Revisionist Views About Jesus

REVISIONIST VIEWS ABOUT JESUS

Charles L. Quarles

In 2003 Doubleday published the novel The Da Vinci Code, which became one of the most popular and best-selling novels of all time. It was listed for months as number one on The New York Times best-seller list.¹ At present, more than one hundred million copies of the book have been sold.² The novel has been translated into more than forty different languages. The popularity of the novel led to Brown's being named one of the one hundred most influential people in the world by Time magazine and to appearances and interviews on CNN, the Today show, National Public Radio, and in Newsweek, People, GQ, and Forbes magazines. On May 19, 2006, Sony Pictures released a Ron Howard film based on the novel starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. The movie was a box office hit and generated $224 million in ticket sales for its weekend debut, the second highest-grossing debut of all time and just behind the third Star Wars prequel which grossed $253 million.³ According to a study by the Kagan research group, the film was the most profitable movie of 2006.⁴

Even readers who disagree with certain claims of the book generally admit that the novel has a riveting plot and that they found it difficult to put the book down. As the story begins, Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, is in Paris on business. Late in the night, police summon him from his hotel room to assist them in solving the murder of a well-known curator of a famous art museum. Soon after arriving at the crime scene, Langdon discovers that he himself is the prime suspect in the police investigation and that he was summoned by the police in hopes of entrapping him. Langdon, with the help of a beautiful French cryptologist, Sophie, escapes and begins the quest to find the true killer and prove his own innocence.

The novel and, to a lesser extent, the film are a concern to many Christians largely because of a dialogue between Langdon, Sophie, and Sir Leigh Teabing who is described as a “religious historian,” “former British Royal historian,” and whose life passion is research on the holy grail.⁵ In this dialogue Teabing claims that the New Testament Gospels are unreliable accounts that pervert the true story of Jesus. He insists that Jesus was a mere mortal prophet who was deified by Constantine the Great as part of a political ploy for consolidating his own power over the fragmented Roman Empire. He also asserts that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they conceived and bore children and that this sacred bloodline is the true holy grail.

Since this dialogue is fictional and contained in a novel, Christians might be tempted to ignore Teabing's challenges to their faith. Unfortunately, many readers are taking Teabing's remarks seriously because of page 1 of the novel which is introduced by the title in all caps and bold type, FACT. The page affirms the existence of the Priory of Sion, the discovery of the Les Dossiers Secrets, and the existence of Opus Dei, all of which play an important role in the book. The page concludes with the statement: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” Since Brown claims that all descriptions of documents are accurate, many have concluded that Brown has carefully researched the issues Teabing discusses and that this dialogue on the lips of a Harvard professor and British royal historian must surely be an accurate presentation of the facts about the origins of the Christian faith. This fact page coupled with the enormous popularity of the book and the film require thoughtful believers to prepare to respond intelligently to the claims of the Code. Brown claims that he hopes his work will spark a national conversation about issues of faith.⁶ Questions raised by the film provide believers an excellent opportunity to present the historical evidence for the Christian faith.

Several key questions arise for the concerned Christian and for those who wish to explore the historical foundations for the Christian faith.

Providing sound answers to these questions is crucial to fulfilling the biblical mandate that appears in 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (HCSB).

Jesus' Relationship with Mary Magdalene

One of the claims of The Da Vinci Code that has attracted the most attention is the assertion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that their offspring is the true Holy Grail. In the novel Teabing states: “As I said earlier, the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record” (245). This shocking claim is patently false. No single extant ancient document states that Jesus was married to anyone. Although some Gnostic gospels refer to a special relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, not even those gospels refer to a marriage of Jesus to Mary or a sexual relationship between them. Although Teabing later claimed that the Gospel of Philip clearly referred to Jesus' marriage to Mary, this chapter will soon demonstrate that Teabing grossly mishandled the evidence.

