8)  I remember reading, years ago, when I knew practically nothing about Bart Ehrman or his book, someone arguing Ehrman said he said we don't have the originals, and then talks about the what the originals said. 

And how could we tell which books go back to Paul, unless we have the original Paul???? Surely if the original words had been changed significantly, they wouldn't be strikingly paralleled in writing style, choice of words, and other evidences Pauline scholars learn about. 

I remember coming across in his Did Jesus Exist?, before I read misquoting Jesus but knew about it, and being flabbergasted at what I saw. This shaped a response I thought of if someone argued indications Mark went back to Peter were made up later. I was happy to find out Kostenberger and the other scholars caught it too(9): 

"One way that some mythicists have gotten around the problem that this, our earliest Christian source, refers to the historical Jesus in several places is by claiming that these references to Jesus were not originally in Paul's writings but were inserted by later Christian scribes who wanted Paul's readers to think that he referred to the historical Jesus. This approach to Paul can be thought of as historical reconstruction based on the principle of convenience. If historical evidence proves inconvenient to one's views, then simply claim the evidence does not exist, and suddenly you're right." (10)

"I should stress that the Pauline scholars who have devoted many years of their lives to studying Romans and Galatians and 1 Corinthians are not the ones who argue that Paul never mentioned the details of Jesus's life... It is only the mythicists, who have a vested interest in claiming that Paul did not know of a historical Jesus, who insist that these passages were not originally in Paul's writings. One always needs to consider their source.

"...there is no textual evidence that these passages were not originally in Paul (they appear in every single manuscript of Paul that we have) and no solid literary grounds for thinking they were not in Paul. Paul almost certainly wrote them. Moreover, if scribes were so concerned to insert aspects of Jesus's life into Paul's writings, it is passing strange that they were not more thorough in doing so, for example, by inserting comments about Jesus's virgin birth in Bethlehem... and so forth." (11)

What's more, Ehrman thinks a scribe added Peter going to the tomb in Luke, to make the text look better(12). So if evidence for Peter in Mark were added in later, it would have to be evidenced, and as an invention it would be more overt.

"The manuscripts of the New Testament do indeed have large numbers of variation in them... But the problem is not of such a scope as to make it impossible to have any idea what the ancient Christian authors wrote. If we had no clue what was originally in the writings of Paul or in the Gospels, this objection might carry more weight. But there is not a textual critic on the planet who thinks this, since not a shred of evidence leads in this direction. And I don't know even of any mythicist who is willing to make this claim. [Ehrman acknowledges there are very intelligent mythicists.] As a result, in the vast majority of cases, the wording of these authors is not in dispute." (13)

Citations:

1. Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (HarperCollins: New York, NY. 2005), 62.

2. Ibid., 209-10.

3. Ibid., 14.

4. Lee Strobel, In Defense of Jesus: Investigating Attacks on the Identity of Christ (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 2007), 75.

5. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 209.

6. Andreas J. Kostenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible B&H Publishing Group: Nashville, TN. 2014), 105.

7.  Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne: 2012), 193.

8. Ibid., 124.

 9. Kostenberger et. al, Truth in a Culture of Doubt, 164-65.

10. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 118, emphasis original.

11. Ibid., 133.

12. Bart Ehrman, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford University Press: Oxford, NY. 2006), 51. 

13. Ibid., 181, emphasis mine.