After having taken a look at the apocryphal gospels in the last part of this series, we now want to get an overview of the apocrypha in general. In the following, we will use the term apocrypha to refer to those writings that have not been included in the canon of the New Testament. The term is derived from the ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος apokryphos, English ‚hidden, dark‘. There are more apocryphal books:
The biblical apocrypha (from Ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος (apókruphos) ‚hidden‘) denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books thought to have been written some time between 200 BC and AD 400. The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches include some or all of the same texts within the body of their version of the Old Testament, with Roman Catholics terming them deuterocanonical books. Traditional 80-book Protestant Bibles include fourteen books in an intertestamental section between the Old Testament and New Testament called the Apocrypha, deeming these useful for instruction, but non-canonical.
It is interesting that in Luther 1543 as well as in the English King James Version of 1611 these Apocrypha are summarized at the end. In the Vulgate and Catholic Bibles, however, they are found among the other books. Even in the early Greek translation, the Septuagint, they are found in between. Many modern Bibles, however, adhere to the Jewish Bible, which has not contained them since the 1st century AD. So the answer as to whether a book is part of the canon can vary.
As far as the New Testament is concerned, such differences no longer exist. But in the first centuries, besides the apocryphal gospels, which we have talked about in the last part, there were definitely other genres of apocryphal writings.
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
The canonical Acts of the Apostles (also called Acts) describe in more detail the missionary activity of only a few apostles. Therefore, other Acts of the Apostles or Acts appeared in the second and third centuries:
Aprocryphal acts of Andrew
Aprocryphal acts of Thomas
Aprocryphal acts of Philippus
Aprocryphal acts of Matthias
Aprocryphal acts of Bartholomäus
Aprocryphal acts of Barnabas
…
Aprocryphal acts of Paul
Aprocryphal acts of John
Aprocryphal acts of Peter
What they have in common is that they are hardly based on facts but are more influenced by the Greco-Roman novel of the era. An example from the Acts of John:
The author reports that Jesus constantly changed his figure. Sometimes he looked like a little boy, sometimes like a handsome young man, sometimes he appeared with a bald head and a long beard, then again like a youth with his first down on his cheek.
Before his death, Jesus gathers his disciples in a circle around him and sings a hymn to the Father while his apostles hold hands and dance around him in a circle. The terminology of the hymn borrows heavily from the Gospel of John and its prologue. At the same time, the author gives it a docetic flair.
Incidentally, they are the oldest source of the celebration of the Eucharist for the dead.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 174
Apocryphal Epistles
In the New Testament, most of the writings belong to the epistolary genre. In the Apocrypha, on the other hand, only a few letters are found, probably because it was quite difficult to produce genuine-sounding letters.
Metzger describes the 2nd-century Epistola Apostolorum this way: „In short, the writing represents a Catholic Christian’s fierce attack on gnosis.“
There was also a 3rd Corinthians letter, which was highly respected by the Armenian Church. And a Laodicean letter. For this, of course, the Epistle to the Colossians in Colossians 4:16 had provided the steeple, as we have already seen at the beginning of the series. Presumably, however, this was written toward the end of the 3rd century. Jerome reports that „some read the letter to the Laodiceans, but it is rejected by everyone.“
Apocryphal Apocalypses
The most important apocryphal apocalypse is the Apocalypse of Peter from the period between 125 to 150 A.D. In the Canon Muratori it is listed after the Revelation of John. In the Codex Claromontanes, the list of canonical books is concluded with the Apocalypse of Peter. Opinions about it differed among the church fathers and also in the congregations. „The unknown author, who was the first to introduce pagan ideas of heaven and hell into Christian literature, drew his conception of the future life from a number of pre-Christian traditions.“ (Metzger p. 181)
So, already in the first centuries there was a flood of writings circulating in the churches. Some of them were also read and appreciated in the meetings and quoted by the Fathers of the Church. Nor could the title or the supposed author be relied upon as authority. The disciples of Jesus had to examine and evaluate the content:
Do not extinguish the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
Is there only one gospel? If you look at the Greek word from which the German and English word is derived, there is:
The Gospel is the good news that God has come to man in Jesus Christ. The word „gospel“ (German Evangelium) means „good news“ and comes from the Greek word euangelion. The message of Jesus was: God’s kingdom has dawned, he will finish his work and make the world whole.
The German word ‚Evangelium‘ is pretty close to the Greek euangelion. But ‚gospel‘?
Gospel is the Old English translation of the Hellenistic Greek term εὐαγγέλιον, meaning „good news“; this may be seen from analysis of ευαγγέλιον (εὖ „good“ + ἄγγελος „messenger“ + -ιον diminutive suffix). The Greek term was Latinized as evangelium in the Vulgate, and translated into Latin as bona annuntiatio. In Old English, it was translated as gōdspel (gōd „good“ + spel „news“). The Old English term was retained as gospel in Middle English Bible translations and hence remains in use also in Modern English.
I personally find the description of the BibleProject (German) quite good. And also the video (English) about it:
The Gospel as Good News of God’s Kingdom
In the Christian tradition, the word gospel is generally a shorthand term for the core message of the Christian faith. However, the exact meaning of the term gospel varies; depending on tradition or denomination. So, if we are looking for clarity, it is best to go back to the original source of this word in biblical history.
The biblical word for gospel denotes good news. But it is not just any news. The word is most often used when referring to important events involving rulers and their kingdoms. When King Solomon is appointed king of Israel, „good news“ is proclaimed throughout the land. In other words, gospel is a royal term that announces good news about the ruler in office.
Jesus announced the coming of God as King of Israel and all nations. But the way he imposed his reign surprised people. The cross is the royal announcement that God saves his world by dying for it and by allowing our sins to overwhelm him to the point of death.
Well, about the last paragraph we could discuss now, in how far this is so direct from the „original source of this word in the biblical history“. For example, if we were only allowed to use the Gospels. And that brings us to the issue. Just now I said „the Gospels“, but before that it was about „the Gospel“.
So if there is one gospel, one good news, why is there more than one gospel in the New Testament, namely 4 gospels? And why exactly 4? Three of them, the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, plus John. They are called synoptic gospels because they see the life of Jesus from a similar perspective and are quite similar. John’s Gospel is much more different from these than the three are from each other. Were there then only these three and later another gospel as writings? Besides the oral tradition, of course.
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, …
Luke 1:1 American Standard Version
Since there was no Gospel of John at the time of the writing of the Gospel of Luke, only Matthew and Mark would come into question. There the statement that already ‚many‘ had undertaken it would be perhaps nevertheless somewhat exaggerated. So we learn already from the gospel of Luke which has been handed down to us: There were many ‚gospels‘, but only four have been preserved to us.
And also the conclusion of John’s gospel makes understandable why there may have been more oral and also written reports against:
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
John 21:25 NIV
Which ones do we know about yet?
Apocryphal Gospels
By apocryphal gospels we refer in the following to those that have not been included in the canon of the New Testament. The term is derived from the ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος apokryphos, English ‚hidden, dark‘. There are more apocryphal books:
Religious writings of Jewish or Christian origin from the period between about 200 B.C. and about 400 A.D. that were not included in a biblical canon or about which there is disagreement, whether for reasons of content or religious policy, or because they were written after the canon was completed or were not generally known at the time they were written.
These gospels, which have not been preserved to us, form two groups: those which were to supplement the four gospels and those which were to replace them. (This and the following examples are taken from Bruce M. Metzger The Canon of the New Testament, German, p. 164ff).
Now the early Christians were particularly interested in two points in Jesus‘ life and ministry, but these were omitted entirely by the Gospels: Jesus‘ childhood, which only Luke reports once (Luke 2:41-51), and the deeds the Savior did in the invisible world during the three days between the cross and the resurrection.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 164
There are numerous such reports since about the second century, and we at least know of their existence:
Proto-Gospel of James
Childhood story according to Thomas
Arabic Childhood Gospel
Armenian Childhood Gospel
History of Joseph the Carpenter
Gospel of the Nativity of Mary
Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as Acts of Pilate)
Gospel of Bartholomew
… (there are more)
I also listed them because they were already known at that time under a designation that included familiar names. However, that did not play a role in judging whether they should be part of the canon. So also we should get rid of the idea that the Gospel of Matthew belongs in it because the title already says that the apostle Matthew would have written it. Or 2 Peter must also be from Peter. Even if it is mentioned in the text, you have to be careful, because that was done in other texts as well.
We will take a closer look at four of them, because we can learn something from them about how the idea of what belongs in the canon and what doesn’t has developed.
Fragments of an unknown gospel (Papyrus Egerton 2)
Sometimes, even in modern times, previously unknown manuscripts of gospels appear. Perhaps we still remember news that now perhaps the history of Jesus and the whole Christian faith would have to be rewritten. Well, this has failed to happen. And not because all scientists conspired to cover something up. There are enough scientists who, on the contrary, have an interest in scientifically researching and publishing such a sensation. But the texts are published and everybody can judge for himself what he thinks about it.
One example is the fragments of an unknown gospel published by the British Museum in 1935. It was probably written around 110-130 AD. Some narratives are found in the Synoptics and John. But it also contains an apocryphal miracle worked by Jesus on the banks of the Jordan River. A textual example:
And he addressed the leaders of the people, and he [Jesus] spoke thus, „Search the scriptures in which you think you have life-they bear witness of me (see John 5:39). Do not think that I have come to accuse you before my Father; Moses will accuse you, in whom you have put your hope.“ (see Jn 5:45) Then, when they said, „We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where you are coming from“ (see Jn 4:29), Jesus answered them, „Now your unbelief accuses you…“
Unknown Gospel Papyrus Egerton 2, Fragment I, Zeilen 5-9
The interesting thing about this gospel is: It probably has no written model, but written and oral tradition still overlap here. This was already described by Papias of Hierapolis, who lived around 100 AD.
It must also be pointed out that the production of Gospels and other apocryphal writings did not stop or was notably hindered by the development of the New Testament canon. Popular piety built itself on the steady stream of romantic and imaginative writings whose historical value was at best of marginal interest.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 166
The Gospel of Hebrews
What then were the views of the church fathers on the apocryphal gospels?
In the writings of the various Church Fathers, we encounter passages and quotations from various early Gospels from the second and third centuries. We can gauge from them the use they made of the apocryphal books and the authority they attributed to them.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 166
Jerome was very interested in it and proudly reports that he made a translation into Greek and Latin. And he quotes from the Gospel of Hebrews. Origen also does it and Clement of Alexandria uses it. In the Coptic version of a sermon on Mary, the God-bearer, attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, the author puts a quotation from the Gospel of Hebrews into the mouth of a representative of the „Ebionite heresy.“
This is what is written in the [Hebrews] Gospel: When Jesus Christ was about to come to man on earth, the Good Father in heaven chose a mighty power called Michael and entrusted Christ to his protection. And the power came into the world and was called Mary, and [Christ] was in her womb seven months.
Coptic version of a sermon on Mary
Now perhaps we understand better the difference with the gospels in the New Testament. And why the Church has ultimately excluded such gospels from its canon. Ultimately – because in the beginning it was still quoted from them.
The Egyptian Gospel
The so-called Egyptian Gospel was written in Greek shortly after 150 and was even recognized as canonical in Egypt. In a polemic against the Gnostic Julius Passianus, Clemens quotes parts of it, for example, a passage from a dialogue between Salome and the Lord:
„When Salome inquired how long death would reign, the Lord (who did not think life was bad and creation evil) replied: ‚As long as you women bear children.’“ In response to Salome’s inquiry as to whether she had done well not to have children, she receives the reply, „Eat of every plant but the bitter one.“ and „When you have trodden the robe of shame underfoot, and the two become one, and the male with the female [is] neither male nor female.“
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 168
These words clearly call for sexual abstinence. Here we can see the thinking of some Gnostics and the Encratites, who, for example, rejected marriage.
The Gospel of Peter
„The text reports the passion, death and burial of Jesus and embellishes the account of his resurrection with details of the miracles that followed. The responsibility for the death of Jesus is laid exclusively on the Jews, Pilate is absolved of all guilt. Now and then traces of the Docetic heresy are found.“ (Metzger, p. 169).
If one compares these and even more divergent gospels with those in the New Testament, one can see clear differences in quality, both theologically and historically. At that time, people were convinced that the gospels in the canon corresponded best to the faith and teachings of the apostles and were essentially accurate and reasonable.
Why exactly 4 Gospels?
Based on what we have discussed so far, we would probably have no problem if there were now 3 or even 5 Gospels in the New Testament. That would have been just the best, available at that time. But what already occupied the church fathers at that time was the question, why there was not only exactly one scripture about the life of Jesus, but several with certain deviations. There were different ’solutions‘ for this:
There must be a rationale as to why there are exactly four.
The four are combined into one.
Only one can be the right gospel. That is chosen, and all others are rejected.