Teabing also attempted to establish Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene by appealing to the cultural norms of first-century Judaism. He claimed: “Moreover, Jesus as a married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor” (245). The novel added:

“Because Jesus was a Jew,” Langdon said, taking over while Teabing searched for his book, “and the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried. According to Jewish custom, celibacy was condemned, and the obligation for a Jewish father was to find a suitable wife for his son. If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible's gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood” (245).

Jewish men did normally marry and procreate during the first century. This constitutes the strongest evidence that Jesus may have been married. However, Langdon overstates the evidence. Celibacy was not condemned in Judaism, nor was it unprecedented. Strong evidence suggests that one of the major sects of first-century Judaism was devoted to a celibate lifestyle. Although the Essenes, unlike the Pharisees and Sadducees, are not explicitly mentioned in the New Testament, many people have some knowledge of them due to their association with the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, few know that many of the Essenes remained celibate throughout their entire lives. The celibacy of the Essenes is attested in the writings of Josephus, Philo, and Pliny the Elder (Jos. Ant. 18.1.5; J. W. 2.120-21; Philo Hypoth. 11.14-18; Pliny Nat. 5.15.73). Philo was a contemporary of Jesus. Josephus and Pliny wrote about the Essenes later in the first century.

The celibacy of some Essene groups seems to be confirmed by archaeological evidence. In the cemetery at Qumran, the skeletal remains that have been unearthed are mostly male showing that women were in the minority (possibly as much as one-third) and their entrance into the community was the exception to the norm. Some scholars have suggested during one period of the community's history, men who were already married when they joined the community were allowed to bring their wives with them, but single men were expected to remain celibate.⁷ Other examples of celibacy among the Jews of this period include Banus, John the Baptist, and the Apostle Paul. Josephus' description of the asceticism of Banus, the wilderness prophet with whom he lived for three years, indicates that he was celibate (Jos. Vita 2). Descriptions of John the Baptist and his ascetic and austere lifestyle suggest that he was celibate also. First Corinthians 7 attests to Paul's celibacy.

Langdon argued that celibacy was so unusual for a first-century Jew that one of the Gospels should have mentioned it if Jesus indeed remained unmarried. Although celibacy may not have been so unusual as to demand such a reference, one of the Gospels appears to allude to Jesus' celibacy. Although Jesus clearly held a high view of the institution of marriage, in Matthew 19:12 he affirmed with equal clarity that celibacy was best for some. Jesus said that some were eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God. Most scholars recognize the statement as autobiographical (i.e., as explaining the grounds for Jesus' own celibate lifestyle). Paul likewise defended the appropriateness of celibacy for some Christians in 1 Corinthians 7:25—40.

Teabing claimed that an ancient Christian gospel, the Gospel of Philip, clearly attested to Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene. Teabing revealed to Sophie a massive book titled The Gnostic Gospels which supposedly contained translations of the Nag Hammadi Codices and the Dead Sea Scrolls.⁸ Teabing turned to the Gospel of Philip and had Sophie read the passage:

And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. …

The words surprised Sophie, and yet they hardly seemed conclusive. “It says nothing of marriage.”

“Au contraire.” Teabing smiled, pointing to the first line.

“As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse” (246).

Again Teabing (and apparently Brown) betray their ignorance of the facts. Teabing apparently assumed that the Gospel of Philip was written in Aramaic since he refers to Aramaic terms in the gospel. However, the Gospel of Philip, like the rest of the Nag Hammadi texts, was written in Coptic, an Egyptian language inscribed using the Greek alphabet—plus six additional characters. The word companion is a Coptic word derived from Greek, not an Aramaic word at all. The Coptic word companion (koinonos) means “friend, associate, or companion,” not “wife or lover.”

