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1 Thanks are due to Andreas Köstenberger, editor of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, for his kind permission in allowing me to cannibalize my article, “The Gospel According to Bart: A Review Article of Misquoting Jesus by B. Ehrman,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49 (2006): 327–49, for this chapter.
2 For documentation, see D. B. Wallace, “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism,” Grace Theological Journal 12 (1992): 21–51; and idem, “The Majority Text Theory: History, Methods, and Critique,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, in Studies and Documents, vol. 46, ed. B. D. Ehrman and M. W. Holmes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 297–320.
3 D. O. Fuller, ed., Counterfeit or Genuine[:] Mark 16? John 8? (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Grand Rapids International Publications, 1978), 10.
4 W. Pickering, “An Evaluation of the Contribution of John William Burgon to New Testament Textual Criticism” (Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1968), 93.
5 W. Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1977).
6 Ibid., 126.
7 Ibid., 135.
8 M. Hengel, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 57–58, makes a similar statement about the parallel dangers from “an uncritical, sterile apologetic fundamentalism” and “from no less sterile ‘critical ignorance’” of radical liberalism. At bottom, the approaches are the same; the only differences are the presuppositions.
A good illustration of radical liberalism's critical ignorance about and abuse of textual criticism can be found in T. Freke and P. Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? (New York: Three Rivers, 2001), 145. For this section of material, the authors rely on chap. 4, “How Reliable Are the Manuscripts of the Gospels?” of G. Stanton's The Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1995), 33–48. First, they quote the pagan Celsus's complaint (as recorded in Stanton's book, 35) that Christians had deliberately tampered with the text of the NT. Their comment on Celsus's complaint is that “modern scholars have found that he was right. A careful study of more than 3,000 early manuscripts has shown how scribes made many changes” (Freke and Gandy, Mysteries, 145). The lone documentation to this sentence is Stanton's Gospel Truth, 35. But not only does Stanton mention nothing about 3,000 manuscripts on this page, not only are there nowhere close to 3,000 early manuscripts for the NT (let alone for any other ancient literature!), but Stanton himself does not agree with this assessment! Stanton goes on to quote Origen's response to Celsus that such alterations were made only by heretics. This quotation and Stanton's subsequent discussion are conveniently left out of Freke and Gandy's treatment. Freke and Gandy's selective quoting of the data seems to be driven by the results the authors wish to achieve rather than by an honest pursuit of truth. In the next paragraph they note: “Scholars also know that whole sections of the gospels were added later.” They give the same example we mentioned in the last chapter—Mark 16:9–20. By whole sections apparently they mean one or two verses—and verses that have been excised in modern translations—because there is only one other large block of material that has affected modern translations of the NT, the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11). And, although this passage is a favorite of many Christians, whether or not it is authentic makes no doctrinal significance. Yet Freke and Gandy are clearly giving the impression that we simply cannot trust anything about these manuscripts, that skepticism must rule our hearts. They have not represented either Stanton's treatment or that of other scholars, nor have they considered the evidence with anything that remotely resembles an honest handling of the data.
The same kind of irresponsible use of sources and results-driven approach can be found in a host of KJV-only literature. Chief among them is G. A. Riplinger's New Age Bible Versions (Shelbyville, TN: Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation, 1993). For an accessible critique, see J. White's “Why Respond to Gail Riplinger?” at http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=664.
9 B. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).
10 N. Tucker, “The Book of Bart: In the Bestseller ‘Misquoting Jesus,’ Agnostic Author Bart Ehrman Picks Apart the Gospels That Made a Disbeliever Out of Him,” Washington Post, March 5, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/04/AR2006030401369.html.
11 Ehrman, Misquoting, 90. This is a favorite statement of his, for it shows up in his interviews, both in print and on the radio.
12 Ibid., 89.
13 For a discussion of the nature of the textual variants, see J. E. Komoszewski, M. J. Sawyer, D. B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006). The section that addresses textual criticism, comprising five chapters, is called “Politically Corrupt? The Tainting of Ancient New Testament Texts.”
14 For documentation, see Wallace, “Gospel According to Bart,” 330–31, n. 16.
15 See his statements in Misquoting Jesus, 55, 177, 207.
16 B. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
17 Ibid., 208.
18 Ehrman, Misquoting, 208.
19 See H. L. Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Atheneum, NY: Temple, 1978), 94, 96 for this hermeneutical principle known as Kal Wa-homer.
20 An accessible discussion of the textual problem in these three passages can be found in the footnotes of the NET Bible (www.bible.org) on these texts.
21 For evidence that Mark intended to end his Gospel at 16:8, see D. B. Wallace, “Mark 16.8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel,” in Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views, ed. D. A. Black (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008). For arguments on the inauthenticity of John 7:53–8:11, see the textual critical notes in the NET Bible at this location as well as any critical commentary on John's Gospel.
22 See B. D. Ehrman, “Jesus and the Adulteress,” New Testament Studies 34 (1988): 24–44.
23 Because of this need, several books written for a general audience but backed up with serious scholarship have been recently produced. Among them are C. Evans, Fabricating Jesus; D. Bock and D. B. Wallace, Dethroning Jesus; E. J. Komoszewski, M. J. Sawyer, and D. B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus; B. Witherington, What Have They Done with Jesus? and many others.
