What We Know About the Bible that Ain’t So – 3
October 1, 2009 by Richard E. Kelly
Filed under Books, Reviews
This is the third and last post related to what is known by most Christians about the Bible that ain’t so. While much of this information is reported in Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, the following facts have been well known to well-informed, objective Bible scholars for almost two hundred years:
- We do not have the original writings of the New Testament. What we have are copies of these writings, made years later—in most cases, many years later. And none of these copies is completely accurate since the scribes who produced them inadvertently and/or intentionally changed them in places. All scribes did this.
- There are more differences among preserved manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.
- The twenty-seven books we call the New Testament were not gathered into one canon and considered scripture, finally and ultimately, until hundreds of years after the books themselves were first produced.
- We do not know precisely how old the New Testament is. It could be 1,200 years; we just don’t know. But we do know that it’s not 2,000 years old as I was taught growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness.
- The third-century church father Origen, made the following complaint about the copies of the Gospel at his disposal: “The differences among the manuscripts have become great, either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please.”
- The story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery in John 7:53 – 8:12 is arguably the best known story about Jesus in the Bible. It is a brilliant story, filled with pathos and a clever twist where Jesus uses his wits to get himself—not to mention the poor woman—off the hook. However, to the careful reader, the story raises many questions. To name just two:
- If Jesus did teach a message of love, did he really think that the Law of God given by Moses was no longer in force and should be obeyed?
- Did he think sins should not be punished at all?
- Good questions, but as it turns out, the aforementioned verses were not originally in the Gospel of John. In fact, they were not originally part of any of the Gospels. Scribes added these twelve verses later. This story and these verses are not found in the oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John and the writing style is very different from what is found in the rest of John.
- The last twelve verses in the Gospel of Mark were invented by a scribe many years after it was in circulation, and absent from the two oldest and best manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel. It’s a mysterious, moving, and powerful passage and used by Pentecostal Christians to show Jesus’ followers could speak in unknown tongues. Ironically, it’s also the principal passage used by “Appalachian snake-handlers” who take poisonous snakes in their hands to prove their faith in the words of Jesus.
- Paul did not write verses 34 and 35 in 1 Corinthians 14. They were added by a scribe, possibly influenced by 1 Timothy 2, which we know was written by a follower of Paul, not by Paul. (1 Timothy was forged in Paul’s name by someone living later.)
- The anti-Jewishness of some second- and third-century Christian scribes played a role in how the texts of scripture were transmitted. One of the clearest examples is found in Luke’s account of the crucifixion, where Jesus is said to have uttered a prayer for those responsible: “And when they came to the place that is called ‘The Skull,’ they crucified him there, along with criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’” (Luke 23:33-34) As it turns out, this prayer of Jesus cannot be found in the oldest manuscripts which date back to about 200 C.E. It’s first found in manuscripts produced during the Middle Ages.
- The Christian scribes—whether of the early centuries or of the Middle Ages—not only copied scripture, they changed scripture. Sometimes they didn’t mean to – they were simply tired, or inattentive, or on occasion, inept. At other times, though, they meant to make changes, as when they wanted the text to emphasize precisely what they personally believed about the nature of Christ, or about the role of women in the church, or about the wicked character of their Jewish opponents. (In the 1950s, Jehovah’s Witnesses rewrote the Bible, calling it The New World Translation, to make it fit their unique beliefs. So it should not come as a surprise that this type of thing happened many, many times in the long history of the Bible.)
Adam naps while God tries to explain to Eve the logic of his being dressed and her being naked...
How the Bible was finalized -- a basic history…
Very interesting………..Have you read Don’t Know Much About the Bible? It has some of the facts you report as well as others you may have mentioned in your earlier postings. I’ve decided that the overall teachings of Jesus (not the particulars) are what I’m taking from the Bible. Tolerance, acceptance, service and love. Thank goodness those early guys didn’t mess with that.
Thanks for the post. Also interesting is that many of the aspects of the new testament are rehashed from stories of the Greek Gods …. virgin births, Hercules never died but went to Olympus to live forever with his father Zeus and who knows where the Greeks copied their Gods from.
If you admit the possibility that one god exists, then, logic follows that many gods can exist …. but of course belief in gods is not a logical exercise.
Frankly, I like the Greek Gods best of all. They simply had character. However, they must have been lousy lovers. Why else did they (both the male Gods and female Goddesses) come down to earth all the time to make love to us humans?
