Posted
by Patrick Quinn
May 24, 2006 at 10:42 a.m.
Popology 15: Notes on the New Testament
I am rereading the New Testament. I am not a believer and have no doctrinal preference for any particular translation. I selected the New American Standard Version because I have not read it and it is widely held to be the most literal English translation of the earliest and/or best Greek manuscripts.I have no Greek, and--let's be frank--those of us without Greek are not qualified to debate the arcana of Scriptural manuscripts. On the other hand the text before us has been examined and re-examined by countless accomplished scholars over a period of more than 1,500 years, and there is no substantive dispute about its content. Scholarship has identified hundreds of thousands of variant readings across the whole of the Bible, but virtually all of them are trivial; thus one reading might be rendered "in the Holy Spirit" while another is rendered "in God's Spirit" and another as "in the Spirit." I can live with that, and anyway that's as good as it gets for those of us who don't read first-century koine. (The only instance of which I am aware in which an unintentional mistranslation resulted in doctrinal innovation is Augustine of Hippo's unhappy discovery of original sin in a faulty preposition in Romans.)My interests on this occasion, in addition to reading an unfamiliar translation, are popological and entirely noncontroversial. In all that follows I express nothing more than my opinion. I am reading the [NASV online][1], and have decided to read the 27 books of the New Testament in chronological order. First-century dating is sometimes arbitrary; I am following the dating proposed at [Early Christian Writings][2].--The First Letter of Paul to the ThessaloniansAuthor: Paul has generated whole libraries of scholarly controversy, but there is near-universal agreement that he wrote four of the 14 letters usually attributed to him and very broad agreement that he wrote at least three more. First Thessalonians is among the latter. It sounds like Paul.Date: c.50 CE. Acts of the Apostles holds that the churches of Thessalonika were founded during Paul's second missionary journey through Asia Minor and Greece, which followed the Council of Jerusalem c.48 and climaxed with Paul's address to the assembled philosophers of Athens. He then traveled to Corinth, where he stayed for more than a year. During his Corinthian sojourn he was arrested for breach of peace and brought before the Roman proconsul, Lucius Junius Gallio, who dismissed the charges. Gallio is an interesting figure, the brother of the great Stoic philospher Seneca, and his proconsulship can be dated to 51-52 CE. First Thessalonians was written either in Athens or Corinth. I like Corinth.Some scholars date First Thessalonian among the later Epistles, but the most plausible reconstruction of Paul's travels and the letter's relatively unsophisticated eschatology (new believers in Thessalonika wonder if those who have died since their conversion will miss the coming return of the Lord) convince me the earlier date is more probable.Oldest manuscripts: The oldest of all NT manuscripts is [Papyrus 46][3], a nearly complete codex of Paul's Letters held at the University of Michigan and the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. It is missing the first seven chapters of Romans and ends after the first two chapters of First Thessalonians. On the basis of handwriting, the codex dates to c.200 CE.[Goodspeed on First Thessalonians][4].Significant verse: 5:27: "I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren."Notes:It is 20 years since Golgotha and the empty tomb; there are probably fewer than 10,000 Christians in the whole world. Paul and his immediate associates converted a great many of them. It is the midpoint of Paul's career. In the course of the Aegean mission Paul established house churches in several major cities. Once settled in Corinth, he wrote letters to those churches offering instruction, encouragement, exhortation, reproach, and replies to questions asked by the new converts. First Thessalonians is the earliest extant such letter. The Thessalonian congregation appears to be made up of Gentiles--former pagans (cf. 1:9 ...you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God)--and the letter was vy likely written a few months after Paul's (somewhat hasty) departure from Thessalonika.This is the beginning of Christian documentary history. Paul shows no knowledge of a written gospel, and most scholars would agree that First Thessalonians precedes the Gospels as they have come down to us. Paul no doubt maintained a wide correspondence, most of which is lost, but it probably began around the time of this letter; there is no tradition of letters pre-dating the Council of Jerusalem. He has seized upon something new--a documentary ministry , a ministry promulgated by texts made available to a wide audience--and this documentary model will become the model of the new faith. Over the next 10 years, Paul will write down his teachings and send them to the scattered churches of antiquity, where they will be read to the new congregations. Documents were precious things in the first century. Paul's letters were written on [papyrus][5], a paper-like medium made of compressed plant pith. Internal evidence suggests Paul, like nearly everyone else at the time, dictated his letters to professional scribes who were paid to create documents for the public. (Paul customarily appended short remarks to the letters in his own hand as a warrant of authenticity.) Scribes charged their customers on the basis of the length of each document and the amount of papyrus it required. All of Paul's letters were transported by companions and fellow-believers; he apparently did not trust, and probably could not afford, the (quite good) Roman post.Note that Paul does not instruct the Thessalonians to make copies of the letter. First-generation Christianity (which probably was not yet called "Christianity") was usually prostelyzed in person, as it is now, in the form of face-to-face preaching, and the new faith arose out of Second Temple Judaism, which also relied on oral tradition and was institutionally averse to uncontrolled copying of Scripture. But when Christianity is preached today, the preacher holds a book. That model begins here, in Thessalonika, with a nameless deacon standing up in a house church w/ a sheaf of papyrus in his (or, just as likely, her) hand: _I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren._The new faith will figure out the value of copies soon enough. [1]: http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/index.php?action=getVersionInfo&vid=49#books&version=49; [2]: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ [3]: http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/k12/reading/Paul/ [4]: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/goodspeed/ch01.html [5]: http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/papyrus.html
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
I'm an NASB guy myself because I like the literalism, but some of those sentences are pretty tough if you're reading in a group setting. NIV is much better for that.
