Posted on 11/30/2020 6:35:53 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Secular media talk much of fraudulent works like “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” and little of the incomparable reliability of the New Testament, professor Craig Evans told The Christian Post, and that's why he decided to write his new book.
The Book, "Jesus and the Manuscripts" is for both the ordinary believer and those in academia, said Evans, who has a doctorate in biblical literature and is a distinguished professor of Christian origins at Houston Baptist University.
“Even biblical scholars do not know certain details about the manuscripts,” the Greek writings composing the New Testament, he told CP. Others in the academy seek to undermine the 27 books' reputation by misrepresenting their stability and accuracy over nearly two millennia, he added. One academician, for example, counts as errors when ancient scribes correct themselves or leave in or out “the” before proper names, an inconsistent practice in Greek ages ago.
In reality, only 40 lines of approximately 20,000 in the New Testament’s original script have any question about how they read originally, Evans said. An example is Mark 3:5, with Christ healing the withered hand of a man in a synagogue: “When He (Jesus) had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.”
“We aren’t sure whether it should read that Jesus was moved to ‘anger’ or ‘pity’ in response to how those in the synagogue react to him healing on the Sabbath,” Evans said. “Jesus was moved both to anger and pity on different occasions elsewhere in the New Testament.” However, that neither affects any substantive doctrine nor do any of the other lines with a tingle of uncertainty in them, he explained.
Most Christians, as well as those outside the faith, are unaware ancient Mediterranean peoples paid handsomely for scribes to copy books by hand both accurately and enduringly, he revealed. Archaeological evidence not only from Holy Land sites but Pompeii and other pagan locales show such works stayed in family libraries for up to 300 years, with 150 to 200 years typical.
The famous Christian apologist and theologian Tertullian wrote in the 190s A.D. that if any dispute arose about the contents of a biblical passage, scholars could go to the churches established by the apostles and see the “authenticae,” or “autographs," the very papyrus upon which Paul and other New Testament authors wrote. With the era's ordinary literature — let alone the epistles forming the backbone of one’s beliefs — lasting into the hundreds of years, Tertullian’s statement is quite plausible.
“That’s why the text remains so stable,” Evans said. “With other ancient literature, entire chapters are missing or read differently, but we don’t have that with New Testament writings.”
There are several hundred complete copies of the New Testament within a few hundred years of the apostles, and several thousand more items containing parts of the text. That is markedly more than The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer as well as the works of Sophocles, Plato and Julius Caesar.
The Quran also falters in comparison, Evans asserted. There are scores of ancient copies of the Bible because the Church never tried to round up differing readings and take them out of circulation. However, Islam did just that by burning such copies of its holy book, though enough survived to show there have been significantly varying renderings.
Terming “very murky" the origins and transmission of the Quran, the professor noted that the title itself means "recitation," and "it was not committed to writing until the 700s A.D., long after Muhammad's death" in 632.
As for “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” a forger with some background in ancient Middle Eastern languages and a penchant for fast talking brought it to the attention of Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King, who originally rejected it but later came to certify it as authentic. A scholar in biblical feminism, she found appealing the work’s storyline suggesting Christ and Mary Magdalene married and He gave her the same teaching as the apostles.
The fraud eventually came to light and discredited King and her institution instead of advancing their reputation as they desired. “The media’s bias is toward the sensational, not critical thinking and examination,” Evans said of journalists' publicizing the extrabiblical work as authentic while asking few questions.
As for the Old Testament text, there are no copies as close to the autographs as the New Testament, but archaeology has bolstered its reputation for accuracy too. For example, for a long time the oldest manuscript of the book of Isaiah was 1,700 years after most scholars believe it was written. However, among the Dead Sea Scrolls was a copy from c. 100-200 B.C. of all 66 chapters except a few words rotted away at the bottom of some pages.
“Guess what?” Evans asked rhetorically. “It was the same text, 99% the same.”
Cyrus the Great released the Jews from bondage because Isaiah had predicted his rise 200 years before, mentioning him by name and, believed by Cyrus, hastening his rise.
Not one jot or tittle.................
“Bible text amazingly stable but scholarly criticism, media coverage of it is faulty...”
Well what did you expect when the Democrats demand...
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”?
The NT books are the most attested ancient writings in history.
