Introduction: The Radical Fringe Has Gone Mainstream
Introduction: The Radical Fringe Has Gone Mainstream
In the last 125 years or so, the major attack on the work of the earliest scribes of the New Testament has come from the far right, theologically speaking. Anti-intellectual crackpots have always generated far more heat than light, spewing forth anathemas on any who would dare to think that the oldest manuscripts may reasonably be assumed to represent fairly the original text. Occasionally such a viewpoint, though for the most part with more genteel language, is found in some bona fide scholars. From John Burgon, the antagonist to Westcott and Hort in the late nineteenth century, to Zane Hodges in the second half of the twentieth century, to Maurice Robinson today, an outspoken minority of exclusively conservative scholars has attempted to discredit the testimony of our oldest manuscripts by vilifying their character (or, at least, by seeing them as rather inferior witnesses to the original text).
There has justifiably been a suspicion, however, that even the best of these conservative scholars starts with a theological agenda, whether stated or not—an agenda that dictates their conclusions.2 Occasionally, those who work with the Greek text, and thus in some measure stand apart from the Bible-thumping preachers in America's backwaters, imbibe vitriol. David Otis Fuller, for example, in Counterfeit or Genuine, speaks of modern translations which, to a large degree, are based on the more ancient manuscripts, as “bastard Bibles.”3 Wilbur Pickering, former president of the Majority Text Society, in his master's thesis at Dallas Seminary declared that the most ancient manuscripts came from a “sewer pipe.”4 In his book The Identity of the New Testament Text5—a book which was the gold standard for many years for majority text advocates—Pickering states that “Aleph and B have lied” and that “Aleph is clearly a bigger liar than B,”6 and that all the ancient manuscripts on which modern critical text are based are “convicted liars all.”7
This sort of language might be expected from the ultraconservative wing because their method is dictated, from beginning to end, by their theological presuppositions. But in recent years the attack on the earliest witnesses has also come from the left side of the theological aisle. Just as within theologically conservative circles, there are prolific, though silly, liberal crackpots whose viewpoints should be paid no more attention than what a salmon should pay to a shiny bauble. And, to be sure, there are also New Testament scholars whose expertise is far removed from matters textual but who nevertheless freely opine that the state of the text is in such bad repair that we must abandon all hope of recovering anything remotely close to the original wording.
The KJV-only crowd wants us to believe that the early manuscripts are all corrupt and that we should trust the later, more uniform majority. The radical liberals want us to believe that we can have no assurances about anything regarding the wording of the original text. Nothing is probable; everything is only possible. And this means that nothing can be affirmed. Ironically, both approaches are rather similar: they start with the result they are seeking to prove then address only the evidence that seems to support it. The results drive the method rather than vice versa. This is hardly an honest pursuit of truth.8
Things have changed in the last decade or so, however. By this I do not mean that the scholarship has improved or that the radical fringes have recanted of their circular reasoning. No, what has changed is that some respectable scholars have joined the ranks of the scornful. A trio of well-known, bona fide New Testament textual critics has for the last several years been trumpeting the same horn. Eldon Epp, David Parker, and Bart Ehrman—unquestionable authorities in textual criticism—have begun to show despair, or even disdain, about duplicating the autographic texts. Although they would certainly not agree with the KJV-only or even majority text crowd in their overall views of the text, they are similar in their questioning of the testimony of the early manuscripts. And they are doing it to such an extent that the average reader often sees these scholars as giving up on the quest for the autographs. Ehrman has been the most prolific and the most successful in bypassing peer review and appealing directly to the general reader. In particular, his wildly popular book, Misquoting Jesus,9 has had a huge impact.
Most books on textual criticism sell in the hundreds; Misquoting Jesus has sold in the hundreds of thousands—and all within months of its release in November 2005. Interviews in the The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, among many others, helped to bring visibility to the book in the public arena. Jon Stewart concluded his interview with Ehrman by stating, “I really congratulate you. It's a helluva book!” Within 48 hours, Misquoting Jesus was perched on top of Amazon. It “has become one of the unlikeliest bestsellers of the year.”10 Not bad for an academic tome on a “boring” topic!
One reason this book has done so well is that it appeals to the skeptic who wants reasons not to believe, who considers the Bible a book of myths. It's one thing to say that the stories in the Bible are legend; it's another to say that many of them were added centuries later. Although Ehrman does not say this, he leaves the impression that the original form of the NT was rather different from what the manuscripts now read. Those who have jumped on Ehrman's coattails include such disparate groups as atheists and Muslim apologists—strange bedfellows, indeed, but all united in their a priori assumption that the text of the NT has been severely corrupted by the earliest scribes.