"the letter's relatively unsophisticated eschatology...convince me the earlier date is more probable."
Relative dating always seems to turn on personal preference (e.g. how the individual weighs the factors), but I've always found the 'evolving' argument (simple early/complex later) to be unconvincing. It seems to me that since Paul was generally writing to specific audiences to answer specific questions, the sophistication is going to be geared toward the audience rather than a reflection of the author. In other words, if Thess was a new church with few Jews in it, the theology will be simple, no matter the calendar date. But that's just me.
I just wish he'd left all those annoying verse notations out.
16 ¶ Rejoice evermore.
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
19 Quench not the Spirit.
20 Despise not prophesyings.
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
I mean, c'mon, who writes like that?
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
hey Bill--
I took a stab at the American Standard, but the "thees" and "thous" chased me off. (If I'm going to do thees and thous, I'll do KJV, bad Greek and all.) I can see how NASV would be difficult in group settings, but so far, for personal reading, I like it a lot. It's austere. I'm looking fwd to Mark.
I agree w/ yr point re "writing to specific audiences to answer specific questions," and hope to address audience issues as I proceed. Audience size is a primary popological variable.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
The first edition of NASB went with modern English except when addressing diety, where it kept the "thees and thous." I thought it a bit pretensious, same as when a modern American says "We thank thee, Lord, that thou hast mercy upon us..." in a public prayer. What? God wants us to sound like Oliver Cromwell?
The second edition dropped that in favor of straight modern English and I like it a whole lot better. I've never used ASV or most of the hundreds of other translations. On occasion I'll use Young's Literal for study or on my blog (audience again, you know) Today's English Version.
Of course, if I'm discussing with an advocate of King James Only (e.g. av1611.org) I'll take the KJV and swap out every other word for its modern English equivalent as I think best. I know it's not smart to poke a skunk, but sometimes I just can't help myself...
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
I only recently learned about the KJV-Only community. Their position makes perfect sense to me from the standpoint of sentiment and familiarity--KJV is surely one of the glories of the language--but as I understand it their arguments are doctrinal, which is out of my purview.
I do not know Young's Literal and must look into it.
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
ElB--I think God would much prefer we all sound like Kevin Smith than Ol' Crusty Crommy. But then, my God has a sense of humor. . . .
OhioJayhawk (anonymous) says…
To quote that great theologian Charlie Brown, "Arrrghhhh! This makes my head hurt."
Let's just file the whole discussion under "mythology" and leave it up to the ghosts of Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves and Sir James Frazer to figure out. Now THAT would be a seance.
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
There are vy few topics of discussion in which it is possible to go (rationally) from Oliver Cromwell to Kevin Smith to Charlie Brown.
OhioJayhawk (anonymous) says…
Lest we forget John Lennon, Thomas Aquinas, Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Dan Brown.
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
I see yr Madalyn Murray O'Hair and raise you Lee Harvey Oswald.
BadEnglishMajor (Bethany Jones) says…
This is El B - BEM is logged in on my machine and I'm too lazy to log out and re-type...
Young's Literal was translated late 18th century, so it might be tough to find a deadwood copy. However, you can get it and many other older versions at online-bible.com. Lots of downloadable notes as well, from the 1547 Geneva translators' notes to Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening" readings in Psalms. Price is right, too.
"but as I understand it their arguments are doctrinal, which is out of my purview."
Their arguments are nearly always circular, and can be (probably unfairly) distilled into:
If you don't have the perfect Bible, you have nothing.
Since the KJV has been (insert argument du jure) it is the perfect Bible."
