Mark: let us agree on which passages are in dispute and what their wording is. Kosta, your help, please.
Mr Rogers resorts to a banal, if not naïve, baseless slogan many Protestants like to use when it comes to this issue. The truth is, all doctrinal disagreements are based on the reading of disputed passages. Matthew 16 is a fine example where the Catholics read one thing and the rest of mainline Christianity another. The other one is Isaiah's virgin. or John's bread being Jesus' flesh. Or, for example, Mr. Rogers' insistence that God really didn't harden Pharaoh's heart (even though the Bile says is clearly), he just made it more "obvious"!
The variants are not only textual but hermeneutic. All of Christological disputes were based on variant readings of scriptural verses. Mr Rogers asks his question knowing that no particular variations in biblical text today. The majority of biblical alterations are simply human errors, and do not affect doctrine. That doesn't mean early alterations didn't.
These can be divided in the nature of Christological dispute. The first century Christianity was a mix of Christian and Gnostic beliefs. Some of this is obvious even form the NT, and we know that base don the fact that some NT authors (Apostle John for ex maple) were quoted as scripture prior to them being quoted by Christians. Others (such as Apostle Paul) was particularly liked by Gnostics who recognized a great deal of their own theology in him.
Early Christians were also divided as regards Christ's origin based on whose Gospel a particular church was reading. Thus those who had copies of Mark's Gospel tended to believe that Jesus was made divine at his baptism. This is otherwise known as the adoptionist heresy in the Catholic Church.
First evidence of antiadoptionist changes in biblical text were made public by J. J. Wettstein, a 17th century Swiss German Protestant New Testament theologian) who noticed in the 5th century Codex Alexandrinus in 1 Tim 3:16 an alteration was made (in slightly different ink), in fact only a line drawn through the letter omicron ("O") in the word OΣ (meaning who) to make it look like the Greek theta ("Θ") instead, changing the word to ΘΣ (meaning God).
Since KJV was based on the 16th century Textus Receptus, which was based on copies known as the Majority Text, based on C. Alexandrinus it reads
Whereas older Alexandrian text reads
Clearly, someone was concerned with the passage being interpreted in a way that might put in question the dogma of Incarnation and Jesus' eternal divinity, so they changed "who" to "God."
In Luke 2:33, the oldest mnuscripts read "And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him." A number of medieval copies of this verse reads "And Joseph and his mother..." as they became concerned that someone might say this proves he was not of divine birth since he had a father and a mother. In other examples, the oldest versions say "his parents" only to be fixed" by later scribes to read "Joseph and his mother..."
In Mark 1:11, more recent copies say "and a voice came out of the heavens: "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased" but one older Greek surviving manuscript precedes this by saying "Today I have begotten you!" (directly from Psalm 2:7) but this was apparently removed for fear of aodptionist overtones, and Ps. 2:7 is probably not read very often! :)
There are many other examples of this. Other Chrisotlogical issues tackled early was the so-called docetist heresy which found ts way into Islam, and which denies Jesus' humanity. Rather it suggests Jesus only appeared human (from δοκηω, dokeo to "seem"), associated with Gnosticism which considered body a prison for souls and a source of all evil. This, God could not have real flesh. This is where the "spiritual flesh" comes in and why the Church insisted on the real Presence, real flesh and real blood – it was to counter Gnostic beliefs. Most of the anti-docetic textual alteration come form Luke's Gospel (Luke was the only other author besides Paul acceptable to Marcion, precisely because of the existance of many docetic verses in some versions of Luke). Luke, as you know, exists in two variants: a long one and a short one. These are 5:43-44, 22:17-19, or 24:51-52, among others.
There were also alterations to the text countering what is otherwise known as the seprationist heresy, an early belief that Christ was actually two persons, one divine and one human. Antiseparationist alterations are found in Heb 2:9 which in the older versions says that Jesus died "apart form God" later change "Christ died by the grace of God." Also similar changes were made in Mark 15:34,etc.
