New Testament Textual Criticism

and the True Significance of the Variants

Wildcat

OUTLINE

I. General Text-Critical Issues

A. The Living Text
B. Between Autograph and Earliest MSS
C. Conjectural Emendation & The Tenacity of Textual Variants
D. Playing the Percentages
II. Variants that Affect Crucial Christian Doctrines
A. Mark 16:9-20
B. Luke 22:17-20
C. John 1:18
D. I John 5:7-8
III. Appendix I: On the Reliability of Oral Tradition
IV. Appendix II: Three Implicit Indications in the Gospels of Jesus’ Divinity
A. Jesus as Pre-Existent
B. Jesus as Wisdom Incarnate
C. Jesus the Son of Man

INTRODUCTION

For many years since the internet debates have been unfolding (and for centuries prior to
the internet age), Muslims and Christians have been grappling with the all-important
matter of the integrity (or lack thereof) of the Biblical text. In light of recent attacks on the
integrity of the Biblical text, especially the New Testament, this essay seeks to examine
the implications of the textual variations that exist in the New Testament manuscript
tradition.

In response to Islamic accusations of Biblical corruption, Christians commonly tout the

great quantity of New Testament manuscripts (MSS) that have been discovered (i.e.
approximately 5,750 Greek MSS; perhaps as many as 24,000 total MSS when including
translations into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, etc. – this number includes both partial and full
manuscripts – a quantity virtually unparalleled by other ancient documents) and the
relatively short amount of time that exists between the composition of the original
documents and the earliest manuscripts (again, compared with other ancient documents).
While there is a very large number of textual variations among the extant manuscripts, a
very high percentage of the original text is recoverable from an analysis of the currently-
available MSS, and in almost every case (save perhaps for a few), the original reading is
believed by textual critics to be extant among the known textual variants. Most
importantly, it remains the case that no major Christian doctrine is in doubt as a result of
the textual variations.

New Challenges
Within the past few years, either the significance of the above assertions or the assertions
themselves have been challenged. The general integrity of the text has especially been
called into question since New Testament textual critic Bart Ehrman has popularized his
scholarship regarding the New Testament manuscripts (especially in his widely-sold
"Misquoting Jesus"). Additionally, Muslim polemicists have published several articles
utilizing materials taken from Ehrman as well as other NT textual scholars in order to
discredit the integrity of the New Testament text. Here are links to a few that are
representative: [1], [2], [3], [4].

Before proceeding with our critique of the approaches taken by such polemics, we can
concede some credit where it is due. Contrary to most polemics regarding issues relevant
to Christianity we find from critics (whether it is from Muslims, atheists, anti-
missionaries, etc.), Muslim polemicists have managed to piece together a substantial
amount of scholarly, thought-provoking material in their articles on NT textual criticism.
Accordingly, they utilize the relevant sources, i.e. legitimate New Testament scholars,
particularly textual critics. Finally, I think it is even fair to state that their polemics
demand Christian apologists do more homework on this crucial subject in order to counter
the new challenges that have arisen. Merely pointing out the great wealth of NT
manuscripts in existence and stating that no Christian doctrine is in doubt from the
variations that exist is no longer adequate, by itself, to properly address the important
issues that have been raised. Now, let us proceed with a discussion of some of the issues.

On the surface, certain statements found in works like Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" as
well as quotations from scholars found in the recent spate of writings from Muslim
polemicists give the impression that the New Testament has been corrupted to the point of
hopelessness. Consider the following, for instance:

"Scholars differ significantly in their estimates—some say there are 200,000

variants known, some say 300,000, some say 400,000 or more! We do not
know for sure because, despite impressive developments in computer
technology, no one has yet been able to count them all. Perhaps, as I indicated
earlier, it is best simply to leave the matter in comparative terms. There are
more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New
Testament." (Ehrman 2007; 89-90)

While seemingly impressive at surface-level, another New Testament textual scholar tells
why, in direct response to the above paragraph, this does not cause NT textual critics to hit
the proverbial panic-button:

"That is true enough, but by itself is misleading. Anyone who teaches NT

textual criticism knows that this fact is only part of the picture and that, if left
dangling in front of the reader without explanation, is a distorted view. Once
it is revealed that the great majority of these variants are inconsequential—
involving spelling differences that cannot even be translated, articles with
proper nouns, word order changes, and the like—and that only a very small
minority of the variants alter the meaning of the text, the whole picture begins
to come into focus. Indeed, only about 1% of the textual variants are both
meaningful and viable. The impression Ehrman sometimes gives throughout
the book—and repeats in interviews—is that of wholesale uncertainty about
the original wording, a view that is far more radical than he actually
embraces." (Daniel Wallace; [Source], accessed 11/30/08)

And so, while such sound bites regarding textual variations in the New Testament are
technically true, it is what is NOT said in these works that assault the integrity of the NT
text (such as the important qualifying-remarks by Daniel Wallace) that paints a very
misleading portrait for the reader.

Of course, many textual variations in the manuscript record are important and do involve
vital Christian doctrines. Such variations are utilized by Muslim polemicists in order to
cast doubt on the overall integrity of the text. In what follows we seek to discuss a few of
the most significant textual variations and the significance they play for the overall
debate, not only for the question of Biblical corruption but also for that of the historical
foundations underlying important doctrines. This article will not serve as an introduction
to the science of textual criticism, but simply will seek to clarify three important issues: 1)
what the evidence tells us of the overall state of the NT text; 2) how variants affecting
certain important doctrines impact the theology of the New Testament text as a whole; and
3) how such variants affect the historical foundations upon which these doctrines are
based.

What this article ultimately hopes to demonstrate is the following: 1) Despite the issues
raised by both non-deliberate and deliberate corruptions of the New Testament text, we
may speak of the NT text as generally well-preserved; 2) Crucial Christian doctrines that
lead to much of the impasse between Christian and Islamic theology are not negated either
textually or historically by textual variants; and 3) The results require Muslims to either a)
assert a degree of corruption of the NT text that not only is out of sync with the evidence
that does exist, but also to which not even the most radical of NT textual critics would
concur, b) redefine what Muhammad meant when he referred to “the Gospel” (e.g. a non-
canonical document?) and what theological and historical foundations exist to make such
a redefinition intellectually feasible, or c) reinterpret Islamic theology (somehow) to
accommodate the relevant Christian doctrines with which it is currently at odds.

The reader should note that there are certain facts alluded to in the internet articles we
listed above with which we are not in fundamental disagreement, such as the fact that only
a small minority of the existing thousands of manuscripts are used by textual critics to
determine the original text, that translations of the Greek text and materials found in
patristic writings are only useful as supplementary (rather than primary) resources in
terms of determining the original text, and that, despite a few claims to the contrary, there
is not good evidence for manuscripts to be dated to the 1st century. We do not take issue
with their arguments/criticisms regarding these matters and so obviously will not be
attempting to refute them.

THE LIVING TEXT

Our earliest manuscript that contains the whole New Testament is dated to the 4th Century
A.D., though there are a number of partial manuscripts which contain substantial portions
of some NT books from the period of about 200 A.D. Daniel Wallace notes that the twelve
earliest manuscripts, which date to no later than about the early 3rd century (i.e. within
approximately 150 years of the time of original composition), contain about 43% of the
New Testament (Wallace 2008; cf. discussion in time slice 22:00 – 23:00; see also here
for a brief discussion by Wallace of the 2nd century manuscripts). Overall, however, the
further back in time we go the fewer manuscripts we have. Moreover, textual criticism has
demonstrated that many of the early manuscripts reveal that early scribes often did not
copy the text in a word-for-word manner. Rather, the New Testament was found to be a
"living text". Muslim polemicists capitalize upon these facts in order to cast doubt upon
the reliability of the transmission of the text. MENJ has argued this latter point (see here),
citing several textual authorities. One such quote is taken from the Alands:

"Until the beginning of the fourth century the text of the New Testament
developed freely. It was a 'living text' in the Greek literary tradition, unlike
the text of the Hebrew Old Testament, which was subject to strict controls
because (in the oriental tradition) the consonantal text was holy. And the New
Testament text continued to be a ‘living text’ as long as it remained a
manuscript tradition, even when the Byzantine church molded it to the
procrustean bed of the standard and officially prescribed text. Even for later
scribes, for example, the parallel passages of the Gospels were so familiar
that they would adapt the text of one Gospel to that of another. They also felt
 themselves free to make corrections in the text, improving it by their own
standards of correctness, whether grammatically, stylistically, or more
substantively. This was all the more true of the early period, when the text
had not yet attained canonical status, especially in the earliest period when
Christians considered themselves filled with the Spirit. As a consequence the
text of the early period was many-faceted, and each manuscript had its own
peculiar character." (K & B Aland 1989; 69)

Yet this doesn't end the story. The Alands go on to say immediately following the above
text:

"This can be observed in such papyri as P45, P46, P66, and so forth. The fact
that this was NOT the normative practice has been proved by P75, which
represents a strict text just as P52 of the period around A.D. 125
represents a normal text. It preserves the text of the original exemplar in
a relatively faithful form (and is not alone in doing so, cf. p. 59)." (ibid.
69; emphasis added)

Regarding the different text-types (or “pre-types”, as we’ll call them, for reasons to be
elucidated just below) alluded to above, the authors write:

"Thus P45, P46, P66, and a whole group of other manuscripts offer a 'free' text,
i.e. a text dealing with the original text in a relatively free manner with no
suggestion of a program of standardization (or were these manuscripts also
imported from elsewhere?). Some have gone so far as to interpret these 'free'
texts as typical of the early period. But this cannot be correct, as a fresh
collation of all the manuscripts of the early period10 by the Institute for
New Testament Textual Research has shown. The 'free' text represents
only one of the varieties of the period. Beside it there is a substantial
number of manuscripts representing a 'normal' text, i.e. a relatively
faithful tradition which departs from its exemplar only occasionally, AS
DO NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS OF EVERY CENTURY.
There is an equally substantial number of manuscripts representing a
'strict' text, which transmit the text of an exemplar with meticulous care
(e.g., P75) and depart from it only rarely. Finally, we also find a few
manuscripts with a paraphrastic text, which belong in the neighborhood of the
D text. Apparently it was not until the beginning of the fourth century even in
Egypt that a standardization of the text occurred through the circulation of
numerous copies of a 'model text' from a central authority...

"Until the third/fourth century, then, there were many different forms of the
New Testament text, including some which anticipated or were more closely
akin to the D text, but not until the fourth century, following the decades of
peace prior to the Diocletianic persecutions, did the formation of text types
begin." (ibid. 64, emphasis added)

And,

"8. Variant readings in the New Testament text which are not due to simple
scribal error (or to the confusion of similar sounds when transcribing from
dictation in a scriptorium) may be explained by its character as a ‘living text.’
While it is true that from at least the third century the scribes tried to copy
their exemplars faithfully to the letter, they also followed the meaning as they
transcribed the text (which they knew practically by heart), and this gave rise
to variants." (ibid. 69)

The Alands’ designation of the text into the aforementioned “pre-types” (as I have termed
them) has been criticized by other textual critics such as Bart Ehrman on the grounds that
the designations are based on circular logic. For instance, the “strict text” is said to be
strict because it contains the highest proportion of original readings, but this judgment in
turn is based upon the assumption that the 26th edition of the Nestle-Aland text in fact
represents the original NT text (cf. Ehrman, Textual Circularity, 1989). More useful is the
typical scholarly classification system of the texts as Alexandrian, Mixed, “Western”, etc.
Eldon Jay Epp demonstrates why these different text types (or “textual groups” or
“clusters”, as he prefers to call them) were established early in the process of
transmission. He writes:

“Yet, what makes this sorting process so natural – and attractive – is that
several early papyri draw to themselves other later MSS and form three
reasonably separable constellations with similar textual characteristics. Most
significant is that the papyri in each group can be identified textually
with one or more major uncial MSS. Though this procedure may appear to
come perilously close to classifying MSS on the basis of the great uncials, it
avoids that classic fault by first differentiating various papyri from one
another according to their differing textual character, and only then seeking
partners for them farther down the stream of NT MSS – partners with similar
textual complexions. Thus one can argue plausibly that three textual
clusters or constellations emerge in our stream of transmission, each with
roots in the earliest period. First, the clearest cluster can be identified (e.g.,
in the Gospels) in the P75-Codex B line (along with P66, Sinaiticus [except in
John], and the later L and 33 – as well as P46 and 1739 for Paul, etc.), which
might be called the B text group (traditionally known as Egyptian,
Alexandrian, or “Neutral”). Second, three or four papyri and one uncial prior
to the fourth century containing portions of Luke-Acts (P48, P38, P69, 0171,
and perhaps P29) form a cluster that can be connected to Codex D, and later
with 1739 (Acts only), 614, and 383. This has long been called – though
incorrectly in the geographical sense – the ‘Western’ kind of text, which
might better be designated the D text group. Third, a cluster (for the Gospels)
exists in P45 and Codex Washingtonianus (with e.g., f13), which might be
called the C text group because it stands midway between the B and D text
groups (though no longer to be called Caesarean). In addition, though not
among the early clusters and therefore with no early papyrus representatives,
there is the later Majority or Byzantine text group, whose earliest major
witness is Codex A (though only in the Gospels). Therefore, this might be
called the A text group in recognition of Codex Alexandrinus. This cluster
does have supporting witnesses among the papyri, but only from the sixth
(P84), seventh (P68, perhaps P74), and seventh/eighth centuries (P42), and it is
the only ‘text-type’ that the Alands recognize before the fourth century49.

“Yet, once one understands the nature of text-types, it is plausible to

argue that the three textual constellations (in addition to the A text) also
constitute three distinguishable ‘text-types’ as early as the second
century (with the C text group, however, ceasing with Codex W)…

“The case made here for early text-types may be summarized as follows: The
dynamic intellectual commerce demonstrated by the many papyrus
documents – to say nothing of other evidence – permits us to envision a
rather free and speedy transmission of letters and documents in the Greco-
Roman world, including the NT writings on papyrus. This, in turn, permits
us to postulate that the NT MSS unearthed in Egypt – presuming the
movement of their texts to and from and within Egypt – may be judged
to be representative of the entire spectrum of NT texts in the
Mediterranean area in the first centuries of Christianity. Allowing these
representative papyri to sort themselves into groups with similar textual
complexions reveals three primary concentrations on the earliest textual
 spectrum, whose chief members connect readily with major uncials of the
fourth and fifth centuries and with other later MSS. Therefore, the existence,
as early as the second century, of the B, C, and D text-types, followed by
the later A text, seems beyond a reasonable doubt, and all of this finds its
basis in the NT papyri.” (Epp, Papyrus Manuscripts, 1995; 17-18; emphasis
added; note that in Epp’s later work, in [Epp, Issues, 2002; 41-43], the above
statements are reiterated though with predominant reference to only two
primary text-types, the Alexandrian and “Western”. The “mixed” or “C” type
apparently has been deemed a questionable category in at least some text-
critical circles per n.49 in ibid. 38)

Bruce Metzger illustrates how different text-types were likely to have developed as the
NT texts were transmitted:

“During the early centuries of the expansion of the Christian church, what are
called ‘local texts’ of the New Testament gradually developed. Newly
established congregations in and near a large city, such as Alexandria,
Antioch, Constantinople, Carthage, or Rome, were provided with copies of
the Scriptures in the form that was current in that area. As additional copies
were made, the number of special readings and renderings would be both
conserved and, to some extent, increased, so that eventually a type of text
grew up that was more or less peculiar to that locality. Today it is possible to
identify the type of text preserved in New Testament manuscripts by
comparing their characteristic readings with the quotations of those passages
in the writings of Church Fathers who lived in or near the chief ecclesiastical
centers.

“At the same time the distinctiveness of a local text tended to become diluted
and mixed with other types of text. A manuscript of the Gospel of Mark
copied in Alexandria, for example, and taken later to Rome would doubtless
influence to some extent copyists transcribing the form of the text of Mark
heretofore current at Rome. On the whole, however, during the earliest
centuries the tendencies to develop and preserve a particular type of text
prevailed over the tendencies leading to a mixture of texts. Thus there grew
up several distinctive kinds of New Testament text, the most important of
which are the following…” (Metzger 1994; 4-5)

From this data a couple of observations are in order:

1) While there apparently were scribal traditions that “freely-adapted” and/or paraphrased
the texts of exemplars for various reasons (these traditions apparently accounting for most
of the significant variants we see today), other scribal traditions just as ancient by and
large did not deviate from the original text. Note that regardless of whether or not we
accept the paradigm of the existence of “strict”, “normal”, and “free” (pre-) text types by
Kurt and Barbara Aland, our contention is unchanged. Regarding the apparent circularity
used by the Alands in defining what are “strict” and “normal” texts vs. “free” texts, this
charge could be fundamentally true yet the observation that certain MSS deviated more
from the original text than others remains relevant when we consider that it is the
Alexandrian text-type that is generally considered the most faithful per the consensus of
NT textual critics. Daniel Wallace writes in regard to this:

“Although we do not have 100% of the NT attested in manuscripts from the

second century, it is remarkable how minimally the manuscripts we do have
differ from the great fourth century majuscules of the Alexandrian text, in
which the entire NT can be found. The evidence from the earliest Greek
manuscripts, therefore, is quite strong that the text of the NT was relatively
stable in at least the Alexandrian stream of transmission, a stream that most
scholars would regard as the best group of witnesses to the original text of the
NT.8” (Source)
Obviously, the MSS that represent the (proto-) Alexandrian text are those that remain
truest to the original text vs. the more paraphrastic “Western” text [cf. Metzger 1992; 215-
219 for further discussion].

2) The fact that at least two text-types are traceable to as early of a period as the 2nd
century has important implications for the study of the more significant textual variants.
While the bifurcation into text-types will, of course, result in the formation of variant
readings (those peculiar to various regions of the then-Christian world), this in turn
reinforces the integrity of the text where both types are essentially the same. As we will
see below, the degree of agreement outweighs by a significant margin the degree of
disagreement.

Let us briefly illustrate this latter point with a hypothetical example. Let's say we have 4
manuscripts (A, B, C, & D) detailing an event that took place on a day in the life of a
certain canine:

A: "The dog ran down the street and into the grocery store, frightening the customers".

B: "The dog skipped down the street and went into the grocery store".

C: "Down the street the dog ran into the grocery store, scaring the patrons".

D: "The dog ran along the avenue, going into the supermarket and frightening the
customers".

The differences among the various editions are substantial. 1) A different verb is used in
manuscript B for how the dog got down the street; 2) "Grocery store" is replaced by
"supermarket" in manuscript D; 3) "frightening the customers" is replaced with "scaring
the patrons" in manuscript C; 4) "avenue" replaces "street" in manuscript D; 5) The dog's
action and his direction are inverted in manuscript C; 6) the "frightening of the customers"
or paraphrase is missing from manuscript B.

In our hypothetical example, while there are differences in every reading, the only
question stemming from them that really affects the meaning of the text is whether or not
the customers were frightened, or if this was a later addition. All other things being equal,
we could make a case that the original text did contain such a phrase based on the fact that
this is conveyed by the majority of manuscripts (3 of 4). On the other hand, one maxim of
textual criticism is that the probable original variant is the one that makes sense of the
existence of the others. Perhaps, one could speculate, "frightening the customers" was
added later to a text like manuscript B based on the historical memory that the dog did
indeed frighten the customers (even if the original author did not write this). This would
also make sense of why there is an "alternative ending", i.e. "scaring the patrons", that
was added independently by a second scribe. Of course, other factors such as which
manuscript(s) is/are of greatest antiquity would come into play as well in the decision-
making process, as would which text-type is deemed by scholars to be the most reliable
and which types characterize manuscripts A-D. In any event, despite the marked
differences among the extant readings we can be virtually certain that the original text
indicated that the dog ran (or skipped) down the street and went into a business that sells
groceries since all convey this basic message. As we will see below, many (and probably
most) of the potentially viable textual variants that characterize the Greek New Testament
are of this rather trivial category.

BETWEEN AUTOGRAPH AND EARLIEST MSS

While the original copies of the NT documents have not survived, it is commonly and
correctly asserted that the time between the original penning of the various NT works and
the earliest MSS evidence is essentially negligible. The earliest complete manuscript of
the New Testament is Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century A.D. whereas there are a
number of earlier fragments dating to the early 3rd (and perhaps late 2nd) centuries. To
fully appreciate the significance of this comparatively small gap in time between
autograph and earliest MSS (along with the total number of partial and full manuscripts of
NT works that exist), consider the following table.

HISTORIES OLDEST MSS NUMBER SURVIVING

Livy 59 B.C. – A.D. 17 4th Century 27
Tacitus A.D. 56 – 120 9th Century 3
Suetonius A.D. 69 – 140 9th Century 200+
Thucydides 460 – 400 B.C. 1st Century A.D. 20
Herodotus 484 – 425 B.C. 1st Century A.D. 75
c. 5,700 Greek;
NEW TESTAMENT c. 100-150
10,000+ Latin, etc.

TABLE 1: Taken from Wallace in Komoszewski, Sawyer, & Wallace 2006; 71

Wallace writes in regard to the comparative wealth of NT manuscripts with other ancient
literature:

“One often hears the line, ‘We really don’t know what the New Testament
originally said, since we no longer possess the originals and since there could
have been tremendous tampering with the text before our existing copies
were produced.’ Is this an accurate assessment of the data? Is that kind of
skepticism true to the facts? Not exactly.

“If this supposition is true, then we must deny that most facts of ancient
history can be recovered, because whatever doubts we cast on the text of the
New Testament must be cast a hundredfold on virtually any other ancient
text. The New Testament manuscripts stand closer to the original and are
more plentiful than virtually any other ancient literature. The New Testament
is far and away the best-attested work of Greek or Latin literature in the
ancient world.” (ibid. 70-71; emphasis original)

And,

“As noted above, approximately fifty-seven hundred full or partial New

Testament manuscripts are known to exist at this writing. The number of
sources is growing. Every decade and virtually every year new manuscripts
are discovered. Meanwhile, the average classical author’s writings are found
in about twenty extant manuscripts10. The New Testament—in the Greek
manuscripts alone—exceeds this by almost three hundred times. Besides the
Greek manuscripts, there are Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Gothic,
Georgian, Arabic, and many other versions of the New Testament. The Latin
manuscripts number over ten thousand. All told, the New Testament is
represented by approximately one thousand times as many manuscripts as the
average classical author’s writings. Even the well-known authors—such as
Homer or Herodotus—simply can’t compare to the quantity of copies that the
New Testament enjoys. Homer, in fact, is a distant second in terms of
manuscripts, yet there are fewer than twenty-five hundred copies of Homer
extant today11.” (ibid. 71-72; emphasis original)

“11. Homer was the earliest and most popular author of the ancient Greek
world. Even with a nine-hundred year head start, the Iliad and the Odyssey
couldn’t catch up with the New Testament. Yet manuscripts of Homer are
 more plentiful than the average classical Greek author’s by a hundredfold.”
(ibid. 276; end-note #11)

With this important background information in mind, let’s examine some of the assertions
made by M.S.M. Saifullah and company (from this article) in response to the Christian
claim regarding the large number of manuscripts and the relatively short period of time
between the composition of the original writing and the earliest manuscript(s).