Since other bibles are not the KJV, they are perVersions inspired by Satan, Charlie Brown, and John Elway to lead the people astray, and everyone who translates, reads, buys, sells, likes, balances a table with or on, or thinks about another version is going to be slow-roasted in the pit of hell with Old Nick himself MCing the show.
Or something like that...
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
I'll check out online-bible.
Am I correct in understanding that no major population of the faith holds the order of the books (esp the Gospels) as a matter of doctrine?
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Neither order nor dating of the books are a matter of doctrine so far as I know. Obviously Mark is presumed to have been written by Mark, etc., but as far as 'who wrote first,' that's never been an issue. Everyone has an opinion, but like "Who wrote Hebrews?" it's one of those things that will never be settled and Christians are wise enough (in this instance anyway) to refrain from fighting over it. At least in public.
Young's Literal is actually late 19th century (1898, I believe) and not 18th as I said above. It follows the Textus Receptus New Testament so the readings will resemble the KJV rather than the asv/niv Wescott-Hort tradition.
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
I've not read a side-by-side comparison of the two, so I don't have a good feeling for the differences. I've looked over the online textual criticism stuff, and manthat'sdeep. I have only the haziest understanding of the substantive differences between the text types. I really feel the lack of Greek when I'm reading that stuff; there's vy much a sense of sitting in the bleachers.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
It's probably necessary to read Greek to understand the specific differences between the text types (I don't), and there are only a handful of people in the world who are really authoritative when it comes to choosing among all the variant readings.
But to understand the process is pretty simple. All manuscripts have errors (every copy of Matthew, Mark, Livy, and Homer, etc.) from being handcopied for centuries, and those errors tend to follow predictable paths. They might be misspellings based on the sounds of words, they might be dropped phrases because two lines began with the same word and the copyist skipped to the second, it might be that a clarifying phrase was scribbled into the margin and found its way into the text. One of the jobs of the modern editor is to take all these manuscripts and try to come up with what they originally said. Tougher some ways in the case of Homer than Luke because there's less to work with...otoh if all 10 copies of Iliad have the same error, how do you know? With NT manuscripts counted in 5 digits, there are plenty of errors to look at.
The Textus Receptus (Greek underlying the KJV) is based on later manuscripts of the Byzantine school, the modern texts are based on earlier Alexandrian texts. All that said, there's not all that much difference and most differences are marked in footnotes or brackets aroond the text.
Where it drives the KJVOs crazy is because many errors tend to be of the 'clarifying' or 'glorifying' type, when those errors are unwound, they tend to drop emphasis ("Lord Jesus Christ" becomes "Jesus Christ") and those used to the high Christology of the KJV take issue with what they see as eggheads stripping away the diety and glory of Jesus.
A really good layman's guide to the various manuscript schools is White's "The King James Only Controversy," if you have interest a really good intro that doesn't require Greek.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Here's something you might find interesting: Slate's David Plotz blogs the Bible
http://www.slate.com/id/2141050/
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
I'll look into the White. It's my understanding that the TR is not, in fact, a "text,' in the sense that there's no archetype TR ms--but we're perilously close to getting into the area where I quietly submerge into the ignorami. TR is the Erasmus 3rd edition, is it not? Or a modification?
As a reader, I find xlations of the early texts mesmerizing, and as a fan of first-century archeology I fully expect that additional mss will be discovered. There are almost certainly additional buried jars we've yet to find. My popological argument, though, is (I think) independent of the specific contents of the Greek mss--what interests me is how the early faith propagated them.
My argument, if I ever refine sufficiently, is something to the effect that one of the chief elements in the wildfire success of early Christianity is that early Christians adopted a "next-generation" approach to bandwidth and media. It's a classic popological scenario: New message, new media (codices v. scrolls) etc. It seems to me that a critical pillar of the early faith was its decision to aggressively pursue new bandwidth and vy efficiently utilize existing bandwidth: What Christianity did in the first/second centuries was the equivalent of getting online before everyone else.
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
I saw the SLATE series; he's taking a much more personal approach than I. In this project I'm less interested in my personal rxn to the content of Scripture than in an examonation of what the earliest witnesses tell us was the manner in which the texts were distributed.
I don't think I have much to add to a religious or doctrinal discussion. There are some heavy hitters out there, on all sides of all the questions, who are so more learned and accomplished than me that I'd have to retreat into a monastary for a decade just to qualify for the discussion. I enjoy watching from the sidelines, but I won't hazard actually getting on the field.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Correct, there are no TR manuscripts. Erasmus compiled the TR from half a dozen late Greek ones with a back-translation of some Latin in Revelation. It's been called the worst-edited document in history (and not by enemies, either) partially because Erasmus, though wonderfully qualified for the work, a) didn't have much to work with and b) was in a terrible rush.