In part 8 we had already seen how Irenaeus of Lyon argued:
„It cannot be at all that the number of Gospels is greater or less than it is, for in the world in which we live there are also only four cardinal points and four winds … The four living beasts (Revelation 4:9) symbolize the four Gospels … and there are four main covenants with humanity: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ.“
Irenaeus of Lyon, Adv. Haer. III 9,8
In particular, the reference to the four beasts in Ezekiel and the Revelation of John are interesting, because this was already to gain great influence in later Christian art from about the fourth century (see Wikipedia). Here is an example from a 7th century codex where you can nicely see the connection of evangelists with the animals:
The evangelists with their attributes, Codex Amiatinus (7th c.)
But you do not have to go to a library to find this symbolism. For example, the animals can be found above the western entrance of the cathedral of Speyer (Germany) around a huge round window in the four corners of the comprehensive square the four animals again. Few visitors are likely to know that this refers to the four gospels:
Western portal of the cathedral in Speyer. The symobles are eagle, man, lion and bull as symbols for the gospels
Central portal of the west facade of the cathedral in Chartres
But back to the Gospels. Tatian took a different path. He wrote the Diatessaron, which combines the four Gospels into one, by incorporating the Synoptics into the Gospel of John. When he went back to the East in 172 AD, it translated the Greek Diatessaron into Syriac. This was read for a long time in place of the four Gospels in all the churches of the capital and later of the entire region.
Marcion, who will be discussed in part 13 of this series, took the opposite approach. He recognized only the Gospel of Luke and rejected all others.
Summary
In summary, we could say that there is only one gospel but many gospels in the sense of scriptures. Why these are different is a question we cannot elaborate here. But are there exactly four gospels in the New Testament because that was God’s plan from the beginning? Well, that sounds a bit like the reasoning of Irenaeus of Lyons. And it ignores what we noted in Part 10 about inspiration. A more natural explanation is that God, through his Holy Spirit, helped several people compile the accounts into writings. And in other gospels, God’s involvement seems more questionable. Interestingly, the Christians and Church Fathers do not seem to have divided all of these into inspired and non-inspired. But rather more or less beneficial. And as it is said in other writings in the New Testament, God helped the disciples of Jesus through the Holy Spirit to test them for their truthfulness, because in the beginning it was still possible to ask eyewitnesses. In later centuries, he may well have supported people again in such a way that they considered some of these writings worthy of inclusion in the canon. For a while, people still quoted from other gospels, but eventually this stopped. What of this was God’s will and influence or church policy is for each person to decide for themselves. We will go into this in part 13.
In the last part of this series I had said that with terms like ‚the Holy Scriptures‘ or ‚the Word of God‘ some assumptions and ideas are unconsciously linked. At the very least, we should be clear about exactly what we mean by the terms ‚God’s Word‘ and ‚the Holy Scriptures‘ when we use them. And most importantly, are these terms even used in the Bible itself? Let’s look at that, much like I did in the article and video: Should we (let ourselves) be called Christians or anointed ones? or Should we (let ourselves) be called brothers of Christ.?
‚The Holy Scripture‘
Let’s start with the fact that the Bible is often called ‚the Holy Scripture‘ in German – and to some extend in English. If you search for ‚holy scripture‘ in some German Bible translations, e.g. in the ERF Bibleserver (in German), you will find – nothing! This is not quite true. I found one passage in a translation which also shows the reason why we do not find this in the text of the Bible:
The Jews in Berea were not as prejudiced as those in Thessalonica. They responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ with great readiness, and they studied the Holy Scripture daily to see if what Paul taught was in accord with what the Scriptures said.
Acts 17:11 Neue Genfer Übersetzung.
Now these, who were more noble than those in Thessalonica, received the word with all readiness, on every day examining the Scriptures, whether these things were so.
Acts 17:11 Berean Literal Bible
Acts 17:11 Interlinear Greek
In the Greek here namely γραφὰς (graphas) noun, accusative, feminine, plural (Strong’s) is written. Strictly speaking, the Greek text even says only ‚the writings‘ – already the word ‚holy‘ is added. Interestingly, all the English translations on biblehub.com render this as ‚Scriptures‘. I also examined the few other passages where it is translated ‚holy scriptures‘. In fact, it is only twice in the Greek text:
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures (γραφαῖς ἁγίαις, graphais hagiais) Paulus, Knecht Christi Jesu, berufener Apostel, ausgesondert für das Evangelium Gottes, das er durch seine Propheten in heiligen Schriften vorher verheißen hat.
Romans 1:1,2 NIV
and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures (ἱερὰ γράμματα, hiera grammata), which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture (γραφὴ, graphē) is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness …
2 Timothy 3:15, 16 NIV
And immediately something stands out, which I had already analyzed in detail in parts 2 and 8: With ‚Holy Scriptures‘ here quite clearly the old testament, the Tanakh is meant.
Incidentally, the word γράμμα gramma used in 2 Timothy 3:15 is used only 15 times in the New Testament and always describes something written, usually a letter. Strong’s states, „From grapho; a writing, i.e. A letter, note, epistle, book, etc. plural learning.“ Here it is in the plural: writings. Whereas in verse 16 the word γραφή graphé (without the suffix ‚holy‘) is used, which is used 51 times. Strong’s states, „(a) a writing, (b) a passage of scripture; plur: the scriptures. A document, i.e. Holy Writ.“ By the end of the explanation, we already see how it moves from explaining the language to interpreting it. Incidentally, if one calls Strong’s Greek 1124 directly on biblehub.com, the part „A document, i.e. Holy Writ.“ is missing.
Instead of an explanation, you can find even more interpretation. For example, in HELPS Word-studies:
The addition „, i.e. the inspired, inerrant writings of the Bible (the 66 books of Scripture, 39 in Hebrew, 27 in Greek)“ has nothing to do with the Greek word used in the Vers. And in the previous part 9 of this series we talked at length about inspiration and also the claim of infallibility of the text. And in part 8 we talked about the origin of the canon of the New Testament and how many books the Bibles of different branches of Christianity have. Why the important second part is only in brackets is not explained. Whereas the reference is important that in the New Testament γραφή graphé is always used for the Old Testament.
Let’s compare this with the NAS Exhaustive Concordance. And let’s take into account that its name contains ‚exhaustive‘:
The whole ‚exhaustive‘ explanation is: ‚a writing‘. More detailed explanations are often found in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon:
Here one finds the main meanings grouped together and also immediately with their use in the text. These explanations are given: „(a) a writing, thing written (from Sophocles down): πᾶσα γραφή every scripture namely, of the O. T., (b) ἡ γραφή, the Scripture κατ‘ ἐξοχήν, the holy scripture (of the O. T.) — and used to denote either the book itself, or its contents (some would restrict the singular γραφή always to a particular passage; see Lightfoot on Galatians 3:22) (c) a certain portion or section of holy Scripture.“ I found it interesting here how it moves from „every scripture namely, of the O. T“ to „the Scripture“ and then to „the holy scripture (of the O. T.)“ without further justification. But at least the Old Testament is correctly spoken of.
But let’s take a look at the usage itself. The use of this word γραφή graphé is diverse. And sometimes surprising.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Romans 9:17 ESV
This is really what the Greek text says. How could ‚the Scripture‘ speak to Pharaoh? Some translations solve this creatively-interpretatively: „For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, … :“ (NIV), „For he said in the Scriptures to Pharaoh,“ (Aramaic Bible in Plain English) and „In the Scriptures the Lord says to the king of Egypt,“ (Contemporary English Version).
We note:
Nowhere in the Bible does it say ‚the holy scripture‘, but only twice in the New Testament does it say ‚the holy scriptures‘ and that clearly refers to the Old Testament.
Otherwise, the New Testament speaks only of the ‚Scripture‘ or the ‚Scriptures‘ and means the Old Testament.
Is this splitting hairs now? I don’t want to make a dogma out of it, but under the surface lies an important question: Is the Bible an authoritative collection of writings, or a collection of authoritative writings? What is meant by this? To put it casually: Did either identify writings as holy and were they then collected? That’s how it was originally with the Old Testament. Or is there a holy collection – the canon – whereby the writings included in it also thereby become holy? If we now recall what we learned in a previous part about the canon of the New Testament, we may better understand why this is important. If the canon, which was not established by the Church until the fourth century, is authoritative, then this decision of the Church has a very different significance. This is exactly how the Catholic Church sees it:
„Apostolic succession is the proof that authority belongs to the Catholic Church alone. She alone is steward and guardian over the interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Whoever breaks with Her breaks with the Holy Spirit.“
„The Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ, Pius XI declares; she is the divinely appointed guardian of revealed truth, which must not be dragged down to the bottom of discussions.“
However, the New Testament does not make this statement! And Protestants will contradict it also vehemently. Just as the first quotation is actually about the fact that the Catholic side resolutely contradicts the ’sola scriptura‘ (only the Scripture).
Is it really necessary to burden the scriptures that have been handed down and preserved for us with so many absolute claims that cannot be upheld historically and on the basis of the facts? Must one insist on verbal inspiration, even though that makes no sense (see Part 9 of this series)? Or that the Catholic Church alone is the guardian? Are the scriptures perhaps just a gift from God to help us gain wisdom and live as He wills? This is something that everyone must evaluate for themselves. But maybe I should not just say something like that here. If you publish such a thought as a professor, it can cost you your job at a theological seminary that puts its own tradition above the object of tradition – the scriptures (see, for example, the article about Peter Enns).
If the Bible is for us ‚the [infallible] Holy Scripture‘, then we will naturally struggle to accept that it demonstrably contains human aspects, has been revised, and some things have been altered or lost in copying or translation.
This is what I meant at the beginning, that with a term like ‚the Holy Scripture‘ we may associate rather far-reaching, unspoken assumptions. And we automatically activate these with the use of the term in mind when we read or think about the Bible.
God’s Word / Word of God
You already suspect it. With the term ‚the Word of God‘ it will not turn out differently. Is that a good description for ‚the Scriptures‘? If everything is ‚the Word of God‘ for us, we expect a certain perfection of the text, don’t we? Is this term even used in the scriptures to refer to ‚the Bible‘?
And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was multiplied exceedingly, and a great multitude of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith..
Acts 6:7 Berean Literal Bible
Good. This hardly means ‚the Bible‘. Neither it spreads nor there was even one letter of the New Testament written at that time.
For the word of God is living and active …
Hebrew 4:12 Berean Literal Bible
That doesn’t sound like ‚the Bible‘ either. But gives us a much better, more comprehensive meaning.
And many were gathered together, so as to have no more space, not even at the door. And He was speaking the word to them.
Mark 2:2 Berean Literal Bible
‚The Word‘ certainly did not refer to the Bible or the New Testament, which did not even exist yet.
Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.
James 1:21 Berean Literal Bible
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
Ephesians 6:17 Berean Literal Bible
The sword is taken in hand here in the sentence, not the Bible. In fact, a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as I recall, felt called on the basis of this text to lash out with texts taken from the Bible as if with a sword. And I can also remember how many a speaker waved his printed Bible around at this text. But back to the text.
For this is concealed from them willingly, that heavens existed long ago and the earth, having been composed out of water and through water, by the word of God, through which the world at that time perished, having been deluged with water.
2 Peter 3:5,6 Berean Literal Bible
Here, too, there is obviously no mention of ‚the Bible‘ as the Word of God. But what then? Perhaps the text is to be understood as this translation renders it: „and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.“ (ESV)
And isn’t even Jesus sometimes referred to as ‚the Word of God‘? Because of this text, for example:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, a glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1, 14 Berean Literal Bible
Let me summarize it this way:
The Bible is not God’s word, but the Bible contains God’s words.
This is a very important difference. It keeps the Bible valuable, even if it’s not as perfect as we might like it to be. When I wrote that down, I thought I had found a nice pithy phrase. But in an email about this series, someone wrote me, „In the 1980s, a brother once told me, „The Bible is not God’s Word, it contains God’s Word!“ I was hardly the first. But when several come up with the same thought, it is worth examining more closely.
These are truly the words of God:
The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”
Exodus 24:12 ESV
What about this?
But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if …
1 Corinthians 7:12 NASB
When Paul says something, are they exactly God’s words? Well, if he writes it in a letter, which is then in the New Testament … We had already addressed that in the last part about inspiration. And would you say that every word of the Lord – clearly Jesus is meant here – were directly inspired by God. Everything he said and then was written down in the Gospels? So the gospels that we know and which are part of the New Testament?
Returning to the words of God, what about this?
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Matthew 4:5,6 NIV
What the devil says is not from God, is it? So the first part of the verse are not God’s words. Then it gets complicated. The devil is quoting … ‚God’s word‘? That’s right. Even the devil can quote ‚God’s word‘. But his words are not God’s words, are they?
Ok. I’m certainly not trying to make a dogma or a rule here either. It’s again about a deeper problem with the term ‚Word of God‘: it pretty much implies verbal inspiration: no word in the Bible is formed or shaped by humans. But this is not correct, as we saw in the ‚inspiration‘ part of tis series. Even to call the autographs themselves – let alone a translation – ‚the Word of God‘ or ‚The Holy Scriptures‘ is then going quite far.