24 Ehrman says the reading “occurs in only two documents of the tenth century” (Misquoting Jesus, 145), by which he means only two Greek documents, 0243 (0121b) and 1739txt. These manuscripts are closely related and probably represent a common archetype. It is also found in 424cvid (thus, apparently a later correction in an eleventh century minuscule) as well as vgms syrpmss Origengr (vr), lat MSSaccording to Origen Theodore Nestorians according to Ps-Oecumenius Theodoret1/2; lem Ambrose MSSaccording to Jerome Vigilius Fulgentius. Ehrman does note some of the patristic evidence, underscoring an important argument, viz., “Origen tells us that this was the reading of the majority of manuscripts in his own day” (ibid.).
25 So B. Metzger, Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 595.
26 Ibid. For similar arguments, see F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 70–71, n. 15. The point of the marginal gloss is that in Heb 2:8 the author quotes Ps 8:6, adding that “in the subjecting of all things to him, he left nothing outside of his control.” In 1 Cor 15:27, which also quotes Ps 8:6, Paul adds the qualifier that God was excluded from the “all things” that were subjected to Christ. Metzger argues that the gloss was most likely added by a scribe “to explain that ‘everything in ver. 8 does not include God; this gloss, being erroneously regarded by a later transcriber as a correction of [chariti theou],’ was introduced into the text of ver. 9” (Textual Commentary, 595). For more information, see Wallace, “The Gospel According to Bart,” 338, n. 38.
27 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 149 (italics added).
28 By this I do not mean merely his adoption of chōris theou here. (After all, G. Zuntz, highly regarded as a brilliant and sober-minded reasoned eclectic, also considered chōris theou as authentic [The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum [Schweich Lectures, 1946; London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 34–35].) Rather, I am referring to Ehrman's overall agenda of exploiting the apparatus for orthodox corruptions, regardless of the evidence for alternative readings. With this agenda Ehrman seems driven to argue for certain readings that have little external support. See P. Miller, “The Least Orthodox Reading Is to Be Preferred: A New Canon for New Testament Textual Criticism?” in a forthcoming book on NT textual criticism, title to be determined; edited by D. B. Wallace and published by Kregel.
29 Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 132 (italics added).
30 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 148.
31 Ibid., 149.
32 Ibid.
33 Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 208.
34 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 144 (italics added).
35 The context of Hebrews 5, however, speaks of Christ as high priest; verse 6 sets the stage by linking Christ's priesthood to that of Melchizedek; verse 7 connects His prayers with “the days of his flesh,” not just with His Passion. It is thus not unreasonable to see His prayers as prayers for His people. All this suggests that more than the passion is in view in Heb 5:7. The one datum in this text that may connect the prayers with the passion is that the one to whom Christ prayed was “able to save him from death.” But if the prayers are restricted to Christ's ordeal on the cross, then the chōris reading in Heb 2:9 seems to be refuted, for in 5:7 the Lord “was heard [eisakoustheis] because of His devotion.” How could He be heard if He died apart from God? The interpretive issues in Heb 5:7 are somewhat complex, yielding no facile answers. See W. L. Lane, Hebrews 1–8, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1991), 119–20.
36 D ita d ff2 r1 Diatessaron.
37 B. D. Ehrman, “A Leper in the Hands of an Angry Jesus,” in New Testament Greek and Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 77–98.
38 M. A. Proctor, “The ‘Western’ Text of Mark 1:41: A Case for the Angry Jesus” (Ph.D. diss., Waco: Baylor University, 1999). Even though Ehrman's article appeared four years after Proctor's dissertation, Ehrman was apparently unaware of Proctor's work.
39 Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 132 (italics added).
40 Ehrman, “A Leper in the Hands of an Angry Jesus,” 95.
41 Ibid., 94.
42 For serious weaknesses in his interpretation of Mark's presentation of an angry Jesus, see Wallace, “The Gospel According to Bart,” 341–42, n. 55.
43 See the discussion in the NET Bible's note on this verse.
44 Orthodox Corruption, 92: “Not only is the phrase [oude ho huios] found in our earliest and best manuscripts of Matthew, it is also necessary on internal grounds.”
45 Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 208 (quoted earlier).
46 Ibid., 95: “Scribes found this passage difficult: the Son of God, Jesus himself, does not know when the end will come? How could that be? Isn't he all-knowing? To resolve the problem, some scribes simply modified the text by taking out the words ‘nor even the Son.’ Now the angels may be ignorant, but the Son of God isn't.”
47 Codex X, one Vulgate manuscript, and a few other unnamed witnesses (according to the apparatus of Nestle-Aland27) drop the phrase here.
48 Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 95, 110, 204, 209, 223 n. 19, 224 n. 16.
49 Ibid., 162.
50 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 81.
51 Stratton Ladewig, “An Examination of the Orthodoxy of the Variants in Light of Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture” (ThM thesis, Dallas: Dallas Theological Seminary, 2000); Wallace, “The Gospel According to Bart,” 344–45.
52 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 81.
53 See note 51 for references to texts that invalidate Ehrman's claims.
54 A quick look at Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon also reveals that the substantival function of this adjective was commonplace: 881, def. 7, the term is used absolutely in a host of patristic writers.
55 Modalism (or Sabellianism) is the heresy that God is one person who appears in three different modes (a unitarian view). This is in contrast to the orthodox Christian view—trinitarianism—which affirms that three persons exist in one being who share the same divine essence. For further discussion on the doctrine of the Trinity, see chap. 14.
56 For the case that the NT speaks clearly of Christ's deity, see R. Bowman and J. E. Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007).
57 G. D. Fee, review of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture in Critical Review of Books in Religion 8 (1995): 204.
58 For documentation, see Wallace, “The Gospel According to Bart,” 347, n. 70.
59 An error that the KJV-only crowd often makes.