OTOH, TR is pretty typical of the Byzantine text type, so even if Erasmus had used more mss, there would not have been that much difference other than that "book of life" in Re 22:19 it would have read "tree of life" and the Comma Johanneum would have perhaps been left out...it was only added because someone made-to-order a Greek mss with it in there.
The TR was edited later by Beza, which I think is the edition on which the 1611 KJV is based.
Yeah, Christianity got online before everyone else, and also went into the translation business. While educated Jews adopted Greek as their language across the Empire, Christians tended to go the other way...Paul wrote in Greek but the recipients of his letters quickly translated them into many languages, making it a lot easier for the losers and left-behinds to read the scriptures in their own languages. It also makes it easier for us to find errors in the text.
Of course, 1500 years later Christianity had completely abandoned that philosophy - they forbade the translation of the scriptures into any language other than Latin - but then Protestants went into the printing press business.
Same song different verse I suppose.
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
"...but then Protestants went into the printing press business."
"While educated Jews adopted Greek as their language across the Empire, Christians tended to go the other way...Paul wrote in Greek but the recipients of his letters quickly translated them into many languages, making it a lot easier for the losers and left-behinds to read the scriptures in their own languages."
Bill, yr getting ahead of the text again! I have to stretch this over 27 books.
I'm delighted you grasp the argument. This bears on a number of recent public discussions about new mss a la Gospel of Judas: I don't dispute that heterodox mss were destroyed by the forces of orthodoxy, but I get a little testy when it's suggested that heterodox faith was a tsunami of reform dammed by sinister reactionaries. All of these texts, heterodox or orthodox, were competing in the same public arena for bandwidth and audience, and it's an inevitable consequence of such competition that there will be "winners" and "losers." The suggestion of a rigid hierarchial orthodoxy stamping out the slightest sign of dissent is belied by Marcion's church, which percolated along pretty well for 300 years.
Marcion found and sustained an audience. Most heterodox precahers and heterodox texts did not.
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says…
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/ Has the New American Bible used a lot by Catholics. In case you want to compare versus side by side.
Having been through several different versions of the Bible in my life, and not being nearly as brainy or as observant as PQ or ElB, my own personal take on the whole "Which Bible is Best" is "who cares!?" I know that the words are supposed to be "inspired", but I also know that all English versions are translations of ancient languages.
Human beings have a real tendency to read their own life viewand personal experiences into anything (words, text, events, actions). Thus, any translator is probably going to differ some on what is said or how it could best be said, just like all readers will read into text things based upon their own personality and experiences.
The challenge for me in "Breaking Open the Word" is not in getting hung up on the minutia and semantic details (the words chosen by some translator of ancient Hebrew). It's being open to the whole message and meaning contained in this marvelous book.
In other words, don't let the beauty of each tree (or blade of grass) keep you from appreciating the entire forest.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"All of these texts, heterodox or orthodox, were competing in the same public arena for bandwidth and audience..."
I kind of compare gnostics to some of their modern equivalents, like freemasons. It used to be that one had to try very, very hard to become one. Their temples were secret - though filled with leading citizens - and their adherents close-lipped. Because my scout troop was sponsored by a Scottish Rite temple, I'd been inside one on a few occasions, but learning anything about them was nearly impossible.
But then I started noticing that there were very few young freemasons. Then I started seeing '2 B 1 ask 1" bumper stickers on freemason cars. The Freemasons were starting to advertise, to recruit. Why? Because they were dying. What they were selling was not being purchased by the next generation and they are trying to adapt.
There might be a hundred reasons why, and a church that has opposed them since their founding is probably no more to blame for their demise than the invention of the Sony Playstation.
"Bill, yr getting ahead of the text again!"
OK, this is me shutting up...
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
"Human beings have a real tendency to read their own life view and personal experiences into anything (words, text, events, actions). Thus, any translator is probably going to differ some on what is said or how it could best be said, just like all readers will read into text things based upon their own personality and experiences."
Spot-on. It is my understanding that something vy much like this is responsible for the principal differences between the Alexandrian and Byzantine text-types Bill described above.
One more point on the mss before I throw up my hands and admit that we're outta my league: It is also my understanding that everything discussed above is accepted by and large by everyone. Inerrants, I think (check me on this, Bill) assert that literal "inerrancy" applies only to the autograph--the first copy--and recognize that various human errors crept into the text via copying etc.
