As I mentioned previously, Bart Ehrman graced our fair city and gave the inaugural David L. Dungan Memorial Lecture, "Does the New Testament Contain Forgeries? The Surprising Claim of Modern Scholars." Ehrman's point was, in a word, Yes, the New Testament does contain forgeries. This doesn't strike me as one of modern scholarship's "surprising claims"; it is, after all, well over two hundred years old. But Ehrman's point—and he may be right here—is that the results of the work of "modern scholars" has not been as widely diffused as we might like. Of course, Ehrman presents the results of modern scholarship in rather tendentious terms (I don't think you have to be a fundamentalist or even conservative Christian to agree with this); it would be "surprising" if NT scholars began calling pseudepigraphal (falsely inscribed) texts "forgeries."
At any rate, Ehrman's lecture is available on the University of Tennessee's website; see here for the video (including the Q&A that followed), which is linked with Ehrman's PowerPoint. An even dozen of my institution's faculty, staff, and students attended the lecture on Thursday, 27 January, and last night (9 February) we met—along with some interested students who weren't able to attend the lecture—to discuss Ehrman's claims. I think a helpful and encouraging discussion followed, and on top of that we got to eat dinner together. Score!
I prepared written notes for last night's discussion. First I tried to summarize Ehrman's lecture to remind us what we heard (or to catch up any students who weren't able to hear Ehrman in person); then I responded to two aspects of the lecture ([i] his use of the term, forgery, and [ii] his tabulation of NT documents). Of course, there were other things to respond to, but I limited my prepared remarks to these two. You're welcome to look over my comments; if you have any additional insights, any questions, or if I misrepresent Ehrman or respond inappropriately to him, please feel free to leave a comment here.
Can We Trust the New Testament? A Response to Bart D. Ehrman
Showing posts with label Orthodox Corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orthodox Corruption. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Monday, October 04, 2010
the [un]orthodox corruption of scripture
More from Harry Gamble, who refers to a polemical fragment from Little Labyrinth (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.28.8–19; see Gamble 1995: 122–23). I don't want to reproduce the quote; you can follow the link if you're interested. The point, however, is that Hippolytus (?) is writing against certain named Christian scholars in Rome who have disseminated copies of the scriptures (= the gospels?) in order to support a particular theological point of view. According to Gamble:
I can't help but remember Bart Ehrman's work, particularly in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Ehrman's thesis is that the "corruption" (in its technical, text-critical sense of variation rather than its popular sense of degradation) of scripture wasn't the sole domain of heterodox scribes and theologians; orthodox (or proto-orthodox) tinkerers also affected the readings in the text. As I read Ehrman, however, I couldn't help but think that Ehrman's analyses depended on too little data. That is, Ehrman made his claim for the orthodox corruption of scripture on the basis of individual variant readings and only rarely considered (i) the effect of a given change on the subsequent manuscript tradition or (ii) the effect of a given theological perspective on potentially problematic readings throughout a given manuscript. Of these, the latter is even rarer than the former.
Gamble's discussion, however, makes clear what Ehrman assumes: that changes to individual manuscripts had limited effect upon the tradition as a whole. If a person or a group of people wanted to conscientiously alter the reading of a text and wanted that change to displace an earlier reading, additional steps had to be taken. In the case of the Little Labyrinth that Eusebius cites, the heterodox teachers in Rome were involved not just in corrupting scriptural texts but also in disseminating their corrupted texts. The Little Labyrinth mocks its opponents' folly: "[The readings] of Asclepiades, for example, do not agree with those of Theodotus. And many of these can be obtained, because their disciples have assiduously written the corrections, as they call them, that is the corruptions, of each of them" (Eus. H.E. 5.28.17; my emphasis). But behind the author's scorn for the numerous copies then in circulation and the ammunition these copies provide against the scribes responsible for them, we can sense a certain frustration—even concern—that the flood of corrupted manuscripts might actually affect the Church's reception of the sacred tradition.
Perhaps, given the paucity and selectivity of the data that survives from antiquity, such evidence against the "proto-orthodox corruptors" of scripture is unlikely to have survived. Even so, this is the type of data I would look for in support of Ehrman's thesis. Gamble, who takes up the question directly of the relation between the authority invested in a text, its textual stability, and its preservation, provides a more helpful basis for historical discussion in that he appeals to actual textual evidence. Ehrman, it seems to me, often relies on the hermeneutical potential and theological possibilities of particular variants and their placement within the very interpretive framework for which he's arguing (viz., the orthodox corruption of scripture).
1 Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 123.
The work of each [viz., Theodotus, Asclepiades, Hermophilus, and Apolloniades] was current in many copies, so that copies were easily obtained and compared. It is unlikely that the ready availability of copies was due to purely private, individual copying. Despite its scholastic aspect, this textual work in Rome was not disinterested but stood in the service of exegesis and theological argument, which makes it still more probable that the emended texts were produced in numerous copies, the better to promote their wide use and thus sustain a particular theological viewpoint.1
I can't help but remember Bart Ehrman's work, particularly in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Ehrman's thesis is that the "corruption" (in its technical, text-critical sense of variation rather than its popular sense of degradation) of scripture wasn't the sole domain of heterodox scribes and theologians; orthodox (or proto-orthodox) tinkerers also affected the readings in the text. As I read Ehrman, however, I couldn't help but think that Ehrman's analyses depended on too little data. That is, Ehrman made his claim for the orthodox corruption of scripture on the basis of individual variant readings and only rarely considered (i) the effect of a given change on the subsequent manuscript tradition or (ii) the effect of a given theological perspective on potentially problematic readings throughout a given manuscript. Of these, the latter is even rarer than the former.
Gamble's discussion, however, makes clear what Ehrman assumes: that changes to individual manuscripts had limited effect upon the tradition as a whole. If a person or a group of people wanted to conscientiously alter the reading of a text and wanted that change to displace an earlier reading, additional steps had to be taken. In the case of the Little Labyrinth that Eusebius cites, the heterodox teachers in Rome were involved not just in corrupting scriptural texts but also in disseminating their corrupted texts. The Little Labyrinth mocks its opponents' folly: "[The readings] of Asclepiades, for example, do not agree with those of Theodotus. And many of these can be obtained, because their disciples have assiduously written the corrections, as they call them, that is the corruptions, of each of them" (Eus. H.E. 5.28.17; my emphasis). But behind the author's scorn for the numerous copies then in circulation and the ammunition these copies provide against the scribes responsible for them, we can sense a certain frustration—even concern—that the flood of corrupted manuscripts might actually affect the Church's reception of the sacred tradition.