Perhaps we are also sometimes too fixated on a ‚Holy Book‘. We hope for a written, perfect guide for life and faith. But who had that? For Abraham, this ‚Word of God‘ was enough:
Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot was separated from him, „Now, lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, …
Genesis 13:14 World English Bible
Today, God no longer speaks directly to us – at least not to me. Therefore, I am grateful for what I have.
And with that, I delete for myself what does not correspond to the facts but also what creates a false expectation:
„The Bible is the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God (dictated word for word) and thus contains exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.„
It remains: The Bible is. Or better, as I find: the Scriptures are. And precisely because I try not to have unrealistic expectations of the scriptures, I find words of God and wisdom in them and it contributes to a stable foundation of my faith:
The Scriptures – the Bible –, whose utlimative source is God, contain what we need. Enough has been preserved to this day for us to know God and live in wisdom as He desires.
And what do we need, what does God expect from us?
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micha 6:8 World English Bible
And with that we are … far from the end of this series! 😀
For example, I have spoken of ‚the Bible‘ an incredible number of times. Just a moment ago. Yet we have not even examined the meaning of this term. The German word Bibel comes from the ancient Greek βιβλία biblia with the meaning: ‚books‘. The explanation in Wikipedia is quite revealing:
The English word Bible is derived from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, romanized: ta biblia, meaning „the books“ (singular βιβλίον, biblion). The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of „scroll“ and came to be used as the ordinary word for „book“. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, „Egyptian papyrus“, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.
The Greek ta biblia („the books“) was „an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books“. The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia („the books“) to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.
Latin biblia sacra „holy books“ translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (tà biblía tà hágia, „the holy books“). Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra „holy book“. It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.
„The Bible is inspired by God.“ What exactly is meant by this? Does it refer, for example, to 2 Timothy 3:16? Whereby, then the quoted text would already have been decisively changed, because it does not speak of ‚the Bible‘ there. In part 2 we had already talked about texts like 2 Timothy 3:16: „All Scripture is inspired by God“. And in both Part 2 and Part 8 we talked about the facts that show that the authors of the New Testament autographs meant by ‚Scripture‘ what is called the Old Testament. However, as time went on, the writings of the New Testament were held in higher esteem by Christians, and today many feel the same way about the New Testament as well. And so it happens that many make no distinction between the Old and New Testaments on the subject of inspiration.
Conservative evangelical theologians, for example, have formulated their conviction in the so-called Chicago Declaration (Wikipedia) in this way:
„A short statement: 4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.“
„Article VI: We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.“
Chicago statements, 1978
The problem with such claims is that they are still too imprecise, contain many assumptions implicitly, and are very general.
For example, one problem with the first sentence of this statement is what is meant by ‚the Scriptures‘. Does it mean the text you read in one of your German translations? Or the autographs (called original there), which we can infer from the second sentence? But what significance then remains if we look again at the diagram from the first part?
What else would have to be true for this idea of inspiration to be useful to us?
Whether the text in the autographs is inspired by God down to the individual words and free of errors, we cannot check, because (a) no autograph has been preserved and (b) we would have to compare its text with God’s thoughts.
For this, God would also have to have prevented any falsifying human influence of the writer or also of the one who dictated.
But this is of no use to us yet, because we only have a translation of a text into a completely different language and culture, which was reconstructed from very many, quite different manuscripts, which the church had included in the canon and which was copied again and again.
So, in order for this absolute statement to make sense to us, God would have to have controlled all the other steps quite equally.
But there were many unintentional as well as intentional changes to the text in the manuscripts. And different translations use different words – are they all literally chosen by God?
For example, did Jesus say this very thing in the Sermon on the Mount?
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3 BSB
So these English words, of course, not. By the way, this translation uses completely different words:
God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
Matthew 5:3 NLT
Since he did not say these or the other words in English, that would be an inspired translation at best. But these words, perhaps:
But possibly not even these are inspired words, because the Gospel of Matthew, according to some church fathers and also scholars, was written in a Hebrew dialect, more precisely probably Aramaic.
And what about this passage?
The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:38 NIV
If we have a literal inspiration, did the teacher of the law or Jesus say it exactly like that? In Greek! I wonder if the Jewish teacher of the law spoke Greek or Aramaic with Jesus? Ok, so the literal inspiration probably does not refer to the words spoken in reality, but at most to the form of the quotation. Did God want to make sure that at least the representation is exactly as he wanted it, even if it is not exactly what had been spoken?
But let us also compare these parallel texts in the synoptic gospels:
And Jesus answering said, „O unbelieving and perverted generation … Ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν Ὦ γενεὰ ἄπιστος καὶ διεστραμμένη
And answering him He says, „O unbelieving generation! Ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς αὐτοῖς λέγει “Ὦ γενεὰ ἄπιστος,
And Jesus answering said, „O unbelieving and perverted generation, Ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν “Ὦ γενεὰ ἄπιστος καὶ διεστραμμένη,
Matthew 17:17, Mark 9:19, Luke 9:41 Berean Literal Bible, Berean Greek New Testament 2016
What did Jesus really say at that time? Only unbelieving generation? Or did he also call them perverted? So the literal inspiration cannot have reproduced verbatim the actual wording. But that the literal inspiration was used by God to write down exactly what should be written instead of the spoken word, cannot be the case either. After all, there are two different versions! And this is only one example, which a synoptic comparison brings to light.
Am I just being petty now and looking for the proverbial fly in the ointment? No, because the rather broad statement was that God „completely and literally“ inspired the text. And if you set the bar that high, then the text must be measured against those claims. Now, is there a problem in the text of the New Testament, or not rather with the claims made about the text?
Next problem. An analysis of the text shows that different vocabularies and writing styles were used. But if God inspired the words exactly, why does God use different writing styles and vocabularies in the texts, creating the impression of different human authors? That would almost border on deception. It would be misleading in any case.
And while we’re on the subject of the Gospels: Is this a literally inspired account of the life and teachings of Jesus. No! After all, there are four in the canon – which differ from each other, especially John. But is each one literally inspired by God? This has been a concern for Christians since the first century. There will be a separate video on this.
And one more thing. If God so precisely planned and literally inspired the text and canon, why do it in a way that rather suggests the opposite? I well remember that every Jehovah’s Witness ‚Bible study aid‘ failed to do exactly one thing: look at the New Testament verse by verse from beginning to end. Every such textbook – not just those of Jehovah’s Witnesses – does something quite different: it arranges things thematically. Why is the supposedly literally inspired text of the New Testament not written that way? In the Old Testament you can see that this is possible: When God wants to say how people should live according to his covenant, what does he do? He starts with the most important thing: Himself. See Exodus 34:6,7. Then 10 commandments (Ex. 34:28), then the laws (Leviticus). Who orders the world? Genesis (Genesis). Why does it look different? Genesis (Genesis). Why a covenant with us, the Israelites? Historical account in Genesis (Genesis).
After all, a new era has begun with Christ. Is there anything comparable? Not really. Or it is very, very short: Matthew 22:37-40 „With these two commandments all is said that the law and the prophets will.“ And what about the rest? Life of Jesus, history of Jesus‘ first disciples, letters of current occasion to certain assemblies. General exposition of the faith. And a revelation. That this is not a thematically ordered law or textbook is already evident from the fact that in discussing practically every doctrine, verses from the most diverse parts of the New Testament must be brought together.
And there is another difficulty with the statement that the New Testament is literally inspired by God with the help of the Holy Spirit of God. For John makes it sound like this:
“There is so much more I [Jesus] want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’
John 16:12-15 NLT
So, in reality, what the Spirit of Truth makes clear to the disciples later comes from Jesus? Not from God at all? At least that’s how it sounds in the revelation attributed to John:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
Revelation 1:1 ESV
However, the spirit of truth is not mentioned here, but the message is delivered by an angel. And as we had already seen in Part 2 – Addendum, it even says that John should write down the words. Did then only during the writing down God’s spirit – the spirit of truth – provide for the literal inspiration?
However, many others translate John 16:14 more literally:
He will glorify Me, for He will take from that which is Mine and will disclose it to you.
John 16:14 Berean Literal Bible
This already does not sound as if Jesus gives the words to the Holy Spirit. Which brings us back to the topic of literal inspiration and translation.
Well, with this we see the true extent of the problem of literal inspiration: If one confronts this idea with the facts, it has to be retracted more and more. This gives the impression that all that is needed is more facts to disprove this claim altogether, and this then settles the issue of the Bible for many. In this case, it may start with the statement that the Bible is inspired down to the words and without error. If with it the Bible is meant, as we or others had it in the past, then these texts would have to have been copied exactly. Then comes the reference to the many deviations in the manuscripts. And already this sentence must be softened somehow. And so it goes on.
We want to proceed the other way around, and work out a statement that is supported by facts and does not need to be changed so quickly (the arguments are taken in part from Michael S. Heiser The Naked Bible’s Thoughts on Inspiration, Part 1 and Following):
The word translated as inspiredθεόπνευστος (theopneustos) occurs exactly once in the New Testament in 2 Timothy 3:16. In 2 Peter 1:21 a very different word φερόμενοι (pheromenoi) is used. What could inspired θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) mean?
θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) states that God was the immediate source. Thus, he must have dictated or implemented every word into the mind of the writer. No word must have sprung from the mind of the author. This is similar to what many evangelicals think, as quoted at the beginning.
θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) states that God was the ultimate source. Humans were the immediate source. God chooses people. Rarely does he actually tell them exactly what to pass on. But the norm is that people choose the words – under God’s supervision.
In the German literature, these three terms are used (see, for example, ERF Die Bibel als Gottes Wort (The Bible as God’s Wor):
The verbal inspiration: Not only the content contexts and the authors of the Bible are inspired by God, but also the words themselves. The entire Bible is understood as the perfect, error-free and authoritative word of God.
The personal inspiration: Here the author of a biblical book is filled with God’s spirit. God made him able to say something about God or faith without everything he writes having to be perfect. The person is inspired and not necessarily the entire content of his message.
Th ‚real inspiration‘ (German Realinspiration): In this model, it is the broad thematic contexts of a biblical book that are inspired, not the author or the wording. What is not central to faith is not necessarily inspired by God’s Spirit.
The problem with verbal inspiration is that, on the one hand, we cannot check it at all because we do not know the autographs and also do not know what God wanted to write. On the other hand, it is of no use to us if we cannot read and understand the text in the languages of the autographs with the cultural background of the time. As soon as a translation is available, the choice of words of the translators would have to be subject to a verbal inspiration. And what if two translations have chosen different words? Are then both literally inspired? We see that already in the translation one must extend the idea of a verbal inspiration.
Verbal inspiration corresponds to the thought of an immediate source and personal as well as ‚real inspiration‘ to the thought of an ultimate source. God is the ultimate source because, for example:
He created the human beings.
It was his idea to reveal something to us.
Carefully selected people and used or created the circumstances to create the writings.
God as the ultimate source also explains much better why the texts of the Bible themselves had different vocabularies, writing styles and complexity in about the same time. If God dictated every word or placed it in the minds of the authors, why would He have gone to all this trouble? To make it seem somehow human, when it was supposed to contain only his words?
Let us also remember 1 Corinthians 7:12 „But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother …“ (NASB). Do the words after this come from God or from Paul? And if they had been the Lord’s words, would they have been God’s words implanted in the mind of the Lord? That was not necessary at all, because Jesus often enough emphasized how similar he is to his Father. When Jesus spoke, it was in complete harmony with God’s thoughts. And shouldn’t this also have been possible with Paul, with the help of the Holy Spirit, without putting every word into his mind and pen. After all, this was not the case with his lectures either. And did Paul say something ‚wrong‘ there?
The God who is thus the ultimate source of the text is much greater and more ‚omnipotent‘ than one who dictates every single word as the immediate source. Word-for-word dictation can even each of us. Anyone who believes that God guided the development of the canon should have no problem with the fact that He, as the ultimate source, also so guided the development of the text.
In principle, he probably did it with the prophesying and writing as he did with the craft work with these two:
Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.
Exodus 35:30-35 NIV
Does that sound like God dictated stroke by stroke and every hand movement and word into their minds? Sounds more like an intelligence and talent amplifier, what the Spirit of God is doing here.
Let’s come back to 2 Peter 1:20:21:
Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:20,21 ESV
How must we imagine that prophets „were carried along φερόμενοι (pheromenoi)“. This word contains the idea of carrying, bringing forth, advancing something. When used in connection with intelligent people as in Mark 1:32; 7:32, it never eliminates or manipulates the sense of the person, but simply takes someone where. 2 Peter 1:21 conveys the idea that God caused the prophets to speak and write – as the ultimate source – using their own words. Not that he controlled their meaning and writing hands on every word.
Do you still think that God dictated the scriptures word for word? Then you must also assume that He also remote-controlled those like robots who revised the scriptures. Revised the holy scriptures? That can’t be true! If that is part of your view of ‚inspiration‘, then it is also a part that is contradicted by the facts. Even by the text itself! Here are a few examples from the Old Testament, that is, what were ‚the scriptures‘ for the writers of the New Testament.