Another set of theologically motivated changes in the early Christian period were made in the Chirstian Apologetic period by such theological giants as Tertulliian and Origen. These had mainly to do with countering pagan criticism of Christianity. Anything that seemed to give pagans some canon fodder would be modified.
So without making this any longer, most of the theologically dependent variants were made early in the Christian period. Once Christian dogma was established in the 4th century, smaller forgeries like the Comma Johanneu or Pericope adulterae and hundreds if not thousands of variants in word order do not affect post Nicene theology. But theology-alteirng or fixing changes were definitely made in the early Christian period in order to "harmonize" the scripture with the doctrine, and counter various compete beliefs.
Modern theological differentiation is based on interpretation rather than on actual word smithing and intentional alterations of the text, although some modern translations do seem to put a twist on how things are read. Sometimes it is forgotten that the etxt being read is actually a redacted text that was intentionally changed to make Christ divine, or one person, or things to that nature.
“The truth is, all doctrinal disagreements are based on the reading of disputed passages.”
You change the subject. The question was what doctrine rests on passages whose existence is disputed, rather than disputed interpretation of the agreed on text.
“for example, Mr. Rogers’ insistence that God really didn’t harden Pharaoh’s heart (even though the Bile says is clearly)”
Except you distort my position. I did NOT claim God didn’t harden Pharaoh’s heart, but said that in doing so, God was pushing him further in the direction he was already going. We may harden concrete, but we do so because it is the nature of concrete to be hard.
“The other one is Isaiah’s virgin. or John’s bread being Jesus’ flesh.”
Actually, I don’t know of any commentators who deny that the word used in Isaiah can refer to both a young woman and/or virgin. I suppose I shouldn’t say ANY...there are a few fringe groups that worship the KJV uber alles, but I don’t think of them as serious or honest commentators. John 6 is a passage I have discussed with y’all at length. I find it amazing that anyone claims it means the bread is literally the flesh of Jesus. Obviously, some disagree - but notice! NO one disputes the TEXTS! Neither Catholic nor Baptists claims that we don’t know what the text of John 6 was in 150AD, or 300 AD.
“Mr Rogers asks his question knowing that no particular variations in biblical text today.”
One of the great failures of the church in 500+ AD was to start ignoring scripture. If you read some of what passed for serious theological debate by 1400, it was appalling. And since scripture was in disrepute, it isn’t surprising that there were increasing variants. Thus the text Erasmus put together had flaws - flaws many men have laboured hard to remove. And we have largely been successful.
However:
“Clearly, someone was concerned with the passage being interpreted in a way that might put in question the dogma of Incarnation and Jesus’ eternal divinity, so they changed “who” to “God.”
No, someone so clearly assumed, at the core of their being, that Jesus is divine, made an error in copying and didn’t notice it because it didn’t register as a possible error. However, the divinity of Jesus doesn’t rest on that verse.
The divinity of Jesus is clearly taught throughout the NT. The exact wording used in councils hundreds of years later is NOT clearly and explicitly taught, which is why I don’t care if someone holds to them. Knowledge of the exact way that human and divine existed in Jesus is not required for salvation, nor for holy living - which is the purpose of God’s revelation. That is why God provided us with the scriptures and not a systematic theology text.
Jesus is God. He lived as a man. He is both Son of Man and Son of God. I believed in him and was saved long before I first read the church council decrees on how it worked - and I still find those decrees to be more concerned with human philosophy than divine revelation.
I accept those decrees as being accurate because, in my experience, those who start with denying them end up in la-la land, following internet prophets, believing in extraterrestrials and spaceships, denying Jesus was/is God at all, etc. I tend to view the Trinity as the easiest test of someone’s adherence to the revelation of scripture - not because the Trinity is clearly laid out in scripture, but because those who depart from it depart from the rest of scripture - sooner or later.