Perhaps, given the paucity and selectivity of the data that survives from antiquity, such evidence against the "proto-orthodox corruptors" of scripture is unlikely to have survived. Even so, this is the type of data I would look for in support of Ehrman's thesis. Gamble, who takes up the question directly of the relation between the authority invested in a text, its textual stability, and its preservation, provides a more helpful basis for historical discussion in that he appeals to actual textual evidence. Ehrman, it seems to me, often relies on the hermeneutical potential and theological possibilities of particular variants and their placement within the very interpretive framework for which he's arguing (viz., the orthodox corruption of scripture).
1 Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 123.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Ehrman in proper context
As we wrap up Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, it would be helpful to make a couple of points in closing to make sure we properly apprehend the value of this provocative book while being ever aware of its shortcomings. The following are given in no particular order:
- The word corruption in Ehrman's title is misleading, probably intentionally so. This is a technical term within the field of text criticism, and Ehrman uses it in line with its technical usage. Or at least he claims to.
The term "corruption" derives from traditional text-critical discourse, in which the "original" text (i.e., as it was actually penned by an author) is the dominant concern, with changes of that text—whether accidental or intentional—representing contaminations of that original. Not everyone, however, assigns a pejorative sense to the term. This neutral usage is found particularly among critics who recognize the problem of privileging the original text over forms of the text created during the course of transmission. . . . This takes me now to a different theoretical understanding of the significance of textual variation in the New Testament manuscripts, an understanding that derives less from traditional categories of originals and corruptions than from modern literary theories that call these categories into question. Because scribes occasionally changed their texts in "meaningful" ways, it is possible to conceptualize their activities as a kind of hermeneutical process. Reproducing a text is in some ways analogous to interpreting it. (29)
Corruption, as Ehrman uses it, signifies no more than "change from an 'original' text" without any pejorative sense, and in fact only means that the process of transmitting a handwritten text (a manuscript) also involved processes of interpreting the text. This is very good; I have no problems here. But Ehrman well knows that corruption—as in corruption of scripture—means something entirely different and that those who judge a book by its cover (and we all do, even if some of us reserve the right to revise our judgment) will take his title to mean the falsification, degradation, et cetera of the Bible. Ehrman is too media-savy not to know this, and his many appearances in popular fora (not least the Colbert Report and the Daily Show) bank on this misconception. Ehrman is having his cake and eating it, too. - The vast majority of examples Ehrman adduces as examples of "the orthodox corruption of scripture" express or clarify the meaning of the reading Ehrman supports as the original reading. That is, few of the changes he discusses alters the meaning of the text to make it say something it didn't or couldn't have said before the corruption. That is, we are very often talking about appending Christ to the name Jesus, or Joseph for his father, and such like. Very few of the variants Ehrman analyzes take the text in a different direction, for example naming another Christ (say, "Brian") or a substantively different portrayal of Jesus. (See his discussion of Heb. 2.9 [146–50] for one variant that does present a substantive alteration of the original reading.) In fact, many of the changes Ehrman chalks up to orthodox corruption—meant to ward off heterodox interpretations—were just as liable to being read differently by proto-orthodox and Gnostics, or docetics, or whoever as were the uncorrupted (or pre-corrupted) texts. Notice, for example, the following cautionary note:
We do well to recall that Gnostics were notorious among the orthodox for overlooking the "straightforward" meaning of the words of the biblical text (straightforward, that is, to the orthodox). Among other things, this means that even were a scribe to make such a corruption in light of the heretical position, the Gnostics (as least according to the heresiologists) would have remained undisturbed, because for them the words of the text were ultimately unimportant on the literal level. (173–74, n. 104)
Don't miss what he's saying. Irrespective of how accurately this depicts actual Gnostic hermeneutical practices, Ehrman claims here that orthodox polemicists (i) made subtle changes to the NT manuscripts they transcribed in order to shore up their own particular interpretations and/or to stave off heretical readings even as (ii) they knew that heretical exegetes "would have remained undisturbed." Having cake; eating cake. - These criticisms notwithstanding, Ehrman has demonstrated, I think, that scribes who copied NT manuscripts were also inhabitants of their social worlds, and that inhabitation included the polemical contexts of the early church. Anyone at all acquainted with text criticism knows that scribes mistakenly made changes to their texts; just as uncontroversial is that scribes also made intentional changes from their exemplars. Ehrman establishes what we maybe should have suspected all along: That sometimes scribes' intentional changes were motivated by the debates and controversies that provided the contexts in which Christians of all stripes read the NT texts. But this may make the previous point all the more noteworthy: Given the fact that scribes modified scripture in response to how others [mis]read the texts, we should perhaps be impressed with how rarely those changes actually changed the text's meaning and significance. Stated another way, the Church Fathers certainly could engage in some fantastic, even outlandish, exegetical practice, no less than their heterodox counterparts. But Ehrman doesn't produce any examples of an orthodox exegete supporting an incredible interpretation by means of emendation.
- Even so, we should recognize how limited in scope are the consequences of Ehrman's analyses (despite his claims to the contrary in the conclusion [274–83]). At numerous points Ehrman has rightly recognized a lack of consistency in [proto-]orthodox scribes' textual alterations. But this inconsistency stands in tension with the overall thesis of Ehrman's book, that scribes altered the text to make it say what it already meant. The fact is, sometimes they didn't. And given the historical situation Ehrman wants us to envision, inconsistency = a lack of willingness/motivation to expunge potentially difficult or ambiguous texts from scripture. Two other observations mitigate the force of Ehrman's thesis. First, many (though certainly not all) of the variants Ehrman adduces as "orthodox corruptions of scripture" simply do not bear the weight Ehrman puts upon them. For example, on pp. 237–38 he argues that, in some instances, "scribes have simply interpolated references to Jesus' 'humanness' into passages that otherwise say nothing directly about it." As an example he offers the variant at John 7.46 in
66, which changes οὐδέποτε ἐλάλησεν οὕτως ἄνθρωπος ["No one has ever spoken in this way"] to οὐδέποτε οὕτως ἄνθρωπος ἐλάλησεν ὡς οὗτος λάλει ὁ ἄνθρωπος ["No one has ever spoken the way this man speaks"]. I can readily see why Ehrman reads this variant as an anti-docetic corruption, but the supposed ambiguity of the original text, along with the "improvement" offered by the variant, do not make it so. Without any evidence that the reading in 66 actually did stave off docetic christological formulations, formulations which were sustained precisely by a certain reading of John 7.46, Ehrman's case is circumstantial at best. Second, with few exceptions Ehrman was only able to document changes within individual manuscripts and/or families of manuscripts. The larger tradition itself—what was embodied within and expressed through the surviving manuscripts—was able to absorb these corruptions without losing every trace of the original reading. Again, in a few cases the corruption (nearly) thoroughly replaced the original reading, and in a few other cases determining conclusively which reading was original and which the corruption was impossible. But for the vast majority of variants Ehrman puts forward, we could clearly differentiate earlier and later readings. In other words, the consequence of the "orthodox corruption of scripture" was fairly limited in scope.