Deut. 34:1-12 „So Moses the servant of Yahweh died in the land of Moab, as Yahweh had said, and he buried him there in the valley opposite Beth-peor. To this day, no one knows where his grave is. Moses had lived to be 120 years old. His eyesight had not diminished and his strength had not waned.“ How could Moses have written this? Or did God use him to write it during his lifetime?
Genesis 14:14 „Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his 318 tried servants who were born in his house and pursued those as far as Dan.„ In the time of Abraham there was neither the tribe nor the city of Dan. But Moses wrote that and knew it! Only Judges 18:29 tells us that Moses couldn’t even know the city by that name yet: „And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, which was born unto Israel: whereas formerly the name of the city was Laiish.“
„Until that day“ is often a reference to a later revision of the text. For example, in Deut. 10:8, „In those days the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to bless in his name until that day.“
Ezekiel 1:1-3 „And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth ⟨month⟩, on the fifth of the month; when I was in the midst of the wayfaring men by the river Kebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw appearances of God. On the fifth of the month-that is, the fifth year ⟨after⟩ the going of King Jehoiachin-the word of the LORD came expressly to Ezekiel the son of Busi the priest in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Kebar; there the hand of the LORD came upon him.“ Did we notice the change from the first person ‚I‘ in verse 1 to the third person ‚Ezekiel‘ ‚him‘? There is a lot of that in the Old Testament.
Psalm 72:20 „This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse. (NIV)“ Really? No, there will be some later. Then why does it say that? Because it was the end of ‚Book 2‘ of the Psalms. After that, others were found. In some Bible translations one also finds the indication that with Psalm 73 ‚book 3‘ begins.
There are other examples from Isaiah or various versions of the book of Joshua (See Michael S. Heiser’s blog) or Jeremiah (See blog).
And what does that mean now? Is the Bible now inspired by God word for word? Yes or no? The answer is: This question does not lead very far. After all, we have already seen some evidence that the answer must be no. In this extreme form, we need to shorten the sentence from the first part even further:
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God (dictated word for word) and thus contains exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.“
And while we are at it, it is actually not the holy scriptures, but holy writings. And it’s not really the Word of God, because in the Gospels, for example, the words of the devil in the temptations are also written down. But we will talk about that in the next video, part 10.
Ok. Can it be that these explanations have made you a little – let’s say – ’nervous‘? Make you afraid? Or maybe you react more in the direction of ‚aggressive‘: „This can’t be true. This is just undermining my faith!“ Another typical reaction is flight: None of this matters. The main thing is that we all love each other. But then Matthew 22:37-40 would be quite enough, Jesus‘ summary. Why then 140,000 more words in the New Testament canon? I guess we can’t just brush aside the text and its challenges that easily after all. For better or worse, we will have to deal with this issue further. At least, if we want to base our faith and ideas on the facts – and not on our wishes or handed down ideas.
And that is why in the next part we have to deal with such common terms as ‚the Holy Scriptures‘ or ‚the Word of God‘, because a whole set of assumptions and ideas are unconsciously connected with them.
Many probably take for granted that their Bible contains 27 scriptures, beginning with the Gospels and ending with Revelation. Before the birth of Christ, on the other hand, there were certainly no writings that we would call ‚Christian writings‘. What happened in between? This is indeed an exciting – and important matter for the foundation of our faith. In this part of the series we can only give an overview, based on the standard work on this subject by Bruce M. Metzger, „The Canon of the New Testament“, which I can only warmly recommend:
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament“
In the introduction he writes [This is my English translation of the German version. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an English copy.]:
The recognition of the canonical status of the various books of the New Testament was the result of a long and gradual process in which certain writings that were considered authoritative were separated from a much broader corpus of Christian literature. Although this was one of the most significant developments in the thought and practice of the early church, history is essentially silent as to how, when, and by whom it was set in motion. In the annals of the Christian church, nothing is more surprising than the absence of detailed accounts of such a significant process.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament“, Introduction, p. 11 (italics not in the original)
So we do not know who started this process and when. Jesus did not do it. Nowhere do we read that he instructed his disciples to write a ‚holy book‘. However, history and manuscripts provide us with a lot of clues as to how the process unfolded over a good three centuries. We can see that there was no master plan, no commission to produce exactly these 27 writings and form a canon from them. By the way, I use the term canon here in the sense of a list of books recognized by Christians. The word itself comes from the Greek and had many different meanings and was also used differently by Christians in the first centuries.
In order to better understand the formation of the canon, I present important events in the first four centuries:
The Development of the Canon of the New Testament in the Context of the First Four Centuries
What is probably immediately noticeable is the great time gap between the time of Jesus, the apostles and the creation of the scriptures and the evidence of different versions of the canon of the New Testament. The final establishment of the canon that we know did not happen until the fourth century at the time when Emperor Constantine promoted Christianity and the councils took place in which the doctrine of the Trinity was established as doctrine.
What authorities were recognized by Jesus‘ disciples and what influence did they exercise?
1. From the first day of its existence, the Christian church possessed a canon of sacred writings – the Jewish scriptures. … The exact boundaries of the Jewish canon may not yet have been finally established, but its books were already sufficiently defined that it was possible to refer to them collectively as „scripture“ (he grafe) or „the scriptures“ (hai grafai) and to introduce quotations from them with the formula „it is written“ (gegraptai).
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, p. 12.
On the one hand, it is interesting that the canon of the Jewish scriptures was still discussed around the year 90 AD, although the translation into Greek (Septuagint) had already begun over 300 years earlier. The discussion was not about what should be included, since there was a whole series of books from the second temple period, but whether some should remain in the canon (Ecclesiastes, Esther, Solomon’s Song of Songs).
Second, it is important to note again, as in Part 2 of this series, what the Christian authors meant when they spoke of ‚the Scriptures‘ or ‚the sacred writings‘ in, for example, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20, or Romans 15:4: They were the writings of the Jewish canon! Not their own! As we shall see, it was only later that Christians began to regard the writings of Paul or Peter in this way.
2. In the oldest Christian communities there was another authority that had found its place side by side with the Jewish Bible, namely the words of Jesus as they had been handed down orally. …
It is not surprising, therefore, that in the early church the words of Jesus, which were remembered, were highly esteemed and quoted, and thus took their place beside the law and the prophets, and were regarded as equal or superior to them in respect of their authority.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, pp. 12, 13.
Since today we no longer have the same oral tradition, but are very much fixated on the Bible as a book, we may not be so aware of the immense importance that oral tradition had until well into the second century. Perhaps the difference will impress itself on us by means of this diagram:
Oral tradition, teachings and beliefs, writings
In the first century and early second century, the oral tradition through the disciples was still so strong that new teachings and writings were measured against it. Later – and even more so today – the writings became more and more authoritative because the chain of trustworthy transmitters of the oral tradition became too long and unreliable.
3. Parallel to the oral dissemination of Jesus‘ teachings, apostolic interpretations arose on the significance of his person and work for the life of believers. …
Even if the writers of these apostolic letters are convinced that they speak with authority, they do not yet show the consciousness that their words could one day be considered the permanent norm of doctrine and life in the Christian church. They wrote for an immediate purpose and just as they would have spoken, they would have been able to be present with their addressees.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, pp. 13, 14.
There is a note in the footnote that references to autographs can be found among the patristic authors. Tertullian (De Preasc. Haer. 36) mentions Thessalonica among the cities to which apostolic letters were written and still read in the original. This would have been about the second half of the second century.
4. In the course of time, Christian literature gained in volume and was disseminated in various communities.
At the same time, allusions to the higher rank of the apostolic writers, who had lived so close to the time of Jesus‘ earthly appearance, set the earlier documents apart from the contemporary writings and helped those to solidify as a separate literary coprus.
It is not surprising, therefore, that readers could, and did, distinguish between the „sound“ of certain documents that were later identified as canonical and the ever-growing corpus of patristic literature.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, p. 15.
So, after the Jewish canon (Old Testament) and the words of Jesus, the writings of the apostles and others in the first century are now slowly receiving a special, higher status.
5. In the age that followed that of the apostles, the expression „the Lord and the apostles“ represented the norm referred to in all matters of faith and life practice. …
It is precisely to this kind of public reading of the Christian documents that Justinus Martyr refers around 150 A.D. He tells us that it was customary to read out „the memory of the apostles“ (i.e. the Gospels) or the writings of the prophets on Sundays at the services. Thus it came about that the Christian congregations became accustomed to regard the apostolic writings as in some sense equal to the older Jewish writings, and this liturgical custom, though it no doubt varied in the different congregations, stamped certain Gospels and Epistles as deserving special respect and obedience.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, p. 15.
Here we see the later development: by the fact that both „the scriptures“ of the Jewish canon and the scriptures of the Christian authors were read side by side in the worship service, in the course of time they were perceived as equal to them for Christians.
6. In the second and third centuries, translations of the apostolic writings were made into Latin and Syriac, and possibly into the Coptic dialects of Egypt.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, p. 16.
In particular, the translations into the language of the people of Western Europe – Latin – led to the fact that already from something of the fourth century these were considered ‚the scriptures‘ and no longer the Greek (or Aramaic) autographs. As we have already noted, already in the 4th century Eusebius had to begin to evaluate the variant manuscripts and the resulting Vulgate was to become ‚the Bible‘ of Christians for many centuries.
This is the introduction of Bruce Metzger’s book. In the remaining almost 300 pages, one finds a multitude of historical facts.
In the patristic period, the writings of the apostolic fathers are characterized by the fact that they quote from the writings that were later included in the canon. But they are always only a part of them and different ones. All seem to know only a part of these writings.
For early Jewish Christians, the Bible consisted of the Old Testament and some Jewish apocryphal literature. Along with this written authority, mainly oral traditions of sayings attributed to Jesus circulated. On the other hand, authors who belonged to the Hellenistic wing of the Church more often refer to writings that would later become parts of the New Testament. At the same time, however, they considered such documents as „Scripture.“
Moreover, there was not yet an obligation to quote exactly from books that were not yet canonical in the full sense. … In short, we find both in the Jewish and Hellenistic groups a knowledge of the existence of certain books which later constitute the New Testament, and more than once they express their thoughts by sentences taken from these writings. These echoes aim to show that an implicit authority of such writings was felt before a theory of their authority had been developed. This authority, moreover, was in no way exclusionary.
Bruce M. Metzger, „The Canon of the New Testament,“ p. 79.
Typical for this time a letter around the year 95/96 AD, which according to tradition is attributed to Clement of Rome.
The Old Testament quotations are often introduced by such well-known formulas as „the Scripture says“ (he grafe legei), „it is written“ (gegraptai), „that which is written“ (to gegrammenon), and are usually taken with great accuracy from the Greek text of the Septuagint. The situation is different with the few New Testament quotations. Rather than introducing gospel material with citation formulas that imply a written record, Clement twice urges his readers to „be mindful of the words of the Lord Jesus.“ In 1 Clem 12:2, Clement compiles a number of phrases, some of which are found in Matthew and Luke, but others have no exact parallels in the four Gospels.
He is familiar with several of Paul’s letters and holds them in high esteem for their content; the same can be said of the Letter to the Hebrews, with which he is well acquainted. Even though these writings obviously have noteworthy importance for Clement, he never refers to them as authoritative scripture.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ pp. 50, 52.
Metzger writes about the development of the canon in the East:
After the time of the Apostolic Fathers, we enter a new stage in the history of the books of the New Testament. The books of the canonical Gospels form a closed collection and are received by the entire Church in this form. The Pauline epistles are also considered inspired Scripture, and here and there the same is true of the Acts of the Apostles and the Revelation of John. A few other books are still on the fringes of the canon: the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the Epistles of Peter, the Epistles of John, and the Epistle of Jude.
Bruce M. Metzger, „The Canon of the New Testament,“ p. 116.
With regard to the development of the canon in the West, I would like to highlight only one aspect in connection with Irenaeus of Lyons:
In contrast to the multitude of the new gospels of the Gnostics, the universal church at the time of Irenaeus recognizes only the four gospels or – as he expresses it – the one gospel in fourfold form (to euaggelion tetramofron). Their multiplicity is regarded as given and final.
„It cannot be at all that the number of the Gospels is greater or less than they sit, for in the world in which we live there are also only four cardinal points and four winds … The four living beasts (Acts 4:9) symbolize the four Gospels … and there are four main covenants with mankind: Noah, Abraham, Moses and Christ.“ (Adv. Haer. III 9,8).
This means that for Irenaeus the canon of the Gospels is closed; its texts are sacred. The apostolic canon, on the other hand, is not yet closed, and it does not occur to him to theorize about their number, as with the Gospels, when he speaks of the twelve Pauline epistles, their addressees, or their attribution to Paul.
Bruce M. Metzger, „The Canon of the New Testament,“ p. 152.
