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Biblical textual corruptions
This is a long post, but it need not be read at one sitting. It makes a useful reference to add to readers' word processors. Rational minded people cannot help but to be influenced against the Bible after reading the contents of this post.
The New Testament is now known, in whole or in part, in nearly five thousand Greek manuscripts alone. Every one of these handwritten copies differs from the other one…
It has been estimated that these manuscripts and quotations differ among themselves between 150,000 and 250,000 times. The actual figure is, perhaps, much higher. A study of 150 Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings… It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the manuscripts' tradition is wholly uniform. --M.M. Parvis, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible
Here are some of the most significant textual corruptions in the Bible to use against bibliolaters.
From Bart D. Ehrman's last chapter of this text book, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (or via: amazon.co.uk)}
B. Scribes also introduced mistakes intentionally.
a. This happened when scribes thought the text they were copying made some kind of factual mistake. For example, in Mark 1:2, the reference to Isaiah is really comprised of a quote from Malachi, Exodus, and Isaiah. Some modern versions merely say "the prophets." A change by a scribe.
b. In Mark 2:25, Jesus says that David entered into the temple when Abiathar was the high priest. It is clear from the passage in the Hebrew Bible to which he was referring (1 Samuel 21:1-7), however, that is was not Abiathar, but his father, Ahimelech, who was high priest at the time. Some scribes changed the text to eliminate the discrepancy.
c. Sometimes scribes would try to "harmonize" two accounts in the Gospels so that they read in the same way. For example, both Matthew and Luke have the Lord's Prayer, but only Matthew gives it in the full form that people are accustomed to today. Luke is lacking several of the petitions. A number of scribes resolved the difference by adding Matthew's petitions to Luke as well.
d. Even more interesting are items that scribes took to be theological errors that they then corrected. For example, Luke's Gospel has the story of Jesus visiting Jerusalem as a twelve-year old, along with Joseph and Mary. They begin the long trek home, only to discover three days later that Jesus is not with them. After tracking him down in the temple, Mary says to him, "Why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been looking all over for you." Your father and I? Scribes who believed in the virgin birth and thought that Joseph was not Jesus' father, changed the text to "we have been looking all over for you."
e. Or consider the passage in which Jesus gives his apocalyptic teachings in Matthew's Gospel and indicates that no one knows exactly when the end will come "not the angels in heaven, nor even the Son, but only the Father" (Matthew 24:36). Scribes who thought that Jesus is divine and knows all things changed the text by dropping out the words "nor even the Son."
C. These are not all of the examples, but from some of these examples, it should be clear that some textual changes are of no real importance for interpretation (for example, the misspelled words), but others are highly significant.
a. The oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John do not contain the famous story of the woman taken in adultery (where Jesus utters his famous line: "let the one without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her"). This was added in the twelfth century.
b. The best witnesses of the Gospel of Mark do not include the final twelve verses, in which Jesus appears to his disciples (in theses manuscripts, the text ends with the women fleeing the empty tomb in fear, telling no one what they have seen or heard).
c. The only verses in the entire New Testament that provide an explicit affirmation of the traditional orthodox doctrine of the Trinity--that the three divine beings are one (1 John 5:7+8)--is not found in the text of any Greek manuscript until around the time of the invention of printing in the fifteenth century.
1 John 5:7-8
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Question: Is it not true that one of the best New Testament proofs for the doctrine of a triune god is found in 1 John 5:7-8?
Answer: It depends on which translation of the New Testament you are using. Many modern translations do not include this supposed proof of a trinitarian godhead.
As rendered in the King James Version of the Bible, it reads: "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." However, these verses do not occur in any reliable Greek manuscript.
There is an interesting footnote to the above to be found in the Catholic Jerusalem Bible (1966), which does not have the added words in the main text. It states:
Vulg[ate] vv.7-8 read as followers "There are three witnesses in heaven: the Father the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one; there are three witnesses on earth: the Spirit the water and the blood." The words in italics (not in any of the early Greek MSS, or any of the early translations, or in the best MSS of the Vulg. itself) are probably a gloss that has crept into the text.
These spurious words may have been the work of an overzealous copyist, who inserted this statement so as to lend credence to the doctrine of the Trinity. Whatever its source, the crucial passage is of much later origin than the original authorship of 1 John.
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LONG ENDING OF MARK Mark 16:8
FORGERY IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK?
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Forgery is perhaps a rather harsh word. Within Christian religious circles, the term "apocryphal addition" is commonly used to describe a passage that an unknown copyist added to the original manuscript.