Monday, August 09, 2010
a text-critical question
I have a question about how textual critics identify problems requiring explanation and then proceed to search for and land upon satisfactory solutions. I'm currently in the throes of reading Ehrman's extensive discussion of the textual issues surrounding Luke 22.19–20.1 First, let me present the problem in very brief terms.
There are, essentially, two readings to consider, the "longer," more traditional, reading here is as follows:
This longer text is attested "by all Greek manuscripts except D [= Bezae] and by most of the ancient versions and Fathers."2 The "shorter, or Western, text"—that is, the reading attested in Bezae and in mss of the Old Latin, which is typically an expansionist tradition—omits vv. 19b–20:
Ehrman rightly emphasizes how difficult it is to explain the omission of 19b–20 in the Western tradition if the longer reading is original. There aren't, apparently, any satisfactory contextual factors to support an accidental omission (e.g., homoeoteleuton or homoeoarchton). And, of course, why any scribe would intentionally omit (i) the description of Jesus' body as "given for you . . ." and (ii) any reference to cup at all presents insurmountable problems.
Ehrman provides other arguments in favor of the shorter reading, to be sure. But quite a bit of weight is put on the difficulty involved with explaining how vv. 19b–20 dropped out of the Western manuscript tradition if these verses were originally part of Luke's gospel. And I don't suppose I have anything to offer by way of explanation (though note that the UBS committee felt strong enough about including vv. 19b–20 in the text that they give it a [B] rating). But here's my question: How does the proposed originality of the shorter reading explain the presence of the shorter reading in some Western manuscripts? On the surface the answer seems obvious, but upon closer look the problems Ehrman seeks to avoid by accepting the Western reading loom just as large.
So again, my question is: How does the proposed originality of the shorter reading explain the presence of the shorter reading in some Western manuscripts? Can anyone provide a reasonable answer?
There are, essentially, two readings to consider, the "longer," more traditional, reading here is as follows:
19 "Then, taking [some] bread and giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' 20 And likewise the cup, after eating, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you. 21 But look! The hand of the one who is betraying me is with mine upon the table.'"
This longer text is attested "by all Greek manuscripts except D [= Bezae] and by most of the ancient versions and Fathers."2 The "shorter, or Western, text"—that is, the reading attested in Bezae and in mss of the Old Latin, which is typically an expansionist tradition—omits vv. 19b–20:
19 "Then, taking [some] bread and giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body. 21 But look! The hand of the one who is betraying me is with mine upon the table.'"
Ehrman rightly emphasizes how difficult it is to explain the omission of 19b–20 in the Western tradition if the longer reading is original. There aren't, apparently, any satisfactory contextual factors to support an accidental omission (e.g., homoeoteleuton or homoeoarchton). And, of course, why any scribe would intentionally omit (i) the description of Jesus' body as "given for you . . ." and (ii) any reference to cup at all presents insurmountable problems.
Ehrman provides other arguments in favor of the shorter reading, to be sure. But quite a bit of weight is put on the difficulty involved with explaining how vv. 19b–20 dropped out of the Western manuscript tradition if these verses were originally part of Luke's gospel. And I don't suppose I have anything to offer by way of explanation (though note that the UBS committee felt strong enough about including vv. 19b–20 in the text that they give it a [B] rating). But here's my question: How does the proposed originality of the shorter reading explain the presence of the shorter reading in some Western manuscripts? On the surface the answer seems obvious, but upon closer look the problems Ehrman seeks to avoid by accepting the Western reading loom just as large.
- Given the intractable problems explaining why any scribe would drop vv. 19b–20 from his exemplar, don't we still need to explain why Luke would omit this passage from his Markan source (on either the Two-Source or Farrer theories of synoptic relationships) or, less likely, from Matthew (assuming the Griesbach-Farmer hypothesis)? I can't find ready explanation why Luke would drop this passage, and this—it seems to me—balances evenly the difficulty of why a later scribe would omit it.
- Ehrman finds it significant that the vocabulary of vv. 19b–20 is non-Lukan and sounds an awful lot like Paul's version of the Last Supper in 1 Cor. 11.
Interestingly, this "other tradition" (i.e., vv. 19b–20 in the longer text) is not only anomalous within Luke's Gospel itself, it also has very few connections with Luke's source, the Gospel of Mark. Instead, as has been frequently noted, the additional words practically mirror the familiar account of the institution preserved in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The fact that the words of the longer text of Luke are not precisely those of Paul should not be used, as it sometimes is, to argue that they could not have been added secondarily to the text of the Gospel. No one need think that a scribe referred to his manuscript of 1 Corinthians to check the accuracy of his interpolation into Luke. Instead, the addition has all the marks of a familiar narrative based on, or at least parallel to, Paul's account of Jesus' Last Supper.3
I'm not convinced. If the best explanation for the manuscript data for which we must account is that a scribe inserted a Eucharistic tradition from another text into Luke's gospel, why should they have chosen 1 Corinthians? This becomes even more of a problem the more we stress the differences—and there are significant differences—between Paul's Eucharist and that found in Mark and Matthew. If a scribe felt the shorter, "original" text of Luke's version of the Last Supper required supplementing, why choose Paul's distinctive account instead of Mark's or Matthew's? Certainly we can't expect scribes in antiquity to be as aware of different traditions as we are (and esp. that Paul's account of the Eucharist conflicted with Luke's way of thinking about Jesus' death). But inasmuch as Matthew was the most popular, most widely read, and most frequently copied of the canonical gospels, I think we need to ask why a scribe would interpolate Paul's instead of Matthew's version of the Last Supper. The language of 22.19b–20 may be distinctive within Luke-Acts, but its Pauline rather than Matthean flavor creates a problem for a theory of interpolation. This falls short of proof for these verses' originality, but it does weaken Ehrman's argument in favor of the shorter reading.
[The following two problems belong together; I give the weaker one first.]
- If we accept the shorter reading because we simply can't imagine why a scribe would drop vv. 19b–20 (and let me say again, I can't imagine why), we actually need to suppose that at least some Christians of the West observed a Eucharistic liturgy of bread alone or that took the cup first and then broke the bread (see vv. 17–18). Either this, or we will have to suppose that the scribes responsible for the manuscripts bearing the shorter reading tolerated a striking discrepancy between their Eucharistic practices (supported by the accounts of Mark, Matthew, and/or 1 Corinthians) and Luke's gospel.