For us it may be quite natural to speak of four Gospels. But in the first centuries this was not so. Otherwise Irenaeus would not have had to stoop to such numerical mysticism. „At that time, when there was no finished canon, it was by no means everywhere considered natural that different biographies of Jesus, even differing from each other to some extent, should have equal authority.“ (S. 248). This did not happen until the development and completion of the canon. „There is reason to believe that a Gospel was newly in use in some churches long before the canon question was settled. Apparently only the Gospel of Matthew was in use throughout Palestine. In contrast, there were churches in Asia Minor that had only the Gospel of John from the beginning, and likewise Luke and Mark were read only in certain churches.“ (S. 249)
As far as the number of reports about Jesus is concerned, already the introduction of Luke’s Gospel is interesting:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled a among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Luke 1:1-4 NIV
So, many have already written gospels in the sense of reports about Jesus. But not all of them are in the canon. We will talk about that in a later part of this series. And there were the eyewitnesses and oral tradition.
In fact, there were dozens of other books that were at times considered canonical in certain individual churches (p. 163). These included apocryphal gospels, such as the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Egyptians, or the Gospel of Peter. There were also apocryphal Acts of the Apostles as well as apocryphal epistles. And finally, apocryphal apocalypses, such as the Apocalypse of Peter or the Apocalypse of Paul. For example, the Apocalypse of Peter is included in the list of canonical books in the Codex Claromontanus (p. 181).
In the Canon Muratori (probably late 2nd century), which is more a list of titles than a canon, are found (pp. 188ff): a) The Gospels. The Gospel of John is presented as representing the common teaching of the Twelve, whereas the others each transmit a particular individual tradition. b) The Acts of the Apostles. c) The Epistles of Paul, thirteen in number. d) Other Epistles. Epistle of Jude and two epistles of John. Then comes a „book of wisdom, of which was written by Solomon’s friends in his honor.“ How this got in, no one understands to this day. e) Apocalypses. John’s and Peter’s apocalypses. Of the latter it says, „though some of us do not wish the latter to be read in church.“ Which means, of course, that it was certainly read out. f) Excluded books.
Finally, a double categorization is found in Eusebius (p. 197):
First, Eusebius classifies the writings according to the criterion of canonicity and sets „canonical“ against „non-canonical“. Then he distinguishes according to their character and sets „orthodox“ against „heretical“. … But this classification can explain to us why Eusebius could assign the Revelation of John to two classes. The historian recognizes that the Scriptures are widely accepted, but as a churchman he knows of the extraordinary use that the Montanists and Millenarists make of the book. And so he is glad to be able to report in another place of his church history that others do not consider it genuine.
Bruce M. Metzger, „The Canon of the New Testament,“ p. 198.
It may sound dry and boring, but it raises an interesting question: Should a scripture be considered ‚holy scripture‘ simply because it is part of a canon? What do most Christians do today when presented with a scripture and asked if it is inspired by God? Exactly, tif hey find the scripture in their Bible, then it’s ok. But the list of books in our Bible is exactly the canon of the New Testament that was worked out in the first four centuries. In the first century, the content was checked against the orally transmitted teachings. And by the time of Eusebius, one was now kind of in between. If a scripture was read over and over again in the congregation on Sundays, then it was part of a ‚canon‘ and therefore to be accepted, right? That’s roughly the first division of Eusebius. But he also still has the second: Is the Scripture ‚orthodox‘ in content, that is, does it agree with the teachings of the Church? Many of the Church Fathers also found other writings to be useful and suitable for reading aloud, but did not necessarily count them among the narrower circle of writings recognized by most. The Shepherd of Hermas, for example, was such a scripture.
As late as 325 A.D., Eusebiuus reports that in the Church in the East the authority of most of the Catholic epistles (i.e., general, not addressed to a specific congregation) and the Revelation of John is still doubtful. (S. 201)
Even as late as 691/692, this is expressed in an astonishing conciliar decision by the Trullanic Synod: „Indirectly, with regard to a biblical canon, the Council sanctioned hardly coherent and downright contradictory opinions. For example, we have seen that the Synod of Carthage and Athanasius recognized the minor Catholic letters and Revelation as canonical, whereas the Synod of Laodicea and the Eighty-fifth Apostolic Canon rejected them. The latter canon regards the two Clementine epistles as canonical, while the others reject them.“ (p. 208) In summary, Metzger writes: „The official lectionaries of the Greek Church do not contain the Revelation of John in either Byzantine or modern times. This makes clear the inferior position of this book in the East. And it is significant that, taking into account the number of all extant copies, very few Christians are likely ever to have seen or possessed an entire New Testament.“ (S. 209)
The last sentence in particular raises an important question: How does the idea that God and Jesus would have planned that a canon of these 27 books is exactly what every follower of Jesus needs fit with the historical fact that in the early centuries virtually no Christian ever saw or heard the complete canon of the New Testament in his or her lifetime?
Metzger summarizes the development in the West as follows: „Twenty-seven books, no more, no less – this has been the slogan in the entire Latin Church ever since. It would be wrong to present it as if the canon question had been settled for all Christian churches at the beginning of the fifth century. The manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles (and entire Bibles) were not immediately expanded or replaced by complete copies, and thus the Epistle to the Hebrews was given the place now officially accorded to it. Thus, the Letter to the Hebrews is missing from a Latin and Greek manuscript (MS G) from the 9th century. On the other hand, manuscripts with the Letter to the Laodiceans appear. Thus, in spite of the influence of Jerome, Augustine and the decisions of the three provincial syndodes, in the following centuries we find more than once testimonies that deviate from the canon: Either writings are added, or some are missing.“ (p. 227)
Since we have already recognized so much about the history of the canon just in a few minutes, we can compare this with what the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses says about the canon in the book Insights on the Holy Scriptures – Volume 1 under the keyword ‚Inspiration‘:
However, even as God by his spirit, or active force, granted to certain Christians the “discernment of inspired utterances,” he could also guide the governing body of the Christian congregation in discerning which inspired writings were to be included in the canon of the Sacred Scriptures.—1Co 12:10; see CANON.
Insights on the Holy Scriptures – Volume 1, p. 1205 (italic by me)
If, as in the literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses, ‚governing body‘ means the assembly of apostles and elders in Jerusalem according to Acts 15, then it did not compile a canon. How could it have, if most parts of it did not exist yet. Otherwise, the popes and bishops would have to be regarded as the ‚governing body‘ until the 5th century, which was hardly intended. So it is simply false and misleading, and is simply meant to detract from the scriptural statement that Christians – and not just ‚certain Christians‘ either – could discern through the Holy Spirit. Ok, back to the topic.
Today, the canon of the New Testament looks as stable as if it had been designed directly by God, with exactly 27 books. But this was the result of the development of the canon in the West of the Church over a period of at least 400 years. So is the canon only man’s work? Everyone must form his own opinion on this, and the following text by Metzger is helpful:
Without wanting to extend the discussion here to the paradox of double causation, i.e. human and divine, according to which events can be caused by God as well as by man, it must be asked whether Marxsen is justified in declaring that „from the historical point of view the canon is a product of chance“. Marxsen’s judgment is not a necessary consequence of historical science, but a purely philosophical judgment. There is no historical data to prevent one from safely subscribing to the view of the universal Church that, in spite of all human conditions (confusio hominum) in the production, preservation, and collection of the books of the New Testament, the whole process can rightly be regarded also as a result of divine providence (providentia dei). This is nowhere more evident than in cases where a book has been recognized as canonical on obviously erroneous grounds. For example, much of the Church erred in attributing the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews to the Apostle Paul. Everyone will agree, however, that they were intuitively correct and in the course of time recognized the intrinsic value of the letter.
Bruce M. Metzger „The Canon of the New Testament,“ p. 268.
„There are no historical data which prevent …“ means, however, also that the historical data do not really force the conclusion that God’s hand was the leading here.
We should also not forget the temporal dimension that we saw in the diagram at the beginning. And that it was the same ecclesiastical dignitaries who established the canon, including doctrines such as the Trinity, and who share responsibility for the persecution of all other opinions.
We also tend to see the result of this process: Finally, the New Testament is restored. And with that, all is well. We have seen that this process is not yet over and that many writings of the first century – let alone the oral tradition – are no longer available to us. And most importantly, during this centuries-long process, Christians had no canon of unadulterated and trustworthy writings.
Concerning our assertion from the first part of the series, I interpret the part „thus contains exactly what God wanted“ in such a way that it excludes any human influence. If one understands it in such a way, then one must delete this on the basis of the facts known to us now also.
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.„
I know that some people will now look at this sentence in despair and ask whether there is anything left at all. But we must not forget that this sentence represents a very, very far-reaching assertion – which cannot be held like that. But just beneath the surface of this perfect wishful thinking, we find more solid ground. Or to put it more casually, you can wait like the proverbial princess until the ideal, perfect prince charming arrives. Or become happy together with the real prince, who comes as close as possible to the ideal one.
In the previous part of this series, we talked about the manuscripts, the textual witnesses, and what changes were made unintentionally.
Before that, however, in „The Canon – Part 5: The Comma Johanneum„, we had already considered in detail 1 John 5:7,8, a very famous example of an intentional change. Was this a rare exception? As early as the 2nd century, a pagan critic of Christians named Celsus argued that Christians change their texts entirely as they see fit. Interestingly, Origines did not deny this in his rebuttal, but spoke of a large number of differences in the manuscripts of the Gospels. A little over a century later, Pope Damasus was so concerned about the differences in the Latin manuscripts that he commissioned Jerome to produce a standardized text, which then became part of the Vulgate. And already he had to compare different manuscripts in Latin and Greek that differed from each other.
Deliberate Mistakes
Some changes were inserted when copying a manuscript because it was believed that a marginal note (gloss) or insertion between the lines was not an additional comment but actually belonged in the text. And some of these are still found in current translations and are not always indicated by a footnote. For example, in Revelation 20:5.
The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years were complete. This is the first resurrection.
Revelation 20:5 BSB
The first sentence is missing in Codex Sinaticus, Codex Vaticanus, and the Aramaic texts (see this article). The translators of the 2001 Translation note:
This familiar description of the resurrection has been quoted for years and used as a basis for many religious doctrines. However, the words shown in italics above aren’t found in the Bible’s oldest Greek manuscript of the Revelation, the Codex Sinaiticus.Nor are they found in the oldest Aramaic manuscript, the Khabouris Codex. Therefore, they appear to be a later, spurious addition to the Bible, and this is why we have chosen to cross them out. They’re probably some ancient preacher’s personal notes which he had written between the lines; they were likely moved into the main text by later copyists who couldn’t tell if they were part of the original text or not.
Comment 2001 Translation on Revelation 20:5
But you can also mislead the reader a bit more:
(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the 1,000 years were ended.) This is the first resurrection
“Therefore, when you catch sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation, as spoken about by Daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place (let the reader use discernment),, …
Revelation 20:5; Matthew 24:15 New World Translation
Who once has read the insertion in brackets in Matthew 24:15, will assume in Revelation 20:5 in the same translation that this is just as much a insertion. After all, in the old NWT one could still read in the footnote: „“The rest of the dead . . . 1,000 years were ended,“ AVg; missing in אSyp.“ In the current edition this footnote is missing. Revelation 20:5 is just very important for the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, the first part, which is not included in the oldest manuscripts and is later found in various places as a marginal note in some manuscripts, cannot be considered as certain. And therefore it is a good example that one should be careful when a certain teaching is based on only one text.
Intentional Changes
[Examples from Bart D. Ehrman Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bibel and Why, Chapter 3]
In Mark 1:2,3 we read:
as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” —
Mark 1:2 NIV
The problem is that not only Isaiah is quoted here, but also Malachi and Genesis. That is why some writers have changed it to „as it is written in the prophets“ (see King James Bibel for example).
Another example is Matthew 24:36:
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.
Matthew 24:36 ESV and NKJV (and KJV)
Some writers must have wondered how this could be: The Son of God does not know? Is he not also omniscient? The text was probably also used as an argument against the Trinity. That was what they wanted to prevent. And so the part „not even the Son“ was left out.
In Matthew 17:12-13, some copyists wanted to prevent the misunderstanding that John the Baptist was the Son of Man. And so they added the explanation: „his disciples recognized that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist“.
A whole series of other changes were made so that the text could not be used by ‚heretics‘.
For example, in Luke 5:38-39.
No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’ ”
Luke 5:38-39 NIV
When in the second century there was a movement among the Christians who were convinced that the old religion of the Jews was completely overtaken by the new religion of the Christians, the conclusion of this text was suspicious to them: How could Jesus say that the old wine is better than the new one? And so copyists simply left out the last part.
For some copyists, it was also not enough that Jesus is not called the son of Joseph in Matthew 1:16. Instead of Joseph being Mary’s husband, they changed the text so that he was only the fiancé. Jesus was not allowed to have a human father in any case.
When an ascetic lifestyle became more important to some Christians, they added ‚ and fasting‘ in Mark 9:29:
And He said to them, „This kind is able to go out by nothing except by prayer.“
So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”
Mark 9:29 Berean Literal Bible, New King James Version
One of the most famous liturgical changes is that of the Lord’s prayer in Luke. The prayer in Luke seems hopelessly abbreviated compared to the familiar words in Matthew 6:9-13, so copyists have ‚harmonized‘ the text in Luke and simply inserted parts from Matthew into Luke.