“A quick glance at the data shows that the Gospel of John has the earliest
manuscript evidence (P52, c. 125-150 CE) whereas the books 1,2 Timothy
and 3 John have very late manuscript witnesses (ℵ, 4th century CE). Most of
the earliest manuscript witnesses of the books of the New Testament are quite
fragmentary, at times containing no more than a couple of verses or even less.
The majority of the manuscripts date between 200-300 CE. Given the data, it
is hard to imagine how the dates of the ‘original’ composition and the earliest
extant evidence are so small as to be negligible.”

In response, let’s consider this in comparative terms. Recall that the time between the
initial composition and the earliest manuscript of the writings of the ancient historians that
Wallace listed in “Table 1” (which we have reproduced above) is at best approximately
300 years (in the case of Livy) and in some cases as many as 700-800 years (in the cases
of Tacitus and Suetonius). With the New Testament, however, Daniel Wallace states that
there are at least 101 discovered manuscripts that date to no later than the 4th century of
the Christian era (Wallace 2008; time slice 31:40 – 32:50). This would be within about
300 - 350 years of the time of the initial composition of all the NT documents (accepting
the typical scholarly-dating of these documents to between about 50-100 A.D.). And so
while we have no documents within the first 3 centuries for the writings of the
aforementioned historians, we have dozens within that time range for that of the NT.

The claim that many of these are “quite fragmentary, at times containing no more than a
couple of verses or less” is true but such a statement does not reflect the fact that
substantial portions of the NT are in fact represented among these early manuscripts. We
see this even upon examination of only the Chester Beatty and Bodmer papyri. Glenn
Miller provides the following helpful summaries:

The Beatty papyri.

The major papyri in this collection are p45, p46, p47.

p45: 150-250ad; contains some (or all) of Mt 20, 21, 25, 26; Mr 4-9,
11-12; Lk 6-7, 9-14; Jn 10-11; Acts 4-17.
p46: 90-175ad; contains some (or all) of Rom 5-6, 8-16; all of I & II
Cor, Gal, Eph., Philp., Col, I Thess 1,2,5; all of Hebrews.
p47: third century, contains Revelation 9:10-17:2

Depending on how one defines 'tiny', this set of mss ALONE comprise a
'non-tiny' fragment collection!

The Bodmer papyri.

The major papyri in this collection are p66, p72, p75.

p66: 150-200 AD, contains almost all of the Gospel of John!

p72: 200's, containing all of I & II Peter, Jude
p75: 175-200 AD, contains most of Luke 3-18, 22-24; John 1-15.
(Source)

Recall also that, according to Wallace, the twelve earliest manuscripts (which would date
to within about 150 years or so of the original composition of the documents in question)
comprise collectively approximately 43% of the NT (Wallace 2008; DVD time slice 22:00
– 23:00). In response to the authors’ statement that “Given the data, it is hard to imagine
how the dates of the ‘original’ composition and the earliest extant evidence are so small as
to be negligible”, it can be said that such a claim is made in comparison with other ancient
literature, the substantial preservation of which is generally not questioned. In other
words, if the data we have for the NT is not sufficient to conclude that it has been
essentially preserved, then it would be very difficult to be certain of anything recorded by
ancient classical authors as well. Saifullah et al also write:

“Therefore, the fantastic claims found in the missionary and apologetical

literature are dealt a heavy blow when we understand that slightly over 6% of
the more than 5,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts hail from before the
9th century! With no shortage of claims ascribing 'ancientness' to the
manuscripts, given that around 94% of the Greek manuscripts (Greek being
the "original" language of the New Testament) can be dated in excess of 800
years or so after the birth of Jesus, shows the sheer desperation of the
missionaries. It is well known amongst the textual critics that the great
majority of the primary witnesses to the text of the New Testament, (i.e.,
Greek manuscripts) are overwhelmingly from the medieval and late medieval
periods.”

Overall, I think the authors’ statement on this issue is fair, as are a couple of claims made
earlier in the same article that only 10-18% of the manuscripts in existence are used by
textual critics in determining the original text, and that 80-90% of the manuscripts in
existence are of the least-reliable Byzantine text-type. Such qualifications are important
and it would behoove Christians that argue for the integrity of the NT text to be aware of
such data and resultantly fit the “overwhelming manuscript attestation” argument in
proper context rather than simply using it as a sound bite. At the same time, the value of
these later manuscripts should not be completely dismissed. It is a well-known fact among
textual critics that later manuscripts sometimes contain earlier readings at certain points.
The importance of this will become more apparent in the next section where the
phenomenon of the tenacity of textual variants and conjectural emendation will be
discussed.

Of course, having in excess of 300 Greek manuscripts (i.e. 6% of 5,000) within 800 years
of the birth of Jesus still yields a substantially better situation than what we have for other
ancient authors. According to the data gathered by the authors, the GNT-3 used just in
excess of 900 manuscripts while the 26th edition of Nestle-Aland utilized 522. The reader
should keep in mind that this is excluding any important supplementary information that
the versions and patristic citations may have provided these committees when determining
the original text (note: despite the many problems involved with utilizing the patristic
literature in regard to NT text-critical matters as pointed out by Saifullah et al, the
situation is far from hopeless and textual critics do indeed find the patristic literature to be
a valuable source of data; see Fee, Greek Fathers, 1995 for an instructive essay on the
matter). So, even if we pare down the numbers from thousands to hundreds, the data pool
still exceeds (and in most cases still vastly exceeds) that of what textual critics of other
ancient authors have to work with, the one exception being perhaps that of the works of
Homer (though even here I’d imagine that the relevant textual critics would deem some of
the manuscripts of more value than others, just as we see with those that study the NT).

Before moving on, perhaps a word of clarification is also necessary regarding the
Byzantine text, which as noted correctly by Saifullah et al is the inferior manuscript
tradition, not finding representation among the earliest manuscripts (though comprising
the vast majority of manuscripts that are in existence). It is important to realize that the
differences which characterize the Byzantine textual tradition are not so significant as to
yield a completely different Jesus. To put it into proper perspective, the cautionary
remarks of Kurt & Barbara Aland are worthy of quotation:

“On the whole it must be admitted that statements about the text of the New
Testament, whether by amateurs or by specialists, have far too rarely reflected
an overall perspective. All too frequently the focus has been on variants
 found in particular manuscripts or editions. This is true for even the most
fundamental aspects of textual criticism; when identifying the text type of a
manuscript it is all too easy to overlook the fact that the Byzantine Imperial
text and the Alexandrian Egyptian text, to take two examples that in
theory are diametrically opposed to each other, actually exhibit a
remarkable degree of agreement, perhaps as much as 80 percent! Textual
critics themselves, and New Testament specialists even more so, not to
mention laypersons, tend to be fascinated by differences and to forget how
many of them may be due to chance or to normal scribal tendencies, and how
rarely significant variants occur – yielding to the common danger of failing to
see the forest for the trees.” (K & B Aland 1989; 28; emphasis added)

Of the remaining 20 or so percent difference, one wonders how much of that is comprised
of trivial variations that do not affect the meaning of the texts in question (regarding
potentially viable, yet trivial variations in the manuscript tradition see the below “Playing
the Percentages” section).

From here the authors go on to speak of the “Athanasian Codex” and the lateness of when
direct manuscript-evidence for this appears, a subject that is informative though irrelevant
to the question of the preservation of the NT books in general. They also speak of the
“Orthodox Corruption of Scripture”, to utilize the title of the relevant book penned by
Bart Ehrman, as well as the fact that the Early Church Fathers as well as the early skeptic
Celsus spoke about the textual variants and corruption of the NT text that was being
observed in their day. Consistent with this latter point they point out the great fluidity of
the text that has been observed by textual critics to have existed within the first two or
three centuries of the genesis of the church. How these latter issues affect NT preservation
as a whole we addressed in the above section (and also touch upon this issue indirectly in
the next two sections). Regarding Ehrman and the deliberate scribal corruptions that can
be observed in the manuscript tradition, made for the purpose of advancing a certain
theological point of view, see the following discussion from James Patrick Holding:

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nttextcrit.html#ehrman

As a closing note, it should be reiterated that while our earliest full NT copies originate
from the 4th century at the earliest, with fragmentary texts being dated to as early as the
late 2nd and 3rd centuries, that at least two of the major text-types (three if the “mixed”,
formerly called “Caesarean”, text-type is a viable concept) identifiable from the
manuscript tradition can likely be traced to the early-to-mid 2nd century is significant. The
differences from the original in particularly the “paraphrastic text-type” (i.e. proto-
Western text) should not be overestimated. After all, a “paraphrase” by definition
generally stays true to the original meaning of the text, and any significant variants that do
exist can be found in the relevant critical editions of the NT text mentioned often in this
article (see below). That at least two text-(proto-) types exist that, despite their
characteristic differences, nevertheless for the most part convey essentially the same text
(note: the situation is somewhat more pronounced in the “Western” text of Acts, which is
about 7-10% lengthier than the Alexandrian text of Acts; cf. the discussion in Metzger
1994; 222-236) and are traceable per Epp to as early as the 2nd century suggests a date of
no later than the early second century before the “split into text-types” occurred. For texts
that are essentially the same in all types we can be certain that the text prior to this “split”
was something like what we find represented by the readings found in the major text-
types (see again the “canine example” above). At the end of the day, this data indicates
that we can be confident of what the text essentially looked like to within no more than
approximately half a century or so of the time of composition of most of the NT
documents, a situation unparalleled by other ancient histories. But what does the data
from textual critics tell us about the reconstruction of the original text itself? It is to this
topic we now turn.
CONJECTURAL EMENDATION & THE TENACITY OF TEXTUAL VARIANTS

One question that remains important in light of the introduction of textual variations into
the MSS tradition is to what degree we may question how many original readings have
been lost, not being accounted for among the textual variants that exist in the current
manuscript record. This is where the question of “conjectural emendation” arises. This
term refers to the practice of making educated guesses as to the actual wording of the
original text when the variant readings that survive in the manuscript record remain
unsatisfactory for whatever reason.

Now, before delving into some of the specific data, it should be noted that, given the great
wealth of surviving manuscripts and considering the widespread distribution of early
copies, it seems on the surface that this process would be for the most part unnecessary.
Consider, as an example, Paul’s writing of the epistle to the Galatians. After the letter
arrived at its destination (i.e. Galatia), it was probably housed in one of the relevant
churches and used for readings during services. Eventually, more and more copies of the
letter would have been made and housed in other churches of the region (and eventually
for churches in more remote regions of the Empire), and in a few cases copies would
possibly have been made for some of the more wealthy, aristocratic church members. And
so, here is an important consideration. If Galatians would have been copied in what I’ll
refer to as a “vertical” manner from the beginning, i.e. the original document was copied
once, this copy was subsequently copied, and that second copy was copied next, etc., then
one can imagine how mistakes would have crept into the record that perhaps make some
original readings irrecoverable. That is, if each copy from the original document onwards
was used only once as an exemplar, this would be a conceivable result. This “vertical
model” seems to be primarily what Bart Ehrman envisages (per his comments at the
Greer-Heard Dialogue 2008 Pt 1; time slice 13:00 – 16:15). However, this seems a highly
unlikely scenario, particularly given that ancient scribes would have been as aware of the
problem of textual variants as we are today.

A more likely scenario is that the original document (as well as each succeeding
generation of copies) would have been used as an exemplar many times. A Christian
wishing to take a copy of Galatians to, say, Smyrna, would likely have desired to use the
original document if still available, and if not one of the earliest copies. Eventually, copies
of Galatians would have been produced and distributed to all of the different points of the
Roman Empire where churches existed. It seems much more likely than not that the
original document would have served as the exemplar for many copies that eventually
made their way to various regions of the Empire. It is too much to suggest that the original
document would have served as the exemplar for all such early copies, due to such factors
as the limited amount of time that the original document survived and the inconvenience
that using the original as an exemplar may have provided certain scribes (for whatever
reasons). However, once copies of the original document made their way to various
regions of the empire, the distinctive variations introduced into these various copies would
have subsequently proliferated as subsequent copies of these copies were made. And, of
course, with each new generation of copies more and more variants would have been
produced. Thus, certain variations would have been peculiar to certain regions of the
Christian world.

Yet, this is the most important consideration. As it is highly unlikely that the same
variation would have been introduced into the same part of the text often by different
scribes working independently on the same exemplar, this geographical spread of copies
produced from the earliest exemplars would make the loss of the authentic reading at the
worst a very rare phenomenon. Certainly the original reading would have survived in
multiple locations across the Christian world (subsequently to be copied again and again),
making its subtraction from the pool of variants an unlikely phenomenon. Daniel Wallace
writes in regard to the early transmission of the NT text:
 “But the copying of the New Testament manuscripts is hardly like this parlor
game [i.e. the “telephone game”]. First of all, the message is passed on in
writing, not orally… Second, rather than having one line of transmission
there are multiple lines or streams of transmission. Third, textual critics don’t
rely on just the last person in each line, but they can interrogate several folks
who are closer to the original source. Fourth, patristic writers are commenting
on the text as it is going through its transmissional history, and when there are
chronological gaps among the manuscripts these writers often fill in those
gaps by telling us what the text said in that place in their day. Fifth, in the
telephone game, once the story is told by one person that individual has
nothing else to do with the story. It’s out of his or her hands. But the original
New Testament books were most likely copied more than once and many
may have been consulted even after a few generations of copies had already
been produced. Sixth, there was at least one very carefully produced stream
of transmission of New Testament manuscripts, and there is sufficient
evidence to show that even a particular 4th century manuscript in this line is
usually more accurate than any 2nd century manuscript.” (Source: Greer-
Heard Dialogue 2008 Pt II; time slice 21:17-22:38)

Upon examination of the actual MSS tradition, our contention seems to find confirmation.
Kurt and Barbara Aland note that variants within the MSS tradition are characterized by
tenacity, suggesting that conjectural emendation should in essence not be necessary at all.
In regard to which they write the following:

"And yet balancing this, one of the characteristics of the New Testament
textual tradition is tenacity, i.e., the stubborn resistance of readings and
text types to change. The practice of concluding the gospel of Mark at 16:8,
for example, continued to be observed in some Greek manuscripts as well as
in versional manuscripts for centuries, although the 'longer ending' of Mark
16:9-20 was recognized as canonical and its contents must have made it
extremely attractive. Other examples are quite numerous (the ending of
Romans, the pericope of the Woman Taken in Adultery, etc.; cf. pp. 297ff.).
In fact, the very plurality of New Testament text types can be explained
only by the tenacity of the New Testament textual tradition. Some 10 to
20 percent of the Greek manuscripts have preserved faithfully the different
text types of their various exemplars, even in the latest period when the
dominance of the Byzantine Imperial text became so thoroughly pervasive.
That is what makes it possible to retrace the original text of the New
Testament through a broad range of witnesses." (K. & B. Aland 1989; 69-
70, emphasis added)

The authors further write:

"The transmission of the New Testament textual tradition is characterized by

an extremely impressive degree of tenacity. Once a reading occurs it will
persist with obstinacy. It is precisely the overwhelming mass of the New
Testament textual tradition, assuming the ὑγιαίνουσα διδασϰαλία of New
Testament textual criticism (we trust the reader will not be offended by
this application of 1 Tim. 1:10), which provides an assurance of certainty
in establishing the original text. Even apart from the lectionaries (cf. p.
163), there is still the evidence of approximately 3,200 manuscripts of the
New Testament text, not to mention the early versions and the patristic
quotations -- we can be certain that among these there is still a group of
witnesses which preserves the original form of the text, despite the
pervasive authority of ecclesiastical tradition and the prestige of the later
text." (ibid. 291-292, emphasis added)
In what follows is a discussion of how this tenacity plays out in the textual tradition
regarding the Markan appendix. It is worth quoting the Alands at length here given that
this illustrates the importance not only of the early manuscripts, but also the important
supplementary role that the translations and the writings of the Church Fathers can play
regarding important text-critical matters:

"It is true that the longer ending of Mark 16:9-20 is found in 99 percent of the
Greek manuscripts as well as the rest of the tradition, enjoying over a period
of centuries practically an officially ecclasiastical sanction as a genuine part
of the gospel of Mark. But in Codex Vaticanus (B) as well as in Codex
Sinaiticus (N) the gospel of Mark ends at Mark 16:8, as it did in numerous
other manuscripts according to the statements of Eusebius of Caesarea and
Jerome. The same is true for the Sinaitic Syriac Sys, the Old Latin manuscript
k of the fourth/fifth century, and at least one Sahidic manuscript of the fifth
century, the earliest Georgian, and a great number of Armenian manuscripts,
while k (a manuscript representing a tradition which derives from a quite
early period) has the shorter ending in place of the longer ending. The
widespread practice in the early Church of concluding the gospel of Mark at
16:8 was suppressed by Church tradition, but it could not be eradicated. It
persisted stubbornly. As late as the twelfth century in the minuscule 304 the
gospel ends at 16:8. A considerable number of manuscripts add Mark 16:9-20
either with critical notations, or with a marginal comment questioning its
originality, even as late as the sixteenth century! This is a striking example of
what is called tenacity in the New Testament textual tradition (cf. p. 291).
The text of Mark 16:9-20 contains not only a summary account of the
appearances of the resurrected Jesus, but also the command to evangelize in a
form more radical than that in Matthew, and also an account of the ascension
of Jesus. Despite the great, not to say fundamental, importance of these
statements in the theological and practical life of the Church, a significant
number of Greek manuscripts, including among them the two most important
uncials B and N, remained faithful to the transmitted text and preserved it
through the centuries, at least calling attention to the doubts surrounding
16:9-20 -- a witness shared also among the versions and the Church Fathers.

"This tenacity is even more strikingly demonstrated by the persistence of

what is called the shorter ending in k and elsewhere. The shorter ending is
preserved as the sole ending, as we have noted above, only in the Old Latin
manuscript k. But there is a whole group of uncials (0112 from the
sixth/seventh century, 099 from the seventh century, L from the eighth
century, and ? from the eighth/ninth century) which preserve it along with
16:9-20, even placing it first, i.e. resulting in the order 16:1-8, shorter ending,
9-20. In addition there is l\1602, an uncial lectionary of the eighth century
and the miniscule 579 from the thirteenth century which support this order.
Outside the Greek tradition it is found also in the versions, in the Coptic and
in the Syriac, as well as in the Ethiopic with its generally quite late
manuscripts. This is almost inconceivable because these two endings are rival
and mutually exclusive forms. And yet they have been preserved side by side
in manuscripts and versions for centuries, simply because scribes found them
in their exemplars (however independently in each instance). The situation
can be explained only by assuming that the ending of the gospel at 16:8 was
felt to be unsatisfactory as its use spread through all the provinces of the early
Church in its early decades. In this form it tells of the empty tomb, but
appearances to the disciples are only foretold and not recounted. Therefore
the gospel was provided with an ending, certainly by the second century. The
shorter ending was an ineffective solution, either because it was a very early
stage of development or represented an outlying and relatively undeveloped
community, while the longer ending was far more effective because it was
formulated later and/or it represents a far more competent author. Both
 endings probably originated quite independently and in different provinces of
the Church. There can be no doubt that the longer ending was superior to the
shorter ending and would displace it in any competition. And yet the shorter
ending did exist at one time, and it continued to be copied not only so long as
the longer ending was unknown but even afterward, and it was generally
placed before the longer ending. Furthermore, even the original tradition of
ending the gospel at 16:8 could not be effaced completely by the longer
ending, however inadequately it was felt to serve the needs of the Church: it
also survived through the centuries." (ibid. 292-293; the authors go on to
discuss several other variants (of a less important nature) in subsequent pages
that further demonstrate this tenacity, cf. ibid 293ff.).

Similarly, citing the same important introduction to NT textual criticism by Kurt and
Barbara Aland, Daniel Wallace states the following:

“The situation with New Testament textual criticism is entirely different:

Virtually no conjectural emendation is required because of the great
wealth, diversity, and age of the materials we have.5 Most New
Testament scholars would say that there are absolutely no places where
conjecture is necessary. Again, this is because the manuscripts are so
plentiful and so early that in almost every instance the original New
Testament can be reconstructed from the available evidence.