Joseph as the father of Jesus...what of it? Whatever else is true, medieval folks had no doubt about the divinity of Jesus. They didn’t add stuff in to prove what everyone accepted as true anyways!
“This is where the “spiritual flesh” comes in and why the Church insisted on the real Presence, real flesh and real blood...”
No, the discussion of spiritual bodies came about from the knowledge that the physical body of believers dies, so how will we be resurrected? Real presence came in because it has a significant amount of truth to it...as Baptists put it, “The outward elements in this ordinance, when correctly set apart for the use ordained by Christ, bear such a strong relation to the Lord crucified, that they are sometimes truly, but figuratively, called by the name of the things they represent, namely, the body and blood of Christ.”
The main marks of a Christian, what identified him as such, were baptism and Eucharist. Many church fathers who taught ‘real presence’ also discussed it as metaphor.
The Catholic Church went further and created transubstantiation, so their ‘priests’ could offer a sacrifice.
But again, these are not disputes based on the reliability of the texts, but about the meaning of what we find in the texts.
“So without making this any longer, most of the theologically dependent variants were made early in the Christian period....Sometimes it is forgotten that the etxt being read is actually a redacted text that was intentionally changed to make Christ divine, or one person, or things to that nature.”
Making an assertion does not prove the assertion.
As FF Bruce put it:
But how different is the situation of the New Testament in this respect! In addition to the two excellent MSS of the fourth century mentioned above, which are the earliest of some thousands known to us, considerable fragments remain of papyrus copies of books of the New Testament dated from 100 to 200 years earlier still. The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, the existence of which was made public in 1931, consist of portions of eleven papyrus codices, three of which contained most of the New Testament writings. One of these, containing the four Gospels with Acts, belongs to the first half of the third century; another, containing Paul’s letters to churches and the Epistle to the Hebrews, was copied at the beginning of the third century; the third, containing Revelation, belongs to the second half of the same century.
A more recent discovery consists of some papyrus fragments dated by papyrological experts not later than AD 150, published in Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and other Early Christian Papyri, by H. I. Bell and T. C. Skeat (1935). These fragments contain what has been thought by some to be portions of a fifth Gospel having strong affinities with the canonical four; but much more probable is the view expressed in The Times Literary Supplement for 25 April 1935, ‘that these fragments were written by someone who had the four Gospels before him and knew them well; that they did not profess to be an independent Gospel; but were paraphrases of the stories and other matter in the Gospels designed for explanation and instruction, a manual to teach people the Gospel stories’.
Earlier still is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John xviii. 31-33, 37 f, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, dated on palaeographical grounds around AD 130, showing that the latest of the four Gospels, which was written, according to tradition, at Ephesus between AD 90 and 100, was circulating in Egypt within about forty years of its composition (if, as is most likely, this papyrus originated in Egypt, where it was acquired in 1917). It must be regarded as being, by half a century, the earliest extant fragment of the New Testament.
A more recently discovered papyrus manuscript of the same Gospel, while not so early as the Rylands papyrus, is incomparably better preserved; this is the Papyrus Bodmer II, whose discovery was announced by the Bodmer Library of Geneva in 1956; it was written about AD 200, and contains the first fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John with but one lacuna (of twenty two verses), and considerable portions of the last seven chapters.’...
The study of the kind of attestation found in MSS and quotations in later writer’ is connected with the approach known as Textual Criticism.’ This is a most important and fascinating branch of study, its object being to determine as exactly as possible from the available evidence the original words of the documents in question. It is easily proved by experiment that it is difficult to copy out a passage of any considerable length without making one or two dips at least. When we have documents like our New Testament writings copied and recopied thousands of times, the scope for copyists’ errors is so enormously increased that it is surprising there are no more than there actually are. Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remain’ among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice
To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient MSS was second to none:
‘The interval then between the data of original. composition and the earliest extant evidence become so small to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scripture have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.’