In some translations, even today, you can read an account that reminds you more of the Apocrypha:
In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; 4for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.]
John 5:3,4 NASB 1995
In the oldest and best manuscripts, there is no movement of the water and the reason for it. Due to the oraltradition, this part was added later by copyists. According to the oldest and best manuscripts we read only:
Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
Johannes 5:3,4 NIV; according to the oldest and best manuscripts
However, there are other intentional changes to the text that have a greater impact on the central message and teachings of the text.
Jesus Christ was full of love and compassion, wasn’t he? For example, Mark 1:41 says
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!”
Mark 1:41 BSB
Many will know the text and it probably touches us all. But in another translation we can read:
Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”
Markus 1:41 NIV
In one of the oldest textual witnesses, however, the Codex Bezae, and three Latin manuscripts, we thus find the word orgistheis (to be angry) instead of the Greek word splangnistheis (to have compassion). Based on these textual witnesses, we can assume that this textual variant dates back to the second century. But can it be that Jesus is angry or resentful? He is never portrayed that way in Luke and Matthew. Many scholars assume that Mark was a source for both. But even when they do give a fairly accurate account of the text from Mark, it omits that Jesus was angry. But also in Mark 3:5 we can read that ‚he looked around at them with anger‘. And according to Mark 10:14, he was even angry or displeased with his disciples. Both Matthew and Luke report the same thing, but without mentioning Jesus‘ feelings. And finally, according to Mark 1:43, he also ’snapped at‘, ‚threatened‘, ’sternly rebuked‘ the sick man.
Could it be that our image of Jesus is too much influenced by the Gospel of Matthew, Luke and especially John. And we ignore the nature of Jesus according to the Gospel of Mark? We would not be the first to do so. Some copyists in the earliest history of Christians changed the text of the manuscripts because of this.
Thus, Jesus is portrayed in Luke’s Gospel as being unshakeable by anything. Except for his prayer on the Mount of Olives according to Luke 22:39-46.
saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow,
Luke 22:42-45 NASB
In some of the oldest and best manuscripts (in ‚Alexandrian‘ texts) the crossed out words are not found. But in some other ancient textual witnesses. Therefore, scholars are still debating whether these words are from Luke or not. And even though this text may not affect any central dogma, it changes the picture of Jesus considerably. And there were already very, very early different versions of this gospel.
And also in Hebrews 2:8-9, a teaching about Jesus‘ death is involved:
But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Hebrew 2:9 NIV
Most of the textual witnesses contain the idea that Jesus suffered death „by the grace of God“. But what does that mean? But in some other textual witnesses it says that Jesus died „separated from God“. And Origines writes in the early 3rd century that this was found in most manuscripts of his time. I wonder what was in the autograph? We don’t know. And not even Origines in the early 3rd century could figure it out. Both variants have interesting theological consequences. In the context of this series, let us note: It is an example of a text where we do not know what is ‚right‘ from the 3rd century until today. The text has not been handed down to us by God in a clear and certain way.
Intentional, theologically motivated changes to the text
Let us give just a few more examples of intentional changes to the text, where we can see which view among Christians this was directed against. These different movement and their importance for the development of the canon of Christian scriptures will be discussed in a later part of this series.
Against Dynamic Monarchianism or Adoptianism
In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, there were a number of Christian groups that advocated dynamic monarchianism or Adoptianism (see Wikipedia or Bart D. Ehrmann, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, ch. 6). The best known group was that of the Judeo-Christian sect of Ebionites. For one thing, they insisted that all followers of Jesus must also become Jews. They were also strict monotheists in the sense that for them only God the Father could have a divine nature. Jesus did not exist as a man before his birth. He was ‚adopted‘ by God as a son at his baptism because of his special righteousness. Because of his faithfulness to the point of death on the cross, God rewarded him by raising him up and exalting him to heaven.
Dhis view, however, contradicted the developing doctrine of the Trinity held by the proto-orthodox church. Therefore, someone changed the text of 1 Timothy 3:16 in a way that can be found even today in Bibles:
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
1 Timothy 3:16 KJV
In the earliest manuscripts, however, such as the Codex Alexandrinus, this is found:
By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, was believed in throughout the world, was taken up in glory.
1 Timothy 3:16 BSB
From ‚he‘, which clearly referred to Jesus, became ‚God‘. In Greek, a slight difference from ΟΣ to ΘΣ (as an abbreviation for ΘΕΟΣ, God). Thus it came about that many Christians over nearly 2,000 years found in this text the idea that God was revealed in the flesh. Since this is a central doctrine of the Christian churches, this has not been a minor change.
For a similar reason, you can still find this today:
And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
Luke 2:33 KJV
Whereas in many other translation you can read:
The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.
Luke 2:33 NIV
A large number of copyists substituted Father for Joseph because they wanted to avoid giving the impression that Jesus had a human father, which would have helped the adoptionists in their argument.
As said, the disagreement was also about when Jesus became the Son of God. These texts are of interest in this context:
And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22 NIV
In an early Greek manuscript and various Latin ones, however, one finds this:
You are my son, today I have begotten you.
Early Greek manuscript, Latin manuscripts and quotations from the Church Fathers.
In fact, many church fathers quoted this text very often in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, that is, at a time before most of the textual witnesses were written. And what statement did they almost always quote? „Today I have begotten you“.
Against Docetism
Another group of Christians had the exact opposite view towards Adoptianism, which is called Docetism (Wikipedia). The name comes from the Greek word DOKEO, which means ‚to appear as something‘. According to this, Jesus was fully and exclusively divine. He only ‚appeared‘ to be a man, because as God he could not also be man.
However, some copyists wanted to make sure that Jesus was very much a real man on earth. Therefore, they added the part about Jesus sweat like blood in Luke 22:43-45, which we have already discussed.
We find another addition in the description of the Lord’s Supper:
After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.
Luke 22:17-21 NIV.
The crossed-out part is missing in one of the oldest Greek manuscripts and some Latin textual witnesses. Typical of an alteration is the alignment with the account in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. And the resulting circumstance that this unexpectedly mentions two cups: before and after the bread. Why the text was added can be seen, for example, in the writing of Tertullian Against Marcion: it was to emphasize that Jesus had a real body of flesh, which was also sacrificed. But we do not want to go into that here now.
Against the ‚Separationists
In the 2nd and 3rd centuries there was another movement that we could call ‚Separationists‘, although this is not a common name. For them, there was Jesus, who was only human (as in the Adoptionists) as well as the Christ, only divine (as in Docetism). This idea is often found also among the Gnostics of that time.
We have already looked at one text that was changed to go against these ideas: Hebrews 2:9. The idea that Jesus died „apart from God“ and not „by God’s grace“ would have fit this idea all too well.
According to Irenaeus, Mark’s Gospel was the first choice of those who „separate Jesus from Christ.“ Therefore, Mark 15:34 was changed:
And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, „Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?“ (which means „My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?“).
Mark 15:34 NIV
There is solid evidence – e.g. in the Gospel of Philip, that some Gnostic groups interpreted this text very literally and considered it as the moment when the divine Christ separated from the human Jesus. Therefore, there are one Greek and several Latin manuscripts in which the copyists replaced the text with this: „My God, my God, why have you mocked me?“ It was creative, because in the account of Jesus‘ execution in Mark, almost everyone mocked him. But it is not in our earliest and best textual witnesses, nor does it fit the Aramaic text.
How are Differences Assessed?
Now that we have considered a whole range of intentional changes to the text, the question arises of how to evaluate such changes and differences. Several criteria should be considered to assess how reliable a word, text or passage is. (See the article in the forum).
An overview and explanation of falsified texts can be found in the articles in the forum (each text a separate article).
The 2001Translation translators cite these three criteria regarding manuscripts:
A. The words are missing from the prominent old manuscripts, especially the great codexes (e.g. Matthew 6:13). This is direct evidence that the words were not always accepted as genuine.
B. The wording has different fundamental meanings in different manuscripts (e.g. Acts 7:16). This suggests there was no original to check against, and could be common notes added by different people before being transposed into the text.
C. The words jump around in different places in different manuscripts (e.g. 1 Corinthians 14:33). This suggests that earlier copyists knew they were unoriginal, so they copied them in different places as marginal notes until, eventually, different copyists transposed it into the text wherever they found it.
There are also criteria that take into account the context:
D. The words are out of context and break the narrative (e.g. Matthew 27:52-53). Original words would not do this, but later additions would. This, by itself, would not be enough evidence to declare a passage spurious.
E. They say factually incorrect things or don’t make sense (e.g. 1 Corinthians 14:34). The original inspired writers could not make silly mistakes, but later persons inserting fake words could easily do so.
F. The words reflect later dogmas that nobody believed at the time (e.g. 1 John 5:7-8). An original writer would not say something that would require a time machine.
G. Removing the words allows the passage to flow better or to make more sense. If a passage is spurious, removing it would make no difference or improve the text. Removing original words could break or worsen the passage (usually, but not always).
As we have already seen from some examples, the text of the manuscripts was unfortunately also intentionally changed. On the one hand, because it was thought that a text in the margin or between the lines had only been forgotten and in reality belonged to the original text after all. In a number of cases, however, the text was also intentionally changed in order to promote a certain doctrine or to prevent other interpretations. And this demonstrably happened as early as the second century. Before that, we just don’t know anything. Often the reason was to exclude Christians with other interpretations of the text as heretics.
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.„
So even if – as one translator of the 2001 translation noted – we were sure of 99.9% of the text, that would still mean that there are about 150 errors lurking in the text. In fact, it might be difficult to give an estimate here. And what is even more important for our question: For the last 2,000 years, all Christians have had a much, much worse text with many more errors. God has not perfectly preserved the ‚original text‘, that is, the autographs.
On the other hand, we must not disproportionately interpret the facts and also what I just said. The facts prove that the extreme form of the statement, can not be held. But the facts also do not show that the text of the Christian scriptures is completely unreliable. And it is not at all about a binary statement: Do you believe that the text in the Bible is correct or not? Can you base your faith on it or should you leave it alone altogether?
The facts provide us with a better foundation: We can make statements about how reliable the text of the canon of Christian scriptures is. We do not make a blanket statement for the entire canon, but can determine, depending on the text, on the basis of the many textual witnesses, whether there were or are deviations or whether none are known. When we think about a biblical text, the very first thing we should do is to check how reliably it has been handed down.
Of course, a gap of many decades or even more remains between the autographs and earliest manuscripts. What changes there may have been during this time we cannot directly verify. Neither whether there were hardly any or many. We are left only to weigh a few considerations and trust in the faithful of the patristic period and the early church fathers who compared the texts with each other and with the oral tradition. And created the canon of Christian writings, as we will see in the next episode.
When we speak of manuscripts here, we are referring to the documents that contain the text of the Christian scriptures that we find in our Bibles today. The scope can range from a few words to the complete text. A very special ‚manuscript‘ would be the one which the author himself wrote. In the technical literature this is called an autograph. This brings us to the first fact we want to note:
Today we do not have an autograph of any part of the Christian writings in the Bible.
All we have are copies. And copies of copies of copies … The number of manuscripts first of all seems impressively high: About 5,800 Greek manuscripts, about 10,000 Latin and 9,300 in other languages (Syriac, Slavonic, Ethiopic, … see Wikipedia) An overview of the Greek manuscripts of the Christian scriptures can be found, for example, in the English Wikipedia under „Categories of New Testament manuscripts“.
Number of manuscripts per century and categoryOverview of manuscripts by century and category
To have an idea of what a manuscript can be in this sense, here is a picture of the oldest manuscript 𝔓52, a part of the Gospel of John:
𝔓52 is the oldest known manuscript fragment of the New Testament, which contains part of the Gospel of John
That is really all. Of the whole Gospel of John. Let’s summarize:
Even the oldest manuscript was created decades after the autograph (Gospel of John), around the middle of the 2nd century
The three oldest manuscripts are small fragments with only a few words.
The following chart illustrates when the vast majority of the 5,800 manuscripts were created:
Number of manuscripts by century and type (according to Aland) [Source]
So from the period up to about 450 AD we have only about 125 manuscripts, which is only about 2% of all manuscripts. Up to the year 300 AD, less than 1%. By the middle of the 2nd century – 100 years after Paul’s letters were written, for example – we have 3 tiny fragments like the 𝔓52 pictured above, which is only 0.5‰ of all manuscripts. The mass of manuscripts did not appear until around the 13th century. The first complete copies of individual books of the New Testament appeared around 200 CE, and the earliest complete copy of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus, dates from the 4th century (see Ehrman, Bart D. (2004). The New Testament: a Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York: Oxford. pp. 480f.).
We have the earliest complete copies of individual books only from around 200 AD – well over 100 years after the autographs.
The earliest complete copy of the New Testament (Codex Sinaiticus) dates from the 4th century – about 300 years after the autographs.