“For example, Kurt and Barbara Aland, the first two directors of the Institute
for New Testament Textual Research in Munster, Germany (Institut fur
neutestamentliche Textforschung or INTF), wrote a standard textbook on
New Testament textual criticism. At the INTF, over 90 percent of all Greek
New Testament manuscripts are on microfilm. For the past forty-five years,
the institute has been more influential than any individual, school, or group of
scholars anywhere else in the world for determining the exact wording of the
original New Testament. In short, they know their stuff. ‘Every reading ever
occurring in the New Testament textual tradition is stubbornly
preserved, even if the result is nonsense…any reading ever occurring in
the New Testament textual tradition, from the original reading onward,
has been preserved in the tradition and needs only to be identified.’6

“The Alands go so far as to say that if a reading is found in just one

manuscript, it is almost surely not authentic: ‘The principle that the original
reading may be found in any single manuscript or version when it stands
alone or nearly alone is only a theoretical possibility.’7 Further, ‘textual
difficulties should not be solved by conjecture, or by positing glosses or
interpolations, etc., where the textual tradition itself shows no break; such
attempts amount to capitulation before the difficulties and are themselves
violations of the text.’8 Their opinion in these matters should be considered
as that of expert witnesses. Most in the discipline share their views.9

“This ‘non-need’ to guess about the wording of the original New

Testament means that in virtually every instance the original reading is
to be found somewhere in the manuscripts. That ‘somewhere’ can be
narrowed down by the methods we discussed in the last chapter. Further,
since the original reading need not be guessed at, we have an actual database
—the pool of variants found in the manuscripts—that can be tested for
theological deviations.” (Wallace 2006; 106-107; emphasis added)

J. K. Elliott, a textual critic of the school of “thoroughgoing eclecticism” (a school which

tends to accord much more weight to internal evidence than external evidence in resolving
text-critical issues, even in cases where the external evidence against a proposed reading
appears overwhelming), states “Even the most rigorous thoroughgoing critic balks at
conjectural emendation” (Elliott, Thoroughgoing Eclecticism, 1995; 331). More recently
Elliott writes:

“But thoroughgoing eclecticism sees no need to resort to conjectural

emendation, which often turns out to be a mere imaginative rewriting of the
New Testament. Conjectural emendation of the New Testament was practiced
in earlier periods, but few of these conjectures or guesses met with
widespread scholarly acceptance. A decreasing number of some famous
conjectures are still allowed to clutter unnecessarily the apparatus of the NA
editions. Passages of great difficulty such as τὁ μὴ ὑπὲρ ἃ γἐγραπται at I
Corinthians 4:6 may have to be accepted as primitive corruptions or obscure
writing by the original author. (How often are our own written words always
crystal clear?) Suggested emendations, some highly ingenious, are often
improbable merely because of their ingenuity. At Mark 10:1 we were able to
restore ὄχλος and thus have a text that conformed to Mark’s established usage
elsewhere. There, of course, we had manuscript evidence available. We now
ask the hypothetical question: What if every single manuscript known to us
read ὄχλοι? Would we have emended 10:1 to read ὄχλος merely because our
rule told us what to expect? I answer no. If that had indeed been the case we
would have had to justify and explain Mark’s apparently maverick use of the
plural here by saying, as, of course, commentaries on the critical text do, that
here and here only does Mark want to show that different and separate
crowds descended on Jesus. Then one would say that Matthew, if he were
working on Mark, took over that Markan plural in his retelling of this
passage. All of that makes sense. One would not need to emend the text to
achieve an acceptable meaning. But Mark 10:1 does have a textual variant
that needs discussion, and it is one that I hope I explained quite convincingly.
Where a unique feature occurs firmly established in the manuscript tradition,
one that does not conform to the author’s normal usage elsewhere, then I
suggest we merely mark that passage as an exception or as a difficulty and
accept it as such. We should not expunge exceptions by means of
emendations. (Elliott, Thoroughgoing Eclectisism, 2002; 120-121)

J. K. Elliott and Ian Moir in another volume write the following:

“The overriding presumption and presupposition of NT textual criticism is

that the original reading has survived somewhere in the tradition—obviously
not in any one manuscript or in one group of manuscripts. But it is assumed
that by a process of detection the original can be recovered from some of the
manuscripts. In the classics and in OT textual criticism such assumptions are
not possible. There is sometimes too little evidence, too few or too late
manuscripts for us always to be able to reconstruct their text with confidence.
With the NT the position could hardly be more different. Not only do we
have many manuscripts and many manuscripts of an early date but
recent scholarly attempts to edit the NT text are done with a confidence
that the original text is there to be discovered in the manuscripts.
Sometimes editors reach different conclusions, sometimes an editorial
judgement is questionable, but behind the debate the assumption is that the
manuscripts, supported or supplemented by the versions and by quotations in
the writings of the Fathers, will yield the original text.” (Elliott & Moir 1995;
94, emphasis added)

Such “tenacity” finds further confirmation when considering the texts of Early Church
Fathers where variant readings are discussed. Bruce Metzger has studied in detail variant
readings alluded to by Origen (who, being a 3rd century figure, was obviously working
with very ancient materials) as well as Jerome in the late 4th/early 5th centuries (who,
though later than Origen, also would have probably had access to very early manuscripts).
Metzger discusses 22 passages upon which Origen provides commentary in regard to
variant readings, only 2 or 3 of which does Origen attest to a variant that is not found in
currently-extant MSS (Col. 2.15; 2 Tim. 4:6; possibly Matt. 24:19) [cf. Metzger 1968; 91-
100]. Of the 27 passages with variant readings that Jerome discusses (per Metzger’s
examination), it appears that all of the variants alluded to by Jerome are attested in extant
MSS [Metzger 1979; 180-186]. Notably, in the vast majority of cases the variants are
found in multiple extant manuscripts. Saifullah et al point out the fact that Church Fathers
(especially Origen) lamented the corruption of the NT text in their day. However, an
examination of the specific variants discussed in their commentaries not only reveals, as a
point of interest, some readings that in many cases are still potentially viable today (e.g.
Mt. 8:28-32; 27:16-17; Lk. 23:45; Jn. 1:3-4, etc. in Origen (per Metzger 1968); Mt. 5:22;
11:19; 24:36; Mk. 16:9; Jn. 7:53-8:11; Acts 15:29, etc. in Jerome (per Metzger 1979);
regarding which see the relevant discussions in Metzger’s textual commentary [Metzger
1994]), but also predictably do not yield any earth-shattering problems with regard to
important Christian doctrines. The two or three variants discussed by Origen that do not
find attestation among current MSS may well have been (and in my estimation probably
were) non-original readings.

So, it is questionable as to whether or not the process of conjectural emendation is

necessary at all. There are, however, some that remain convinced that conjectural
emendation still has utility in New Testament textual criticism. Fortunately, such critics
find that this process is only necessary on (at the worst) the fewest of occasions. For
example, Michael W. Holmes believes it to be necessary in at least some cases:

“In practice and often in theory as well, the assumption is widespread that the
original must have survived somewhere among the extant MS testimony.
Some, such as K. Aland, assert this as a matter of principle58; others do so by
default, by declining to take seriously, even if only theoretically, the
possibility of the need to emend the text of the NT…

“This failure amounts to a squandering of our sources, a neglect of evidence

entrusted to us by the accidents of history that could, if properly used, enable
us to penetrate beyond the limits of the extant tradition. That there is
considerably less need for emendation of the NT text than of comparable
documents is indeed true59, but we must not confuse less need with no need.
For example, a survey of the UBS Textual Commentary reveals more than a
few places where the committee found itself unsure that any of the surviving
readings represented the original60. Westcott and Hort marked in their edition
some sixty-five places where they suspected the presence of some primitive
corruption antecedent to all extant witnesses, and recognized in these cases
the need for emendation61.” (Holmes, Reasoned Eclecticism, 1995; 348-349;
emphasis original)

So what are some of the relevant passages and what issues are at stake? Daniel Wallace
does mention a couple of places where conjectural emendation may still be necessary:

“There are two places in the New Testament where conjecture has perhaps
been needed. In Acts 16:12 the standard critical Greek text gives a reading
that is not found in any Greek manuscripts. But even here, some members of
the UBS committee rejected the conjecture, arguing that certain manuscripts
had the original reading. The difference between the two readings is only one
letter. (See discussion in Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the
Greek New Testament, 2d ed. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994],
393-95; NET Bible “tc” note on Acts 16:12.) Also, in Revelation 21:17 the
standard Greek text follows a conjecture that Westcott and Hort originally put
forth, though the textual problem is not listed in either the UBS text or the
Nestle-Aland text. This conjecture is a mere spelling variant that changes no
meaning in the text.” (ibid. note 5; 285)
While being generally skeptical of the alleged need for conjectural emendation (see the
above quote), J. K. Elliott and Ian Moir discuss a few other places where textual critics
have proposed emendations to the text. Regarding I Corinthians 4:6, they note:

“At 1 Corinthians 4:6 the sentence is difficult to understand. NIV has ‘…so
that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, ‘Do not go beyond
what is written’. The Greek here literally means ‘…so that you may learn
from us to think not beyond what is written’ or ‘that you may learn in our
case the meaning of ‘not above what is written’. As a result, more than one
exegete has suggested that the passage is corrupt, and that what seems to have
happened is that a marginal note was accidentally incorporated into the text
causing a nonsense reading. But not only is the difficult text found in every
single manuscript read to date but (as is usual in such matters) the conjectures
never achieved universal acclaim.” (Elliott & Moir 1995; 94)

Other examples of passages thought by at least some commentators to require emendation

discussed by the authors include the following:

1) John 19:29 – It is conjectured here that the original word for “hyssop”
should have been hyssos, meaning “javelin” rather than hyssopos, which is a
bushy plant. It would make more sense for the former to be used to lift a
sponge dipped in vinegar to Jesus (who was on the cross) than the latter (ibid.
95).

2) Luke 24:32 – For whatever reason, the “burning” in the disciples’ hearts
(those walking to Emmaus) who encountered the risen Jesus has been
emended, both in ancient and modern times, to such adjectives as “heavy”,
‘blinded’, and ‘terrified” (as well as others) (ibid. 96)

3) Acts 2:9

“Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native

language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of
Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia
and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene;
visitors from Rome” (Acts 2:8-10)

According to the authors, some commentators offer conjecture here because

the use of “Judea” in the above list “seems wrong; it is grammatically and
geographically out of place.” (ibid. 96) However, they also state “These have
seldom met with universal approval, and it still behoves [sic] the reader to
make sense of the text as transmitted in the manuscripts or at least to admit
that the author was inaccurate.” (ibid. 96)

4) Acts 12:25 – several variants appear regarding the goings-forward of Paul

and Barnabas. Was it “from Jerusalem”, “out of Jerusalem”, “to Jerusalem”
(as the actual manuscript variants attest), or are none of these to be
considered satisfactory? Apparently due to stylistic difficulties with all of the
readings a primitive error was suspected as far back as the 19th century since
Westcott and Hort (ibid. 96).

5) Acts 16:12 – regarding this text Elliott and Moir write that in the Nestle-
Aland and UBS editions there is a conjecture that results in the translation “A
city of the first district of Macedonia” rather than “The first city of the district
of Macedonia” as the manuscripts indicate. Wallace notes that the difference
in the above two translations is a single letter (see the relevant quote above).
The reason for the conjecture in the critical editions is that the wording of the
latter rendering would be technically inaccurate (ibid. 96).
 6) 2 Peter 3:10 – the NIV translation regarding that everything in the earth
will be “laid bare” also finds such possible alternatives as “vanish”, “be
found”, “be burnt up’, “be found destroyed”. Metzger finds that “none of the
available readings seems to be original” per his commentary (ibid. 96).

7) I Corinthians 14:34-35 – These verses appear to enjoin women to remain

silent while in the church, a passage whose originality is questionable
because 1) it seems contradictory to teachings earlier in the same epistle, e.g.
11:5, 13; and 2) there are indications in some manuscripts that bring the
verses’ originality into question, such as the fact that the verses appear in
some manuscripts at a different location, i.e. after vs. 40, as well as the fact
that the verses are marked in some manuscripts (including the important
Codex Vaticanus) by symbols suggestive that there is a textual issue at that
point in the letter (cf. ibid. 95).

Of these examples, it would appear with one possible exception that the points in the text
where conjectural emendation has been made render rather trivial results (at least for the
considerations relevant to this article). The last example may be more interesting since it
could affect the devotional practices of women during church services (on which see here
and also here).

To be noted from this survey is that modern scholars only resort to the practice of
conjectural emendation in the fewest of instances, probably substantially less than
Westcott and Hort did in the 19th century. And, as mentioned by Elliott and Moir, most to
all of the proposed emendations have not gained universal acclaim among scholars. Even
if Westcott and Hort, writing more than 100 years ago, were correct in suspecting as many
as 65 such passages, this would still affect less than 1% of the verses in the whole NT
corpus. Also to be noted is that the passages that have been subjected to conjectural
emendation do not typically yield profound changes in the text. This is not to say that the
meaning is not affected. It is to say, however, that conjectures generally come down to a
scholar suggesting minor changes within the text. To resort once again to a purely
hypothetical example, perhaps one could argue that the original reading of a text detailing
Paul’s journey to Jerusalem was that “Paul rushed to Jerusalem” instead of “Paul walked
to Jerusalem” as our hypothetical extant MSS have it. Off the wall conjectures such that
“Paul walked to Jerusalem” may have originally been “Nero ordered a pizza” are not
made by textual critics. This is important in that it indicates that the theoretical need for
conjectural emendation of the text of the NT does not warrant the suggestion that
completely unheard-of passages and sayings may have originally been present in the text
or that passages were introduced into the text that became so prolific as to leave no
evidence of their initial absence from the text. I Cor. 14:34-35 may be the only place that
would remotely support such speculation, though even here the case for an interpolation is
based on actual findings from manuscript data and the argument rests on highly
questionable grounds. Additionally, perhaps the primary (though not the only) reason it is
considered by some to be an interpolation is that the content of the passage seems to be in
blatant contradiction to verses found earlier in the same letter. However, this argument
would be negated if in fact Paul was not here demanding that women be silent in the
church, at least not in the general sense that some commentators have surmised (on this
see the above links).

The bottom line is that if any conjectural emendation is necessary it is only the case in a
relatively few places, and in most of the places where it may be necessary the changes
would not result in profound transformations of the text. The phenomenon of the
“tenacity” of the variants assures us that virtually all of the original text can be found in
existing manuscripts.

And so, any textual variation that merits serious consideration as the original reading has
in virtually every case persisted for examination by textual scholars. Even if we are to
speculate against the evidence that somehow certain (currently) non-disputed readings
made their way into the text through interpolations or early corruptions, it is unimaginable
that this could have been accomplished to the point that entirely new and vital doctrines
were introduced into a given book of the NT with these changes subsequently gaining
such widespread acceptance that scribes throughout the Roman Empire continued to copy
these monumental interpolations or corruptions to such an extent that no evidence of their
existence as interpolations or corruptions survives in the rich and varied manuscript
evidence. Conjectures about readings of particular words or verses that would not change
substantially the complexion of a given text, let alone affect a major doctrine, is one thing,
but any such purported phenomena that introduces bold new doctrines is quite another. It
is much easier to understand how meaningless secondary readings could have been
perpetuated by copyists, even unwittingly, than how this could have been the case with
secondary readings that blatantly corrupt crucial theological truths.

PLAYING THE PERCENTAGES

It is common in Christian-apologetic literature to find appeals to the alleged percentage of

the New Testament text of which we can be certain. Depending on the source this number
typically ranges from approximately 95-99%. M.S.M. Saifullah and company question
this approach, asking the reasonable question as to how such percentages are derived (see
here, particularly the “Ah! Those Fantastic Percentages” section, for examples of the
Christian use of the “percentage-appeal” and for a critique). The main arguments of the
authors against the use of the percentage argument are 1) these percentages are not
derived from modern textual critics and 2) the numbers utilized are contradictory to the
actual state of the text, which is not suggestive of 95-99% certainty.

I frankly find much of their critique to be instructive, serving as a useful caution against
the careless use of such percentages by some Christian apologists in articles and/or
debates. Anyone using this approach should at least be prepared to explain how one
arrived at the numbers that one did, otherwise one leaves one’s self open to scrutiny.

Nevertheless, I do think a few comments are in order in way of response to some of what
we do find from Saifullah et al in the relevant section of their article. First of all, the
authors appeal to the Alands’ discussion regarding the percentage of agreement among
seven major text-critical editions that have been published over the past century plus.
They write:

“Comparing the above-named seven major critical editions, from Tischendorf

to Nestle-Aland26, we can observe an agreement in wording of only 62.9% of
the verses of the New Testament. The proportion ranges from 45.1% in Mark
to 81.4% in 2 Timothy. Let us take a statistical examination of the four
Gospels (Note: orthographic differences and differences of a single word not
included in the assessment).

“The percentage agreement of the verses when all the four Gospels are
considered is 54.5%. This is very close to the probability that a tail (or head)
appears when a coin is tossed once (i.e., the probability that a tail or head
appears when a coin is tossed is 50%!). It is still a mystery to us from where
exactly the evangelicals pick-up such fantastic "agreements" between the
Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.” (Note: helpful tables of the
aforementioned data can be found in the relevant section of the authors’
article (*); this data derived specifically from K & B Aland 1989; 29).

In response, it can be said that determining the percentage of agreement among these
pertinent critical editions is simply not an adequate way of determining what percentage
of the text is actually in doubt. The span of time between the initial publication of these
critical editions covers a period of approximately 100 years, the earliest being that of
Tischendorf around 1869, to Westcott-Hort in 1881, von Soden at about the 1st decade of
the 20th century, Vogels whose 1st edition appeared in 1922, Merk, the first edition having
been published in 1933, Bover whose 1st edition appeared in 1943, and finally the Nestle-
Aland 25th edition which is most recent. As more and more data has come to light from
newer manuscript discoveries it isn’t surprising that there will be a wider range of
disagreement among the various critical editions. To illustrate the potential impact that
new discoveries can yield, consider the following comments of Epp:

“‘Gradually,’ however, is the governing word here. Naturally, the earliest

published papyri could have had little impact on critical editions such as
Tischendorf’s in 1869 or Westcott-Hort’s in 1881. Yet von Soden’s edition
(1913) cited only twelve papyri out of twenty then known; Legg’s edition of
Mark (1935) cites only P45 (though that was, at the time, the only known
papyrus containing Mark); his edition of Matthew (1940) uses six (when nine
were known); and Nestle’s sixteenth edition (1936) cites fifteen papyri (when
nearly fifty were known). Succeeding Nestle editions cited twenty-eight in
1952 (21st); thirty-seven in 1963 (25th, when seventy-five had been
published); and finally in 1979 (26th) and following, all the papyri are cited.
The first Greek NT to list all known papyri was also the first completely new
critical edition to be produced after the Bodmer papyri appeared: the first
edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (1966),
signifying that the papyri now had fully and officially come into their
own27.” (Epp, Papyrus Manuscripts, 1995; 11)

Thus it is scarcely shocking that the editions reveal a fairly large degree of divergence. In
fact, given the range of time involved in the publication of the relevant editions as well as
the new manuscript discoveries that have been made during that time (and the increasing
utilization of these new materials by textual critics), I tend to agree with J.P. Holding
when he regards the amount of agreement that does exist as impressive:

“The agreement here is quite astonishing, considering that this is the

combined result of seven different teams and/or persons over an extended
period of time. That all 7 editions completely agree on close to two-thirds of
the NT is a striking indication of how much confidence we may have in our
present text. (Though not given, the next statistics would show agreements on
6 out of 7, 5 out of 7, etc. - and if the trend above is followed, we might well
reach that 99% agreement before going too far down the ladder!)”(Source)

To put some of this into further perspective, consider the following comments by the
Alands:

“Only one further comment may be necessary to avoid a methodological

misunderstanding. The number of instances where these various editions
differ among themselves and from Nestle seems quite high. In reality their
significance is minor. Consider that the text of Nestle-Aland25 comprises 657
pages. When von Soden and Vogels show 2047 and 1996 differences from it
respectively, this amounts to no more than three differences a page. This
changes the perspective completely. Admittedly averages can be misleading;
e.g., in the Gospels the ratio is higher: for Nestle’s 296 pages von Soden
shows 1180 differences and Vogels 1398, raising the ratios to 4 to 4.5 to a
page, respectively. But then the ratio is correspondingly lower for other parts
of the New Testament. The other editions show far fewer differences: Bover
has less than 2 to a page, and Merk less than 1.2 to a page of Nestle.

“These statistics may suggest the objection that differences between the
various editions have simply been counted, and not weighed. But this
objection is purely theoretical. From practical experience we find that
‘important’ and ‘unimportant’ variants are about equally distributed in the
various editions, so that a simple numerical account actually provides a fairly
 accurate picture. It is the only way an observer can gain an overall
impression.” (K & B Aland 1983; 27-28; emphasis original)

More relevant when examining the integrity of the NT text is an examination of a more
modern critical edition, such as that of the United Bible Societies. Not only are practically
all of the available materials utilized (unlike what was the case with most of the critical
editions alluded to above written as long as 130 plus years ago), but involved in the
process is a committee comprised of many of the top New Testament textual scholars in
the world (rather than, again, various textual critics working independently of each other
and with incomplete use of the manuscript tradition). Saifullah et al do in fact appeal to
the United Bible Societies’ publications to further their argument against the “appeal to
percentages”.

Before proceeding to this, however, it may be helpful to quote the authors of GNT 4
regarding textual decisions and classifications of the texts with viable variants:

“On the basis of the generally accepted principles of textual analysis the
Committee took into account the widest possible range of manuscript
readings as well as all internal considerations concerning the origin and
transmission of the text. But since in a number of instances the evidence from
such sources points to the possibility of different solutions and thus involves
different degrees of certainty with respect to the form of the original text, the
letter A, B, C, or D has been employed within braces { } at the beginning of
each apparatus item so as to mark one of four levels of certainty, as
representing in large measure the difficulties encountered by the Committee
in making textual decisions.

“The letter A indicates that the text is certain.

“The letter B indicates that the text is almost certain.

“The letter C, however, indicates that the Committee had difficulty in

deciding which variant to place in the text.

“The letter D, which occurs only rarely, indicates that the Committee had
great difficulty in arriving at a decision.” (GNT 4 1993; 3)

In regard to the UBS Saifullah et al write (*) the following:

“If we remove the text that is virtually certain, rated as {A}, and take the
percentage of the New Testament text (total verses = 7947) that is in doubt,
we see that the doubtful text is close to 16.5% in all the three editions of the
United Bible Societies' The Greek New Testament. That brings textual
‘certainty’ to about 83.5% as suggested by the efforts of the committee of
textual critics. Again, this is way off from ‘at least 95%’ agreement between
the New Testament text in the manuscripts.”

Of course, 83% is already a substantial improvement from 63%. However, the authors
apparently feel some victory is to be gained in the fact that this is still far away from the
95-99% that is often stated by some Christian apologists. Yet I feel some further
clarification is required regarding the verses that remain in doubt according to the UBS
textual apparatus.

First, some verses contain multiple variations classified as B, C, and/or D readings.

Taking this into account would resultantly decrease the number of “doubtful verses” as
calculated by Saifullah et al (since they divided the total number of B, C, and D readings
into the total number of verses, apparently not taking into account that some verses
contain more than one of such readings). However, the number of verses with multiple
and potentially viable variations is so comparatively small that the 83.5% number would
likely not improve to more than about 84% at the most.

More substantial is the fact that many (and probably most) of the “doubtful verses”
contain inconsequential variants, some of which clearly do not change the meaning of the
text while still some others only questionably change the meaning of the text, while still
some others that do clearly change the meaning of the text do not even relate to crucial
Christian doctrines. We will discuss a few passages that are deemed {B}, {C}, or {D} by
the textual committee (meaning that there is at least a degree of reasonable doubt as to
which is the correct rendering) presently.

For the sake of convenience I chose some variants that occur early in the Gospels of
Matthew and Mark that I think provide us with some instructive examples.

Example 1

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was
pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was
found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18)

This verse contains a couple of {B} readings, the first question being whether or not
“Jesus Christ” is original vs. simply “Christ”. Per Metzger the textual committee prefers
the former given its overwhelming manuscript support, but the possibility of the latter
reading’s originality is not only that it does have some manuscript support but also that
scribes tended to expand either “Jesus” or “Christ” with the missing word and that the
definite article typically does not occur in front of the full name as it does here (Metzger
1994; 6-7). The other {B} reading is regarding the Greek word for “birth”, which is either
gennesis or genesis. The former term can also mean “creation” or “generation” or
“genealogy” vs. the latter which means “engendering” (ibid. 7). In this context it is clear
that a simple birth is being described regardless of which word is used and so neither of
the doubtful readings in this verse amount to anything significant.