- The alternative to expecting a Lukan Eucharistic liturgy (according to the shorter reading) is to suppose that scribes in the second century and later [Bezae is a fifth-century uncial!] observed a traditional Eucharistic liturgy and preserved the original [= shorter] Lukan account of the Last Supper. This, in fact, is exactly what Ehrman argues. But how does the originality of the shorter reading have any explanatory power for the reading in Bezae and the Old Latin if we assume that these same scribes also observed a traditional Eucharist? We rightly scratch our heads and wonder how/why a scribe might have elided vv. 19b–20, but on Ehrman's explanation we still have to deal with scribes who believed the institution of the Lord's Supper occurred one way (see the traditional Eucharistic liturgy we are now positing for these scribes) but who believed, somehow, that the original text of Luke's gospel portrayed a significantly different account of that institution. In other words, it seems to me that the shorter reading still requires explanation in fifth century, irrespective of any judgment of originality. In yet other words, even the if the shorter reading is "original" and the longer reading "corrupt," the shorter reading would [ought?] have struck ancient scribes as corrupt. So why did they preserve this shorter, "original" reading?
In the end, I am (i) unable to answer Ehrman's objection that it's simply too difficult to explain the shorter reading if the longer reading is original, and (ii) unconvinced by his arguments that the shorter reading is, in fact, original. Instead, I think the unusual data requiring explanation is still the shorter reading: Why should any manuscript tradition omit vv. 19b–20? I don't know, but I don't think the problem is solved by supposing this is the original reading. Instead, I think it's a problem that Ehrman has to resort to reading Luke so far afield from one of his favorite sources and one of his favorite Christian characters; notice that he has no problem suggesting that Luke "understands the death of Jesus differently from both the predecessor of his Gospel (Mark) and the hero of his Acts (Paul)."4 But why should Luke have so willingly accepted (and reproduced) so much of Mark's gospel and expended so much effort broadcasting and endorsing Paul's reputation, if he held a fundamentally different view of so pivotal a Christian tenet as the death of Christ?!
So again, my question is: How does the proposed originality of the shorter reading explain the presence of the shorter reading in some Western manuscripts? Can anyone provide a reasonable answer?
[CLARIFICATION: Ehrman continues in this chapter to discuss the [in]famous "Western Non-Interpolations," a body of variants that he finds in service of anti-docetic polemics (see, e.g., pp. 255–56, n. 145). In many of these (e.g., Luke 24.12, 40, inter alia) the question I'm raising regarding his analysis of 22.19–20 would be inappropriate. The reason I find the shorter western reading's originality insufficient to explain its presence in Bezae and the Old Latin is precisely the use of the tradition in question (viz., the Lord's Supper) in the liturgical life of the church. Luke 24.12, of course, was not liturgically significant and so may be preserved more accurately (and succinctly) in the Western manuscript tradition.]
1 See Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 198–209.
2 According to B. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (second edition; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994 [1971]), 148.
3 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 204.
4 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 203.
1 See Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 198–209.
2 According to B. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (second edition; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994 [1971]), 148.
3 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 204.
4 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 203.
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
more on "anti-adoptionistic" corruptions of scripture
As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the problems confronting Ehrman's argument regarding specifically anti-adoptionistic changes in NT manuscripts is (and this is a little embarrassing!) identifying specifically anti-adoptionistic changes in NT manuscripts. Ehrman discusses a number of candidates under a handful of classifications, including changes that (i) resist acknowledging Joseph as Jesus' father, (ii) avoid calling Jesus "chosen," (iii) explicitly affirm Jesus as Son of God before his baptism, and (iv) blur the distinction between God and Jesus (while resisting a complete identification between Jesus and the Father). But the problem is that Ehrman never establishes the connection between some of the variants he adduces and polemics over adoptionist christologies.
Certainly Ehrman proposes that anti-adoptionist tendencies "may have effected" (95; my emphasis) this or that variant, or a change was introduced into a manuscript "presumably to mitigate its potentially adoptionistic overtones" (71; my emphasis). But his emphasis on the potential of scribal variants to function within the christological debates of the second- through fifth-centuries CE provides Ehrman with a too-easy out. What Ehrman's thesis needs is some criteria for determine whether or not this or that variant actually was motivated by theological considerations, and especially the specific theological considerations being discussed. In some (many?) instances the connections between theological debate and manuscript tradition are fairly plausible; in others they're a bit of a stretch. For example, in my view, the change in Vaticanus at Acts 10.37—in which μετὰ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐκήρυξεν Ἰωάννης ("after the baptism that John proclaimed") becomes μετὰ τὸ κήρυγμα ὃ ἐκήρυξεν Ἰωάννης ("after the proclamation that John proclaimed")—has nothing to do with anti-adoptionist polemics.1 I'm not arguing that the text of NT documents was more stable than Ehrman suggests (though I have some quibbles in this regard, which I'll mention presently); but his explanatory model for the variation that does exist among the manuscripts breaks down, in some places quite dramatically.
But that brings us back to the question of the stability of NT traditions. I remember reading the latest edition of Metzger's classic The Text of the New Testament a couple years ago and being struck by how easily the discussion slipped between discussing changes in a particular manuscript (or manuscript tradition) and characterizing the tradition itself as fluid.2 In other words, just because this or that scribe changed the text he was transcribing does not mean that the tradition, embodied in multiple manuscripts across the ancient world, had been corrupted. Sometimes a corruption will become regionally dominant; Ehrman even argues that, "[i]n several passages (e.g., Mark 1:1 and Luke 3:22) [orthodox] corruptions virtually displaced the original text" (1993: 97). But in the main changes in one manuscript did not effect changes to the tradition itself, and very often corruptions were undone when a manuscript was corrected.3 But clearly we know, despite "the orthodox corruption of scripture," that Luke 2.33 explicitly refers to Joseph as "his [viz., Jesus'] father" [ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ], despite "the majority of Greek manuscripts . . . along with a number of Old Latin, Syriac, and Coptic witnesses" (55) that replace "his father" with "Joseph" [Ἰωσὴφ].
Again, I'm not suggesting that the text of NT documents was more stable than Ehrman is arguing; clearly the wording varied from manuscript to manuscript for various and sundry reasons. But I would make two suggestions: First, perhaps we ought to seek the tradition's "stability" somewhere other than in its wording. What the text said about Jesus was more important than the words used to say it. This is a difficult distinction, especially in a cultural situation such as ours where print and electronic technology makes exact verbal reproduction a commonplace. But this distinction, I think, matters, and it matters a lot. Second, I think we need to get some sense of scope as we examine the manuscript data. If Ehrman is right that the original opening to Mark's gospel, for example, did not contain the words υἱοῦ θεοῦ ["s/Son of God"], then the dominance of that reading among the extant manuscripts may justify Ehrman's ambitious title, the orthodox corruption of scripture. But for most of the variants Ehrman analyzes we are dealing with something significantly more mundane: the orthodox corruption of this-or-that [group of] scriptural manuscript[s]. Sure, it's less sexy as a title, but it does help us understand better what we're actually dealing with here.
