Crash the Future

From my perspective it seems as though the first question to be logically answered is that of variants. After all, why argue about contradictions in a text if we don't even know whether or not that text is originally what was written? And what would be the point of figuring out how a text was chosen to be “scripture” before we even know whether or not the version we have is the one that was really “chosen” to begin with? So, I'll start by looking at the issue of variants, which is an issue that gets a lot of play in our society.

Bart Ehrman, for example, has made a significant amount of money by selling books that play off the public's lack of knowledge about New Testament scholarship and textual criticism. In Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why he writes with the tone of someone wishing to wow the uninitiated by letting them in on the deep dark secrets of New Testament scholars. It's almost as though he wishes to create a sense that he is sharing trade secrets with the public in an effort to blow the whistle on a vast conspiracy. While this definitely makes for sensational writing and sells over 100,000 books in its first three months at the low list-price of $24.95, it is not entirely honest and is perhaps even academically fraudulent. (Just in case you didn't stop to do the math, that's $2.5 million in sales in the first three months, with countless additional copies sold in the years following.)

Let's look at an example of how this plays out. In a section where Ehrman is revealing the supposed scandal of New Testament variants he writes: “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.” (p. 89-90)

Here is what he conveniently failed to leave out of his sensational explanation...

First of all, the reason that the number of variants is debated and uncounted is not due to the great number which baffles even the most sophisticated of computer programs. The reason is far more simple and petty. Scholars cannot agree on exactly how to count the number of variants. For instance, they debate whether two manuscripts saying “Jesus Christ” and “Christ Jesus” count as one variant, two variants, or four variants. There is one variation between the two manuscripts, so most lay people would think it is one variant. But, it occurs in two manuscripts so by most scholars' estimation, that makes it two separate variants. But still other scholars would argue that the change involves and affects four different written words and their position and word order in the text as a whole, so obviously these should be considered as four different variants. Of course, this kind of academic debate tends to seem asinine to most lay people, and it definitely does not sell books, so Ehrman leaves it out.

It doesn't stop there, however. You see, most scholars will agree that a variant is counted any time a manuscript varies from any other manuscript in any way, and it is counted again in any manuscript where that same variation occurs. This means that most variants are actually just exact duplicates of other variants. For instance let's say one verse Paul wrote has four different versions in manuscripts we find, “I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for you,” “I thank Jesus Christ our Lord for you,” “I thank our Lord Christ Jesus for you,” and “I thank our Lord Jesus Crist for you.” Let's say we find the first version in 1500 different manuscripts. The second version is to be found in 1250 manuscripts. The third is seen in around 750 manuscripts, with the fourth in a measly 262 manuscripts. Most lay people I know would think this constitutes no more than four variants because there are only four variations, but no! In this case, for this one verse of eight words, we have roughly 3762 variants (unless you want to go the route of the scholar in the paragraph above who claims four variants for those four words, in which case it could easily be 12,000-15,000 variants for these eight words). So, the vast majority of Ehrman's “400,000 or more!” variants are disposed of if you simply discount the reduplication taking place. In fact, simply not counting the duplicate variants drops the total number to under 10,000 places where any form of variation occurs in any manuscript. This is still seemingly a high number, but we aren’t done yet, and I'll continue on that line in the next blog.