Example 2

“Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is
heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her
children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew
2:17-18)

Another {B} reading is found in vs. 18 regarding the “weeping and great mourning”, as
substantial manuscript support exists for an expansion to “lamentation, and weeping, and
great mourning” (so GNT 4, 1983; 5-6 and Metzger 1994; 8). Metzger writes that the
longer reading is likely a “scribal assimilation to the Septuagint text of Jr 31.15 (LXX
38.15)” (ibid. 8) and so the shorter reading is likely to be original. In this passage
Matthew associates Herod’s “slaughter of the innocents” with the Scriptural passage of
Jeremiah 31:15, both potentially viable variants of which essentially the same meaning is
being conveyed.

Example 3

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment
heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
lighting on him.” (Matthew 3:16)

This text contains a couple of {C} readings, the first of which is questionably significant.
Some texts add “to him” after “heaven was opened” (ibid. 9), making room for the
possibility that only Jesus saw the Spirit “lighting on him”, suggesting that this occurred
in the context of a vision rather than a public event. This understanding may be implied
despite the absence of the “to him” variant in the fact that the verse goes on to say that “he
saw” rather than “they saw”. Nevertheless, the variant with “to him” could be argued to
more explicitly indicate that this was a vision of Jesus rather than a public event and so it
could be argued perhaps that the meaning is changed (though again this is questionable).
Regardless of which variant is original we don’t seem to be dealing with anything which
affects even indirectly Christian doctrine.

The other {C} reading is the placement among some witnesses of the conjunction kai in
front of “lighting” (ibid. 9-10), which does not affect the meaning of the passage in any
way.

Example 4

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for
they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:3-5)

Some witnesses here, including the quintessential “Western” text (i.e. D, or “Codex
Bezae”) reverse vss. 4 and 5 so that the beatitude regarding “heaven” (vs. 3) is juxtaposed
to that regarding “earth” (vs. 5) [GNT 4, 1983; 11]. Metzger states that it is unlikely that a
scribe would have thrust vs. 4 in between vss. 3 and 5 if the two latter beatitudes had
originally stood together given the “rhetorical antithesis of heaven and earth” whereas it
makes sense that later scribes may have reversed vss. 4 and 5 to produce this antithesis
(Metzger 1994; 10). Regardless of which order we opt for this {B} reading contains no
impact on meaning.

Example 5

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1)

The closing reference of the above verse to Jesus as the “Son of God” is not found in
some manuscripts, including the important Codex Sinaiticus, earning this passage a {C}
classification (ibid. 62). Whether or not vs. 1 originally stated that Jesus is the “Son of
God” is in one sense irrelevant since Mark’s viewpoint elsewhere clearly expresses the
belief that Jesus is the Son of God (so e.g. Mark 1:11), though on the other hand we can
say that this represents an important omission. The reader of the original text may have
had to wait until 10 verses later to discover that Jesus is the Son of God (per Mark) if the
title is not original to verse 1.

Example 6

“John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of

repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4)

The definite article “the” in front of “John the Baptist” is not to be found in some
witnesses (so GNT 4, 1983; 117). Given the fact that John is referred to as the Baptist in
other Markan texts (6:25; 8:28), along with seven texts in Matthew and three in Luke, it is
considered more probable that the definite article was added in 1:4 by some later scribes
than that it was originally present and subsequently deleted (Metzger 1994; 62). The
question this variant brings with it is a possible change of “Baptist” from a noun to a verb,
i.e. is John “the Baptist” or did John “come baptizing?” This passage was classified by the
committee as a {C} passage, and whichever rendering we take does not affect the
meaning or implications of the passage.

Example 7

”And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before
Him, and saying, ‘If you are willing, You can make me clean.’ Moved with
compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him,
‘I am willing; be cleansed.’” (Mark 1:40-41)
For our final example we’ll briefly discuss one ({B} reading) that clearly does affect
meaning. A minority of witnesses, such as D (i.e. Codex Bezae) [GNT 4, 1983; 122],
indicates that the statement “moved with compassion” may have originally read “being
angry”. It could be said, as has e.g. Bart Ehrman [cf. Ehrman 2005; 133-139], that because
the latter reading is more difficult given that later scribes would more likely portray Jesus
as compassionate towards a man stricken with disease rather than angry at the man’s
request to be healed, the change of the text was made in order to indicate a more positive
attitude on the part of Jesus to the one requesting healing from leprosy. On the other hand,
as Metzger points out, scribes did not feel the need to emend other passages which
indicate that Jesus could become angry (3:5; 10:14) [Metzger 1994; 65]. That Jesus could
get angry according to other texts also prevents us from making too much of this variant
regardless of which one is original. Metzger suggests that the change may have been due
to the influence of Jesus’ “stern warning” of verse 43 or “arose from confusion between
similar words in Aramaic…” i.e. Syriac ethraham (“he had pity”) vs. ethra’em (“he was
enraged”) [ibid. 65].

And so ends our brief sampling of verses. My purpose was to give several examples of
“doubtful verses” in which the variants are inconsequential as well as a few that do affect,
or might affect, the meaning of the text at least in some sense. In the case of the latter,
we’ve seen that from at least these few examples the variants do not impact Christian
doctrine, even of the particular book where these variants are found. There are, of course,
other verses to which we could have made appeal (but did not) that could be more
strongly argued to impact a given doctrine even to the point that one could
question whether or not a given author even espouses the doctrine in question (e.g.
Matthew 24:36; Luke 22:19b-20; on the former see here; on the latter see below).
However, I think the brief sampling provided should illustrate an important fact: of the
verses that are in doubt as to the precise wording of the original, many variants do not
change the meaning of the passage at all while others can only be argued to change the
meaning (such as e.g. example #3). Of those that definitely change the meaning of the text
there are comparatively few that impact points of doctrine (on which see the next section).

In light of this information what more can be said in terms of the “percentage of
certainty”? While it remains technically accurate to state that the text is only certain (per
the UBS critical edition and the calculations of Saifullah et al) in approximately 83.5% of
the verses of the NT, many of the remaining 16.5% can hardly be classified as “corrupted
texts”. Can it be said without proper qualification that such texts where we are not certain
merely if the original verse read “Christ” or “Jesus Christ” are doubtful? The same
question could be posed for passages with essentially meaningless transpositions of verses
(e.g. Mt. 5:4-5) as well as verses that may have simply originally lacked a definite article
or a conjunction. It would seem to me almost equally gratuitous to regard such passages
as Mt. 3:16 as “corrupt” (at least without qualification) simply because we don’t know if
the heavens were simply “opened” or “opened to him” (i.e. Jesus), even if in such a case
one could make an argument that the latter reading lends credence to interpreting this
verse as a private revelation as opposed to a public event. The true import of the passage
that Jesus was baptized, received the Holy Spirit at this time, and was declared “Son of
God” by a voice from heaven is preserved.

If we were to remove such passages as “doubtful”, then that 83.5% certainty would be
improved even more substantially. If say only half of the {B}, {C}, and {D} passages fall
within such a “hardly doubtful” category, then the percent certainty would exceed 91%. If
75% of the questionable passages fall within this category, then the percent certainty
would be nearly 96% (which would fall within the 95-99% range for which Saifullah et al
chided apologists for arguing). I suppose the only way to actually know what percent of
the {B}, {C}, and {D} readings fall within what I’ve termed this “hardly doubtful”
category is to analyze all such readings (or at least perform a scientific, random sampling
of hundreds of them in order to make an estimation) in the way we have above for 7 of the
verses containing variant readings and render a conclusion. Unfortunately, such a task
would be extremely tedious and I think in the end unedifying for the reason I will espouse
shortly. For what little it may be worth, I’d make an educated guess that a solid majority
of the potentially viable variants fall within this “hardly doubtful” category.

Now, our analysis to this point has been centered on the percentage of verses within the
manuscript record that is untouched by potentially viable variants. What can we say
regarding the percentage of words that are not affected? It is in this category that Daniel
Wallace provides what (as pointed out by Saifullah et al) until recently modern apologists
that use the “appeal to percentages” seem to have lacked, i.e. a supporting claim from a
modern, bona fide textual critic regarding the percentage of certainty of the original text:

“Finally, as we noted earlier, when one looks at the actual details of the
textual problems, the vast majority are so trivial as to not even be translatable,
while the meaningful and viable variants constitute only about 1 percent of
the text. And even for this category, most scholars would say that 1
percent uncertainty is an overstatement. (The majority of New
Testament scholars would say that the meaningful and viable variants
constitute a small fraction of 1 percent of the text.) As we have said many
times throughout this section, the dogma of absolute skepticism is unjustified
in the field of textual criticism (just as the dogma of absolute certainty is).”
(Wallace in Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace 2006; text from note 1; 285;
emphasis added)

Further, Wallace writes:

“The original documents of the New Testament have been lost, but their
contents have been faithfully preserved in thousands of copies. Today we are
certain of about 99 percent of the original wording. In no place is the deity
of Christ or his bodily resurrection called into question by textual variants.
Although much of the wording of the text has undergone change over the
centuries, the core truth-claims of Christianity have remained intact.” (ibid.
259; emphasis added)

In light of the number of verses that contain potentially viable variants I was curious as to
how Wallace arrived at the 99% certainty. So, on Tuesday, 1/06/09 @ 5:39 PM I sent the
following query via e-mail to Daniel Wallace:

“Given your contention that we can be certain of 99%, I'm wondering if that
is an educated guess on your part or if this is actually something that has been
derived from scrutinizing all of the variants. One set of authors critical of the
integrity of the text appeal to the number of verses affected by viable variants
per the United Bible Societies classification system. Excluding the "A"
readings, they calculate that approximately 16.5% of the NT text is affected
by viable variants (they arrived at this by dividing the total number of "B",
"C", and "D" readings, i.e. 1300+ into the total number of verses in the NT,
i.e. 7900+, and concluded that about 16.5% of the verses are affected by
significant variant readings). Now, I've looked at this a little beyond the
surface and have found that some of these viable readings are nothing more
than questions of whether or not certain definite articles and/or conjunctions
were present in given verses, transpositions of verses (e.g. Mt. 5:4-5), and
other such readings that don't even affect the meaning of the text. I figured
that if we exclude all of the verses that contain potentially viable, yet
essentially meaningless variants, that that 16.5% could perhaps be cut in half
or maybe even more than that. But, I don't know what the exact percentage
would be unless someone were to actually analyze every passage with
potentially viable variants and exclude those verses that have potentially
viable, yet meaningless variants. My educated guess would not have been as
optimistic as 99%, hence why I'm asking someone whose educated guess
would be much more informed than my own, a credentialed NT textual
critic.”
On the same day, Tuesday, 1/06/09 @ 6:00 PM, Wallace responded with the following
comments:

“16.5% of verses doesn't mean that we can be confident of only 83.5% of the
text. There are just under 8000 verses in the NT, but there are 138,162 words.
Most variants involve a single word or two words. Two variants involve a
dozen verses; twenty or so involve one to two verses. But I believe that none
of these larger variants are really disputed by the majority of scholars. And
you also noted that of the UBS variants a lot of them are truly meaningless,
not even affecting translation. Now, if 16.5% of the verses involve a textual
problem that is given less than an A rating in UBS, that means that 1320
variants at most are significant. And if these average one word, once you
eliminate the variants that don't really affect much, then you have less than
1% of the total 138,162 words.

“That is roughly how I figured it out. BTW, my numbers have not been
disputed even by Bart Ehrman.”

Thus a claim of approximately 99% certainty appears to be accurate regarding the words
of the New Testament. However, the percentage of verses that are virtually certain would
be somewhat less (which makes sense given that each verse is comprised of many words),
probably between about 91-96% once all of the verses containing only meaningless
variants are excluded from consideration (on which see the relevant discussion above).

At the end of the day, the Christian apologists (perhaps unwittingly in most cases) may
not have missed the mark by too much. However, the “appeal to percentages”, while
thought-provoking when based on sound scholarship, remains only of secondary
importance. The important question to answer is how the variants that do exist (some of
which are not only viable and significant, but also occur in passages espousing major
Christian doctrines) impact the core Christian beliefs. And it is to this important topic that
we now turn.

THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE VARIANTS

Finally we reach the key aspect of this important debate. In response to the Christian
claim that the textual variations do not impact crucial points of Christian doctrine,
polemicists will point to certain passages that ARE in doubt that espouse important
Christian doctrines. In this section we will discuss a few passages often pointed to by
critics that do impact points of doctrine and discuss the relevance this has for the
overarching issues – 1) whether or not this results in doubt over the textual foundation of
a given doctrine (i.e. Is the doctrine espoused in the original texts?); and 2) how this
impacts the historical foundation of a given Christian doctrine. For the Christian, it is
essentially question #2 that is most important. Even if we have ample documentary
support in the original text, it matters little if there remains insufficient historical
foundation for the doctrines in which we believe. On the other hand, the answer to
question #1 (independent of that of question #2) would seem to remain of vital importance
for Muslims. Regardless of the historical foundation of a given Christian doctrine, the
Islamic claim that the Bible was initially inspired, yet later corrupted, presents problems
for Muslim polemicists if we have good reason to believe that the doctrines espoused
therein which seem to contradict Islam were present in the autographs. It is to the answer
of these two questions to which the rest of this article is devoted.

There are, of course, dozens of Christian doctrines (some more foundational than others).
While such doctrines as Christ’s virgin birth, his Messiahship, his miraculous ministry,
and the future general resurrection are important Christian doctrines, they do not represent
fundamental points of disagreement between Christianity and Islam. In this article we will
restrict our discussion to variants involving Christian doctrines that are fundamentally in
contradiction to Islamic beliefs since this quite simply is the proverbial meat of the debate.
It seems that the main points of disagreement include the following:

1) The crucifixion of Jesus

2) The atoning significance of Jesus' death
3) The divinity of Jesus
4) Trinitarian beliefs
5) The resurrection of Jesus

And so we begin our survey (once again all Biblical quotations are from the NIV unless
otherwise specified):

Mark 16:9-20

“When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary
Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told
those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When
they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not
believe it. Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while
they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest;
but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as
they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn
refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them,
‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be
condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name
they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up
snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt
them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.’
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he
sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached
everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the
signs that accompanied it.”

Given that we've encountered this variant already in our discussion it seems like a natural
place to start. The "Markan appendix" is one of the two most significant variants (the
other being the so-called Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11)) in terms of the largest
number of verses involved. Although the overwhelming majority of manuscripts contain
the Markan appendix, the scholarly consensus rejects its authenticity. The major reasons
include the following:

1) Certain early and important manuscripts do not contain the verses (e.g. Codex
Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) and evidence from the Church Fathers attests to its early
absence from the manuscript tradition – on which see the relevant quotation of the Alands
above in the “Conjectural Emendation” section).

2) According to Metzger, the style and vocabulary of the appendix is non-Markan,

including a number of words not found elsewhere in Mark, and “The connection between
ver. 8 and verses 9-20 is so awkward that it is difficult to believe that the evangelist
intended the section to be a continuation of the Gospel.” (Metzger 1994; 104-105)

3) The first few verses appear to simply summarize the post-resurrection appearances
found at the end of the other Gospels, which if true would suggest that the appendix is
much later than Matthew, Luke, and John (this despite the fact that Mark is considered to
be the earliest Gospel by the scholarly consensus).

4) Most compellingly, when considering that the most probable authentic reading is the
one that accounts for the existence of all of the variant readings, we are forced to conclude
that the Gospel originally ended at vs. 8.
While reasons 1-3 are important considerations, it is the 4th reason listed that would seem
to tip the scales heavily in favor of concluding that vss. 9-20 are not original to the Gospel
of Mark. If these verses were original, one wonders how the variant that does not contain
the appendix is to be found not only in very important Greek witnesses, but also is attested
by Eusebius and Jerome, and is also found in numerous translations (see in the prior
section the extended quotation of Kurt and Barbara Aland). Then there is the 3rd variant,
i.e. the shorter ending, which reads:

“But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been
told. And after these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to
west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” (quote
taken from Metzger 1994; 103)

Why would a scribe create an ending inferior to the more complete one found in vss. 9-
20? On the other hand, if the Gospel originally ended at vs. 8, then it makes sense that
scribes would have sought to "improve" this by adding post-resurrection appearances.
Apparently the shorter, more inferior ending, was added to the text independently of the
scribal addition that resulted in the Markan appendix (cf. the entire discussion in Metzger
1994; 102-106).

Whether or not Mark truly intended to end his Gospel at vs. 8 (or if he did not end it here
and the ending was somehow destroyed prior to copying) is a source of scholarly debate
(see here for an argument endorsing the view that Mark did NOT end his Gospel at verse
8). In any event, we are safe in concluding that the most authentic ending is the one that
ends at vs. 8.

With Mark widely considered to be our earliest Gospel, how significant is this in the
proverbial grand scheme? Although Mark may not have provided us with post-
resurrection appearances, his Gospel still betrays the belief in their occurrence:

“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: ‘I will strike the
shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go
ahead of you into Galilee.” (Mark 14:27-28)

“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had
been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in
a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. ‘Don't be
alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was
crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But
go, tell his disciples and Peter, "He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There
you will see him, just as he told you."’ Trembling and bewildered, the women
went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they
were afraid.” (Mark 16:6-8)

Moreover, there are several passages within the Gospel that indicate that Jesus foresaw his
impending death and vindication:

“He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things
and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he
must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this,
and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and
looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ he said.
‘You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’” (Mark
8:31-33, cf. also 9:9, 30-32, 10:32-34)

And so, the inclusion of Jesus’ passion predictions, the narrative of the empty tomb, and
Jesus’ and the angel’s indication that the disciples would see him in Galilee in Mark’s
Gospel betray the author’s belief in the resurrection of Jesus and the post-resurrection
appearances.
It is also prudent to point out, of course, that there are sources which pre-date the Gospel
of Mark that inform us of the belief in Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to the
disciples. Scholars (including highly-skeptical ones) are unanimous in concluding that I
Cor. 15:3-7 is based on creedal material that is to be dated to within only a few years of
the crucifixion. It is also probable that the speeches of Acts contain pre-Lukan material,
quite possibly dating to the earliest days of the church (Stanton 1985; 67-85 is instructive
in this regard). Within these speeches we find implications of post-resurrection
appearances. In Acts 2:32 and 3:15 Peter speaks of the disciples being “witnesses” to
Jesus’ resurrection. In Peter’s speech to Cornelius this is more explicit:

“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in
Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him
from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by
all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who
ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” (Acts 10:39-41)

And so, we can certainly be confident that the early church spoke widely of the post-
resurrection appearances (the consensus of NT scholars, both conservative and liberal,
agree – though how the appearances are explained is scholar-dependent), and despite their
absence (in narrative form at least) from Mark’s Gospel we can be certain that the original
New Testament text spoke at great length about Jesus’ death and resurrection from the
dead.

The most skeptical claim that some scholars make regarding the fact that our earliest
sources (e.g. I Cor. 15:3-8; Gospel of Mark; Acts’ speeches) do not contain narratives of
post-resurrection appearances is that such narratives as we find in the later Gospels were
not used by the early church in order to preach Jesus’ resurrection. While such an idea
may seem attractive on the surface, it surely fails when considering such practical matters
as what kind of responses and questions that potential converts would have had when first
hearing the church’s remarkable proclamation that Jesus had been raised from the dead. It
is clear that the resurrection was the lynch-pin of the early church’s beliefs about Jesus.
This is clear not only by the ubiquity of the claims across the New Testament but also the
fact that it is found in sources embedded within the NT that can be dated back to the
earliest Jerusalem church and the original apostles of Jesus. It follows from this data that
allusions to the post-resurrection appearances were likely the key piece of evidence
utilized by the early church in establishing the case for the event’s historicity. Certainly
such claims would have evoked such curiosities as to what these experiences were like,
what did Jesus do and say during these appearances, and likely scores of other questions.
The apostles would have been forced to convey narratives early and often when preaching
the message of the resurrection even if for some reason they didn’t care to do so (which
would be another very dubious assumption). We can therefore agree with the highly
distinguished N.T. scholar Dale Allison when he writes:

“How likely is it that any Christian group was ever long content with sparse
theological assertions unattached to stories and so unillustrated? 1 Cor 15:3-8
must be a summary of traditional narratives that were told in fuller form
elsewhere.

“Surely no one would ever have been satisfied with the short assertion, ‘Jesus
appeared to Cephas’ and ‘Jesus appeared to five hundred people at once.’140
This is no more plausible than urging that Christians at first said things such
as ‘Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the
devil’ (Acts 10:38) and only much later enjoyed telling miracle stories about
him141; or that while Paul and others preached Christ crucified, no supposed
particulars about Jesus’ martyrdom emerged until decades after the fact, when
interest unaccountably set in142; or that ‘he appeared to Cephas’ was ever
proclaimed without explaining who Cephas was if the audience knew nothing
 about him. (Later Christian creeds omit the appearances altogether, probably
in part because the witnesses were no longer alive.)

“Surely Martin Hengel is right regarding 1 Cor 15:3-8; ‘A Jew or Gentile

God-fearer, hearing this formal, extremely abbreviated report for the first
time, would have difficulty understanding it; at the least a number of
questions would certainly occur to him, which Paul could only answer
through the narration and explanation of events. Without clarifying
delineation, the whole thing would surely sound enigmatic to ancient ears,
even absurd.’143 In harmony with this common sense, which rightly assumes
simple human curiosity and a desire on the part of Christians to communicate
rather than obfuscate, is the high probability that, although Paul says next to
nothing about his own encounter with the risen Jesus in 1 Cor 15, he surely
was not, in the right circumstance, averse to offering some details. The
apostle does this three times in Acts, and we shall see below that there is
every reason to suppose that Luke got this particular right.” (Allison 2005;
235-236)

Luke 22:17-20

“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 of 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.’”

A variant that appears in some manuscripts of the above passage removes vss. 19b and 20,
resulting in the excision of the words of institution (“Do this in remembrance of me”) and
the subsequent words that spell out the atoning significance of the passage. It is thus
argued that the Gospel of Luke does not attest to the doctrine of Christ’s vicarious
atonement. It is further argued that Luke betrays no explicit affirmation of this doctrine in
either of his writings since the book of Acts likewise does not refer to it.