The description of Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene on the mouth strongly implies a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary. However, Teabing failed to acknowledge that we possess only one ancient manuscript of the Gospel of Philip which was discovered in Codex 2 of the Nag Hammadi texts. Unfortunately, in this single surviving manuscript, Gospel of Philip 63:32—64:10 which Teabing quotes is badly damaged, and nearly half of the words that Teabing “quotes” are now missing. In its present form our only surviving manuscript of the Gospel of Philip reads, “And the companion of the … Mary Magdalene … her more than … the disciples … kiss her … on her …” The fact is that it is merely a guess that the text ever claimed that Jesus kissed Mary on the mouth. Translators of the fragmentary manuscript could just as easily supply the word “cheek” or “forehead.” Even if a new manuscript discovery were made which confirmed Teabing's guess that the Gospel of Philip originally described Jesus as kissing Mary on the mouth, this would do little to support Teabing's theory of a marriage to Mary. An earlier discussion in the Gospel of Philip 58:19—59:5 shows that a kiss in Gnostic communities symbolized teaching the secrets of Gnosticism to another person. Such kisses were purely symbolic and did not involve actual physical contact. The fact is that to argue for a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary based on confused interpretations and missing words in a fragmentary, late, Gnostic text defies all logic and sensitivity to the standards of true history.

At first Teabing's efforts to prove Jesus' marriage to Mary from such scanty and weak evidence are puzzling. However, the motive for his revisionist approach to history soon becomes apparent. Teabing sought to prove such a marriage because he felt that it would disprove the church's claim that Jesus is God: “A child of Jesus would undermine the critical notion of Christ's divinity and therefore the Christian Church, which declared itself the sole vessel through which humanity could access the divine and gain entrance to the kingdom of heaven” (254).

Teabing suggests that many Christian leaders know that Jesus was married but carefully guard that secret as part of some grand conspiracy, fearing that admission of Jesus' marriage would destroy the Christian faith. Most evangelical scholars, however, are convinced that marriage would not necessarily preclude Jesus' deity. Orthodox Christians have always affirmed both Jesus' deity and his humanity. Since Jesus was fully human, he was capable not only of sweating and bleeding; growing hungry, thirsty, or tired; but also of marrying and fathering children. Christian scholars do not deny that Jesus fathered children out of any fear of destroying the church or the faith. They deny that Jesus married and fathered children because no evidence suggests that He did, and much evidence suggests that He did not. The church's insistence on Jesus' celibacy is motivated by a desire to handle the historical data responsibly. It is not a conspiracy driven by a theological agenda.

The Deity and Humanity of Jesus

One of Brown's most shocking claims is his insistence that the Trinitarian theology of the historic Christian church was invented by a pagan emperor as part of a political ploy.

“At this gathering,” Teabing said, “many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon—the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus.”

“I don't follow. His divinity?”

“My dear,” Teabing declared, “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man but a man nonetheless. A mortal.”

“Not the son of God?”

“Right,” Teabing said. “Jesus' establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”

“Hold on. You're saying Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote?”

“A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing added (233).

Teabing argues that before the Council of Nicea in the fourth century, Christians viewed Jesus merely as a man but not as divine, a great mortal prophet but not Deity incarnate, God in the flesh. This claim can be easily tested by examining the writings of the earliest Christians. These earliest Christian writings appear in the New Testament.

The earliest Christian document known today is probably the epistle of James. Internal evidence suggests that the letter was written in the early to mid-forties, within as little as a decade after the death of Jesus.⁹ At least three times (Jas 1:1; 2:1; 5:7) the author refers to Jesus using the title Lord (kyrios). This term served in the LXX (Greek Old Testament) as a title for Deity, translating the Hebrew name Yahweh. Since texts like James 1:5 and 1:7 use the terms Lord and God interchangeably to refer to Yahweh only a few verses after identifying Jesus Christ as Lord, the description of Jesus as Lord strongly implies his Deity.¹⁰

According to the South Galatian theory, the earliest letter written by Paul was his epistle to the Galatians which was probably written in AD 48-49. This letter refers to Jesus as the “Son of God” no less than three times (Gal 1:16; 2:20; 4:4). Furthermore, the first verse of the letter contrasts Jesus with humanity in such a way as to demonstrate that Jesus is more than a mere mortal man.