1 To be sure, Ehrman's discussion of Acts 10.37 in Vaticanus is part of a larger argument and is not focused on 10.37 alone. He's actually more interested in v. 38 and a variant found in Bezae as well as Old Latin, Syriac, and Middle Egyptian manuscripts (see pp. 68–69). But Ehrman finds confirmation of his interpretation of this variant by turning to the reading of v. 37 in Vaticanus.
2 Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (fourth edition; London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 [1964]). I have not read earlier editions of this book; I admit baldly that I am assuming certain features stem more from Ehrman's thorough revision of Metzger's text. If I were publishing these opinions in a more formal setting (rather than on my own blog), I would need to document whether the "slippage" under consideration appears only in the fourth edition or was also present in earlier editions. Of course, I see this "slippage" at work also in Ehrman 1993.
3 Corruptions were also introduced into manuscripts by later correctors, and even corrections were subject to later emendation (see, e.g., the text of Heb. 1.3 in Vaticanus). But that doesn't undermine the point I'm making. Changes introduced into one manuscript were not necessarily ultimate corruptions of that manuscript, let alone of the NT tradition it attests!
Certainly Ehrman proposes that anti-adoptionist tendencies "may have effected" (95; my emphasis) this or that variant, or a change was introduced into a manuscript "presumably to mitigate its potentially adoptionistic overtones" (71; my emphasis). But his emphasis on the potential of scribal variants to function within the christological debates of the second- through fifth-centuries CE provides Ehrman with a too-easy out. What Ehrman's thesis needs is some criteria for determine whether or not this or that variant actually was motivated by theological considerations, and especially the specific theological considerations being discussed. In some (many?) instances the connections between theological debate and manuscript tradition are fairly plausible; in others they're a bit of a stretch. For example, in my view, the change in Vaticanus at Acts 10.37—in which μετὰ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐκήρυξεν Ἰωάννης ("after the baptism that John proclaimed") becomes μετὰ τὸ κήρυγμα ὃ ἐκήρυξεν Ἰωάννης ("after the proclamation that John proclaimed")—has nothing to do with anti-adoptionist polemics.1 I'm not arguing that the text of NT documents was more stable than Ehrman suggests (though I have some quibbles in this regard, which I'll mention presently); but his explanatory model for the variation that does exist among the manuscripts breaks down, in some places quite dramatically.
But that brings us back to the question of the stability of NT traditions. I remember reading the latest edition of Metzger's classic The Text of the New Testament a couple years ago and being struck by how easily the discussion slipped between discussing changes in a particular manuscript (or manuscript tradition) and characterizing the tradition itself as fluid.2 In other words, just because this or that scribe changed the text he was transcribing does not mean that the tradition, embodied in multiple manuscripts across the ancient world, had been corrupted. Sometimes a corruption will become regionally dominant; Ehrman even argues that, "[i]n several passages (e.g., Mark 1:1 and Luke 3:22) [orthodox] corruptions virtually displaced the original text" (1993: 97). But in the main changes in one manuscript did not effect changes to the tradition itself, and very often corruptions were undone when a manuscript was corrected.3 But clearly we know, despite "the orthodox corruption of scripture," that Luke 2.33 explicitly refers to Joseph as "his [viz., Jesus'] father" [ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ], despite "the majority of Greek manuscripts . . . along with a number of Old Latin, Syriac, and Coptic witnesses" (55) that replace "his father" with "Joseph" [Ἰωσὴφ].
Again, I'm not suggesting that the text of NT documents was more stable than Ehrman is arguing; clearly the wording varied from manuscript to manuscript for various and sundry reasons. But I would make two suggestions: First, perhaps we ought to seek the tradition's "stability" somewhere other than in its wording. What the text said about Jesus was more important than the words used to say it. This is a difficult distinction, especially in a cultural situation such as ours where print and electronic technology makes exact verbal reproduction a commonplace. But this distinction, I think, matters, and it matters a lot. Second, I think we need to get some sense of scope as we examine the manuscript data. If Ehrman is right that the original opening to Mark's gospel, for example, did not contain the words υἱοῦ θεοῦ ["s/Son of God"], then the dominance of that reading among the extant manuscripts may justify Ehrman's ambitious title, the orthodox corruption of scripture. But for most of the variants Ehrman analyzes we are dealing with something significantly more mundane: the orthodox corruption of this-or-that [group of] scriptural manuscript[s]. Sure, it's less sexy as a title, but it does help us understand better what we're actually dealing with here.
1 To be sure, Ehrman's discussion of Acts 10.37 in Vaticanus is part of a larger argument and is not focused on 10.37 alone. He's actually more interested in v. 38 and a variant found in Bezae as well as Old Latin, Syriac, and Middle Egyptian manuscripts (see pp. 68–69). But Ehrman finds confirmation of his interpretation of this variant by turning to the reading of v. 37 in Vaticanus.
2 Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (fourth edition; London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 [1964]). I have not read earlier editions of this book; I admit baldly that I am assuming certain features stem more from Ehrman's thorough revision of Metzger's text. If I were publishing these opinions in a more formal setting (rather than on my own blog), I would need to document whether the "slippage" under consideration appears only in the fourth edition or was also present in earlier editions. Of course, I see this "slippage" at work also in Ehrman 1993.
3 Corruptions were also introduced into manuscripts by later correctors, and even corrections were subject to later emendation (see, e.g., the text of Heb. 1.3 in Vaticanus). But that doesn't undermine the point I'm making. Changes introduced into one manuscript were not necessarily ultimate corruptions of that manuscript, let alone of the NT tradition it attests!
Friday, July 23, 2010
identifying "anti-adoptionistic" corruptions of scripture
The second chapter of Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford University Press, 1993) sets out to examine "Anti-Adoptionistic Corruptions of Scripture" (47–118), or changes to manuscripts of the NT meant to ward off interpretations that Jesus "became" God's s/Son (or was "adopted") at some point, whether at his baptism, his resurrection, or whatever. Ehrman well knows that identifying the motivations (theological or otherwise) of any given variant is highly problematic (see pp. 28; 44, n. 110; 103, n. 55). He therefore focuses on the function of variants: "Some changes of the text . . . function to establish the orthodox character of the text, either by promoting more fully an orthodox understanding of Christ or by circumventing the heretical use of a text in support of an aberrant teaching" (28).