Conservative Christians, and some others, believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. This means that God inspired its authors to write error-free text. However, the concept only applies to the original, autograph copies, not to later additions, deletions, "corrections" etc. Thus, the various endings after Mark 16:8 are not necessarily inerrant. [But we cannot trust the Bible's accuracy because since none of the original autographs exist, we have no way of telling what corruptions have crept in over thousands of years of transmission. We do not know at what point this corruption might have begun. --Bill]
The original ending of Mark:
Some of the oldest copies of the Gospel of Mark, the Sinaitic (circa 370 CE) and Vatican (circa 325 CE), end at Mark 16:8. Papyrus-45 (a.k.a. P-45) is an even older version of Mark, but it is incomplete; none of its text from Mark 16 has survived. Various additions after Mark 16:8 appear to have been added later by unknown Christian forgers. One addition was quoted in the writings of Irenaeus and Hippolytus in the second or third century CE.
Chapter 15 of Mark describes Jesus' death and burial. Chapter 16 describes how Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James), and Salome went to the tomb on Sunday morning. They found that the stone blocking the tomb had rolled back. A young man in the tomb told them that Jesus had risen, and that they should tell the disciples that he had gone to Galilee where they should meet him. The Gospel ends by describing how the women trembled and said nothing to anyone about their experience.
The Gospel is viewed by many as incomplete. It appears to ends abruptly. The reader has been primed to expect an account of the women telling the disciples of the empty tomb, and a subsequent description of a meeting of Jesus and his the disciples in Galilee. However, none is forthcoming.
Theologians have offered 4 explanations for this strange ending:
1. The writer of the Gospel did actually intend it to end it abruptly. This is a possibility because over a dozen ancient Greek compositions have survived which end sentences with the Greek word "gar" as Mark 16:8 does.
2. The author was interrupted (perhaps by death) and never finished the Gospel.
3. The Gospel of Mark did originally continue beyond Verse 8, but the ending was accidentally destroyed: perhaps the scroll was damaged or the last page of the codex was lost.
4. Mark 16 originally extended beyond verse 8, where it described the meeting of Jesus and his disciples. However, it was intentionally destroyed because it conflicted with the Gospel of Luke or Matthew. The perpetrator may have felt that Christians might doubt the accuracy of the Christian Scriptures if the Gospels did not agree precisely. Scholars have pointed out that the lost ending of Mark presumably would have described the meeting between Jesus and the disciples as happening in Galilee, whereas Luke says that it occurred near Jerusalem. This explanation also sounds unreasonable, because Mark 16:1 already disagrees with Matthew 28:1 over the number of women who visited the tomb: (Matthew describes that only two women went to the tomb: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark 16:1 says there were three women and adds Salome.) Surely, if someone were to go to the effort of destroying the ending of Mark in order to make the Gospels harmonize, then they would have altered Mark 16:1 and also modified:
16:8 to delete a reference to Salome, and
16:7 to change the location of the meeting from Galilee to Jerusalem.
Also, a person who intentionally destroyed the ending would probably have cleaned up the end of verse 8 to make it appear as if that was the true ending, and leave no trace of the forgery.
Popular endings for Mark
The most ancient full manuscripts of Mark end mid-sentence with Mark 16:8. A variety of endings appear in later manuscripts:
The Longer Ending: This consist of verses 9 to 20, and is the ending found most often in Biblical translations. They describe that Jesus visited Mary Magdelene, who told the disciples about the empty tomb. But the disciples did not believe her. Jesus then appeared to two of the disciples who told the others; still they did not believe that he was risen. Afterwards, Jesus was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. The disciples then followed the Great Commission. Theologians often refer to this passage as the "Marcan Appendix," because it appears to have been written by a later copyist, and not by the author of the rest of the Gospel of Mark. It "has traditionally been accepted as a canonical part of the gospel and was defined as such by the Council of Trent." 1 The Appendix is incorporated without comment in the King James Version of the Bible. However, more recent authorities suggest that it is a forgery:
A note in recent copies of the New International Version of the Bible states: "The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20."
Most biblical translations contain a footnote indicating that the verses were not written by the author of Mark.
Mohamed Ghounem & Abdur Rahman comment: "...approximately 100 early Armenian translations, as well as the two oldest Georgian translations, also omitted the appendix." 2
"The longer ending...differs in vocabulary and style from the rest of the Gospel, is absent from the best and earliest mss. now available, and was absent from mss. in patristic times. It is most likely a 2nd-cent. compendium of appearance stories based primarily on Luke 24, with some influence from John 20." 3
There is a break in the flow of the story between verses 14 and 15. This might be evidence that the forger used two different sources when creating the longer ending.