What happened to the text of the New Testament in the first 100 to 300 years we cannot directly verify.
As I said, we should not get the impression that the text of the Christian scriptures cannot be trusted at all. These figures alone do not say that at all. The point is to have a secure basis on the basis of the facts. So, for example, we have a lot of evidence that the Christian scriptures were not invented in the Middle Ages. And we can compare manuscripts from many centuries, which is good for judging the quality of the copies and the transmission. But if someone argues that the text of the Christian scriptures is absolutely certain because there are 5,800 Greek manuscripts alone, then this is misleading. For the vast majority of them were written only around the 13th century.
On the other hand, it is argued that for the classical Greek or Latin writings, there are even fewer and only more recent copies. This is true. But who of us would mind if even whole sections of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey were different and the story of Odysseus was different? Or Caesar’s De bello Gallico gives a rather colored view of his Gallic war – which we assume today. Hardly anyone bases his faith on these writings.
It is more interesting to look at the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible, ‚Old Testament‘) or the Koran. The faith of many is also based on this. And with both we have the same facts: In both cases we have also no autographs – with the Koran there is not such one at all according to the tradition. And in both cases we know only later copies. It is interesting that in all these three so-called ‚book-religions‘, their holy books are preserved only in this way, despite their immense importance.
Perhaps someone has also wondered why the Greek manuscripts are always mentioned here. Why are they so important? The answer is simple: because for a long time it was assumed that the autographs were written in ancient Greek and the Greek manuscripts are direct copies of them. For sure they were not written in Latin. However, in the Church in Western Europe – centered in Rome – Latin was not only the language of the people but also of Christian literature; even before Jerome wrote the Latin translation of the so-called Vulgate, there were Latin translations. And then until the 15th century Latin was the language of the Bible and theology in the Church in Western Europe. As we saw in the last part of the series, it was not until the 15th century that there was renewed interest in translating the Christian Scriptures directly from the assumed original language, Greek, or in making the Greek text available. Why did this not happen earlier? Because the conviction had prevailed that with the text of the Vulgate one already had the text of the Christian scriptures intended by God, which completely agrees with the tradition of the church!
It should be mentioned here only briefly for the sake of completeness that it is quite possible that some books of the Christian scriptures were originally written not in Greek but Aramaic – the language spoken in first century Palestine. Irenaeus, for example, speaks of the Gospel of Matthew being written in a dialect of Hebrew. And that was Aramaic there. It may surprise you, but Hebrew was only reconstructed in modern times because it had hardly been spoken for centuries! (Wikipedia Hebrew Language) There are other arguments, for example, concerning word choice and grammar, or that Aramaic words occur in the text and are explained in Greek, but not vice versa. Thus, early Aramaic texts might not be translations at all but copies of the autographs. But let us stay with the manuscripts in Greek for now.
Discrepancies between the manuscripts
As we saw in the previous part of this series, Erasmus of Rotterdam published the first edition of his Greek New Testament in 1516. Essentially, he was able to draw on only a handful of medieval manuscripts. [This and the following are from Bart D. Ehrman Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why] The later editions of this text were then used by the translators of the King James Bible. Thus, if someone reads the unchanged King James Bible today, they will indirectly be reading the state of the Greek text at that time. In 1551, Stephanus (Robert Estienne) published his fourth edition of 1551 of the Greek New Testament, which was the first to contain verse divisions in the Greek New Testament. Even more important for us was his third edition of 1550, because it was the first to document in notes the variations in the manuscripts.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the various editions of the Greek New Testament were so much alike that in 1633 Abraham and Bonaventure Elzevir printed in one edition the famous quotation: „We have now the text which is accepted by all, in which we have nothing altered or falsified.“ The first part gave rise to the term Textus Receptus (T.R.) used by textual critics to refer to the text originally published by Erasmus, but not based on the oldest and best manuscripts.
So the work on the Greek text seemed to be finished. This changed only with a pioneering work by John Mill of Queens College, Oxford, in 1707, which he published after 30 years of hard work. John Mill had access to several hundred Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. In this work he documented the discrepancies in the textual witnesses that had survived over the centuries. Variations between the various Greek manuscripts and also quotations of the text in the ‚church fathers‘ from the patristic period. How many discrepancies do you think he found? If you interpret the statement from the first part of this series very generally, there should be no deviations at all, thanks to the Holy Spirit and the will of God. But already when the editions were written in the 16th century, it had become apparent that there were deviations. And as we have seen in the second part, the Bible itself does not say that no one would ever make even a small spelling mistake when copying the text. The text of the Greek New Testament has about 138,607 Greek words. How many discrepancies would you expect? A few tens or a few hundred? Take your time, think about it a bit. At what number would you get nervous?
John Mill documented over 30,000 deviations! And these were not even all that he had found! This large number may astonish or even shock you. And rightly so. This work hit like a bomb at the time! The scholars were shocked. How could there be so many differences, when they had been convinced that they already had an unchanged and unadulterated text? Wouldn’t this immense number of discrepancies shake faith in the Bible? Could one ever determine an unchanged and unadulterated text of the Bible?
As a reaction to this, by the way, there was later again and again the suggestion to simply leave this endeavor alone. Since one could never determine the unchanged and unadulterated text of the autographs anyway, it would be better to take the most recognized text, which agrees with the tradition and tradition of the church, thus that of the Vulgate. We can already see from which direction this proposal came.
Where do we stand today, since we have many more textual witnesses and can analyze them more precisely with computers. As I mentioned earlier, we have something like 5,800 Greek textual witnesses today. What are you guessing? If you have 10 times more textual witnesses today? And older ones? Counting is not easy and scholars‘ figures differ. Estimates are 200,000 to 400,000 and more variations! This is the background of the notorious statements of Bart D. Ehrmann that there are far more deviations between the textual witnesses of the Greek New Testament than words in it.
Most people are shocked at first by this incredible amount of deviations. Then you might ask yourself of what kind these deviations are at all. It can’t be that bad, otherwise there would have to be a whole new gospel or completely different Pauline letters. Let’s take a look at the largest class of deviations.
Examples of discrepancies in the textual witnesses
Many differences in the textual witnesses are due to small errors in copying the text. But even small errors can make significant differences in the Greek. [Examples from Bart D. Ehrman Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, chapter 3; more examples can be found in Metzger and Ehrman, Text of the New Testament, chapter 7]
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavenedwith malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.
1 Corinthians 5:8 BSB
The word translated as wickedness is πονηρίας ponērias. In some manuscripts, however, porneias is found, which looks quite similar. In these, therefore, it is said, „nor with leaven of sexual immorality and wickedness.“ A small spelling mistake results here in a clearly different statement.
Another source of variation is the use of abbreviations by some copyists. Nomina sacra (Holy Names) such as God, Christ, Lord, Jesus, and Spirit were abbreviated, typically with the consonants and a dash above them. But this could cause confusion for later copyists if they read a different word instead of the abbreviation. For example, Paul says in Romans 12:11
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
Romans 12:11 NIV
In Greek, kuriw (pronounced: kyrio) is written here for Lord, abbreviated kw (with a line above it). Some early copyists misread this abbreviation as kairw (pronounced: kairo) and thus changed the sense to „serves the time“.
Something similar happened in 1 Corinthians 12:13:
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:13 NASB
The word for spirit pneuma is abbreviated as pma, which some transcribers have misread as poma drink: „and were all made to drink with one drink.“
Another type of error results in an entire line of text being lost when the transcriber, looking back at the original, found the same words reflected in the next line. Example:
Since the end of verse 9 (underlined) looks exactly like the end of verse 8, the earliest papyrus manuscript of this passage is missing the complete verse 9. The copyist simply slipped two lines when looking back and continued writing after verse 9. Thus the thought „but whoever will have denied me before men will be denied before the angels of God“ was lost.
In John 17:5, this kind of error had a worse consequence:
I do not ask that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from evil.
John 17:15 BLB
in one of the best manuscripts:
I do not ask that You should keep them from evil.
John 17:15 Codex Vaticanus, 4th century, one of the best manuscripts
Thus, due to this change in the text, the meaning in a prayer of Jesus is a completely different one – and unfortunately an unfavorable one for us.
The deviation described so far was based on the similarity of the appearance of the text. However, when dictating, similar pronunciation could also be a problem. This seems to be the case in Revelation 1:5.
To the One loving us and releasing us from our sins through His blood,
To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
Revelation 1:5 BLB and NKJV
The word for redeemed lusanti sounds exactly like the word for washed lousanti.
Another example is found in Romans 5:1
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 5:1 NIV
The Greek word for „we have peace“ sounds the same as the word for „let us have peace“. And in this case the scholars have so their difficulties to determine which variant is the correct one.
However, there are also variations where the errors have produced nonsense. At least one recognizes these mistakes then better, even if one cannot perhaps so simply infer the correct text.
In one case the result of the transcription error was rather bizarre. In a 14th century manuscript, a two-column list of Jesus‘ ancestry in Luke 3 was probably misread: Instead of copying the columns one after the other, alternate copies were made. This led to the fact that almost all father-son relationships are wrong and God is finally the son of Aram.
Summary
In summary, we state:
The Greek New Testament contains approximately 138,607 Greek words. The textual witnesses contain over 400,000 variations. Due to unintentional copying errors, words and sentences are missing or words are changed.
Thus, we have to delete another part in the statement from the first part of this series:
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God wanted. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.„
With the unintentional errors during copying, however, we have not yet considered all deviations. As we already had to recognize in the previous part by the example of the Comma Johanneum, also deliberate changes were carried out at the text. We will deal with this in the next part of this series.
Comparing the rendering of 1 John 5:7-8 in different Bible translations, one notices a difference:
„For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.“
„For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.“
(1 John 5:7,8 New American Standard Bibel, King James Version)
Certain translations contain a portion that clearly supports the doctrine of the Trinity. Others, mostly more modern translations, do not include the text. Why? In short, this is a spurious text (more on this in the forum articles). Probably the best known spurious text.
This addition is even so well known that it has its own name: Johannine Comma, or in Latin Comma Johanneum (In Ancient Greek rhetoric, a comma (κόμμα komma, plural κόμματα kommata) is a short clause, something less than a colon.) (see e.g. Wikipedia Johannine Comma).
The German Wikipedia article summarizes: „This passage is missing in all Greek manuscripts except a few later minuscules. Many church fathers betray no acquaintance with the phrase at all, such as Jerome. Others, such as Augustine, knew it but apparently considered it not part of the biblical text. The Vulgate in Jerome’s version did not contain the Comma Johanneum.“
This passage seems to have originated in a gloss in a Latin manuscript at the end of the 4th century. It was then inserted into the text of the Old Latin Bible in the 5th century, but not in the earliest versions of the Vulgate. However, it is then also found in the versions of the Vulgate from the 8th century onward. (See Houghton, H. A. G. (2016). The Latin New Testament: a guide to its early history, texts, and manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 178-179; Metzger, Bruce M.; Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). The text of the New Testament: its transmission, corruption, and restoration (4 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 146-148, Wikipedia)
Here is an example from the 9th century:
Codex Sangallensis 63 (9th century), Johannine comma at the end: tre[s] sunt pat[er] & uerbu[m] & sps [=spiritus] scs [=sanctus] & tres unum sunt. Translation: „Three are the Father and the Word and the Holy Spirit and the three are one.“ The original codex did not include the Comma Johanneum (in 1 John 5:7), but was added in the margin by a later hand.[12]
Thus, the way into the Catholic Bible is clear. But how did it get into Protestant Bibles? „From the 16th to the late 19th century, the Comma Johanneum was found in most major Bible editions; during the 20th century, it increasingly disappeared. Erasmus of Rotterdam initially did not have the Comma in his 1516 edition of the Greek New Testament. It was not until 1522 that he added it to the third edition, also supported by the early 16th century minuscule 61.“ (Wikipedia) Why then was this part removed again? „Another key finding was that minuscule 61 had been forged specifically to deceive Erasmus.“ (Wikipedia) So today we even know the history and reasons for this forgery.
Erasmus remarked on his first two editions that he simply could not find this part of the verses in the Greek manuscripts available to him. And that is true. Here is an example:
Excerpt from Codex Sinaiticus with 1 John 5:7-9. The Johannine comma is missing. The red colored text says: „There are three witnesses, the spirit and the water and the blood“.
This got him into a lot of trouble and opposition from the church and theologians. [See Bart D. Ehrman Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.] Because of this, he was attacked by theologians of his day for trying to manipulate the sacred text to eliminate the doctrine of the Trinity! Finally, under pressure, he accepted that if he was shown a Greek manuscript containing the Comman Johanneium, he would include the text. And this they supplied him with. And he included it in the third edition. Only that this manuscript was a forgery, made especially for that purpose.
With this, we would perhaps already like to consider this topic as settled. But that would be premature, because in connection with the canon of the Christian scriptures we can consider ourselves lucky that this forgery has been eliminated again.
But what about sincere Christians in the more than 1000 years during which this text was in ‚their Bible‘? Among them were admirable Christians who took on personal difficulties, even to the point of murder, for the translation of the Bible.