The text is not really the problem. It is all the wild interpretations that cause the problem. e.g. interpreting the parable of Lazarus and the rich man as a testimony about hell, which it is not.
My copy of the New Testament, which has been my constant companion and guide since I purchased it in Oxford in 1964 (yes, the date is in the flyleaf) is the Westcott & Hort version of 1893. It contains two appendices: one of “variant” versions of the textus receptus, and there are indeed very few; the other of “rejected” versions, with the reasons why. It is indeed a work of exemplary scholarship, faithful both to history and to God.
It is rare indeed that I have doubts about the Authorised Version, but perhaps twice per decade, I come back to this original for clarification. It is rare also that I worry about the Authorised Version’s Old Testament, but there again I have a reliable source: the Septuagint, LXX, commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphos. It predates Christianity, and so does not contain the many corruptions found in the later Masoretic Text.
(If you like this post,please pray for the soul of Robert Spenser Stanier, the headmaster who helped teach me Greek, and who encouraged me to read the story of our Blessed Lord in the original texts. Amen.)
I dunno about that. It clearly establishes the eternal separation of some men from God in a place of torment. And why do you assume the story is a parable?
No need to re-invent the wheel:
This is a “starting point”: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/is-rich-man-and-lazarus-a-parable/
And this really gets into it, though it is an abbreviated version of an even more thorough discussion to which it links: http://jeremyandchristine.com/articles/lazarus.html
And one can really get into the meaning of the five brothers. Why five?
But here is one I came up with as I read some othe sources on the subject. Starting with who the five brothers are, I find it interesting that Jesus said: “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
And AFTER Jesus gave this parable, TWO separate people were brought back to life. The first, “coincidentally” named Lazarus, and the second, Jesus, himself.
There is so much going on there in that singular parable that it boggles the mind.
BTW, I have little doubt that it is a parable. That explanation requires no prevarication.
The fact there is “so much going on” argues against it being a parable. Parables generally establish a single point. This story contains several lessons. No does the text refer to it as a parable as it does for the other parables. It also gives a specific name. There is very little to suggest this is a parable. And again, nothing you cite refutes that fact that the story clearly establishes a sinful man eternally separated from God in a place of torment.
You may also find this interesting. Just as the “bring someone back from the dead” could have been talking about two real events. The five brothers could also be amplified by representing TWO groups (hint: Caiaphas and Judah):
The fact there is “so much going on” argues against it being a parable.
When one considers the cultural context as well as the persons to whom the parable was being given, there was one simple and single point.
Frankly, I would say there was more complexity in the parable of the shrewd manager. And the parable of the lost son has a lot “going on”, but the message is singular.
And one can not ignore Matthew 13:34 —
All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. 35This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:e
“I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”
It is massive speculation to say that because the man had five brothers (or six brothers in total) then any other time there are 5 or six of something it somehow relates to this story. It’s just as easy to conclude it’s a true story and the man just happened to have 5 brothers. And such a conclusion requires no speculation and is honest to the text.
So are you claiming that everything Jesus says to any crowd (including the Sermon on the Mount) was a parable. Or is the text saying that everything he said to this crowd in this instance was done in parables. Further, the other two parables you cite are clearly identified as parables by the text.
And I have no doubt that it was an eyewitness report of an actual, miraculous act. Jesus isn't standing there telling a group of people, "Hey, did you hear this one? Have you heard this? The other day I ran into My dead buddy and raised him up. The moral of the story is..."
No. It reads like witnesses watching Jesus DO this thing.
Well, opinions vary. That’s why I was careful to say I have “little” doubt. :)
I suppose you could see the parables preceding it the same way.
Think about the audience of this parable. Context is everything. Even time, place and audience.
So are you claiming that everything Jesus says to any crowd (including the Sermon on the Mount) was a parable.
One must consider his audience as well. When I say to a group of people, be careful what you eat”, is it a group that is going out in the woods in a “living off the land” class, or am I talking to a group of people in a weight loss class? It matters.
https://www.simplybible.com/f666-parables-in-sermon-on-mount.htm
RE: The Gospel of Mark has two versions of the ending—the “longer ending” (16.9-20) and the “shorter ending” (four and a half lines long).
So, which version do we consider scripture, and which one do we consider a man made addition or subtraction?
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