The additional passage is quite important for a number of reasons, because it contains important material relating to the duties of Christians to proselytize, the criteria needed for personal salvation, and some of the powers granted to Jesus' disciples:
Mark 16:15 includes a direct quotation from Jesus that is usually called the "Great Commission." It instructs the 11 surviving disciples to go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Conservative Christians regard the Great Commission to be their prime directive.
Verse 16 contains Jesus criteria for salvation. In order to be saved, a person must:
"believe" - presumably this refers to belief in the "good news."
"be baptized" - one must first be baptized before one is saved.
This appears to disagree with other passages in the Bible which discuss different criteria for salvation.
Jesus told his disciples that they would be able to cast out devils, speak with new tongues, heal the sick, and be immune from death by snake bite or poison. The Church of God with Signs Following have interpreted these verses as the basis of their occasional practices of drinking poison or allowing themselves to be bitten by poisonous snakes. Many have died as a result of this testing of their faith.
The Shorter Ending: One Old Latin manuscript, the Codex Bobiensis, has survived from circa 400 CE. It contains a "shorter ending" in place of the "long ending."
One translation reads:
"But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after this, Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation."
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible includes this verse as a footnote.
The validity of this ending is suspect for a number of reasons:
"Earlier in Mark 16, it contains an interpolation which seems to have an affinity with the 'Gospel of Peter'..." 4 That gospel is one of almost 50 gospels that were circulated among the early Christian movement, but which were never accepted into the official canon of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament).
Part of Mark 16:8 has been deleted. This text said that the women kept silent about the empty tomb; they told none of the disciples about it. If the copyist had left this verse intact, it would blatantly conflict with the "shorter ending."
"The so-called shorter ending consists of the women's reports to Peter and Jesus' commissioning of the disciples to preach the gospel. Here too the non- Marcan language and the weak ms. evidence indicate that this passage did not close the Gospel." 3
Some theologians believe that the Shorter Ending was probably written by an unknown forger, who based it on the Gospel of Matthew. His motivation was to quickly wrap up the Gospel less abruptly.
The Freer Logion: This is an apparent forgery in which a copyist inserted text between Mark 16:14 and 16:15. It has been found only in one Greek manuscript, Codex Washingtonensis (a.k.a. Codex W) which dates from the late 4th or early 5th century CE. It has been preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It reads:
"Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And they excused themselves, saying, 'This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits. Therefore reveal your righteousness now'--thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, 'The term of years of Satan's power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was handed over to death, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, that they may inherit the spiritual and imperishable glory of righteousness that is in heaven'." (NRSV).
This addition describes a conversation between the disciples and Jesus in which the disciples complain that Satan does not allow the real power of God to be appreciated. Jesus replied that Satan did not have this power any longer, but that other terrible things will happen in the near future. The addition concludes with a statement on salvation.
The Freer Logion has an interesting message, implying that Satan had lost his power forever. This agrees with liberal Christian theology which treats Satan as a concept of evil, and not as a living, supernatural quasi-deity. It disagrees with conservative Christian theology which regards Satan as a supernatural living entity who remains intensely and continually involved in everyone's life today.
References:
1. "Mark, Chapter 16, New American Bible," Footnote 2 at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/
2. Mohamed Ghounem & Abdur Rahman, "Gospel of Mark?," at: http://www.geocities.com
3. R.E. Brown, et al., "The New Jerome Biblical Commentary," Pearson PTP, (Reissued 1989). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
4. Jim Snapp II, "The Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20," at: http://www.waynecoc.org/MarkOne.html
5. C.M. Laymon, Ed, "Interpreter's One Volume Commentary on the Bible", Abingdon Press, Nashville TN (1991), P. 670-671
6. Jamieson et al, "The New Commentary on the Whole Bible", Tyndale, Wheaton IL (1990), P. 155-157
7. J.R. Kohlenberger III, "Precise Parallel New Testament", Oxford University Press, New York NY, (1995)
8. "Mark 16:19-20 - Authentic and Inspired," The Revival Fellowship at: http://www.trf.org.au/mk16.htm
Copyright © 1997, 1999, 2000 & 2003 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2003-MAY-18
Author: B.A. Robinson
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Mark 1:41 Many ancient versions of Mark, written in the original Greek, have survived to the present day . No two agree perfectly in their wording. Usually, the differences are trivial and do not impact our understanding of Jesus' personality, messages, and ministry. Some do. For example, consider Mark 1:41 -- the passage where a leper approached Jesus begging to be healed. Some of the earliest manuscripts say that Jesus became angry or indignant at the leper's intrusion. Later copies indicate that Jesus showed compassion or pity to the leper. Usually, Bible translators consider the earliest manuscripts to be the most accurate, because they are fewer copies removed from the original autographs. Thus, there was less opportunity for copyists to alter the original text. But in many cases, like the King James Version, the New International Version, and many others, 1 the translators followed the later, probably incorrect, manuscripts, and describe Jesus as reacting with compassion and pity, rather than with indignation and anger.