Before pointing out a few observations in response, it should be noted that even if the
variant that does not contain vss. 19b and 20 is original, the atoning significance of the
Last Supper is well-attested elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul quotes this tradition in
I Corinthians 11:23-26. It is also found in Mark 14:22-24 and Matthew 26:26-29. Since
a similar passage occurs in Biblical documents (including 2 Gospels) in which the text is
not disputed, Muslim polemicists cannot conclude upon text-critical grounds that the
doctrine of Christ’s vicarious atoning death is not found in the original New Testament.
The only possible recourse I could see for the Muslim with this being the case would be to
argue that the “original Gospel” to which the Qur’an alludes and endorses is solely the
Gospel of Luke. Of course, even if this could be accomplished and they were somehow to
come away with a small victory in this regard, Muslims would still have lost the
proverbial war since they would still have to contend with the fact that Luke speaks at
great length about Jesus’ predictions of eventual death and subsequent vindication, his
passion and crucifixion, subsequent burial by Joseph of Arimathea, the empty tomb, and
post-resurrection appearances (and I would argue divinity as well).

And yet, while we cannot be certain about the originality of vss. 19b and 20, probability
falls on the side of authenticity:

“There exists, however, a textual issue over the Lukan version, as some have
argued that Luke 22:19b-20 is a later interpolation and not part of what the
evangelist originally had recorded. The fact that the disputed text contains the
crucial atonement theology associated with the Last Supper makes the
 question of whether or not Luke 22:19b-20 is original important. In favor of
the shorter text Metzger lists the following factors: 1) A general tenet of
textual criticism is that the shorter reading is to be preferred; 2) The words in
the disputed text are very similar to Paul's words in I Cor. 11.24b-25, which
suggests that I Corinthians may have served as the source for a later
interpolation into the Lukan text; and 3) The disputed text is characterized by
several "non-Lukan" linguistic features (Metzger 1994; 150).

“The evidence in favor of the longer text, however, appears to be very strong.
First, the external evidence vastly favors it. Metzger writes, ‘the longer, or
traditional, text of cup-bread-cup is read by all Greek manuscripts except D
and by most of the ancient versions and Fathers;’ and ‘The external evidence
supporting the shorter reading represents only part of the Western type of
text, whereas the other representatives of the Western text join with witnesses
belonging to all the other ancient text-types in support of the longer reading.’
(ibid. 148) Second, Metzger points out that it is more likely that a Bezan
editor would eliminate the repetition characterizing Luke's version of "cup-
bread-cup", despite the inverted order of "bread-cup" that would remain, than
that a later editor would try to correct an inverted order by bringing in from
Paul the second mention of the cup while keeping the first mention in the text
(thus introducing the repetition in the first place). Finally, Metzger notes that
the shorter version ‘can be accounted for in terms of the theory of disciplina
arcana, i.e. in order to protect the Eucharist from profanation, one or more
copies of the Gospel according to Luke, prepared for circulation among non-
Christian readers, omitted the sacramental formula after the beginning
words.’ (ibid. 149-150).

Metzger concludes on the matter regarding the opinions of the textual

committee:

A minority preferred the short text as a Western non-interpolation…The

majority, on the other hand, impressed by the overwhelming preponderance
of external evidence supporting the longer form, explained the origin of the
shorter form as due to some scribal accident or misunderstanding. The
similarity between verses 19b-20 and I Cor 11.24b-25 arises from the
familiarity of the evangelist with the liturgical practice among Pauline
churches, a circumstance that accounts also for the presence of non-Lukan
expressions in verses 19b-20. (ibid. 150)

Prominent textual critics Kurt and Barbara Aland concur:

Most (though not yet all) of the exegetes under the influence of nineteenth-
century theories have yielded to the overwhelming evidence attesting the
originality of Luke 22:19b-20 in the Gospel text, recognizing that for the
presentation and perspective of the gospel of Luke it is not the "shorter," but
the "longer" account of the Last Supper that is authentic. (K. and B. Aland
1995; 311; emphasis the original) [15] (Source)

Even if vss. 19b-20 are not authentic, however, it is still likely that Luke accepted the
doctrine of Christ’s vicarious atonement. For one, Luke was probably a traveling
companion of Paul [see the discussion of the “’we’ passages in Acts” in Hemer 1990;
312-334]. As such, Luke was certainly familiar with the widespread interpretation of the
Eucharist as indicating Jesus’ death as a means of atonement for sinners. If he took issue
with the doctrine of the atonement, it would have been better to not even narrate the
Eucharist in the first place.

Second, Luke’s summary of one of Paul’s sermons in Acts 20:28 may indicate that
Christ’s death served as atonement for sin:
 “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has
made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought
with his own blood.” (emphasis added)

While this passage does not explicitly spell out atonement theology, it does indicate that
Christ’s death was necessary for the genesis of the church. It is probable, though not
certain, that here we have an allusion from Luke to the doctrine of Christ’s vicarious
atonement.

Third, Luke refers to Isaiah 53 in relation to Jesus. Before proceeding with this thought a
few words of caution are in order. A straightforward reading of Isaiah 53 would seem to
lead inexorably to the conclusion that the text speaks of the vicarious atonement brought
about by the servant’s death, resulting (at some point) in his exaltation. This is the view
typically held by both modern proponents of an “individual” interpretation and the
modern proponents of a “corporate” interpretation. The ancient evidence, however,
suggests that interpreters of Isaiah 53 increasingly emphasized the servant’s exaltation
while the aspect of the servant’s suffering became a decreasing point of emphasis. This
becomes increasingly evident as we approach the 1st century. At the same time, however,
there does exist evidence (scant though it may be) of the belief in a suffering (Messianic?)
figure in pre-Christian Judaism, particularly in light of the Isaiah 53 passage. For an
exposition of these issues, see Hengel, Effective History, 2004; 75-147. A brief discussion
of some of Hengel’s findings can be found here. And so while the “suffering” motif of the
passage may have been increasingly de-emphasized, it was not completely suppressed.
With these thoughts in mind let’s consider some of the relevant Lukan references. Explicit
references are found in Luke 22:37 & Acts 8:30-35. Further, in the early speeches of Acts,
Luke refers to Jesus several times as “servant of God” (cf. Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27-30),
representing probable allusions to the Servant Songs of Isaiah.

Regarding the “servant motif” in the speeches, specifically in Peter’s speech in Acts 3, I.
Howard Marshall writes:

“Peter goes on to affirm that this God ‘has glorified his servant Jesus’
(edoxasen ton paiden autou Iesoun). The wording reflects Isa. 52:13, ho pais
mou… doxasthesetai sphodra, where the speaker is God. The use of the term
pais for a servant of God is found with reference to a wide variety of people,
including prophets, Abraham, Moses, and kings, especially David (cf. 4:25),
and also it is a self-designation of the righteous sufferer in Wis. 2:13. It is
used for Jesus also in 3.26; 4:30. The mention of David as God’s servant in
the same context (4:25) has raised the question of whether all that we have
here is an application of David’s title to Jesus. However, the combination
with doxazo is found only in Isa. 52:13, and this must be regarded as decisive
(the term ‘handed over’ [paredokate] is also used in Isa. 53:6,12, but here it
applies to Yahweh’s action). The point is confirmed by the use of ‘servant’
language elsewhere of Jesus (cf. the combination of suffering and
glorification in Luke 24:26; see Wolff 1984: 88) and by the possible echo of
Isa. 52:14 in 3:10 (Witherington 1998: 179-180; cf. Hooker 1959: 110; Bock
1987: 188).

“The original context of the citation is, of course, the passage in Isa. 52:13-
53:12, in which a person described as the Lord’s servant is the object of great
suffering and abuse, although in some way he is bearing the sins of others and
suffering because of them; his role is upheld by God, and ultimately he will
be glorified. The original significance is much discussed and disputed. It is
perhaps impossible to discover what the prophet’s hearers and readers would
have made of the passage or what the prophet himself had in mind.

“In the present context the language is used to establish who Jesus is and the
fact of his glorification. This glorification may be seen in what has taken
place—the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus (cf. Luke 24:26; see Rese
 1969: 112-113)—or in Jesus acting powerfully in healing the lame man, or in
a combination of these (Bock 1987: 189-190); Peter appears to be saying that
it was because God had exalted Jesus that he now was able to do such a
mighty work, so that the healing is evidence for the glorification. But the
statement also serves to set the scene for the later use of a citation from
Isa. 53 in 8:32-33. As it stands, the passage comes from a speech by Peter
very early in the development of the church, and thus it would reflect a fairly
rapid recognition that Jesus was the Servant of Yahweh. There are scholars
who think that this aspect at least of the Christology in Acts is from a later
date, reflecting perhaps the developments seen especially in 1 Peter, and
chiming in with the use of similar motifs in the apostolic fathers (Did. 9:2-3;
10:2-3; 1 Clem. 59:2-4; Mart. Pol. 14:1; 20:2; Barn. 6:1; 9:2 [so Barrett
1994-1998: 194]). However, the passages from the apostolic fathers show no
links to Isaiah. In the Didache there is a David/Jesus typology; there is
nothing Isaianic in 1 Clement and the Martyrdom of Polycarp; only in Barn.
6:1 is there a citation of Isa. 50:8-9; the source of Barn. 9:2 is not identifiable.
It is preferable to see here an earlier use of Isaiah through which perhaps the
term ‘servant’ found its way into Christology” (Marshall Acts; 545 in Beale
& Carson 2007; emphasis added).

Regarding the quotation of a portion of Isaiah 53 in the pericope of Philip and the
Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:30-35, Marshall writes:

“The section of the prophecy that is quoted is concerned with the injustice
perpetrated on the Servant and with his patient acceptance of it without
complaint. There is no explicit reference in this part of the text to the effects
of the Servant’s suffering. This omission is of a piece with the general
tendency in Acts to ignore the significance of the death of Jesus as a vicarious
sacrifice that opens up the possibility of forgiveness and salvation for
repentant sinners (see, however, 20:28). However, the use made of the
Scripture here is of a piece with the emphasis both in the Gospels and in the
evangelistic and apologetic speeches in Acts of identifying Jesus as God’s
agent and accounting for the fact of his sufferings in terms of the divine
necessity expressed in Scripture. It was important to establish that Jesus is the
Messiah and that his suffering is not at odds with this but is rather an essential
part of his vocation before going on to the question of the significance of his
sufferings. Parsons (1998) suggests that the humiliation and rejection of Jesus
are centered, since the point is that the eunuch can identify with Jesus. He
builds on a hint by Johnson (1992: 156) and further suggests that the
quotation stops where it does because ‘his life was taken from the earth’
could be ambiguous and refer both to his death and to his exaltation (cf. the
metaphor of ‘lifting up’ in John’s Gospel). A deliberate avoidance of the
concept of atonement by Luke (so Rese 1969: 98-100) seems unlikely; more
probably he is relating how the church at this early stage dealt with the
offense of the crucifixion by emphasizing that it was willed by God. One
might as well argue from the fact that the Servant’s vindication is not
mentioned here that Luke was not interested in it either!” (ibid. 574-575)

Peter Stuhlmacher writes in regard to Luke’s use of the servant motif in relation to Jesus:

“The old-fashioned language in Acts about Jesus as God’s anointed Servant

or [pais theos] (Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27, 30), humiliated and put to death by his
enemies according to God’s will but exalted by God and invested with Divine
authority, refers back to Isaiah 61:1 and 52:13; 53:11. Parallel to this, Jesus is
called [o dikaios], the Righteous One, in Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14 (cf. Isa. 53:11
and I Enoch 38:2; 53:6). Whether such expressions merely take up individual
motifs from the Servant tradition or rather represent a more comprehensive
picture of Jesus’ ministry, suffering, and exaltation as God’s Servant is a
question that can be answered by two considerations. First, the two titles
 predicated of Jesus are certainly pre-Lukan and must therefore be considered
not apart from but together with the Jerusalem formulaic texts Romans 4:25
and I Corinthians 15:3b-5 (see above). Moreover, Luke has used them not
independently of his passion story but only in conscious connection with it
(cf. Acts 3:13-16; 4:27-28; 7:32). Both considerations suggest that in the
figure of Jesus a holistic concept of God’s Servant has been realized. Without
such a larger concept it would be impossible to understand the language of
the forgiveness of sins that came through Jesus’ mission as the [pais theos],
which Luke repeats almost stereotypically (cf. Acts 3:13, 19 with 2:38; 5:31;
10:43, etc.). But the intercessions in Luke 22:32 and 23:34 together with
Isaiah 53:12 explain this language quite well. The exalted Christ will
continue the “intercession for transgressors” which he began on earth, and
even in the final judgment he will bring them forgiveness of sins through his
vicarious death for sinners.29” (Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in the Gospels and
Acts, 2004; 156-157)

And so, even if Luke 22:19b-20 is not authentic, we find several indications within
Luke/Acts (even if only implicit) that supports the assertion that Luke knew and endorsed
Jesus’ atoning death. Such implications are important for the historical foundations of the
doctrine even if they provide, at best, only marginal help for establishing a textual basis
for the doctrine in Luke’s work.

Regarding the historical foundations that underlie the doctrine of Jesus’ vicarious
atonement, beyond the Lukan references/allusions, we find further evidence in the New
Testament epistles that the early church applied the suffering servant motif of Isaiah 53 to
Jesus. For example, Stuhlmacher argues that the Hebrew text of Isaiah 53:5, 11 (rather
than the Septuagint) served as the template for the traditional formula quoted by Paul in
Romans 4:25, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our
justification”, given the linguistic similarities to the former over the latter. This would
indicate a probable provenance in the early Jewish-Christian community. We would
expect material that originated from a later date or remote provenance to utilize the LXX
(i.e. Septuagint) since Greek became the predominant language utilized by the church as it
spread forth from its Palestinian origins (as evidenced by e.g. the fact that the New
Testament was written originally in Greek). Similarly, it is argued that Isaiah 53:5, 9-12
stands behind the very early creedal confession of I Corinthians 15:3b-5 (ibid. 154-155;
cf. also the more thorough discussion by Hofius, The Fourth Servant Song in the New
Testament Letters, 2004; 177-182). That portions of Isaiah 53 may stand behind these
verses is very significant given that scholars universally acknowledge that this creed
originated within a few years of the genesis of the church, and represents the missionary
teaching of the earliest disciples. In fact, Paul tells us as much in I Cor. 15.11 (on the
scholarly consensus see e.g. Habermas 2003; 17-18). Vermes seems to imply that because
I Cor. 15:3 (along with numerous other NT texts) states that Jesus’ suffering and death
took place in accordance with the Scriptures, yet does not allude to any specific OT
passages, the early church found it difficult to support their belief from actual Scriptural
passages (Vermes 2003; 387-388). This argument, however, is difficult to accept. Along
with other components of the Gospel kerygma, the claim of the apostles that Jesus’ death
and resurrection occurred in accordance with the Scriptures would beg the question to
potential proselytes as to which specific Scriptures were in mind. It is impossible to
envision the early church preaching this message and yet either not encountering potential
converts either inquiring what they had in mind or the disciples not being able to produce
a specific answer.

And, there are other references which likely have Isaiah 53 in mind, such as Hebrews
9:28 and I Peter 2:21-25.

By way of summary, we have evidence from multiple strands of tradition as to the use of
Isaiah 53 by the early church (e.g. Pauline, Petrine, Lukan, the author of Hebrews). More
importantly, dependence on Isaiah 53 can be found in early creedal material, possibly
including the very important formula of I Cor. 15:3b-5 (note: even if this is not the case,
that Christ died for our sins demonstrates the earliness of the church’s belief in the
atonement doctrine). The “servant of God” references we find in the speeches in Acts
confirm this. In fact, the servant motif characterizes part of the so-called archaic
Christological material that leads many scholars to conclude that Luke is relying on early
church tradition in comprising the speeches (So Hengel 1979; 103-106).

Regarding the importance of Jesus’ death serving as atonement for sins we could go even
further. Rudolph Pesch has argued that Mark 14:12-26, which contains the Markan
account of the Eucharist, represents the oldest tradition of the early church (Pesch, The
Gospel in Jerusalem, 1991). Furthermore, it remains the fact that the testimony of the
early church is unanimous in declaring that the Gospel of Mark was based on Peter’s
preaching and testimony, and that the tradition asserting this is likely very ancient, being
traceable to the 1st decade of the 2nd century at latest, and possibly all the way back to the
apostle John in the late 1st century (on this see especially the discussion in Gundry 1993;
1026-1045; also Hengel, Problems, 232-238 and the extensive treatment in Bauckham
2006; 202-239). Additionally, Martin Hengel has demonstrated numerous markers internal
to the Gospel of Mark which confirms the unanimous external evidence (Hengel,
Problems, 1991; 238-243; again Hengel, Four Gospels; 82-85; cf. also Bauckham 2006;
155-182). If this is the case, we have another line of evidence traceable to Peter’s belief in
Jesus’ vicarious atonement (given Mark’s narration not only of the Eucharist but also the
passage in Mark 10:45). Then, of course, there are the allusions to the doctrine of Jesus’
atoning death in I Peter to which we’ve already alluded. Hengel writes:

“For example, it is striking that two writings which according to the tradition
of the early church – in my view completely reliable – must be assigned to
the Petrine sphere of tradition, Mark and I Peter, stress the soteriological
interpretation of the death of Jesus as an atoning death in a marked way, I
Peter by an explicit citation of Isa. 53 (2.17ff.; 3.18f.; cf. 1.18), and Mark in
two places in an archaic Semitic linguistic form.” (Hengel 1981; 54)

The general scholarly consensus maintains that many documents in the New Testament
are pseudonymous, with I Peter being a letter widely thought to be included within this
particular category. However, even if this is the case, it is probable that the material in this
letter accurately reflects Petrine theology, otherwise it is difficult to account for the fact
that it, unlike II Peter, achieved such widespread acceptance by the early church.
Moreover, despite the current consensus on the issue, I think there are good reasons for
questioning whether or not any of the NT epistles are pseudonymous (cf. Carson & Moo
2005; 337-350; Witherington III; 23-38; Komoszewski, Sawyer, & Wallace 2006; 135-
149; on Petrine authorship of I Peter in particular cf. Carson & Moo 2005; 641-646;
Guthrie 1990; 763-781). See also the following by Glenn Miller and James Patrick
Holding on these same issues:

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/pseudox.html
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/ynotpeter1.html
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/pastorals.html

In conclusion, we can confidently trace the belief in Jesus’ atoning death back to the
earliest apostles by multiple strands of evidence. Now, given the importance of the belief
in the Holy Spirit’s guidance in the ministry of the early church, establishing the
historicity of the early church’s belief in Jesus’ atoning death is sufficient for Christian
belief. But can we go even further than this? Prior to the crucifixion, did Jesus himself
give any indication of his impending death, or if his death would serve as a vicarious
atonement? We think for several reasons this can be answered in the affirmative.

First, regarding Jesus’ belief that he was the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, Stuhlmacher
notes the following:
 “The proposition to be refuted here is a different one: the communis opinio of
recent New Testament scholarship that ‘the application of the Servant
conception to Jesus was the work of the early church with very limited
influence.’4 Rather, as scholars including J. Jeremias,5 H. W. Wolff,6 O.
Betz,7 L. Goppelt,8 and others have long since realized, it is the other way
around: the Christological interpretation of Isaiah 53 that comes to the fore in
Romans 4:25; I Corinthians 15:3b-5; I Peter 2:22-25; Hebrews 9:28, and so
forth was not first and foremost the fruit of post-Easter faith; its roots lie
rather in Jesus’ own understanding of his mission and death. He himself
adopted the general messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 current in early
Judaism,9 but he understood his sufferings quite independently of the
prevailing tradition in the light of the word of God given to him from Isaiah
43:3-4 and 53:11-12. After the completion of Jesus’ mission in the cross and
resurrection, the song of the Suffering Servant was applied in early
Christianity consistently for the first time to a historical individual whose fate
made the whole text transparent.” (Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in the Gospels and
Acts, 2004; 148-149)

I have argued elsewhere at some length for the authenticity of Jesus’ own belief in
fulfilling the role of the “Suffering Servant”, the historicity of the Eucharist and the
Gethsemane narrative, and even his explicit passion predictions; see here.

To round off the discussion, one last observation by Peter Stuhlmacher regarding the
undeniably-historical cleansing of the temple by Jesus is I think worthy of attention:

“As I have learned from my former student J. Adna and from the materials he
has worked with, the ransom saying of Mark 10:45 and its parallels coheres
surprisingly closely with Jesus’ so-called temple cleansing (Mark 11:15-17
par.).17 This symbolic messianic act presented the temple priesthood with an
alternative—either to continue to carry out the sacrificial cult without
reference to Jesus and his message and thereby to become separated from
God once and for all, or to face up to this message and together with Jesus to
approach ‘the temple established by God’s own hands’ in the [basileia] (cf.
Mark 14:58 par. with Exod. 15:17-18).18 With this incredibly provocative act
Jesus knowingly risked his life, and this was ‘in fact the occasion for the
definitive official action against him.’19 Jesus’ action against the sellers of
sacrificial animals and the money changers in Solomon’s Portico was
equivalent to an attempt to undermine the entire buying and selling of
sacrificial animals as well as the payment of obligatory contributions in the
Tyrian temple currency. These contributions paid among other things for the
twice-daily tamid sacrifice (…; cf. Exod. 29:38-46; Num. 28:3-8) by which
Israel could be redeemed from its guilt morning and evening (cf. Jub. 6:14;
50:11; Pesiqta of Rab Kahana 55b; cf. Str-B 2:247 n.1). If one assumes that
Jesus anticipated the priesthood’s negative reaction to his deed, then from
Mark 10:45 and its parallels it can be concluded that he himself was ready to
take the place of the sacrifices offered in vain by the priests for Israel and to
redeem the people of God from its guilt before God once for all with his life.
The close connection between Mark 10:45 par. and the temple cleansing
provides documentary proof that Jesus entered the final disputes in Jerusalem
decisively and ready to suffer…

“If one contemplates the sequence of Jesus sayings in Mark 9:31 par.; 10:45
par.; and 14:22, 24, all of which have been formulated with a view to Isaiah
53 (and Isa. 43:3-4), then the figurative saying about the two swords in the
Lukan special tradition, Luke 22:35-38, can be counted among the genuine
sayings of Jesus based on the criterion of coherence. In Luke 22:37, Isaiah
53:12 is cited not according to the Septuagint but according to the Hebrew
 text: “He was numbered with the transgressors”… The formulation of the
saying is only partly Lukan,22 and in it Jesus submits to the will of God
revealed to him in Isaiah 53 no less obediently than he does in the other
sayings just mentioned. He was ready to let himself (and his faithful
followers) be ‘numbered with the transgressors’ and to end his life as God,
through his word in Scripture, had determined for him.23

“From the Jesus sayings examined up to this point it is safe to draw the
following conclusion: The earthly Jesus himself understood his witness and
his approaching death in the light of the tradition already given to him in
Isaiah about the (vicariously suffering) Servant of God. He understood the
suffering laid upon him as an event in which God’s will was fulfilled.
(Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in the Gospels and Acts, 2004; 151-153; emphasis
original)

John 1:18

“No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the
bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (NASB)

The phrase “the only begotten God” (or “unique God”) is rendered in most manuscripts
“the only begotten Son” (or “unique Son”). Bart Ehrman states that the latter phrase is
most likely to be original, and the change from “unique Son” to “unique God” represents
the antiadoptionistic tendencies of an Alexandrian scribe (Ehrman 2007; 162). His reasons
for arguing that “unique/begotten Son” is original include 1) the “unique God” variant is
found only rarely outside the Alexandrian textual family; 2) while the Gospel of John
elsewhere refers to Jesus as “the unique Son” (3:16, 18), it does not refer to him as
“unique God”; 3) the “unique God” reading is less intelligible. On the latter point, Ehrman
writes:

“Moreover, what would it even mean to call Christ that? The term unique in
Greek means ‘one of a kind.’ There can be only one who is one of a kind. The
term unique God must refer to God the Father himself—otherwise he is not
unique. But if the term refers to the Father, how can it be used of the Son?
Given the fact that the more common (and understandable) phrase in the
Gospel of John is ‘the unique Son,’ it appears that that text was the text
originally written in John 1:18. This itself is still a highly exalted view of
Christ—he is the ‘unique Son who is in the bosom of the Father.’ And he is
the one who explains God to everyone else.