BTW, one thing that disbeliveers often ask is why has not god intervened with mankind for the past 2000 years? We had a miracle here in Schinias (near Marathon) this summer. As you may have noticed on the TV news, there were some very severe wildfires in the Athens area …. even some homes in Athens were burned. The area all around Schinias is burned over, including parts of the nearby village of Kato Souli. However, Schinias was spared. Why? The fires occurred because Zeus is pissed at the Greeks for ignoring him. He seared the grounds with fire for a week then with floods of water for another week. When the flames neared Schinias, the Goddess Demetria intervened with Zeus. She pointed out that Schinias was her gift to the Greeks for defeating the heathen hordes from Persia at the Battle of Marathon and that she did not want her gift destroyed. Thus it was so, Zeus spared Schinias from his wrath.
It is strange, the humidity was around 10% and the winds blowing walls of flame. However these walls of flame mysteriously ceased when nearing the marsh lands, the pine forests, and our community. We are now an island of green is a sea of scorched earth and black suet.
@Joe from Greece – You’ve convinced me that there really is a god – we’ve just been worshiping the wrong one! When you think about it, it makes so much more sense to worship the Greek gods. There are more of them, they all have unique personalities, and they essentially looked over the progress and success of two world powers (Greece and Rome), even though they changed their names in the process. Not to mention all of the so-called gods, demigods, angels and saints of the Christian orthodoxy are actually based all or in part on those gods.
For the most part, modern day Christianity still has the mindset and traditions of the Middle Ages, so it couldn’t hurt to go back another 1000 years and really go to source.
A nice posting by Dick Kelly and good comments from Mary and Joe.
I enjoyed the article and am always interested in what others think about the Bible, God, the universe, faith. The world is full of many ideas and ideologies…I find it useless to believe just one side of religion or only in one faith…Since there is so much out there to offer.
I would like to adjust my initial comment and subsequent story (I did the same as the scribes of old did to the bible) as I changed the commonly accepted story to one that suited my purpose. I fear that if I don’t alter it, purest will make my alteration the issue instead of the point you are making. Also I misspelled the goddess’ name. It is Demeter not Demetria.
Here is my story changed to fit the commonly accepted myth.
BTW, one thing that disbelievers often ask is why has not god intervened with mankind for the past 2000 years? We had a miracle here in Schinias this summer. As you may have noticed on the TV news, there were some very severe wildfires in the Athens area …. even some homes in Athens were burned. The area all around Schinias is burned over, including parts of the nearby village of Kato Souli. However, Schinias was spared. Why? The fires occurred because Zeus is pissed at the Greeks for ignoring him. He seared the grounds with fire for a week then with floods of water for another week. When the flames neared Schinias, the Goddess Demeter intervened with Zeus. She pointed out that Schinias was her gift to the Greeks in honor of Makaria, the daughter of Hercules, who offered herself as a sacrifice to Demeter and that she did not want her gift destroyed. Thus it was so, Zeus spared Schinias from his wrath.
BTW, Demeter the goddess of fertility and wheat created the summer and winter. Her daughter Persephone was murdered and lived with Hades the God of Death. Zeus, Persephone’s father interviened and let Persephone live with her mother, Demeter, six months of the year and with Hades the other six months. When Peresphone is with her mother Demeter, Demeter is happy and allows the world to burst forth with life. When Persephone is with Hades, Demeter is sad and the nothing grows around the world (good reason as any for summer and winter).
Here in the Marathon area, Demeter, in honor of Makaria, stuck her shaft into the ground and water gushed forth creating the Schinias marsh and pine forest. The water still flows until this day and is known as the Makaria Spring. You drove by the Makaria Spring if you took the road from Kato Souli toward Marathon. Near the spring on the right side of the road going toward Marathon was an ancient tower, on the left side of the road was an old water pumping station and a pill box left over from WWII.
The last 12 verses of Mark and the ‘adultery’ verses of John are spurious. How do you know that? Is it not because Bible manuscripts were widely circulated (for evangelizing purposes) and a comparison of the thousands that have been found makes it possible to spot just what is spurious, also where and when it was introduced? The King James Version, 400 years old, runs these verses without commentary, but translations of the last few decades typically highlight or footnote them in some way to alert the reader. Certainly the New World Translation does so. Moreover, while the Watchtower magazine appeals to the scriptures to make any number of points, they never refer to the verses you’ve mentioned, unless it is to point out they are spurious.
Would that errors in other ancient writings were so easy to spot and rectify.
Your opinions and the video were very interesting and eye-opening. I also read your article about Cults at the U of A Book Fair. Interesting and thought provoking.