Paul's later writings attest to Jesus' deity even more clearly. For example, Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” The context of this statement demonstrates that confessing Jesus as Lord means acknowledging that Jesus is God. Although the title Lord may function as either a title of Deity or a title of authority, Lord is clearly a divine title here. This is demonstrated by the proof text that Paul quotes four verses later from Joel 2:32, “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (NKJV). This proof text in Romans 10:13 closely matches the statement in 10:9. “Whoever calls” matches “confess with your mouth”; “name of the Lord” matches “Jesus as Lord”; and “will be saved” (obviously) matches “will be saved.” Paul quoted Joel 2:32 to explain and confirm his parallel statement in Romans 10:9. In Paul's Greek translation of Joel 2:32, the name Lord is kyrios, but in the original Hebrew text the name is Yahweh or Jehovah. By using a text in which Lord means “Yahweh” to explain what it means to confess Jesus as Lord, Paul clearly demonstrates that a sinner must confess Jesus to be Yahweh, God Almighty, in order to be saved. Thus the earliest followers of Jesus not only affirmed Jesus' deity; they recognized confession of his Deity as necessary for salvation.

Similarly, Philippians 2:9 teaches that because Jesus obeyed the Father by suffering on the cross, “God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name.” Although the casual reader typically assumes that the name above every other name is the name Jesus (probably due to the influence of traditional Christian songs), the historical and literary context demonstrate otherwise. In the New Testament era, Jews so reverenced the name of God, Yahweh, that they refused to speak this name. Reverent Jews chose instead to refer to God using substitutions for the divine name. The common substitutions were Adonai (Lord), the Name (ha shem), the Separate name, God's own name, and the name of four letters Y-H-W-H (tetragrammaton). Another clear substitution for the name Yahweh is “the Name which is above every other name.” When any Jewish Christian at Philippi read the phrase “the Name that is above every name” they automatically recognized it as a reference to the tetragrammaton. Thus, Philippians 2:9 identifies Jesus as God who possesses the very name of God. Paul confirmed this by applying the description of worship of Yahweh in Isaiah 45:23 to Jesus also. Paul's promise that every knee will bow before Jesus and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord clearly alludes to the promise, “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God and there is no other. … Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.” Paul's application of a text describing homage to Yahweh to describe worship of Jesus demonstrates that Paul saw Jesus as far more than a mere man or great religious teacher.¹¹ Evidences of a high Christology which equated Jesus with Yahweh abound throughout the New Testament in even its earliest documents. The claim that Constantine invented the doctrine of Jesus' deity in the fourth century is simply absurd.

The characters of The Da Vinci Code appear to misunderstand the purpose of the Council of Nicea and the Nicene Creed which the Council produced. Although the Council of Nicea did confirm the church's historic belief in the Deity of Jesus in response to the Arian controversy, the council merely composed a precise articulation of the doctrine. It did not invent it. Although Teabing claims that the vote to approve the confession of Jesus' deity was a split vote, the fact is that the overwhelming majority approved the confession.¹²

Reliable Sources for Understanding Jesus

Teabing claims that if modern truth-seekers want to know the real story about the true Jesus of history, they must jettison the four New Testament Gospels and instead rely on gospels preserved among the Nag Hammadi texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Understandably, His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land (231).

“More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.

“Who chose which gospels to include?” Sophie asked

“Aha!” Teabing burst with enthusiasm. “The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great” (231).