Even in light of this very important nuance, Ehrman's argument runs into problems precisely on the issue of identifying anti-adoptionistic variants (whether in terms of intention or function). For example, he assumes that references to Joseph as Jesus' father could be read as implying that Jesus was not (yet) God's son, and so changes to these references represent "anti-adoptionistic corruptions." But this assumption runs into problems very early on. In his brief discussion of a Syriac translation of Matthew, Ehrman points to the variants at 1.16 and 25:
To be sure, Ehrman does not read this as an anti-adoptionistic corruption; instead, the variants at 1.16, 25 "were produced from carelessness rather than intent" (54). He concludes his discussion of this particular scribe's carelessness: "Since there is almost no reason to construe any of the manuscript's variant readings as original in these cases, once can only conclude that the scribe was simply inattentive to the doctrinal ramifications of some of his changes" (55; my emphasis).
Notice that Ehrman assumes here that variants "have" doctrinal ramifications; the readings in question, by themselves and (almost) ontologically, support a certain theological position even though Ehrman doesn't attribute this position to this particular scribe (remember, the scribe was careless rather than theologically motivated). After all, this same scribe apparently chose not to "eliminate the word 'virgin' (παρθένος, v. 23) or to modify the clear statements that Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary" (55). Since the variant readings at Matt. 1.16, 25 "have" their particular theological significances, the scribe responsible for these readings was either (i) advocating an adoptionist christology, or (ii) unaware of his changes' adoptionistic import. This scribe "appears to have understood his own formulation—if he understood it at all—in the sense that Joseph became Jesus' father (through adoption?), although he was not his actual father" (102, n. 48; my emphasis).
But there's a third option for understanding this scribe's admittedly peculiar transcription. (iii) Even a statement as seemingly clear as "Joseph . . . begot Jesus" do not mean what we think they mean, i.e., that Jesus was conceived via a sexual act between Joseph and Mary. Don't misunderstand; a moment of carelessness and conformity to a pattern (x begot y) may very well explain this particular text. But note that, even with the strange reading, "Joseph . . . begot Jesus," 1.16 still breaks with the regular pattern "x begot y" to explain that Joseph was betrothed to Mary. And in the very context of claiming "Joseph . . . begot Jesus," the text affirms Mary's virginal state at conception/begetting! For this scribe at least (and presumably he was not completely idiosyncratic!), Joseph "begtting" [γεννάω] Jesus did not preclude either the virgin birth or, by implication, Jesus' status as God's s/Son.
At other places Ehrman mentions variants that I simply do not see as directly relevant for the adoptionist controversy. Notice, for example, the following:
Here Ehrman reads the alteration of a useful text for anti-adoptionistic readings as (potentially) an anti-adoptionistic corruption. This strikes me as having his cake and eating it, too; if Luke 3.23 did not equivocate on Jesus' relation to Joseph [ὢν υἱός, ὡς νομίζετο, Ἰωσὴφ], and if these two Greek witnesses excised Joseph's genealogy, then this would clearly be an anti-adoptionistic corruption. The fact, then, that "some modern scholars have seen in the genealogy an implicit challenge to the notion that Jesus had no earthly father" (56–57) does not justify reading W and 579 as anti-adoptionist corruptions. So "some modern scholars" read the Lukan genealogy as potentially adoptionistic; did anyone int he ancient world ever read Luke 3 this way? For his argument to work, Ehrman needs to adduce evidence that specific variants did function anti-adoptionistically (e.g., see Luke 2.33), not merely that specific variants can so function.
Finally, this brings up a second methodological problem with Ehrman's argument. Ehrman focuses so clearly and so intensely on individual variants that he does not address whether a particular manuscript exhibits anti-adoptionistic tendencies.1 It's one thing to show that a given manuscript makes a change at Luke 2.33 and/or 2.48 (see pp. 55–56); it's another to show that that manuscript consistently clarifies ambiguous readings in anti-adoptionistic ways. This, apparently, is a problem for Ehrman's thesis, because he acknowledges that the scribes do not seem "to have been thoroughly consistent or rigorous in their attempts to rid the text of latent ambiguities and so to eliminate the possiblity [sic] of interpreting these texts in adoptionistic terms" (58). But Ehrman's thesis is precisely that scribes were motivated to clarify scripture, to make it say what it already meant. I, at least, find it unsatisfying that now he's willing to concede a lack of motivation in this direction. If a scribe didn't consistently change his text in a particular direction, then how can we with any confidence suppose that any specific change was meant to move the tradition in that direction?
Ironically, at this point where his thesis is the thinnest, I think Ehrman gets it the most right. Notice that he's conceding a point that undermines his larger thesis while trying to paint that point as congruent with his thesis.
Indeed. And however clearly Ehrman sees this, I think we can all accept that the reception of Ehrman's work—both among academics and in the popular media—has neglected this aspect of his work. That is, does anyone think of Ehrman as "that guy who thinks Christian scribes conserved rather than created the text of the NT"? Colbert could be forgiven for overlooking this aspect of his work.
1 Let me stress that I am dealing with Ehrman's argument up to this point (viz., p. 61); it may be that Ehrman addresses this issue at some later point. He does provide some response on p. 58, though I find his discussion there inadequate.
[Postscript: I also note the following humorous (but petty) "transcriptional" error. I appreciate how difficult it is to write and edit a book; it's impossible to spot and correct every mistake. Even so, I laughed out loud at Starbucks when I read the reference to "Revelations 2:2" on p. 36, n. 26. I'm sure Ehrman knows the actual name of John's ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ, but it's especially funny since every academic hates this particular error.]
Even in light of this very important nuance, Ehrman's argument runs into problems precisely on the issue of identifying anti-adoptionistic variants (whether in terms of intention or function). For example, he assumes that references to Joseph as Jesus' father could be read as implying that Jesus was not (yet) God's son, and so changes to these references represent "anti-adoptionistic corruptions." But this assumption runs into problems very early on. In his brief discussion of a Syriac translation of Matthew, Ehrman points to the variants at 1.16 and 25:
The fifth-century scribe of this manuscript was either thoughtless in the extreme or somewhat inclined to see Joseph as Jesus' actual father, for he concludes Matthew's genealogy of Jesus with the words "Jacob begot Joseph; Joseph, to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary, begot Jesus, who is called the Christ" (Matt 1:16). Similarly, the following pericope ends not with the statement that Joseph "had no relations with her [Mary] until she bore a son," but with the curious observation that Mary "bore to him [i.e., Joseph] a son" (1:25). (54)
To be sure, Ehrman does not read this as an anti-adoptionistic corruption; instead, the variants at 1.16, 25 "were produced from carelessness rather than intent" (54). He concludes his discussion of this particular scribe's carelessness: "Since there is almost no reason to construe any of the manuscript's variant readings as original in these cases, once can only conclude that the scribe was simply inattentive to the doctrinal ramifications of some of his changes" (55; my emphasis).
