hello , and in this episode i want to share with you , introduce to you an academic text called the
orthodox corruption of scripture the effect of early christological controversies on the text
of the new testament . this is by the textual critic Bart Ehrmann a professor in the united states
and this is really a book written by a scholar for scholars although we can read it for ourselves
and enjoy it and learn from it . and i want to read a little bit from it just explain why he has
written the book and give an example of the kind of corruption of scripture the new testament that
he has uncovered . so in the beginning of chapter one he writes christianity in the second and third
centuries was in a remarkable state of flux to be sure at no point in its history has the religion
constituted a monolith but nowhere is this scene more clearly than in the realm of theology
in the second and third centuries there were of course christians who believed in only one
god others however claimed that there were two gods yet others subscribed to 30 or 365 or more
some christians accepted the hebrew scriptures as a revelation of the one true god the sacred
possession of all believers others claim that the scriptures have been inspired by an evil deity
some christians believe that god had created the world and was soon going to redeem it
others said that god neither had created the world nor had he ever had any dealings with it
some christians believed that christ was somehow both a man and god others said that he was a man
but not god . others claimed that he was god but not a man . others insisted that he was a man who
had been temporarily inhabited by god . some christians believe that christ's death had
brought about the salvation of the world . others claimed that his death had no bearing on salvation
yet others alleged that he had never even died few of these variant theologies went
uncontested and the controversies that ensued impacted the surviving literature on virtually
every level the one level i will be concerned with in the present study involves the manuscripts
of the evolving christian scriptures what would eventually be called the new testament .
the new testament manuscripts were not produced impersonally by machines
capable of flawless reproduction , they were copied by hand by living breathing
human beings who were deeply rooted in the conditions and controversies of their day .
did the scribes polemical context influence the way they transcribed their sacred scriptures ?
the burden of the present study is that they did that theological disputes specifically
disputes over christology prompted christian scribes to alter the words of scripture
in order to make them more serviceable for the polemical task scribes modified their manuscripts
to make them more patently orthodox and less susceptible to abuse by opponents of orthodoxy
so this just introduces by ermine's theme here that there was a close relationship between
the social history of early christianity with all its controversies and debates and conflicts
and the textual tradition of the emerging new testament and he examines how these
struggles between so-called heretics and the orthodox affected the transmission
of these documents now bart ehrman himself is considered the pioneer in connecting the history
of the early church to the textual variants within the biblical manuscripts that we can
still hear and he invented the term proto-orthodox christianity so i do
recommend this book if you want a detailed survey of all the the ways the text has been
corrupted and changed to suit a particular gender or other i just want to give one example
you may know this , you may not , but in the king james version and it's found in the modern
new king james version in 1 timothy 3 16. this verse by the way are often seen at speaker's
corner it's a favorite of christian missionaries who parade around the park and it goes like this
great is the mystery of godliness god was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen by
angels preached among the gentiles believed on in the world received up in glory the key point there
is of course is god was manifest in the flesh 1 timothy 3 16. now the problem with that is
is that it's according to by ehrman this is just one example of many of textual corruptions
of the manuscripts . and he offers his view on page 78 that the reading
theos, theos is a greek word for god in that passage cannot be original is shown both by
the character of the manuscript attestation the earliest and superior manuscripts all support a
different reading and by the fact that ancient creedal fragments typically began precisely in
this way that is with a relative pronoun it didn't begin with the word god , it began with the pronoun
the change must have been made fairly early at least during the third century given its
widespread attestation from the fourth century on it can therefore best be explained as an
anti-adoptionistic corruption that stresses the deity of christ . now there's a detailed examination
of the grammar here to explain what he means by that , by anti-adoptionistic he obviously means
the very early christian view that christ wasn't god in the flesh that he wasn't the eternal
divine being that god adopted him say at his baptism we see that in mark's gospel and this
is a corruption in the timothy text that is an anti-adoptionist corruption so it's intending to
ensure that the correct orthodox view is found in the tradition in the textual tradition
so there are six chapters to this book there we go that if you can see that
he has a chapter on a whole chapter devoted to anti-adoptionistic corruptions
of scripture this is where later scribes have done their best to change the text to make sure
that any reference to jesus becoming the son of god say at his baptism or his resurrection
or at any other time at his birth or conception as we see in matthew and luke is is changed in
the manuscripts to remove that problem you have anti-docetic corruptions of scripture
so where there appear to be pun there where there appear to be statements
where jesus is god and not human docetic means to appear that's the joke
then there are antidocitic corruptions to make sure that any dodgy passage
brings it more into line with orthodoxy . they're anti-patriot passionist corruptions of scripture
and anti-separationist corruptions but these are all kind of heresies that
one side or another wanted to either promote or to read the bible of . so this is a
superb text , it has on the back totally glowing reviews from the academic journals
an excellent work of scholarship a detailed and carefully documented study
these are from if you know the the journals and the academics you can see that
so i just wanted to share with you that over the generations and the centuries there was a
huge amount of corruption of the text and scholars today can detect a lot of it and have
tempted to amend that so good modern translations of the bible for example the nrsv in this passage
have translate that verse without any doubt the mystery of our religion is great
he was revealed in the flesh vindicated in spirit seen by angels it does not say god because the
compilers of this translation are academic and they're objective and they want to get
at the original meaning as far as they can however the new king james version
and a few other fundamentalist translations still hang on to the corrupted meaning because
it promotes and services their fundamentalist christianity and a lot of people don't realize
that these are corrupted texts that the missionaries are trying to promote particularly
to muslims and i see it all all the time and it it is pointless i have tried this it is pointless
trying to challenge this and say : look do you realize the original the earliest manuscripts the
best manuscripts don't have this they don't want to hear they don't want to hear they don't hear
that's what we're dealing with we're dealing with fanatics
who value their religion more than they do the truth and the facts of the case . so that's
it really just wanted to share as i will from time to time , i will share books that i think are
worth you having a look at there are plenty more where this comes from . until next time