Teabing's preference for the so-called lost gospels over the New Testament Gospels and his claim that Constantine chose which gospels to include in the New Testament lacks any historical evidence. First, no evidence suggests that thousands of followers recorded Jesus' life. Even including apocryphal gospels written by second- and third-century heretics to promote their perverse theologies, only about twenty gospels offering descriptions of Jesus' life are known to have existed. Although the early church fathers were aware of alternative gospels, the earliest lists of New Testament books consistently include only four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Tatian (c. 170), Irenaeus (c. 180), the Muratorian fragment (c. 190), Clement of Alexandria (c. 155-220), Tertullian (c. 160-220), Hippolytus (c. 170-235), and Origen (c. 230) show that the four New Testament Gospels were recognized by the church as inspired and reliable accounts well over a century before the time of Constantine. Early church fathers like Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr who wrote from the late first century through the middle of the second century allude to and quote the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John but never any other gospels.¹³

Although the early church wrestled with questions regarding the authorship and inclusion of some of the general epistles and Revelation, the question of which gospels to include was clearly settled very early. By AD 180, Irenaeus could write: “The Gospels could not possibly be either more or less in number than they are. Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel, and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, everywhere breathing out incorruption and revivifying men” (Adv. Haer. 3.11.8). Christians in the first and second century agreed that the four Gospels were the only inspired and accurate accounts of the life of Jesus.¹⁴

Teabing also charges that the New Testament Gospels cannot be deemed historically reliable because they have changed so drastically over the last two millennia.

“The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book” (231).

Teabing's skepticism regarding the preservation of the Scripture simply does not square with the facts. The New Testament is actually far better preserved than any other book from ancient times. Very few manuscripts (copies of ancient books made by hand before the invention of the printing press) of texts from the New Testament period have survived. One of the most famous and respected Roman historians of the New Testament era was Tacitus, who wrote his Roman Annals between AD 115 and 117. No complete manuscripts of this important work have survived. Only two fragmentary ancient manuscript witnesses of Tacitus's book are known to exist, and the oldest manuscript dates to the ninth century, at least seven hundred years after Tacitus wrote his history.¹⁵ By contrast approximately fifty-four hundred manuscripts of the New Testament exist in libraries throughout the world. Many of these date hundreds of years closer to the original document than manuscripts of Tacitus's work. The major uncial manuscripts are Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, which date to AD 325 and 350 respectively. In addition to these complete or nearly complete biblical texts, in the last two hundred years scholars have discovered numerous ancient papyri, texts of the New Testament written on papyrus, an ancient form of paper. Many of the papyri are very early, dating to within a few generations of the original New Testament documents. The earliest of these is P52, a fragment of the Gospel of John which dates to AD 125 plus or minus twenty-five years. Most scholars believe that the Gospel of John was written in the late first century, in which case P52 was produced only a few decades after John first penned the Gospel. P46, which today includes 86 of about 104 leaves of the epistles of Paul, was written around AD 200 and has been dated by some scholars as early as the late first century. By comparing these very early and numerous manuscripts, scholars can reconstruct the original New Testament with a high degree of accuracy.¹⁶

Teabing argues that the New Testament has constantly been evolving and changing and thus casts doubt on whether it can be trusted two thousand years after it was originally written. However, even when questions remain about the original reading of the New Testament after a careful comparison of the ancient manuscripts, the questions are relatively minor, inconsequential for Christian doctrines and understanding the identity of Jesus.

Ironically, after challenging the reliability of the New Testament because of changes that were supposedly introduced into the text over time, Teabing argues that books like the Gospel of Philip and Gospel of Mary can be trusted as reliable documents that tell the real and unaltered story about Jesus. However, we possess only one ancient manuscript of the Gospel of Philip which appears in Codex II of the Nag Hammadi Codices. The books of Nag Hammadi are easy to date since the spines of the leather bindings were strengthened with scrap paper, and some of the scrap paper consisted of discarded business receipts dated to 341, 346, and 348.¹⁷ This demonstrates conclusively that the books were produced in the late fourth century, some time after AD 348 and about one hundred to two hundred years later than several extensive texts of the New Testament Gospels. Furthermore, we have no copy of the Gospel of Philip in its original language, Greek. The single early copy of the Gospel of Philip is a Sahidic Coptic translation. This single extant copy of Philip is a fragmentary text in which about half the text is broken away at its most critical point forcing scholars to fill in the gaps from their own imaginations. To challenge the reliability of copies and translations of the New Testament Gospels and then insist on the reliability of a book for which we have a single copy translated into a secondary language three hundred years after the time of Jesus makes little sense and betrays Teabing's bias against the New Testament.