“It appears, though, that some scribes—probably located in Alexandria—

were not content even with this exalted view of Christ, and so they made it
even more exalted, by transforming the text. Now Christ is not merely God’s
unique Son, he is the unique God himself! This too, then, appears to be an
antiadoptionistic change of the text made by proto-orthodox scribes of the
second century.” (Ehrman 2007; 163)

If Ehrman is correct in that the “unique God” reading is unintelligible, this argument
could be utilized in order to support the originality of the “unique God” reading since it
would represent the more difficult reading. It could be argued that this was recognized by
later scribes and the phrase was changed to “unique Son” in order to conform to John’s
more prevalent vocabulary and theology elsewhere in the Gospel. But, it is questionable
whether or not Ehrman’s interpretation is correct, or if it is truly unintelligible (see Daniel
Wallace’s comments on this verse in his review of “Misquoting Jesus”).

“First John 1:18. Do we read ‘the only-begotten God’, or ‘the only-begotten

Son’? Many of the modern versions prefer ‘God’, although other translations
are less than clear here. Does the Prologue refer to Jesus as ‘God’ or ‘Son’?
 ‘God’ is clearly the more difficult reading stylistically (because ‘God’
appears earlier in the sentence) and theologically, because of the abhorrence
that would have been felt in some quarters at describing Jesus as the only-
begotten God. Although some scholars see ‘God’ as a scribal alteration
intended to enhance the Christological standing of Jesus, it is more likely that
offence felt by others would have encouraged a change away from an original
‘God’ to the less offensive Christology implied by the substitution of the
word ‘Son’.” (Elliott & Moir 1995; 60)

The fact that the “unique God” variant is found in the Alexandrian textual tradition also
supports this reading’s veracity since this is generally the most reliable text-type.
However, at the end of the day, it is probably wise to conclude that either variant might be
original. Within the whole context of the Johannine Prologue, it seems that either reading
would support a divine Christ. In any event, whichever variant is original and how it
affects interpretation is irrelevant to the greater issue at hand. Similar as was the case with
the doctrine of Jesus’ resurrection and atoning death, the divinity of Jesus is well-attested
in non-disputed passages. Daniel Wallace notes four in particular that are found among the
earliest manuscripts where Jesus’ divinity is explicitly attested: John 1:1; 20:28; Romans
9:5; and Hebrews 1:8 (Wallace in Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace 2006; 116-117). He
writes:

“Let’s look at some of the verses in pre-fourth-century manuscripts that speak

explicitly of Christ’s deity. We are restricting our discussion to those verses in
which Jesus is called ‘God.’ Beyond these, there are dozens of other passages
that affirm his deity implicitly (some of which we will discuss in the section
‘The Divinity of Jesus’). But here we want to show that it is quite impossible
for Constantine to have invented the deity of Christ when that doctrine is
already found in manuscripts that predate him by a century or more.

“It is important to note that these three papyri are among our most important
manuscripts of the New Testament. P46 includes eight of Paul’s letters and the
letter to the Hebrews. P66 covers most of John’s Gospel. P75 includes most of
Luke and part of John. The later manuscripts from the fourth century—the
manuscripts that Constantine allegedly corrupted—are very much in
agreement with these manuscripts. Indeed, the manuscript that modern
translations rely on as much as any other is Vaticanus, a fourth-century codex
that has about three-fourths of the New Testament. The agreement between
Codex Vaticanus and P75 is as great as any two ancient manuscripts.38 Not
only this, but in all the passages listed above, there are no significant variants
from any manuscripts of any age.39 They all tell the same story: Jesus is true
deity”. (ibid. 116-117; emphasis original)

Thus, even if we eliminate the disputed texts like John 1:18 from consideration, the
original New Testament still clearly attests to a divine Jesus.

This is enough in and of itself to cause major problems for Islamic polemicists regarding
the issue of textual foundation, but what can be said regarding the historical foundation
for the church’s belief in Christ’s divinity? On this question, Larry Hurtado, in his
outstanding “Lord Jesus Christ” has persuasively demonstrated high Christological
beliefs in all strands of early Christianity, from the earliest Jewish-Christian church in
Palestine, to the Q document, to the Pauline churches, the canonical Gospel communities,
and beyond, and that this is reflected in virtually all of the relevant documents (both from
proto-orthodox and unorthodox circles) from the first century and a half or so after the
genesis of the church. For those interested in a shorter read, Hurtado’s “One God, One
Lord” and “How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God” is helpful (if not as comprehensive).
Richard Bauckham’s recent “Jesus and the God of Israel” also proves helpful (see also the
links listed at the end of this section).
Logically, if it can be established that Jesus was considered divine by his earliest
followers, it seems much more likely than not that such considerations are based upon
actual claims made by the historical Jesus. So, before we even look at the evidence of the
historical Jesus’ claims/sayings, it seems a priori likely that Jesus did claim to be divine,
as shocking as such claims may have been. When we examine the evidence itself, it isn’t
surprising to find many indications of this being the case. Here I will resist the temptation
to reinvent the proverbial wheel, particularly since Sam Shamoun and others have
published scores of articles detailing the rich and varied evidence of Christ’s belief in his
divinity. In Appendix 2 I do discuss three categories of implicit evidence which indicate
Jesus’ belief in his own high Christological status.

For some more relevant material on the Christology of the early church, see the following:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/jesusclaimshub.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/luke_preexistence.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/biblicaljesus.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/messiah_targums2.html
http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/messiah_concept.htm
http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/messiah_god.htm
http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/jesus_walks_on_sea.htm
http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/jesus_on_throne.htm
http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/jesus_most_high.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/qsayings.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/jesus_divine_glory.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/carmen_christi.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/jesus_divine_name.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/jesus_proskyneo.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/petrine_christology.html

I John 5:7-8

“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.”
(KJV)

The so-called Johannine comma would be, if authentic, the most explicit affirmation of
the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in the Scriptures. However, the reasons for rejecting
its authenticity are even weightier than that of the Markan appendix. In fact, most modern
translations omit “the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.” from
the text. Below is the translation provided by the NIV, for example:

“For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the
three are in agreement.”

In his review of Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus”, Daniel Wallace discusses why the comma
cannot be authentic and briefly why this is not problematic for maintaining belief in
Trinitarian doctrine:

“Finally, regarding 1 John 5.7–8, virtually no modern translation of the Bible

includes the ‘Trinitarian formula,’ since scholars for centuries have
recognized it as added later. Only a few very late manuscripts have the verses.
One wonders why this passage is even discussed in Ehrman’s book. The only
reason seems to be to fuel doubts. The passage made its way into our Bibles
through political pressure, appearing for the first time in 1522, even though
scholars then and now knew that it was not authentic. The early church did
not know of this text, yet the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 explicitly
affirmed the Trinity! How could they do this without the benefit of a text that
 didn’t get into the Greek NT for another millennium? Constantinople’s
statement was not written in a vacuum: the early church put into a theological
formulation what they got out of the NT.

“A distinction needs to be made here: just because a particular verse does not
affirm a cherished doctrine does not mean that that doctrine cannot be found
in the NT. In this case, anyone with an understanding of the healthy patristic
debates over the Godhead knows that the early church arrived at their
understanding from an examination of the data in the NT. The Trinitarian
formula found in late manuscripts of 1 John 5.7 only summarized what they
found; it did not inform their declarations.” (Source; emphasis original)

Similar to other issues we’ve discussed, that this verse is spurious does not negate the fact
that Scripture teaches Trinitarian doctrine. For what it’s worth, there are a few single
verses that mention the three Members of the Trinity:

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Cor. 13:13)

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world,

scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who
have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through
the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and
sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.” (I Peter
1:1-2)

However, the doctrine is best established through a wide-range of Scriptural verses and
themes found throughout the Bible. Consider the material in the following links:

http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/hartman/trinity_historic.html
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/quietthird.html
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/trin01.html

CONCLUSION

And so we reach the end of our survey. There are, of course, many other significant
textual variants that we did not discuss. However, we did encounter a few of the more
theologically-relevant variants regarding Christian doctrines that are contradictory to
Islamic beliefs. The point of this discussion was simply to examine the significance of
these variants in regard to how it should impact our beliefs from both a textual and a
historical perspective. Moreover, while Muslim polemicists have quote-mined relevant
textual scholars in constructing their arguments against the integrity of the New Testament
text, it is important to point out that these same scholars would not endorse anywhere near
the degree of textual corruption necessary to support any claim that the original NT was
once compatible with Islamic beliefs about Jesus and/or the early church. We have already
seen that Kurt and Barbara Aland are very confident that the NT text can be reconstructed
from our wide variety of manuscripts based on the phenomenon of the “tenacity of the
textual variants” (see above). Along similar lines, textual critics believe that (with a few
possible exceptions) the original text can be reconstructed from the pool of existing
variants. Michael Holmes, for instance, endorses the need for “conjectural emendation” in
a few places while other scholars like J. K. Elliott and Daniel Wallace believe it to be
necessary in possibly only the rarest of occasions, or possibly not even at all. Furthermore,
the Scriptural passages where it may be necessary do not affect any significant article of
faith or devotion with the possible exception of I Cor. 14:34-35 (which raises the question
as to whether or not women should be silent in the church). We’ve seen that the common
Christian claim of 95-99% certainty regarding the NT text finds confirmation from textual
critic Daniel Wallace (who argues in fact that 99% of the words of the NT can be
reconstructed with certainty). In regard to the number of verses that remain completely
intact (eliminating those that contain viable yet trivial variants), we can make a reasonable
estimate that the percentage of certainty falls to within about 91-96%.

In an interview with Lee Strobel, the late Bruce Metzger, arguably the top textual critic of
this generation, was asked how his scholarly studies have affected his beliefs. To this he
replied:

“…it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with
which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies,
some of which are very, very ancient.” (Strobel 1998; 93)

In response to Strobel’s question about whether or not scholarship has diluted his faith,
Metzger responds:

“On the contrary, … it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug
into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence
that my trust in Jesus has been well placed…Very well placed.” (ibid. 93;
emphasis original)

Textual critic Daniel Wallace notes:

“We have noted throughout this section that the New Testament suffers from
an ‘embarassment of riches’ unparalleled by any other piece of ancient
literature. The manuscript copies of the New Testament are far more plentiful
and earlier than any other Greek or Latin texts. In terms of manuscript data,
any skepticism about the Jesus of the Gospels should be multiplied many
times for any other historical figure. We have more and earlier manuscript
evidence about the person of Jesus Christ than we do anyone else in the
ancient world—including Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.” (Wallace
in Komoszewski, Sawyer, & Wallace 2006; 105-106)

And,

“There is simply no room for uncertainty about what the New Testament
originally taught. Whether one chooses to believe it is a different matter, and
that is taken up in other chapters. Our concern here is simply to show that the
fundamental teachings of the New Testament are undisturbed by viable
textual variants.” (ibid. 117)

Martin Hengel, while not a specialist in textual criticism, but quite arguably the world’s
most respected New Testament scholar, notes:

“The text of the Gospels is the best transmitted in the whole of antiquity:
about six Gospel papyri go back to the period around 200 or to the second
century AD122, and a further nineteen to the third century; of course most of
them are only small fragments, but some contain larger parts of the text123.
Together with the great uncials since the fourth century, the numerous later
manuscripts, and the early translations, the attestation of the original text is so
strong that practically all the secondary alterations to the text and
interpolations can be picked up in the unbelievably multiple textual
tradition124. It is therefore extremely rare for conjectures or the removal of
hypothetical glosses to be necessary.” (Hengel 2000; 28-29; note: the
numbers Hengel uses above are based on (currently) outdated information;
per Wallace there are up to a dozen manuscripts to be dated to the 2nd
century, another 39-59 to be dated to the 3rd century, and another 50 or so to
be dated to the 4th century (for a total of 101-121) – from Wallace 2008; time
slice 31:59 – 32:29; this is somewhat different from another source where
 Wallace states that there are “as many as a dozen manuscripts from the 2nd
century, 64 from the 3rd, and 48 from the 4th…”, for a total of 124
manuscripts [Source: Ehrman & Wallace 2008, Greer-Heard Point-
Counterpoint Forum Pt II; time slice 17:35 - 17:57]).

Almost surprisingly, even the liberal NT textual critic Bart Ehrman (whose writings have,
inadvertently or not, fueled much of the craze regarding the alleged uncertainty of the NT
text) does not dispute the general preservation of the text. In response to a question posed
regarding his allegedly different position on the matter from his mentor, the
aforementioned Bruce Metzger, Ehrman stated:

“The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at
odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are
not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New
Testament. What he means by that (I think) is that even if one or two
passages that are used to argue for a belief have a different textual
reading, there are still other passages that could be used to argue for the
same belief. For the most part, I think that’s true.

“But I was looking at the question from a different angle. My question is not
about traditional Christian beliefs, but about how to interpret passages of the
Bible. And my point is that if you change what the words say, then you
change what the passage means. Most textual variants (Prof. Metzger and I
agree on this) have no bearing at all on what a passage means. But there are
other textual variants (we agree on this as well) that are crucial to the
meaning of a passage. And the theology of entire books of the New
Testament are sometimes affected by the meaning of individual passages.

“From my point of view, the stakes are rather high: Does Luke’s Gospel teach
a doctrine of atonement (that Christ’s death atones for sins)? Does John’s
Gospel teach that Christ is the ‘unique God’ himself? Is the doctrine of the
Trinity ever explicitly stated in the New Testament? These and other key
theological issues are at stake, depending on which textual variants you think
are original and which you think are creations of early scribes who were
modifying the text.” (Q & A with Bart Ehrman in Ehrman 2005; 252-253;
emphasis added)

In response to an e-mail query about the corruption of the New Testament text, Ehrman
had this to say:

“I do not think that the ‘corruption’ of Scripture means that scribes changed
everything in the text, or even most things. The original texts certainly
spoke at great length about Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. The
issues involved in the corruption of the text usually entail nuances of
interpretation. These are important nuances; but most of the New Testament
can be reconstructed by scholars with reasonable certainty -- as much
certainty as we can reconstruct *any* book of the ancient world.”
(Source; emphasis added)

While we do not have the original documents, we have a wealth of data in existence from
the thousands of extant Greek manuscripts (along with thousands of extant Latin (and
other translational) witnesses and countless quotations and allusions of the NT text by the
Early Church Fathers). Based upon the small amount of time between the original
composition and the earliest MSS (particularly in comparison with other ancient
literature) as well as the established existence of various text-types traceable to the 2nd
century, we know that the text was not substantially different prior to the split into text-
types. In fact, textual critics are confident in their ability to reconstruct most of the
original text, the verses that remain in doubt in virtually all cases still having the original
reading present among the existing variants.

The fact that the oral traditions and apostolic testimony remained important to the early
church, even after the Gospels were composed (again cf. Bauckham 2006), negates the
reasonableness of any idea that the early church would have so widely accepted the
canonical Gospels in the mid-to-late 2nd century if the traditions contained therein did not
jibe with the oral traditions upon which the former were based. This is all the more true
when we think in terms of the foundational doctrines and beliefs of early Christianity.
Even if we were to imagine that certain “theologically-charged” verses were
interpolations into the original text (despite not leaving any evidence in the enormous
manuscript-record of this occurring), it is frankly impossible to imagine that new,
theologically-foundational doctrines could have somehow been wrenched into the text at
some early period and this new perspective resultantly being accepted throughout the
churches of the Roman Empire so widely and uncritically that, despite the thousands of
texts that have survived, we see no evidence in the manuscript record that such was ever
the case.

To make matters worse, it is worth pointing out that it is a highly-questionable claim made
widely by Muslims that Muhammad rejected the veracity of the Bible that existed in his
own day (i.e. 7th century A.D.). If the contrary is true, then the case for the whole-sale
corruption of the Bible becomes that much more hopeless from within the point-of-view
of even Islam’s own sacred texts. While I think it highly untenable to maintain substantial
corruption of the original NT texts by the 2nd or 3rd centuries A.D., it is all the more
impossible to maintain that the Bible was intact until at least the 7th century, and only
after this did it become hopelessly corrupted. We won’t even start to discuss such a
complex issue here, but I think Sam Shamoun and company have put together a very
impressive and diverse collection of evidence from the Qur’an, Hadith, early
commentators, biographers of Muhammad, and scholars of Islam that demonstrates that
Muhammad did indeed accept the veracity of the Bible in his own day. On this see the
materials at the following link:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Bible/index.html

It seems that Muslim polemicists are left with a few options in light of the data. They are
of course still free to assert that the New Testament has been corrupted beyond
recognition and that such doctrines as Jesus’ atoning death, resurrection, and divinity were
somehow introduced into the New Testament texts without leaving any historical or
textual footprints. As we have seen, however, such an assertion not only would go against
the overwhelming evidence to the contrary that exists, but also would not find support
from even the most radical of New Testament scholars (including the liberal textual
scholar Bart Ehrman). Frankly it would be an assertion of blind faith that flies in the face
of substantial data to the contrary.

A second option perhaps could entail redefining and/or refocusing the Qur’anic allusions
to “the Gospel”. In other words, is it possible to establish that Muhammad could have
been referring to a non-canonical Gospel, perhaps even one that no longer exists to this
day? This would likewise probably prove to be an arduous task, for from a textual
standpoint such a task would require providing evidence that such a Gospel existed and
demonstrations as to how it conforms (or conformed) to Islamic assertions. If that could
be accomplished, then there would remain the historical problem, i.e. why should this
Gospel be taken seriously over and against the canonical Gospels in regard to providing
us with reliable historical information about Jesus? Given that the canonical Gospels
(along with Acts, the epistles of Paul, and typically I Peter and I John) were widely
accepted by the churches across the Roman Empire from at least the second century and
onwards (with no non-canonical Gospel coming close to achieving such a status) [for a
thorough discussion of the NT canon see Metzger 1987; for a lighter discussion cf.
Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace 2006; 121-166], I wouldn’t envy the one trying to
argue for this option either.

Then, of course, a third option would be to reinterpret the Qur’an and Islamic theology in
general in order to accommodate traditional Christian doctrines. Now, Muslim polemicists
will commonly argue that the canonical Gospels do not portray Jesus as divine. I would
argue in response that such a line of argument not only contradicts the unanimous
testimony of the early church, including apostolic testimony (per once again cf. esp.
Hurtado 2003), but also clear indications within the Gospels themselves (much of which
is accepted as authentic by the general scholarly consensus) that Jesus did in fact in many
ways (even if mostly implicitly) claim to be divine (see the above section on “John 1:18”,
the links provided there, and Appendix 2 as well). On the other hand, the numerous
references to Jesus’ death, the atonement, and of course the resurrection are simply not
open to debate. If option #2 is not taken up successfully and Muslim polemicists wish to
make an argument that is intellectually-sound, it seems that they would be forced to
reinvent their theology at least on these latter points, while at the same time trying to
account for the rich and varied evidence that indicates that Jesus and the early church
claimed that Jesus is divine (once again an unenviable task).

Finally, at the risk of being accused of introducing a red herring, I feel it important to
merely mention that the Qur’an’s textual history is not free from problems in some areas
as well. See e.g. the following links:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Text/index.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/quran_compilation.html

Muslim responses to some of the material above can be found at the following links:

http://www.mostmerciful.com/reply-ans-islam.htm
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/

Now, I don’t bring up this issue to argue for substantial Qur’anic corruption. In fact, I see
no reason to believe that the Qur’an has not been essentially preserved (like the New
Testament). I allude to such data merely to point out that the Qur’an, like the NT, suffers
from its own textual problems, and I think it would be difficult for Muslims to be
consistent in merely pushing aside the problems in the former while attempting to greatly
amplify the problems associated with the latter.

Has the New Testament been corrupted? Well, it depends on one’s angle. We agree with
MENJ in that the answer is “yes” in so much as there clearly have been a great, great
many textual variants discovered among the wealth of NT manuscripts, some of which
were apparently introduced deliberately for theological reasons (though these are in a very
small minority), and some of which are viable variants that affect passages that espouse
crucial Christian doctrines.

However, when Christians who know something about the issues of textual criticism
answer the “Has the Bible been corrupted?” question with a “no”, it is likely that they
understand the questioner to be defining “corruption” as something like “altered to the
point of hopelessness”, almost giving the impression that the New Testament may have
originally been a recipe book for ancient Mediterranean baked goods. As such, to the
extent that the variants that do exist do not impact the overall textual foundation for the
major doctrines discussed in this article, and that the New Testament we have today is a
reasonable facsimile of the original, we can answer that it has indeed been preserved.

A "sequel" to this article: Miscellaneous Issues in NT Textual Criticism

Recommended Reading
“Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell
you” by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace (esp. pp. 53-117)

“The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the
Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism” by Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland

“The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration” by Bruce
M. Metzger, 3rd ed. (and/or the later edition also co-authored by Bart Ehrman)

“The Gospel According to Bart: A review of Bart D. Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The
Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why” (Source)

“Textual Trysts: The Textual Reliability of the New Testament” (Source)

James Arlandson's series:

New Testament Manuscripts: The Basic Facts

New Testament Manuscripts: the Right Stuff
New Testament Manuscripts: Discovery and Classification
The Manuscripts Tell the Story: The New Testament Is Reliable

Appendix 1: The Preservation of the Jesus Sayings and Early Christian Prophecy

Although our main focus in this article (and the key question relevant to the debate) is
what the original New Testament texts had to say, from a historical standpoint it is
important to know to what extent we can trust the oral transmission of the Christian
traditions before they were put into writing. In the ancient world where literacy was
characteristic of the minority, it was common for traditions (religious or otherwise) to be
transmitted orally, often for centuries. In the case of the New Testament, especially the
material in the Gospels, oral tradition was possibly the only medium through which the
traditions were transmitted before the composition of the Gospels about 40-70 years after
the crucifixion. This is an issue that deserves a lengthy article of its own, but as the topic
of oral tradition in the New Testament is tangential to our main point of discussion, we
will merely provide a brief overview of some reasons to trust in the accurate preservation
of the oral traditions prior to their incorporation into the Gospels.