It is a fact, albeit perhaps a painful one, that for centuries God and Jesus as the head of the congregation or church allowed even the most sincere disciple of Jesus in 1 John 5:7-8 to have only a distorted text of the Bible at his disposal.
And let us keep in mind that we are not talking about a trivial matter here, but the central doctrine about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These issues were the subject of long and heated debates in the first centuries of Christ, and whole communities of believers were excommunicated, persecuted and killed. And many Christians even define Christianity by accepting the doctrine of the Trinity.
The claim that the complete text of the Bible was preserved by God and Jesus in such a way that everything was handed down as it was originally, has already proven to be baseless with this one example. If someone claims that the Bible itself makes this statement, he harms the Bible, although it is a human statement. The wish is the father of the thought.
Even if this claim that God and Jesus made sure that the text of the Bible is completely correct for us today were correct, the fact would still remain that they did not consider it necessary for many centuries. Wouldn’t that be unloving towards the Christians at that time? As you can see, such an exaggerated claim does not fall back on the person who utters it, but is laid to the charge of God and Jesus. Even more: It would be rather mean of both to allow that someone like Erasmus of Rotterdam, of all people, who sincerely tried to clean up the traditional text from errors so that it could be translated into the mother tongues of even the common people, was deceived with a forged minuscule, only to undo this deception centuries later after his death.
Through the findings and availability of more and more ancient manuscripts in Greek, Aramaic, Latin and other languages, many more spurious scriptural texts and passages have come to light (see these forum articles). This shows that the situation is not simple. It is not a simple ‚true or false‘ decision. Rather, it’s about how much we can trust some texts – or not. All in all, an exciting topic that deserves further parts in this series. On the other hand, such discrepancies are not proven for the majority of texts. But we will come to the differences between the manuscripts soon.
So the fact that God and Jesus did not ensure that the biblical text was preserved without errors or forgeries is something we must take into account in our view of the canon. Not only when it comes to the reliability of a single verse. But also when it comes to our view regarding the canon – the Bible as we have it today. Let us not impose on the Bible exaggerated claims that it itself does not make.
With the right assumptions, on the other hand, we do not have to be afraid of new facts. Facts then do not endanger our faith building, but strengthen the foundation. Already at this one, although extraordinarily important example, we can now prove that also the assertion that every ’sentence‘ was received exactly in such a way is refuted by the facts.
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.“
We’ll look at more examples in the next two episodes. Why do we even bother? If we know the extent of the changes and differences, then we know what is well preserved. We achieve a well-founded and differentiated view about the reliability of the text.
In the last two episodes, we have already deleted two parts from the assertion from the first part of the series:
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.“
Neither does God assure us through the New Testament that the letters and other texts would be preserved unaltered, nor are all the letters included in the canon. Does this mean that the New Testament is useless in our Bible? No. That would be a false, hasty conclusion. The point is to recognize what God has promised us and not what we would like to have. Hasn’t God even helped many people who had no scriptures at all? How was it with Hennoch, Noah, Melchizedek and Abraham? So we can approach this subject in a relaxed way.
However, some insist that even the words, phrases, periods and commas are exactly as God wants them. Some even go so far as to say that the text of the old King James translation is inspired. Well, that’s another issue we’ll get into later.
But what about the words and sentences, periods and commas. Did God form these and put them into the minds of the scribes? Or dictated them in a vision? Did they sit down and think: Now I will write a Bible book? What do the oldest copies of the autographs look like? Let’s have a look at pictures of the oldest manuscripts, more precisely fragments:
𝔓52 is the oldest known manuscript fragment of the New Testament, which contains part of the Gospel of John𝔓1 is a fragment of the Gospel of Matthew from the early third century.𝔓46 is the earliest (almost) complete manuscript of the Pauline letters of the New Testament.𝔓45 is a manuscript of the Gospels and Acts. It contains the earliest known text of Mark. Scholars find it difficult to read because of its fragmentary state.Codex Sinaiticus (ca. 350) contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament as well as most of the Greek Old Testament, known as the Septuagint The Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 is one of the best available Greek manuscripts of almost the entire Bible.
Apart from the fact that the letters of the Greek alphabet are used. What stands out immediately? No comma, no period, no punctuation marks at all! But even worse: Not even paragraphs between sentences. Not even between words! Let’s look again at 𝔓46 or the other manuscripts. A chain of letters! Where are words and sentences? The answer is: the words and sentences – as well as pronunciation and partly vowels – had to be put correctly by the reader!
This reminds me of a brief example in Latin that I learned – at least I imagine I did – in class. As far as I remember, Caesar is supposed to have sent this message:
Pardon No execution
Three words. What do they mean? The punctuation mark is missing in English! But in Latin there was no punctuation mark either. As well as in Greek. So what does it mean? „Pardon no, execution“ or „pardon, no execution“? Just terrible when your life depends on a comma. Am I exaggerating now? Well, let’s look at two different translations of the Bible:
And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today,* You will be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:43 New World Translation
And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:43 BSB
The punctuation mark ‚:‘ did not exist in Greek. The translators have inserted it. Interestingly, at least the older New World Translation notes in the footnote that there was no comma in the uncial manuscripts. However, the sense seems to be completely different. Much like the example I gave, which is supposedly from Caesar. In fact, with this text, you have to think much more and look at the context and the language at the time to better understand the text. As an aside: Eric Wilson also had an interesting explanation about this in a video once.
The fact is: dot, comma, dash – forget it, because these did not exist in the languages in which the autographs and copies were written.
And even paragraphs or chapter and verse divisions did not exist, as we have seen in the illustrations. Is that also a problem? Our chapters and verses were introduced at the earliest within the 13th century (Wikipedia). The purpose was to divide the text into verses and chapters of roughly equal length. But in English, paragraphs serve to separate a thought. A paragraph, or a new verse or even chapter, therefore suggests to us a new thought. Think about it: how often, when a text was quoted, did you read the text before it, or even in the chapter before it? Example:
As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others.
Luke 21:1-3 NIV
Isn’t this a beautiful text describing the widow’s sacrifice? But this is the beginning of the chapter. Who would possibly read the chapter before when the text is quoted? We are doing that now:
While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”
Luke 20:45-47 NIV
This is the text directly before it. There is no chapter division in the manuscripts. Now how do you feel about the account of the poor widow in Luke 21:1-3? Does a paragraph or new chapter make a difference here? There are other examples, but anyone can find them for themselves if you pay attention from now on, and also read the context at every paragraph change or new chapter.
Let us summarize what the facts have taught us. There were no punctuation marks, paragraphs and verse divisions in the languages of the autographs and copies. With this, we delete another part of the assertion:
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.“
So, if someone wants to argue with us about the interpretation of the text because of a punctuation mark or paragraph, we should remember that they were inserted by the translators. And turn to the languages in which the manuscripts were written.
In the last video we saw that ‚the Bible‘ itself, especially the books of the New Testament, do not contain any statement that it would be preserved completely intact and correct over the millennia. On the contrary, in the first century – and long after, as we will see – there was no finished, universally accepted canon of scripture. Rather, believers were asked, with the help of God’s Holy Spirit, to examine all teachings and writings and letters to see if they were from God. And again and again the question comes up, who decided when and how which letters and writings should be included in the canon of Christian writings.
I would also like to emphasize that so far we have only used the Bible – exegetically, sola scriptura – and have come to this conclusion. And this will be confirmed in this part of the series.
The place of Laodicea will be familiar to many Bible readers as the site of an early church. If one is asked about a letter to the congregation in Laodicea, one might immediately think of this text:
To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!
(Revelation 3:14,15 NIV)
We know the content of this ‚letter‘ in that it is printed in Bible today as a part of the Bible book Revelation, whether it was addressed to the church in literal Laodicea, or whether that is to be understood symbolically.
In fact, this is not the only letter to the believers in Laodicea that we know of:
When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.
(Colossians 4:16 NASB 1995)
The letter to the Colossians is included in the Bible, but the letter to the church in Laodicea is not. According to the first verses in Colossians, ‚Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God‘ wrote the letter to the Colossians and thus also the aforementioned letter to the church in Laodicea.
This raises some interesting questions:
Why is the letter to the church in Colosse included in the Bible we have today and why is the one to the church in Laodicea not? Perhaps someone is thinking, „Well, it probably had about the same thing in it. Therefore, only one had to be handed down.“ But that can’t be true, otherwise Paul wouldn’t have written that both letters were to be read aloud in both churches. You would have to get into such arguments that this would have served to confirm or repeat the thoughts.
So what was in the letter to the church at Laodicea that was not in the one to the Colossians, which is why Paul wanted both to be read aloud?
Why do we today, and everyone else from the last 2000 years or so, know only the one letter?
Was one more important than the other?
Did God or Jesus have only one planned for the Bible?
What role did the Holy Spirit and inspiration play in these letters?
How did it come to the compilation of the letters that are contained in the Bible today? So the canon of the ‚New Testament‘?
Were there any more letters?
As to the last question, there are already hints in the textual witnesses that have come down to us:
Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us.
(2. Thessalonians 2:2 NLT)
We had already dealt with this text in the last part. So already at that time letters were in circulation which allegedly contained statements of the apostles. Why else would Paul have written this:
I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write. See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!
(2. Thessalonians 3:17 NIV; Galatians 6:11 NIV)
Letters played an important role, as these texts show:
Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter.
(2. Thessalonians 2:15 BSB)
An example of this is the decision of the Jerusalem assembly on the subject of circumcision:
Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. … and sent them with this letter: The apostles and the elders, your brothers, To the brothers among the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings. … So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they assembled the congregation and delivered the letter.
(Acts 15:20,23,30 BSB)
So Paul and Barnabas not only came back with a verbal explanation, but they had a letter with them! I would have liked to read it as well. But it did not become part of the canon, although it was so important! So there were a lot of letters, but only a few are part of the canon. Besides the letter to the church in Laodicea, for example, we are missing this one:
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— … But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
(1. Corinthians 5:9, 11 NIT)
Since this letter is called the 1st Corinthians letter in the Bible, we are missing the previous one. So the 1st Corinthians letter is actually already the 2nd Corinthians letter, and the 2nd the 3rd letter. At least.
But not only the apostles or the church in Jerusalem wrote letters:
Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations.
(1. Corinthians 7:1 NLT)
So the congregations wrote some, too. And what significance should the letters have for the communities?
I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed.
The goal was often to edify or even exhort the brothers and sisters:
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.
(2. Peter 3:1 NIV)
Beloved, although I made every effort to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints.
(Judas 3 BSB)
So there were many letters for the churches in the first century, which were also considered very important. Why have not all of them been preserved?
At this point we have to consider the historical context. At first, there was only one original letter, the so-called autograph. This was to be read aloud. From this alone we can conclude that only a few in the community could read and write. The original of the letter could be read aloud again and again in the same congregation. But what about the others? At what point were copies made and passed on? Who did this and for what purpose?
As it turns out, the oral tradition was at first even more important than a written one. This is only too understandable. If I can ask an apostle directly, that is more important to me than a papyrus that supposedly comes from apostle so-and-so. It was about credibility and reliability. And copies were also not made with the intention of compiling a Bible. Both will be discussed in the following articles.
But let’s keep in mind: There are different explanations why we don’t know any letter of Laodicean (see Wikipedia letter of Laodicean). About the letter of Paul to the Corinthians before his letter, which we call the first one today, we know nothing at all. If God and Jesus as the head of the congregation planned the transmission of the letters very concretely and directed everything exactly, then this would mean the following:
Jesus wanted Paul to write at least two letters that we know existed from other letters. But these were not to be preserved.
So, did God and Jesus not pay further attention to these other letters or deliberately prevent their transmission?
But how would Jesus have achieved this? The letters did not disappear overnight.
How would he have influenced people to continue copying certain letters and not others?
Is it possible to prove that we know all the necessary letters today, but the Bible does not contain any letter that was warned against at that time?
Isn’t it interesting that just from these few clues from the surviving text, a little reflection can raise interesting questions that touch on our concept of what ‚the Bible‘ is?
But what we can state purely from the text of today’s ‚Bible‘ is this:
There were letters that are mentioned and were so important that they should be read aloud in other congregations.
There were letters sent to congregations, also to be read aloud, but we know nothing about them at all.
And these letters still have not become part of our ‚Bible‘, that is, the canon of the New Testament.
Now, if someone says that God our Father and Jesus our Lord closely supervised the creation of the Bible, it means that they deliberately sorted out these letters that were important at that time.
Let’s also consider, at the end of this part, the assertion from the first part of this series. Do all parts of this sentence stand up to the facts?
„The Bible is God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God and thus containing exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.“
I’ve been a bit strict now, and deleted the ‚any book‘ part as well. Why? If someone thinks that every letter of an apostle can also be found in the Bible, then this is not true. And for that, you only need to read the letters that have been handed down yourself. The New Testament does not contain all the letters whose existence is known to us, and the question remains open as to why this is so. They could, after all, have been included in the canon at one time and then later taken out of it. We will see.
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