Daniel Wallace, who I think subscribes to inerrancy, is among my favorite commentators--he's at Early Christian Writings--and he can chop Greek w/ the best of them. He dates earlier than I do (I think Wallaxce puts Mark in the 40s), but his arguments are well-reasoned and based on the texts. Good scholarship.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"my own personal take on the whole 'Which Bible is Best' is 'who cares!?'
I think the question is akin to asking, "which car is best?" A lot of folks might give you very stern and specific answers, but most are going to answer with a question, "best for what?"
The best car is that one that meets your needs, whether for space or fuel efficiency or towing capacity or just good looks. In other words, there is no best car - the opinions of the opinionated notwithstanding - because some cars are worthless to some people. Try pulling a semi trailer with a baby blue Corvette ragtop.
A KJV is worthless to a bible study full of ESL teenagers, whereas it's the only way to go when you have a troop of bluehairs who want to read Psalm 23 out loud.
Doubtless some bibles are better than others overall, just as some cars are better than others (same characteristics, only worse), and just as the number of cars available is probably overkill by any rational standard, so is the number of translations.
But hey, that's the free market. As soon as there are too many of something to be supported, some will undoubtedly disappear.
quinno (Patrick Quinn) says…
"As soon as there are too many of something to be supported, some will undoubtedly disappear."
I'm going to lobby for you to be the first MIT Professor of Popology.
We've been talking about the "marketplace of ideas" since the Enlightenment, but sometimes I get the sense no one means "marketplace" literally. In popology, we take "marketplace" literally. Not all intellectual markets are free (cf. China etc.), but even in those artificially constrained cases, the model applies. If all an audiemnce is exposed to is Marxism-Leninism, then of course Marxism-Leninism becomes normative.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"Inerrants, I think (check me on this, Bill) assert that literal 'inerrancy' applies only to the autograph--the first copy--and recognize that various human errors crept into the text via copying etc."
Yes, inerrancy (the 'scholar' version anyway - the 'popular' version is a different beast altogether) realizes that there are errors in the current text, that they occur in all texts of everything - religious and secular, Luke and Livy - and that such is one of the realities that all scholars have to deal with.
Wallace is a stud, btw. One of my favorite commentators as well.
http://www.bible.org/author.asp?autho...
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says…
I would vote for Bill for almost anything, but because he IS so smart, he won't seek nor accept any powers he does not already inherently possess. The 3 of you (Bill, PQ and Misty) all share a trait (a lovely one it is too); bright minds seeking information and details prior to being persuaded as to the accuracy or truth in any particular version of facts. Tis to be commended, and is all too rare.
However, while I hope I share a bit of this trait and am not a total dummy, I don't tend to get as hung up on what I consider to be minor details. E.g., to use the car analogy; I don't care what my rear view mirrors look like nearly as much as I care about the fact that I have them!
One recent "version of the Bible" discussion I had now makes me want to do some comparing on the different versions of the story of Job (that is with a long "o" not short). I was told that in some Bible versions God inflicts the trials upon Job, meant to test his faithfulness. However, my personal memory of the story was that God allowed Satan to do the inflicting, without interference, to show that Job remained faithful even when his life was going badly.
Once again, in my mind, getting hung up on the details can impair understanding of the main point being made: No matter the status or source of earthly blessings or tragedies, Job loved and followed God.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"I was told that in some Bible versions God inflicts the trials upon Job, meant to test his faithfulness..."
Since virtually all modern Torahs and Bibles follow the Massoretic Text, I'd be very surprised if there was such a version. I checked Jerome's Septuagint as well, and nope, Satan's the Bad Guy (tm).
So as far as I know, all mss of Job follow the Devil wandering around Heaven motif. However, since the scenes from Heaven are parenthetical and the book could just as well be read without them, any number of people have speculated that there *might* have been an original version that didn't have those scenes and that the injustice suffered by Job so vexed the Massoretes that they added them. The cool thing about speculation is there's no documentary evidence required.
Renowned bible scholar Howard Dean said something similar last year:
"Asked his favorite New Testament book, Dr. Dean named Job, adding: "But I don't like the way it ends." "Some would argue, you know, in some of the books of the New Testament, the ending of the Book of Job is different," he said. "I think, if I'm not mistaken, there's one book where there's a more optimistic ending, which we believe was tacked on later."
But as is the case in a lot of technical fields, there's a big difference between what everybody knows and what is ;)
adopted (anonymous) says…
There is a great quote...'If you believe in something; NO proof is necessary. If you don't believe in something; NO proof is sufficient.' If you are a true born again Christian the Bible (or shall I say God) will talk to you, no-matter what version you have. If you are not saved all you will see is a bunch of words that don't always make sense.... But I do guarantee you ... some day soon EVERY knee shall bow at the name of Jesus. I hope you are believers by then for your own sakes.