First of all, do we have good reason to believe that the early church would have had the
desire to carefully preserve traditions about Jesus’ teachings and deeds? Drawing on the
work of Rainer Riesner, Synoptic specialist Craig Blomberg summarizes six reasons to
answer this question in the affirmative:

“(1) Jesus followed the practice of Old Testament prophets by proclaiming

the Word of the Lord with the kind of authority that would have commanded
respect and concern to safeguard that which was perceived as revelation from
God. Just as many parts of Old Testament prophecy are considered by even
fairly skeptical scholars to have been quite well preserved, so Jesus’ words
should be considered in the same light. (2) The fact that Jesus presented
himself as Messiah, even if in a sometimes veiled way, would reinforce his
followers’ concern to preserve his words, since one fairly consistent feature
in an otherwise diverse body of first-century expectations was that the
Messiah would be a teacher of wisdom. (3) The gospels depict Jesus as just
such a teacher of wisdom and phrase over 90% of his sayings in forms which
would have been easy to remember, using figures and styles of speech much
like those found in Hebrew poetry3. (4) There is widespread evidence in the
gospels of Jesus commanding the twelve to ‘learn’ specific lessons and to
transmit what they learn to others, even before the end of his earthly ministry.
In addition to the obvious missions of Mark 6:7-13 and parallels (in this book
abbreviated ‘pars.’) and Luke 10:1-17, subtler hints appear in Mark 13:28;
 Luke 11:1; Mark 9:10 and Acts 2:424. (5) Elementary education for boys
until at least the age of twelve was widely practiced in Israel in Jesus’ day, so
texts like Acts 4:13 cannot mean that the disciples had no competence in
reading, writing, and memorization. (6) Almost all teachers in the Jewish and
Graeco-Roman worlds gathered disciples around them in order to perpetuate
their teachings and lifestyle, so however different Jesus was from the rabbis
in other ways, he probably resembled them in this respect. If he envisaged his
disciples as in some sense continuing his ministry for any length of time (see
pp. 33-35), then he certainly would have been concerned that they preserve
his message and mission intact.” (Blomberg 1987; 27-28)

Regarding point #3 made above, the outstanding Jewish scholar Joachim Jeremias
discusses these stylistic and linguistic phenomena of the sayings of Jesus in some detail,
from the use of the so-called divine passive to “antithetic parallelism”, rhythms (i.e. “two-
beat” rhythms, “three-beat” rhythms, etc.), alliteration, paronomasia, etc. (see Jeremias
1971; 8-37 for discussion). From this a couple of things stand out reflecting the
importance of the preservation of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels: 1) these
styles emerge when the sayings are set forth against their Aramaic background (ibid. 8),
which places the probable provenance of at least most of these sayings in the earliest
Palestinian church; 2) that Jesus spoke in such a manner is an indicator that he wanted his
teachings preserved, requiring the disciples from the get-go to make sure that it happened.
Jeremias writes at the end of his survey:

“Not every occurrence of the characteristic expressions mentioned in

[sections] 2 and 3 is in itself a proof of authenticity. We must distinguish
between ipsissima vox and ipsissima verba. The presence of a way of
speaking preferred by Jesus (ipsissima vox Jesu) does not relieve us of the
necessity of examining each individual instance to see whether we have a
genuine logion (ipsissimum verbum). For example, to claim that the use of
[amen] to introduce his own words is the ipsissima vox Jesu does not of itself
imply that all twenty-five instances in John (see p. 35, n. 8 above) are
ipsissima verba. The question of authenticity cannot, therefore, be settled in a
purely schematic way on the basis of the linguistic and stylistic evidence. We
must also consider the content of the sayings. Nevertheless, we can say in
conclusion that the linguistic and stylistic evidence presented in [sections]
2-3 shows so much faithfulness and such respect towards the tradition of
the sayings of Jesus that we are justified in drawing up the following
principle of method: In the synoptic tradition it is the inauthenticity, and
not the authenticity, of the sayings of Jesus that must be demonstrated.1”
(ibid. 36-37; emphasis added)

Other evidence exists to suggest that the early Christians were at pains not only to
preserve the teachings of Jesus but also utilize them. James Dunn looks at a number of
pertinent factors, such as the prominence of early Christian teachers:

“Teachers, indeed, seem to have been the first regularly paid ministry within
the earliest Christian movement (Gal. 6.6; Did. 13.2). Why teachers? Why
else than to serve as the congregation’s repository of oral tradition? What else
would Christian teachers teach? A Christian interpretation of the Scriptures,
no doubt. But also, we can surely safely assume, the traditions which
distinguished house churches from local house synagogues or other religious,
trade, or burial societies20…

“Nor should it be forgotten that, at least according to the tradition, Jesus

himself was regarded as a ‘teacher (didaskalos)22, and was so regarded by his
disciples23. Jesus may even have regarded himself as such (Matt. 10:24-
25/Luke 6:40). That the disciples of Jesus are consistently called ‘disciples’,
that is ‘those taught, learners’ (Hebrew talmidim; Greek mathetai) – should
 also be included24. The relation between Jesus and his disciples was
remembered as one between teacher and taught, with the implication that, as
such, the disciples understood themselves to be committed to remember their
teacher’s teaching25.” (Dunn 2003; 176-177; among the references Dunn lists
to support that the disciples considered Jesus as a teacher include Mark 8:35;
9:17; 10:17; 12:14, 19, etc. etc.)

Dunn also discusses the “bearing witness” and “remembering” motifs found in the NT. On
the former he writes:

“The motif is particularly prominent in Acts and John. In Acts it is stressed

that the role of the first disciples (or apostles in particular) was to be
‘witnesses’ (martyres) of Jesus (1.8). Particularly in mind were the events of
Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection (2.32; 3.15; 5.32; 10.41; 13.31)26. But it is
clear from 1.22 and 10.37-39 that Luke understood the witnessing to include
Jesus’ ministry ‘beginning from the baptism of John’.” (ibid. 177)

In regard to John and Luke, Dunn writes:

“The immediate disciples have a special responsibility to bear witness

(martyreo) to Jesus, assisted by the Spirit (15.26-27), a responsibility which
the Evangelist was deemed to be carrying out by means of his Gospel (19.35;
21.24)27…

“…; in John 15.26-27 it is made clear that ‘from the beginning’ embraces the
whole of the original disciples’ time with Jesus (as with Acts 1.22)” (ibid.
178)

“Luke had the same concern when he promised to narrate what had been
‘delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses28 and
ministers of the word’ (Luke 1.1-2; cf. Mark 1.1)29.” (ibid. 178)

On the “remembering” motif, Dunn writes:

“More striking still is the motif of ‘remembering’, also important for identity
information32. Already Paul stresses the importance of his converts
remembering him and the ‘traditions’ which he taught them (1 Cor. 11.2; 2
Thess. 2.5). And close to the heart of the Lord’s Supper tradition which Paul
passed on was the exhortation to remember Christ – ‘Do this in remembrance
of me’ (eis ten emen anamnesin) (1 Cor. 11.24-25; Luke 22.19) – by no
means a merely cognitive act of recollection33. 2 Timothy retains the motif
with reference to well-established traditions (2.8, 14), the first (2.8) echoing
the (presumably well-known) formula with which Paul reassured the Roman
believers regarding his own gospel (Rom. 1.3-4)34. The importance of post-
Easter believers remembering Jesus’ words is a repeated theme in Luke-Acts
and John35; the equivalence of John 14.26 and 15.27 indicates that
‘remembering all I have said to you’, and ‘witnesses with me from the
beginning’, are two sides of the same coin. 2 Peter confirms that
remembering the teaching first given was a central concern in early
Christianity (1.15; 3.2); similarly Rev. 3.3. 1 Clement uses the phrase
‘remember(ing) the words of the Lord Jesus’ to introduce a brief catena of
Jesus’ sayings on two occasions (13.1-2; 46.7-8), as does Polycarp with a
similar introductory formula, ‘remembering what the Lord taught when he
said’ (Phil. 2.3). Here we should also simply note the famous Papias
tradition, which repeatedly emphasizes the importance of ‘remembering’ in
the transmission of the earliest traditions stemming from the first disciples
 (Eusebius, HE 3.39.3-4, 15; 6.14.6), and Justin’s concern to ‘bring to
remembrance’ teachings of Jesus (Dial. 18.1; 1 Apol. 14.4)36…

“In short, the witnessing and remembering motifs strengthen the impression
that more or less from the first those who established new churches would
have taken care to provide and build a foundation of Jesus tradition.
Particularly important for Gentiles taking on a wholly new life-style and
social identity would be guidelines and models for the different character of
conduct now expected from them. Such guidelines and models were evidently
provided by a solid basis of Jesus tradition which they were expected to
remember, to take in and live out.” (ibid. 179-180)

Most important of all are the apostolic guarantors of the traditions in question. The
original apostles would most certainly have served as a repository of the relevant
traditions and also could provide checks against deviations from these traditions when
necessary. Again, consider the remarks of Dunn:

“More striking is the fact that a clear emphasis of the early chapters of Acts is
the role of the apostles as ensuring continuity between what Jesus had taught
and the expanding mission of the movement reinvigorated afresh at
Pentecost. The implication of the opening words is that Acts is a continuation
of ‘all that Jesus began to do and teach’ as recorded in ‘the first part of his
work’, the Gospel of Luke (Acts 1.1). The instruction given to the apostles
(1.2), the implication continues, had just the same continuity in view41.
Hence, when the traitor Judas is replaced by a new twelfth apostle, the
criterion for his election is that he should have been one of their number
throughout the ministry of Jesus, ‘beginning from the baptism of John’ (1.21-
22). Hence also the emphasis in 2.42, where the first mark of the new post-
Pentecost community is its continuation in and firm attachment to
(proskartereo), ‘the teaching of the apostles’.” (ibid. 180)

Dunn further remarks that the prominence of Peter, John, and James as key leaders of the
early church (see. e.g. Gal. 2.9; though here “James” refers to Jesus’ brother rather than
John’s brother, as the latter had likely been executed by this time, per Acts 12:1-2)
“correlates well with the remembrance of the Jesus tradition that Peter and the brother
Zebedee had been closest to Jesus43 and thus were accounted principal witnesses to and
custodians of Jesus’ heritage.” (ibid. 180-181; on Peter, James, and John’s closeness to
Jesus cf. Mark 5.37; 9.2; 13.3, 14.33)

The importance of the original disciples in serving as guarantors of the tradition, even
after the Gospels were composed, cannot be underestimated. On this, the cumulative
argument of Richard Bauckham in “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” is persuasive.

Regarding the oral tradition underlying the Gospels, a couple of important questions arise.
First of all, whichever model of oral tradition one proposes one must be able to reckon
with the variations that exist among the Gospels that narrate the same event (this is
especially relevant among Synoptic Gospel narratives). Recent studies on oral tradition,
including its application to NT studies, indicate that it is typical (at least in some models)
for every performance of a given tradition to include variants (not necessarily
accidentally). Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory Boyd’s comments in this regard are
instructive:

“Among other things, we now know that variations in oral tradition do not
follow linear, unidirectional ‘laws’ (as the literary paradigm assumes), but
rather follow far more complex, multidirectional paths. Oral variations
‘depend on the performance situation itself—and every performance is, to
one degree or another, different from the next.’92 The same trident
performing the same oral text may offer a longer, more elaborate version
 today, and a shorter, more stylized version tomorrow, depending upon the
particular audience, time constraints, and countless other factors that attach to
each individual performance. These are the sorts of variables not captured by
‘the literary paradigm’ and thus never considered by the Bultmannian form-
critical enterprise.” (Eddy & Boyd 2007; 293-294)

I think the concept of variations in the performance of oral tradition also contains
important application upon consideration of the fact that some of the scribal traditions of
the NT text also betray a less-than-rigid copying-practice (see above, “The Living Text”
section of this article). If such variation was an accepted cultural phenomenon in terms of
oral performances, then it seems that such variations by way of paraphrasing would
similarly be acceptable in written documents. This may help to account for why,
according to at least some early scribal traditions, we find that the NT text was a “living
text”.

It seems reasonable to suggest that Muslims should be well aware of the concept of
performance variation in regard to oral traditions given the testimony of the Islamic
traditions to the seven Qira’at (i.e. readings) of the Qur’an. This unpacks a similar
situation. Now, some Muslims may argue that the variation associated with the NT is still
problematic since, in the case of the Qur’an, all seven Qira’at represent authentic divine
revelation. However, a couple of issues should be kept in mind. The composition of the
Gospels was not thought to be accomplished through direct dictation (as we find to be the
case for the Qur’an), but rather through the use of at least several strata of (probably
mostly Aramaic) oral traditions and probably some written traditions (in any case the
scholarly consensus accepts that Matthew and Luke probably used Mark and Q). This
would lead one to expect the evangelists to apply more flexibility in shaping the relevant
traditions at hand (as long, of course, as historical accuracy was not compromised in the
process) than what one might expect if the documents were thought to be composed by
direct dictation. If in the oral culture of 1st century Palestine (and the greater Graeco-
Roman world, for that matter), the norm was to recite traditions in different ways, while
preserving the core-importance of the various teachings as well as the historical core of
certain narratives that were being conveyed, then there should be no philological
difficulties in accepting the possibility that texts reflecting such a practice are divinely-
inspired, particularly if historical accuracy is generally preserved in each performance.

Interestingly, such performance variation on the part of the evangelists probably reflects
the very practice of Jesus during his ministry. Leading English NT scholar N.T. Wright
writes:

“First, unless we are to operate with a highly unlikely understanding of Jesus

and his ministry, we must assume some such picture as we find in Gerd
Theissen’s brilliant work, The Shadow of the Galilean. Jesus was constantly
moving from place to place, working without the benefit of mass media. It is
not just likely, it is in the highest degree probable, that he told the same
stories again and again in slightly different words, that he ran into similar
questions and problems and said similar things about them, that he came up
with a slightly different set of beatitudes every few villages, that he not only
told but retold and adapted parables and similar sayings in different settings,
and that he repeated aphorisms with different emphases in different
contexts14. Scholars of an older conservative stamp used to try to explain
varieties in the synoptic tradition by saying cautiously that ‘maybe Jesus said
it twice’. This always sounded like special pleading. Today, once a politician
has made a major speech, he or she does not usually repeat it. But the analogy
is thoroughly misleading. If we come to the ministry of Jesus as first-century
historians, and forget our twentieth-century assumptions about mass media,
the overwhelming probability is that most of what Jesus said, he said not
twice but two hundred times, with (of course) a myriad of local variations15.
 “…When we add to this the high probability that Palestinian culture was, to
put it at its weakest, more used to hearing and repeating teachings than we are
today, and the observation that much of Jesus’ teaching is intrinsically highly
memorable, I submit that the only thing standing in the way of a strong case
for Jesus’ teaching being passed on effectively in dozens of streams of oral
tradition is prejudice16. The surprise then, is not that we have on occasion so
many (two, three, or even four) slightly different versions of the same saying.
The surprise is that we have so few. It seems to me that the evangelists may
well have faced, as a major task, the problem not so much of how to cobble
together enough tradition to make a worthwhile book, but of how to work out
what to include from the welter of available material17. The old idea that the
evangelists must have included everything that they had to hand is always, at
best, a large anachronism18.” (Wright 1992; 422-423)

Then there is the question of the impact that early Christian prophets may have had on the
preservation of the NT texts. Many critics since Bultmann have argued that many of the
sayings found in the Gospels are the result of the incorporation of sayings of early
Christian prophets (speaking on behalf of the “exalted Jesus” or the Holy Spirit) into the
Gospel narratives, originally uttered to address important issues that were facing the early
church. N.T. Wright explains why this is problematic:

“A third misunderstanding concerns the belief of many early form-critics that

the stories in the early tradition reflected the life of the early church rather
than the life of Jesus, in that the early church invented (perhaps under the
guidance of ‘the spirit of Jesus’) sayings of Jesus to address the problems in
their own day. The main problem with this assumption is that the one fixed
point in the history of the early church, i.e. Paul, provides a string of good
counter-examples, which work in two directions4.

“On the one hand, as is often pointed out, Paul regularly addresses questions
of some difficulty, in which he does not even quote the words of Jesus, in the
synoptic tradition, which could have been helpful to him. Still less does he
appear to attribute sayings to Jesus which were not his5. Why was he so
reticent, if ‘words of Jesus’ were regularly invented by Christian prophets, of
whom Paul was assuredly one, to address problems in the early church?

“On the other hand, as is not so often noted, Paul provides evidence of all
sorts of disputes which rocked the early church but left not a trace in the
synoptic tradition. From Paul, we know that the early church was torn in two
over the question of circumcision. There is no mention of circumcision in the
whole synoptic tradition6. From Paul, we know that some parts at least of the
early church had problems in relation to speaking in tongues. There is no
mention of this in the main stream of synoptic tradition7. From Paul, it is
clear that the doctrine of justification was a vital issue which the early church
had to hammer out in relation to the admission of Gentiles to the church. The
only mentions of the admission of Gentiles in the synoptic tradition do not
speak of justification, and the only mention of justification has nothing to do
with Gentiles8. In Paul it is clear that questions have been raised about
apostleship, his own and that of others. Apostleship is of course mentioned in
the synoptic tradition, but so far is the tradition from addressing post-Easter
issues here that it does not discuss the question of subsequent apostolic
authority except for one passage—and in that passage it still envisages Judas
sharing the glorious rule of the twelve. In Paul we meet the question of
geographical priority: does the church in Jerusalem have primacy over those
working elsewhere? In the synoptic tradition the criticisms of Jerusalem have
to do with its past and present failures, and with its wicked hierarchy, not
with the place of its church leaders within a wider emerging Christianity. So
 we could go on: slavery, idol-meat, womens’ [sic] headgear, work, widows;
and, perhaps above all, the detailed doctrines of Christ and the divine spirit.
The synoptic tradition shows a steadfast refusal to import ‘dominical’
answers to or comments on these issues into the retelling of stories about
Jesus. This should put us firmly on our guard against the idea that the stories
we do find in the synoptic tradition were invented to address current needs in
the 40s, 50s, 60s or even later in the first century.

“Conversely, it has been shown often enough that the synoptic tradition has
preserved material which is not so relevant to, or so obviously taken up by,
the first-generation church. Well-known examples include the concentration
on Israel10; Jesus’ attitude to women11; and many other features. As Moule
concludes, ‘Aspects of Jesus’ attitude and ministry have survived in the
traditions, despite the fact that the early Christians do not seem to have paid
particular attention to them or recognized their christological
significance.’12”

“(6) Apart, of course, from Jesus’ own circumcision (Lk. 2.21). That sayings
about circumcision could easily be invented is clear from Gos. Thom. 53.

“(7) The ending of Mark is the exception that proves the rule: Mk. 16.17.

“(8) Gentiles (but not justification): e.g. Mt. 8.5-13. Justification (but not
Gentiles): Lk. 18.9-14. (Wright 1992; 421-422)

Similarly, Dunn writes:

“On the other hand, despite the quite frequent references to prophets in the
early Christian tradition, there is no clear indication at any point that they
spoke of or were expected to speak in the voice of Jesus within the gathered
Christian assembly. Revelation 2-3 is hardly a model for what is envisaged. It
would be surprising, for example, if no prophet in a Pauline church ever
uttered a prophecy regarding circumcision; yet such an utterance is
completely lacking in the Jesus tradition81. The role of prophets, vital as it
was in Paul’s eyes, was much more circumscribed or modest (1 Cor. 14.3)
than the above hypothesis envisages82. Moreover, in the Jewish and Christian
tradition prophecies are normally given in the name of the prophet, even
when the prophet is confident that he speaks for God. Thus, no OT prophetic
book names Yahweh as its author83; Luke always names the prophet
concerned (Acts 11.27-28; 13.1; 21.9-14) and distinguishes Spirit speech
(Acts 13.2; 21.11) from utterances of the exalted Christ (Acts 18.9-10;
23.11)84; and Paul makes a point of distinguishing his own inspired opinion
from the Jesus tradition (1 Cor. 7.10, 25, 40)85. All this suggests that
Bultmann and Boring are overeager to find evidence of prophetic activity in
the Synoptic tradition86. The broader evidence suggests rather that such
utterances were the exception rather than the rule.” (Dunn 2003; 188; for a
more extensive discussion of this issue cf. Dunn, Prophetic “I” Sayings,
1998; 142-169)

Consider further the pertinent remarks of German scholar Peter Stuhlmacher:

“The view suggested above in thesis form is confirmed when one situates the
debated texts within the formative process behind the synoptic tradition, as it
has been newly explained over the last thirty years by H. Schurmann, B.
Gerhardsson, M. Hengel, and R. Riesner. According to this new view, the
decisive origins of the synoptic tradition lie in the ‘school’ of Jesus, who
taught as the ‘messianic teacher of wisdom’ (so M. Hengel). The παραδοσεις
 or traditions of this school were transmitted to the primitive church in
Jerusalem by the μαθηται whom Jesus himself had called. These traditions
then formed an essential part of the "teaching of the apostles" (διδαχη των
αποστολων) mentioned in Acts 2:42.10 Since a carefully maintained
continuity of tradition existed between Jesus' disciples and the Jerusalem
church, and since the apostolic guarantors of the Jesus tradition remained
alive until the outbreak of the first Jewish war, synoptic texts may be spoken
of as subsequent ‘formulations of the church’ only when it can be shown
exactly who created them, when, why, and for what recipients they were
created, and under what circumstances they were accorded equal authority
with the Jesus tradition backed by the apostles. When one cannot provide the
answers to these questions, one must reckon with authentic tradition in the
synoptics.” (Stuhlmacher, Isaiah 53 in the Gospels and Acts, 2004; 149)

Here we’ll end our brief discussion of oral tradition as it relates to New Testament
scholarship. There is fortunately a great deal of relevant scholarship on this issue to which
we could only scratch the proverbial surface in this article. However, the reader is
encouraged to consider the following resources for more information:

“The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition”
by Paul Rhodes Eddy & Gregory A. Boyd, particularly chapters 6 and 7

“Jesus and the Eyewitness: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” by Richard Bauckham

“Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making” Vol. 1 by James Dunn; pp. 173-254 (this
resource is particularly valuable in that it includes an examination of a number of parallel
narratives of the same stories/sayings among different Gospels and their relevance to the
performance variation of oral tradition)

A couple of helpful on-line resources can be found at the following links:

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/orality01.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stil09.html (specifically the material under

“comment 12”)

http://bible.org/page.php?page_id=5936 (contains some material relevant to the issues

discussed or alluded to in this appendix, cf. esp. parts 5-6 & 8-12 which are listed under
the third point)

Appendix 2: Indications of Jesus’ Belief in His Divinity from the Gospels

We mentioned that there are a number of implicit indications from the Gospels that Jesus
believed in his divinity in the section where we discussed the variant readings of John
1:18. Here we will briefly discuss 3 such indications.