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Matthew 6:13: The Lord's Prayer traditionally ends: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." This seems to have been absent from the original writings 6
Matthew 17:21 is a duplicate of Mark 9:29. It was apparently added by a copyist in order to make Matthew agree with Mark. But Mark 9:29 also contains a forgery*; this makes Matthew 17:21 a type of double-layered forgery*. 5
John 7:53 to 8:11: One of the most famous forgeries* in the Bible is the well-known story of the woman observed in adultery. It was apparently written and inserted after John 7:52 by an unknown author, perhaps in the 5th century CE. This story is often referred to as an "orphan story" because it is a type of floating text which has appeared after John 7:36, John 7:52, John 21:25, and Luke 21:38 in various manuscripts. Some scholars believe that the story may have had its origins in oral traditions about Jesus.
It is a pity that the status of verses John 8:1-11 are not certain. If they were known to be a reliable description of Jesus' ministry, they would have given a clear indication of Jesus' stance on the death penalty.
Mark 9:29: Jesus comments that a certain type of indwelling demon can only be exorcised through "prayer and fasting" (KJV) This is also found in the Rheims New Testament. But the word "fasting" did not appear in the oldest manuscripts. 5 New English translations have dropped the word.
Luke 3:22: This passage describes Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist. According to Justin Martyr, the original version of this verse has God speaking the words: "You are my son, today have I begotten thee." Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, and other ancient Christian authorities also quoted it this way. 1 The implication is that Jesus was first recognized by God as his son at the time of baptism. But a forger* altered the words to read: "You are my son, whom I love." The altered passage conformed more to the evolving Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God at his birth, (as described in Luke and Matthew) or before the beginning of creation (as in John), and not at his baptism.
John 5:3-4: These verses describe how "a great multitude" of disabled people stayed by the water. From time to time an angel arrived, and stirred the waters. The first person who stepped in was cured. This passage seems strange. The process would not be at all fair, because the blind could not see the waters being stirred, and the less mobile of the disabled would have no chance of a cure. Part of Verse 3 and all of Verse 4 are missing from the oldest manuscripts of John. 3 It appears to be a piece of free-floating magical text that someone added to John.
John 21: There is general agreement among liberal and mainline Biblical scholars that the original version of the Gospel of John ended at the end of John 20. John 21 appears to either be an afterthought of the author(s) of John, or a later addition by a forger*. Most scholars believe the latter. 4
1 Corinthians 14:34-35: This is a curious passage. It appears to prohibit all talking by women during services. But it contradicts verse 11:5, in which St. Paul states that women can actively pray and prophesy during services. It is obvious that verses 14:33b to 36 are a later addition, added by an unknown counterfeiter* with little talent at forgery.* Bible scholar, Hans Conzelmann, comments on these three and a half verses: "Moreover, there are peculiarities of linguistic usage, and of thought. [within them]." 2 If they are removed, then Verse 33a merges well with Verse 37 in a seamless transition. Since they were a later forgery*, they do not fulfill the basic requirement to be considered inerrant: they were not in the original manuscript written by Paul. This is a very important passage, because much many denominations stand against female ordination is based on these verses.
Revelation 1:11: The phrase "Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and," (KJV) which is found in the King James Version was not in the original Greek texts. It is also found in the New King James Version (NKJV) and in the 21st Century King James Version (KJ21) The latter are basically re-writes of the original KJV. Modern English, is used, but the translators seem to have made little or no effort to correct errors. The Alpha Omega phrase "is not found in virtually any ancient texts, nor is it mentioned, even as a footnote, in any modern translation or in Bruce Metzger's definitive 'A Textual Commentary' on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition (New York: United Bible Societies, 1994..." 7
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Mod note: From here
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06-18-2006, 08:08 PM