Notice that Ehrman assumes here that variants "have" doctrinal ramifications; the readings in question, by themselves and (almost) ontologically, support a certain theological position even though Ehrman doesn't attribute this position to this particular scribe (remember, the scribe was careless rather than theologically motivated). After all, this same scribe apparently chose not to "eliminate the word 'virgin' (παρθένος, v. 23) or to modify the clear statements that Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary" (55). Since the variant readings at Matt. 1.16, 25 "have" their particular theological significances, the scribe responsible for these readings was either (i) advocating an adoptionist christology, or (ii) unaware of his changes' adoptionistic import. This scribe "appears to have understood his own formulation—if he understood it at all—in the sense that Joseph became Jesus' father (through adoption?), although he was not his actual father" (102, n. 48; my emphasis).
But there's a third option for understanding this scribe's admittedly peculiar transcription. (iii) Even a statement as seemingly clear as "Joseph . . . begot Jesus" do not mean what we think they mean, i.e., that Jesus was conceived via a sexual act between Joseph and Mary. Don't misunderstand; a moment of carelessness and conformity to a pattern (x begot y) may very well explain this particular text. But note that, even with the strange reading, "Joseph . . . begot Jesus," 1.16 still breaks with the regular pattern "x begot y" to explain that Joseph was betrothed to Mary. And in the very context of claiming "Joseph . . . begot Jesus," the text affirms Mary's virginal state at conception/begetting! For this scribe at least (and presumably he was not completely idiosyncratic!), Joseph "begtting" [γεννάω] Jesus did not preclude either the virgin birth or, by implication, Jesus' status as God's s/Son.
At other places Ehrman mentions variants that I simply do not see as directly relevant for the adoptionist controversy. Notice, for example, the following:
The text of Luke 3:23 would presumably have caused orthodox scribes few problems, since it explicitly states that Joseph was not Jesus' real father, but was only "supposed" to have been. Nonetheless it is striking that in two of our Greek witnesses (W 579) the genealogy of Joseph that follows is deleted altogether. It is difficult to judge what may have led scribes, either those of our manuscripts or those of their exemplars, to omit some fifteen verses from their text; but perhaps they recognized the incongruity of tracing Joseph's ancestry back to Adam in a story about Jesus, when Joseph was in fact not Jesus' father (as the text of v. 23 itself indicates).
Here Ehrman reads the alteration of a useful text for anti-adoptionistic readings as (potentially) an anti-adoptionistic corruption. This strikes me as having his cake and eating it, too; if Luke 3.23 did not equivocate on Jesus' relation to Joseph [ὢν υἱός, ὡς νομίζετο, Ἰωσὴφ], and if these two Greek witnesses excised Joseph's genealogy, then this would clearly be an anti-adoptionistic corruption. The fact, then, that "some modern scholars have seen in the genealogy an implicit challenge to the notion that Jesus had no earthly father" (56–57) does not justify reading W and 579 as anti-adoptionist corruptions. So "some modern scholars" read the Lukan genealogy as potentially adoptionistic; did anyone int he ancient world ever read Luke 3 this way? For his argument to work, Ehrman needs to adduce evidence that specific variants did function anti-adoptionistically (e.g., see Luke 2.33), not merely that specific variants can so function.
Finally, this brings up a second methodological problem with Ehrman's argument. Ehrman focuses so clearly and so intensely on individual variants that he does not address whether a particular manuscript exhibits anti-adoptionistic tendencies.1 It's one thing to show that a given manuscript makes a change at Luke 2.33 and/or 2.48 (see pp. 55–56); it's another to show that that manuscript consistently clarifies ambiguous readings in anti-adoptionistic ways. This, apparently, is a problem for Ehrman's thesis, because he acknowledges that the scribes do not seem "to have been thoroughly consistent or rigorous in their attempts to rid the text of latent ambiguities and so to eliminate the possiblity [sic] of interpreting these texts in adoptionistic terms" (58). But Ehrman's thesis is precisely that scribes were motivated to clarify scripture, to make it say what it already meant. I, at least, find it unsatisfying that now he's willing to concede a lack of motivation in this direction. If a scribe didn't consistently change his text in a particular direction, then how can we with any confidence suppose that any specific change was meant to move the tradition in that direction?
Ironically, at this point where his thesis is the thinnest, I think Ehrman gets it the most right. Notice that he's conceding a point that undermines his larger thesis while trying to paint that point as congruent with his thesis.
[T]he majority of orthodox Christians, and presumably orthodox scribes, could live perfectly well with the text as originally written, interpreting it, that is, according to orthodox criteria and beliefs. Furthermore, the very process of transmitting texts was itself a radically conservative process. These scribes understood that they were conserving rather than creating tradition. (58)
Indeed. And however clearly Ehrman sees this, I think we can all accept that the reception of Ehrman's work—both among academics and in the popular media—has neglected this aspect of his work. That is, does anyone think of Ehrman as "that guy who thinks Christian scribes conserved rather than created the text of the NT"? Colbert could be forgiven for overlooking this aspect of his work.
1 Let me stress that I am dealing with Ehrman's argument up to this point (viz., p. 61); it may be that Ehrman addresses this issue at some later point. He does provide some response on p. 58, though I find his discussion there inadequate.
[Postscript: I also note the following humorous (but petty) "transcriptional" error. I appreciate how difficult it is to write and edit a book; it's impossible to spot and correct every mistake. Even so, I laughed out loud at Starbucks when I read the reference to "Revelations 2:2" on p. 36, n. 26. I'm sure Ehrman knows the actual name of John's ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ, but it's especially funny since every academic hates this particular error.]
Thursday, July 15, 2010
yes, but no: reading Bart Ehrman
I'm reading Bart D. Ehrman's book (Is it a classic yet? I suspect it is.), The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), which I've assigned to my History of New Testament Interpretation students. My interest in Ehrman's work stems primarily in his careful reading of actual ancient texts (rather than modern critical editions of ancient texts), though in my exposure to Ehrman thus far I can't help but think he moves too quickly and too easily from the data to his conclusions.
It's taking me a long time to work through this book, precisely because it takes so much effort to disentangle the helpful bits from the problematic bits. Usually I wouldn't think the effort was worth it, but when Ehrman is insightful I typically think he's very insightful. Here, for starters, are some of the points I find especially helpful, with my comments interspersed.