Finally, most scholars believe that the original Gospel of Philip was written in the early third century, over 150 years after the time of Jesus and long after the eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry had passed from the scene.¹⁸ The New Testament Gospels were written before the close of the first century while numerous eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry still lived and could challenge the Gospels if they did not report accurately on Jesus' life.¹⁹ This should show that Teabing's attack on the New Testament Gospels and preference for other documents is prejudicial and illogical.

Conclusion

On page 196 of The Da Vinci Code, the albino assassin Silas has lost his confidence that he and his teacher will succeed in their mission. The mysterious teacher assures him by saying, “You lose your faith too quickly.” Those whose faith is shaken by Dan Brown's claims lose their faith far too quickly too. If they will take the time to investigate Brown's claims, they will find that his statements about biblical and historical Christianity are a comedy of errors and lack historical evidence. Although Teabing makes the bold assertion that “almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false” (235), the truth is that almost everything Dan Brown has taught about Christianity, Jesus, and ancient religious documents is wrong. The faith of the fathers of the church, the faith taught by the New Testament, is a faith that has stood the test of time and will withstand Dan Brown's erroneous claims. The evidence shows that readers can trust what the four Gospels report about the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹ As of December 5, 2006, the paperback version of the novel is ranked as the twenty-fifth best seller for nonfiction paperbacks.

² According to Daniel Vancini of Amazon.com, more than one hundred million copies of the book had sold at the time of the DVD release on October 16, 2006.

³ A. J. Hammer, “Showbiz Tonight,” May 22, 2006 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0605/22/sbt.01.html, accessed 5 December 2006.

⁴ “Da Vinci Code Year's Most Profitable Movie,” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382625/ news, accessed 5 December 2006.

⁵ Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 218. All references to this book in this essay are given in the text.

⁶ Dan Brown, “FAQ,” http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html, accessed 5 December 2006.

⁷ C. S. Keener, “Marriage,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background, ed. C. A. Evans and Stanley Porter (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000), 680–93, esp. 682–83.

⁸ The description of the contents of this book is bizarre since the Dead Sea Scrolls contain no Christian Gospels or Gnostic material.

⁹ D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 414.

¹⁰ See also James 3:9 in which the title Lord refers to the Father and the use in 5:4 in the title Lord Almighty.

¹¹ For a thorough scholarly discussion of the worship of Jesus as God in the early church, see Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

¹² Bart D. Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 23.

¹³ Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 138.

¹⁴ Although Marcion would challenge the establishment of the four Gospels in the mid-second century, he did not propose alternative gospels but confined the church's testimony about Jesus to a heavily revised edition of the Gospel of Luke. Tertullian appropriately quipped that Marcion critiqued the New Testament with a knife.

¹⁵ Michael Grant notes that the end of book 5 is missing, along with the entirety of books 7—10 and the end of book 16. See Michael Grant, Tacitus: the Annals of Imperial Rome (London: Penguin, 1996). One manuscript of Books 1—6 is extant which dates to approximately AD 850. The thirty-one late Italian manuscripts of Books 11—16 are all copies from the same medieval exemplar (ms 68.2). See L. D. Reynolds, Texts and Transmission: A Survey of Latin Classics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 406-11.

¹⁶ For helpful introductions to the science of textual criticism and for summaries of the content and dates of important New Testament manuscripts, see Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); and Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989).

¹⁷ James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper, 1990), 16.

¹⁸ Ibid., 141.

¹⁹ See especially Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,2006).

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