Jesus as Pre-existent

First, there is the Synoptic evidence of a number of sayings of Jesus that presupposes his
pre-existence. Simon Gathercole in “The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke”, leaves little room for doubt in his excellent treatment of
this subject. This is particularly evident in Jesus’ “I have come” sayings. Below we list
some of the most relevant examples:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not
come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come
to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father,
 a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother in law —
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'” (Matthew
10:34-36)

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give
his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already
kindled!” (Luke 12:49)

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." (Luke 19:10)

These examples seem especially pregnant with meaning given that they relate Jesus’
“coming” in the sense of performing a task that encompasses his entire ministry.
Gathercole writes in regard to this:

“The reason the ‘I have come’ sayings have attracted a certain amount of
attention is that they are summaries of Jesus’ mission as a whole. Although
some have argued that one or two of the sayings above refer to Jesus coming
to a particular location (e.g., Capernaum), no scholar has attempted to defend
the indefensible by arguing that all of them have this sense. It is generally
agreed that the sayings as a whole concern the entirety of Jesus’ earthly
ministry, and that the goals of his coming are his life’s work.” (Gathercole
2006; 85)

And later,

“The controversial point to be emphasized in the present chapter is that there

is a strong prima facie case for seeing preexistence implied in the Synoptic ‘I
have come’ sayings. Specifically, because the sayings talk of coming with a
purpose, they imply that the coming is a deliberate act. A deliberate act
requires a before-and-after, and, in the case of a ‘coming’, an origin from
which the speaker has come.5 Hence the usual sense which one would attach
to the statement ‘I have come to do such-and-such’ would be that the person
was previously not carrying out the task, but has come from somewhere in
order to carry it out. Furthermore, if the person is referring to his whole
earthly activity as the goal of the coming, the place of origin is logically
somewhere outside of the human sphere. This is of course not watertight,
since there may be some kind of idiom in operation. As a result, it is
necessary to test this hypothesis, by examining the formula in its Jewish
context to see what the most likely meaning for the phrase would be. But at
this point, the prima facie sense should at least be open for discussion.” (ibid.
87; emphasis original)

Subsequently the author spends approximately 25 pages responding to potential

objections and other explanations used by scholars to account for the “I have come”
sayings of Jesus. As a result the author concludes that earthly figures, including prophetic
and even Messianic language, typically do not use such language to describe their whole
life’s work (ibid. 88-112).

Gathercole then spends a chapter examining the use of what he refers to as the “'I have
come' –plus–purpose formula” in Jewish texts of the ancient period as it is applied to
angels. A couple of examples are found in the book of Daniel:

“He [Gabriel] instructed me and said to me, ‘Daniel, I have now come to
give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer
was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.’”
(Daniel 9:22-23; emphasis added)
 “On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of
the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed
in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. His body was like
chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and
legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a
multitude… Then he continued, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day
that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before
your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But
the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then
Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained
there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will
happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to
come.’" (Daniel 10:12, 14)

Overall Gathercole gives 25 such references from Jewish literature from the time of the
composition of “Daniel” to the later 1st century apocalyptic texts like IV Ezra and II
Baruch and into the period of the composition of the targums and midrash commentaries
of the OT (ibid. 119-145), subsequent to which he concludes:

“We have seen above, then, a strong tradition which begins very early, in the
numerous references in Daniel. This tradition is then appropriated repeatedly
up to our terminus ad quem in the time of Midrash Mishle and the Vision of
Daniel. There is a consistent use of the “’I have come’ + purpose formula”
which is not conventionally used in early Judaism by human figures to
describe the totality of their life’s work.102 Instead, the formula refers to the
totality of the heavenly figure’s earthly visit, and to the purpose of that visit.
There is thus a strong comparison to be made between these Jewish traditions
and the equivalent statements in the Gospels. These advents of angels
constitute parallels considerably closer than any hypothetical prophetic or
messianic tradition. Because of this, it makes sense to adopt a more literal,
rather than idiomatic, interpretation of the sayings in the Synoptic Gospels as
referring to a coming from ‘a’ to ‘b,’ and thus implying a place of origin,
namely heaven.” (ibid. 145-146, emphasis original)

As this brief summary can in no way do justice to the impressive case argued by
Gathercole, the reader is encouraged to examine the full breadth of the author’s case in
pages 83-147 of his book.

Of course, establishing that the Synoptic Gospels implied Jesus’ pre-existence is not
enough, by itself, to prove that he was divine anymore than it proves that the angels to
which the formula is applied throughout Jewish literature of the crucial period were
thought to be divine. The most that can be said for certain based on this data is that Jesus
saw himself as pre-existent, which of course is an essential (though not exclusive)
attribute of deity.

Jesus as Wisdom Incarnate

Although it is a controversial issue, a good case can be made that Jesus implied that he
was the Wisdom of God Incarnate. So what is Wisdom? James Patrick Holding provides
us with some crucial background material:

“Jesus, as God's Word and Wisdom, was and is eternally an attribute of

God the Father. Just as our own words and thoughts come from us and
cannot be separated from us, so it is that Jesus cannot be completely separate
from the Father. But there is more to this explanation, related to the
distinction between functional subordination and ontological equality. We
speak of Christ as the ‘Word’ of God, God's ‘speech’ in living form. In
Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern thought, words were not merely sounds, or
letters on a page; words were things that ‘had an independent existence and
which actually did things.’ Throughout the Old Testament and in the Jewish
intertestamental Wisdom literature, the power of God's spoken word is
emphasized (Ps. 33:6, 107:20; Is. 55:11; Jer. 23:29; 2 Esd. 6:38; Wisdom
9:1). ‘Judaism understood God's Word to have almost autonomous powers
and substance once spoken; to be, in fact, “a concrete reality, a veritable
cause.”’ (Richard N. Longenecker, The Christology of Early Jewish
Christianity, 145.) But a word did not need to be uttered or written to be
alive. A word was defined as ‘an articulate unit of thought, capable of
intelligible utterance.’ (C. H. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 263.
It cannot therefore be argued that Christ attained existence as the Word only
‘after’ he was ‘uttered’ by God. Some of the second-century church
apologists followed a similar line of thinking, supposing that Christ the Word
was unrealized potential within the mind of the Father prior to Creation.) This
agrees with Christ’s identity as God’s living word, and points to Christ's
functional subordination (just as our words and speech are subordinate to
ourselves) and his ontological equality (just as our words represent our
authority and our essential nature) with the Father. A subordination in roles is
within acceptable Biblical and creedal parameters, but a subordination in
position or essence (the ‘ontological’ aspect) is a heretical view called
subordinationism.

“Background: The background with Wisdom Christology is found in the

concept of hypostasis. What is a hypostasis? Broadly defined, it is a quasi-
personification of attributes proper to a deity, occupying an intermediate
position between personalities and abstract beings. In the ANE here are some
examples:

Hu and Sia, in Egyptian tradition the creative word and understanding

of Re-Atum
Ma'at, also Egyptian, a personification of right order in nature and
society, a creation of Re
Mesaru and Kettu, or Righteousness and Right, Akkadian hypostases
conceived of as qualities of the sun-god, or as gifts granted by him, or
sometimes as personal beings or independent deities
the divine word, which proceeds via the character of breath and wind,
in Sumerian and Akkadian literature

“Wisdom in Proverbs 8, and Wisdom in Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon, and

Philo's logos, all fit hand in glove with these. Now let's look at some cites,
starting with Prov. 8.

‘Proverbs 8:22-30 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way,

before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when
there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were
settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the
earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he
prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of
the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the
fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters
should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the
earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his
delight, rejoicing always before him...’

“This passage is one of several in the Old Testament (see Ps. 58:10, 107:42;
Job 11:14) in which abstract qualities are personified, following an Ancient
Near Eastern tradition of personification. (Derek Kidner, The Wisdom of
Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, 44.) Here, and in other parts of Proverbs,
 Wisdom ‘makes claims for herself which are elsewhere made only by, or for,
God.’ The verb used by Wisdom to call attention to its messages is the same
used by the prophets to call for returning to God in repentance. (R. N.
Whybray, Proverbs, 44) The speech made by Wisdom in this chapter is ‘a
lengthy self-recommendation in which (Wisdom) boasts of her power and
authority and of the gifts she is able to bestow,’ following a known Ancient
Near Eastern literary genre in which a divinity praises itself. ‘Wisdom is
intended to be understood as an attribute or heavenly servant of the sole God
Yahweh to whom he has delegated certain powers with regard to his relations
with mankind.’ Finally, to complete the picture, Proverbs 2:6 tells us, ‘For the
LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and
understanding.’ God is the source of Wisdom; Wisdom is one of God's
characteristics and attributes. (Bruce Vawter, ‘Proverbs 8:22: Wisdom and
Creation,’ Journal of Biblical Literature 99/2 (1980): 205-216, argues that
Proverbs 8 depicts Wisdom as a separate deity that Yahweh ‘acquired.’ I
follow Hurtado in replying that ‘this language of personification [used in
Judaism as a whole] does not necessarily reflect a view of these divine
attributes as independent entities alongside God.’ Such personifications ‘must
be understood within the context of the ancient Jewish concern for the
uniqueness of God, the most controlling religious idea of ancient Judaism.’
Thus he regards claims like that of Vawter's, that Wisdom here is depicted as
an ‘independent deity,’ as something that is ‘simply unwarranted and imports
into such passages connotations never intended by the writers.’ Larry W.
Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish
Monotheism, 46-7. For more on this verb, see here.) [Source]

Simon Gathercole provides us with a succinct summary of the activities of Wisdom as

found in ancient Jewish literature:

“Lady Wisdom in the OT and Jewish tradition is a very richly characterized

figure with a long curriculum vitae. Some of the main features of her identity
and functions are as follows: she (a) has a unique relation to God himself and
remains unknown and mysterious to human beings, (b) is a figure who, on
God’s behalf, comes to the human realm from heaven and (c) appeals to
humanity to turn to her and God, often by sending prophets. However, since
(d) she is a figure of impenetrable mystery, in the course of her visitation of
the human realm, she (e) is rejected by the great majority, and, having
experienced this general rejection, (f) returns to God in heaven.

“To tell the story in this way is to invite comparison with the portrait of Jesus
in the Gospels. Jesus is depicted as a figure in a uniquely close relationship to
God whom God has sent to announce the kingdom of heaven and to summon
people to enter it. However, the vast majority of Israel reject his invitation,
and this rejection is instantiated in particular in his execution. After this,
however, he is raised from the dead and ascends to heaven. Where the
controversy arises for our purposes, however, is in whether the use of
Wisdom motifs by Matthew, Mark, and Luke leads to the conclusion that
Jesus, like Wisdom, come from a preexistence in heaven.” (Gathercole 2006;
193, emphasis original)

Here we will briefly touch upon a couple of sayings attributed to Jesus in Q and the
thoughts of one of the most prominent supporters of the “Jesus as Wisdom” hypothesis,
Ben Witherington III.

First consider Matthew 11:16-19 (par. Luke 7:31-35)

“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the
marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the flute for you, and you
did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’ For John came
 neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man
came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a
friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her
actions."

Witherington writes in regard to this passage:

“Let us return briefly to the Q material found in Matthew 11:16-19/Luke

7:31-35. Here we find a deliberate contrast between Jesus’ lifestyle and that
of John. Jesus as the Son of Man came eating and drinking, celebrating and
dancing, while John came in ascetic fashion as if in mourning. Yet neither
style seemed to please the audience. Jesus in particular was accused of being
a drunkard and a friend of toll collectors and sinners.93 The passage ends
with the remark ‘Yet wisdom (Hokmah) is vindicated by her deeds.’ In other
words, though the Son of Man does not receive affirmation or confirmation
from some of his audience, nevertheless his actions indicate him as God’s
Wisdom. One may properly ask, How so?

“At this juncture, we must consider some samples from the Wisdom tradition.
First of all we note that this tradition has a good deal to say about eating and
drinking, in particular about banqueting (see, e.g., Sir. 31:12-32:6). Wisdom
literature in general encourages one to have a certain joie de vivre, to enjoy
eating, friends and the good things in life. But even more to the point, we find
traditions like that in Proverbs 9:1-6, which speaks of a feast set by Wisdom
herself where she invites very unlikely guests to the table—the simple, those
without sense and the immature—so that they may learn to be wise.

“Meals were the occasion for teaching in antiquity, both in the Jewish as well
as in the Greco-Roman world, and this is important for understanding Jesus in
context. If we ask why it is that Jesus dined with unlikely clientele, just the
opposite of those a respectable person might want for dinner guests, the
answer must be because Jesus saw it as his mission to reach the least, the last
and the lost in his society. In the context of dining he could begin to impart
wisdom to them, a wisdom which, as the Wisdom of Solomon puts it, could
‘save’ (cf. Wis 9:18). In short, Jesus is seen acting out the part of Wisdom,
and thus not surprisingly he concludes with confidence that he will be
vindicated for doing so, for his actions led to the salvation of various people
of God who had been given up for lost. In sum, John the Baptist came across
like a great prophet of judgment of old, like a Jeremiah or an Amos, but for
the most part Jesus did not. This fact must be explained.” (Witherington
1997; 187-188)

In Matthew 8:28 (par. Luke 9:58), we find the following passage:

“Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of Man has no place to lay his head.’"

Witherington comments on this passage:

“A second tradition, which seems innocent enough on first glance, is found in

Matthew 8:20/Luke 9:58: ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests;
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ This has often simply been
taken as a statement about the nature of Jesus’ itinerant ministry and the fact
that Jesus did not always get a warm reception. But this overlooks the
important fact that this image had been used earlier of Wisdom having no
place to dwell until God assigned her such a place (cf. Sir 24:6-7 to 1 Enoch
42:2), with Enoch speaking of the rejection of Wisdom (‘but she found no
dwelling place’). There is also the further tradition that raises the question of
the credibility of an itinerant person: ‘So who will trust a man that has no
 nest, but lodges wherever night overtakes him?’ (Sir 36:31 [36:26]). The
mention of nests in both this saying and in Matthew 8:20/Luke 9:58 is
striking. It once again suggests that Jesus envisions and articulates his
experience in light of sapiential traditions and especially in light of what
happened to Wisdom according to the late Wisdom material in 1 Enoch 42.”
(ibid. 188)

Several other such passages could be discussed, but it is a number of factors peculiar to
Jesus’ ministry that leads Witherington to the conclusion that Jesus claimed to be Wisdom
incarnate:

“This is not the place to do a lot of detailed exegesis, but I want to now show
the very diverse elements in the Jesus tradition that find a clear explanation if
Jesus saw himself as both prophetic sage and the embodiment of Wisdom on
earth:

1. Jesus’ use of the Father language for God, something not characteristic of
Old Testament expression at all, is explained in view of the fact that we do
find such language much more frequently in Wisdom material (cf. Sir 23:1, 4;
51:10; Wis 14:3 and cf. 3 Macc 6:3, 8)

2. Jesus’ use of kingdom of God language in conjunction with Wisdom speech

and ways of looking at things is found almost exclusively in contexts like
Wisdom of Solomon 10:10.102

3. Jesus’ exorcisms could easily have led to his seeing himself as, and being
seen as, the successor to or one even greater than Solomon. By the first
century A.D. Solomon was believed to have been an exorcist, and his wisdom
was regarded as the key to exorcisms in the present (cf 11QPs 91; Ant. 8.45).

4. Jesus’ use of Son of Man language echoes not merely Daniel but the sort of
esoteric material we find in the Parables of Enoch.

5. The many echoes of Sirach in the teaching of Jesus require and receive
explanation if Jesus saw himself as sage and Wisdom (cf. Sir 11:18-19 to Lk
12:13-21; Sir 24:9 and 6:19-31 to Mt 11:29-30; Sir 23:9 to Mt 5:34; Sir 28:3-
4 to Mt 5:22; cf. Sir 29:11 to Mt 6:19; Sir 32:1 to Lk 22:26-27; Sir 36:31 to
Lk 9:58).103

6. Jesus’ willingness to portray himself in female imagery such as we find in

the lament over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-39/Luke 13:34-35 is also
explained by this hypothesis, since this is the way Wisdom is portrayed in
such crucial texts as Proverbs 8—9 and Wisdom of Solomon 8—9.104

“To put things another way, the sage and Wisdom proposal is the only one I
know of that makes sense of Jesus’ teachings, Jesus’ miracles as Son of
David (i.e., one like Solomon cf. Mk 10:46-52), Jesus’ self-presentation as
Son of Man in bringing in the kingdom of God, Jesus’ yoke and binding his
disciples to himself, the connection between messianic concepts, sapiential
concepts and Son of Man material and the development of Christology found
in the church as early as the Christological hymns (Phil 2; Col 1; Jn 1). In
short, the vast majority of all the material in the Synoptics, and especially its
distinctive markers of parabolic teaching, Son of Man sayings, kingdom
material, and miracles can be explained by this approach.” (ibid. 193-194,
emphasis original)

Now, certain objections to the Wisdom hypothesis have been raised. For example, Simon
Gathercole, despite arguing extensively for the positive case for Jesus’ pre-existence in
the Synoptic Gospels (see previous section), criticizes the use of Wisdom motifs to argue
in favor of pre-existence (Gathercole 2006; 193-209). He mentions, for instance, that
some scholars see in Simon ben Onias (as portrayed in Sirach 50) the “embodiment of this
Wisdom.” Yet, there is no hint of Simon’s pre-existence in the chapter (cf. ibid. 196-197).
Also, in Luke 7:35 (par. Matthew 11:19), Jesus is said to have stated that “Wisdom is
vindicated by her children” rather than “…by her deeds”. If this is so, it may suggest that
Jesus is implying that he is a prophet of Wisdom rather than Wisdom-incarnate (though cf.
Witherington 1997; 184 for response). Overall, however, Wisdom material (as it is
attributed to Jesus) is so pervasive throughout the New Testament (Witherington’s whole
discussion in ibid. 161-196 is instructive, but his 400+ page tome on the subject in “Jesus
the Sage” treats this matter very thoroughly) that I think, despite the criticisms, there are
good grounds for accepting that Jesus thought of himself as Wisdom-Incarnate, and that
this not only implied his pre-existence but also his divinity. See also James Patrick
Holding’s material on Wisdom at the below link (included at the bottom of the page are
more links that respond to some objections to the thesis, such as the compatibility of the
hypothesis with Wisdom’s being portrayed as female in the relevant literature):

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html

Jesus the Son of Man

That the historical Jesus referred to himself as the “Son of Man” is historically probable.
Raymond Brown notes:

“The Gospel usage of this title for Jesus presents statistics that are
dramatically different from the statistics discussed in relation to ‘the Messiah’
and ‘the Son of God.’ The acceptance or usage of those titles during Jesus'
lifetime is difficult to discern even from the surface evidence of the Gospels,
in part because of their infrequency; but ‘the Son of Man’ appears some 80
times in the Gospels and in all but 2 partially debatable instances (Mark 2:10;
John 12:34) clearly as self-designations by Jesus. It has been estimated that
these constitute some 51 sayings,140 14 of which are in Mark and 10 in the
Sayings-Source (Q). Outside the Gospels the phrase occurs only 4 times, viz.,
Heb 2:6; Rev 1:13; 14:14; Acts 7:56; and only in the last of these (which is a
Lucan borrowing from the Gospel usage) does it have the definite article as in
the Gospels. The debate whether the historical Jesus used this title of himself
or whether it is a product of early church reflection retrojected into Jesus'
ministry has raged throughout the last hundred years. If one takes the latter
view, one faces two major difficulties: Why was this title so massively
retrojected, being placed on Jesus' lips on a scale far outdistancing the
retrojection of ‘the Messiah,’ ‘the Son of God,’ and ‘the Lord’? And if this
title was first fashioned by the early church, why has it left almost no traces
in nonGospel NT literature, something not true of the other titles? (Brown
1994; 90)

As a result, the current scholarly consensus believes that Jesus did refer to himself as “Son
of Man”, yet scholars are divided as to what he meant by it. However, despite the
disagreement in the scholarly literature, I think it is clear that the Gospels indicate that
Jesus, by referring to himself as “Son of Man”, was indicating that he represented the
exalted figure of Daniel 7:13-14:

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of
man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days
and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign
power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom
is one that will never be destroyed.”
By the late 1st century, apocalyptic texts such as I Enoch and IV Ezra expanded upon the
“Son of Man” concept introduced in the passage from Daniel, demonstrating the exalted
and pre-existent status of this Messianic figure that shares the divine throne (so Collins
1995; 173-189). Interestingly, the “Son of Man” figure in the Similitudes of Enoch is the
lone example of a highly exalted angel, patriarch, or intermediary figure that arguably is
included within the divine identity, in this case receiving worship and executing Judgment
while sitting on the divine throne (cf. Bauckham 2008; 169-172). Witherington argues that
the sources in the relevant portions of I Enoch likely pre-date the ministry of Jesus (cf.
Witherington 1990; 234-236).

While Jesus utilizes the “Son of Man” language in several conceptual contexts, including
that of his impending suffering (see. e.g. Mark 9:31, 10:45), he also uses it to express
imagery consistent with what we might expect given the background of the Daniel 7:13-
14 passage. Pertinent examples include the following:

“If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful

generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his
Father's glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38)

“Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed
One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right
hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’” (Mark 14:61-
62)

“For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:8)

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he
will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered
before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the
goats on his left.” (Matthew 25:31-33; to be noted here especially is the
resonance of this passage with Daniel 7 as a whole, the context of both being
the Final Judgment)

“For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and
lights up the sky from one end to the other.” (Luke 17:24)

“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven –
the Son of Man.” (John 3:13)

Thus the Gospels, consistent with Jewish apocalyptic materials that were being published
at about the same time, indicate that Jesus is the “Son of Man”, a highly exalted figure
who shares the heavenly throne to be derived from the imagery of Daniel 7:13-14.
Obviously, this presents a huge problem for Muslim polemicists in trying to argue that the
original Gospels did not purport Jesus’ divinity. For further discussion of this topic see the
following article by James Patrick Holding:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/sonofman.html

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