New Testament critics have become accustomed over the last two centuries or so asking how the social, historical, and rhetorical situations in which authors wrote and readers read affected the texts in question. Ehrman reminds us that, prior to Gutenberg's revolution in book-making, every stage of book-production (especially the stage[s] of scribal transmission) was subject to socio-historical and -rhetorical processes. As my subsequent comments on Ehrman's argument will bear out, I think "changed" is perhaps too strong a term (at least in the way Ehrman uses it). But certainly copying a manuscript involved clarifying the text's wording in service of its meaning. For those of us who privilege a text's wording over its meaning (which is a distinctly post-Enlightenment development; at least, this is a working assumption I bring to the table and am interested in testing throughout the course of my career), this seems a very foreign perspective on the task of "copying" a written manuscript.
1 Indeed, most graduate students in a program such as the one in which I teach need to realize the difference between historical and theological investigations—the different questions and modes of inquiry relevant to each, the variant traditions of thought constraining each, and the different rhetorical postures relevant (and appropriate) to each.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Bart Ehrman | ||||
| ||||
It's taking me a long time to work through this book, precisely because it takes so much effort to disentangle the helpful bits from the problematic bits. Usually I wouldn't think the effort was worth it, but when Ehrman is insightful I typically think he's very insightful. Here, for starters, are some of the points I find especially helpful, with my comments interspersed.
The documents of this new canon could be circulated, of course, only to the extent that they were copied. And they were copied by warm-blooded scribes who were intimately familiar with the debates over doctrine that made their scribal labors a desideratum. It was within this milieu of controversy that scribes sometimes changed their scriptural texts to make them say what they were already known to mean. (xii; Ehrman's emphases)
New Testament critics have become accustomed over the last two centuries or so asking how the social, historical, and rhetorical situations in which authors wrote and readers read affected the texts in question. Ehrman reminds us that, prior to Gutenberg's revolution in book-making, every stage of book-production (especially the stage[s] of scribal transmission) was subject to socio-historical and -rhetorical processes. As my subsequent comments on Ehrman's argument will bear out, I think "changed" is perhaps too strong a term (at least in the way Ehrman uses it). But certainly copying a manuscript involved clarifying the text's wording in service of its meaning. For those of us who privilege a text's wording over its meaning (which is a distinctly post-Enlightenment development; at least, this is a working assumption I bring to the table and am interested in testing throughout the course of my career), this seems a very foreign perspective on the task of "copying" a written manuscript.
A little further on, Ehrman writes about the task that "intellectual historians" (and let's be wary of the exclusionary value of the adjective here) set for themselves:
I think Ehrman has a rather clear sense of what history can offer us here. Historians can investigate the historical contexts and dynamics of the Christian faith, but they cannot validate (or falsify) that faith. I admit I'm a little skeptical of how he will "adjudicate some of the historical claims of the various Christian groups" precisely because Ehrman, in the words of the Washington Post's Neely Tucker, "peered so hard into the origins of Christianity that he lost his faith altogether" ("The Book of Bart," March 5, 2006). That's nonsense, not because history can only confirm Christianity's truth but because historians, qua historians, aren't looking for their faith. They're looking for the realia of life in the past, and the Gospel of Thomas is as much a historical artifact as are Paul's letters (even if some of us don't look for our faith in Thomas like we do in Romans or Philippians).1 In my experience, it's hard for both historians and theologians (including Ehrman; including also myself) to respect the boundaries that distinguish the various disciplines.
Intellectual historians may be able to adjudicate some of the historical claims of the various Christian groups—their claims, that is, to stand in basic continuity with earlier forms of Christian belief. But by their very nature the historical disciplines do not allow for judgments in any ultimate sense concerning who was "right" and who was "wrong." (12)
I think Ehrman has a rather clear sense of what history can offer us here. Historians can investigate the historical contexts and dynamics of the Christian faith, but they cannot validate (or falsify) that faith. I admit I'm a little skeptical of how he will "adjudicate some of the historical claims of the various Christian groups" precisely because Ehrman, in the words of the Washington Post's Neely Tucker, "peered so hard into the origins of Christianity that he lost his faith altogether" ("The Book of Bart," March 5, 2006). That's nonsense, not because history can only confirm Christianity's truth but because historians, qua historians, aren't looking for their faith. They're looking for the realia of life in the past, and the Gospel of Thomas is as much a historical artifact as are Paul's letters (even if some of us don't look for our faith in Thomas like we do in Romans or Philippians).1 In my experience, it's hard for both historians and theologians (including Ehrman; including also myself) to respect the boundaries that distinguish the various disciplines.
So I appreciate what Ehrman's doing, even if I'm taking a critical stance toward his book from the very beginning. And there's lots to give us pause. As one example, in Ehrman's apologia for continuing to use the labels orthodoxy and heresy, he says:
This is hardly a historical fact. At what point in Christian history (even up to the twenty-first century, let alone before the fifth) did a single, monolithic group ever come to dominate the entire Christian church? Certainly ecclesial centers tried—with varying levels of success—to exercise control over other groups; Rome was never the only church to flex its muscles when a church somewhere else began to teach or do something someone found unnerving. Rome also wasn't the only church to find its efforts to control churches in other areas successful sometimes and at other times ineffectual. My point is that not just Christianity (broadly conceived) but orthodoxy itself exhibits a surprising measure of diversity. And if so, I'm just not sure how Ehrman's thesis will pan out.
For it is a historical fact that, owing to a variety of reasons, one group within early Christianity achieved social dominance and enforced its views on other groups that had supported divergent opinions. Looked at in sociohistorical terms, orthodoxy and heresy are concerned as much with struggles over power as with debates over ideas. (12; my emphasis)
This is hardly a historical fact. At what point in Christian history (even up to the twenty-first century, let alone before the fifth) did a single, monolithic group ever come to dominate the entire Christian church? Certainly ecclesial centers tried—with varying levels of success—to exercise control over other groups; Rome was never the only church to flex its muscles when a church somewhere else began to teach or do something someone found unnerving. Rome also wasn't the only church to find its efforts to control churches in other areas successful sometimes and at other times ineffectual. My point is that not just Christianity (broadly conceived) but orthodoxy itself exhibits a surprising measure of diversity. And if so, I'm just not sure how Ehrman's thesis will pan out.
But there's still lots of book to go, and we'll have to encounter his arguments as he makes them. Hopefully we'll find much to learn from Ehrman. And where we find his argument unconvincing, hopefully we'll sharpen and refine our own argument.
1 Indeed, most graduate students in a program such as the one in which I teach need to realize the difference between historical and theological investigations—the different questions and modes of inquiry relevant to each, the variant traditions of thought constraining each, and the different rhetorical postures relevant (and appropriate) to each.
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