Reddit reviews The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th Edition)

> Where is a good place to find the true history of the Bible?

I'd recommend this, it what I read as part of a class at a Christian University (I'm now agnostic fwiw), so you can be assured it won't be a liberally or atheistically biased book if you're concerned about that sort of thing. It's also a rather pleasant read!

Good luck to you.

PS: I used "speak in tongues" but I was just faking it at first, and then somehow convinced myself that it was genuine. Now, after becoming an agnostic, Its almost laughably fake.

I agree with /u/robsc_16. People are very uncomfortable with what may be perceived as a challenge to their beliefs, and our society (wrongly) sees religious belief and academic study as somehow opposed to each other.

But that view isn't wholly without reason. When you have people, say, denying evolution on the one hand, and others (such as Tyson or Hitchens) telling religious people that they're deluded and stupid, it's small wonder that everyone's a little nervous about that kind of conversation. That we can only communicate these days by yelling at each other just makes it that much worse.

Bart Ehrman's a good example. He's done a lot for the study of Christian literature, and I have the book he and Bruce Metzger wrote/updated on how the New Testament in its current form came to be. But some of the lectures he's given really seem like he has rather a chip on his shoulder about at least some Christian views, and beyond that, it's hard for all involved to separate authority from arrogance. He's also gotten some stuff wrong: for example, he said in one lecture that the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story didn't show up until like the 10th century, which is wrong (it's in one manuscript that's a good 500 years older). Maybe a quibble, but when this is your job...

I think the problem ultimately boils down to why people go into it. Folks who do it to get ammunition then use it as such, and so tend to turn off everyone else. But beyond that, I'm not really sure...maybe it's just something that's taken for granted? Like, how many Christians really stop and think about it?

If it's textual criticism you're interested in and you're just starting out, I'd recommend the following two books to wet your appetite. They both will have bibliographies to get you deeper into the study as you wish.

David C. Parker. An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts. (ISBN: 978-0521719896)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521719895/

Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Fourth Edition. (ISBN: 978-0195161229)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/019516122X/

What's especially important to note is who this guy is. Not only is he one of the best New Testament scholars, he was the protege of the best NT scholar, and worked with him on updating the standard textbook on the history of the Biblical New Testament. Now that the original author is deceased, he may well be the most knowledgeable human on the planet on the New Testament and related writings.

From one of the reviews:

> This is THE standard introduction to the science and art of biblical criticism. For decades now, required reading in many if not most Christian seminaries.

He is definitely not just some know-nothing crackpot. He was an evangelical for a number of years, understands the mindset and reasoning of the fundamentalists. If there's anyone who's likely to be able to crack fundamentalist Christianity wide open, it's Ehrman.

>I honestly have never gone to far into the source material for all this, so I can't offer much help up there if your question is regarding source material.

Thanks, but I have. ;-) If you'd like a primer, wikipedia has a decent intro for the NT, but the OT info is kind of lacking. You can click around the sidebar on the right all day and learn a lot though if you're interested.

The short version is our NT is pretty good but still has some open questions, but the OT, while probably pretty good in a few books, is horrible on many others, and we're fairly sure we often don't really know what the original source was. Of course, many scholars think there wasn't really a single original source at all, that it was compiled and redacted over the course of many years.

For the NT, this is an excellent intro to the field. There's not one standout good book for the OT that I know of, but that's partly because of the difficulties of the text and partly because I've studied the NT much more. ;-) The Septuagint (which the NT writers used)and the Masoretic text are in many of their books quite different in length and content, while being still different from the Dead Sea Scrolls which is sometimes closer to the Samaritan Pentateuch. We have few OT manuscripts, and they're all fairly modern, and we've lost touch with the originals so much that trying to pull them out from history is difficult.

If you want good bible study tools, I highly recommend Accordance if you have a Mac, or Logos if you don't. They co$t though. Blue Letter Bible is quite good for being free. If you're serious, you'll eventially want to learn at least basic biblical Greek though, as the greek tenses are different from ours and contain a lot of the useful information.

That is a complete misunderstanding of the Council of Nicea and completely ignores the 300 years of other councils and scribal history before it.


EDIT: If anyone actually wants to understand the history of the collation of ancient manuscripts into the New Testament as it was and is currently done for translation, I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X


I particularly recommend it because of Ehrman's involvement as co-author (even if I don't always agree with him) because as a strongly expressed atheist he is most interested in Historical accuracy as it applies to the transmission of the text.


People here will find a lot of answers as to how Gnostic texts are understood by historians as they relate to "mainstream" Christian development.

For a detailed look at exactly which manuscripts we have, and how they have been discussed and used overtime, see Bruce Metzger's "The Text of the New Testament": http://amzn.com/019516122X

The Bible.

> Therefore, I want to learn about the Bible; not what it says but rather how it was written, received (and translated), preserved, and most importantly: how we can be sure we know these things (how studying the Bible works).

Then you want to read this. There is a bibliography if you're interested in delving deeper into the textual criticism arena.

Also, these IVP dictionaries are a go-to for any reference topic you are curios about. You can get on Amazon for cheaper, FYI, but that link lists all the books in the series. There is a bibliography after each article for further study if needed.

The standard works are these:

Aland: http://www.amazon.com/The-Text-New-Testament-Introduction/dp/0802840981

Metzger: http://www.amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416273935&sr=1-1&keywords=metzger+text+of+the+new+testament

Greenlee: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-New-Testament-Textual-Criticism/dp/0801046440/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416274042&sr=1-1&keywords=greenlee+introduction

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I should say, agenda shouldn't really be too much of a problem. Textual critics share broad agreement. Opposite sides like Wallace and Ehrman will actually agree for the most part. The disagreement will be more in the framing or the language (and in a handful of texts), but the facts are mostly agreed upon.

That's a nice theory, but it has no basis on fact, no evidence for it, and the oldest manuscripts do not contain any indication of any of those heresies.

In reality, the range of locations for the oldest manuscripts varies widely, while the range of locations for the older manuscripts centers in the Catholic church. Again - the only reason you might affirm Textus Receptus is if you are Catholic.

If you'd really like to dig in, the best book I've found on the subject of manuscripts is Bruce Metzger's The Text of the New Testament.

If you read the original intro for the KJV translation it gives one of the best defenses of using the best and oldest sources for material.

Lastly, there are no differences in primary or secondary doctrine between the TR and the Critical Texts (NA28 or UBS). The ESV and NASB still agree with the KJV about practically all doctrine.

Just looked it up:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019516122X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Unfortunately we recently moved and all my books are in storage, so I can't get the page reference.

You should try to be more condescending in your replies. It really helps make your point.

This author seems to think Greek was the original language

[And another one] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Text-New-Testament-Introduction/dp/0802840981)

>"For seminary students, the goal of studying Greek grammar is the accurate exegesis of biblical texts."

Why would accurate exegesis of biblical texts be related to studying greek if the majority view held that aramaic was the original language?

>"The only complete English translation of the Peshitta is by G. Lamsa. This is unfortunately not always very accurate, and his claims that the Peshitta Gospels represent the Aramaic original underlying the Greek Gospels are entirely without foundation; such views, which are not infrequently found in more popular literature, are rejected by all serious scholars.

Brock, Sebastian P, The Bible in the Syriac tradition

>Indeed, the Greek Matthew throughout bears the impress of being not a translation at all, but as having been originally written in Greek

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

>Mark employs the common coloquial Greek of the day, understood everywhere throughout the Greek-Roman world.

Same Source for Mark

>that many Aramaic idioms are preserved in the Greek

Of course they are. That's the language that Jesus and everyone around him spoke. If there are actual quotes of Jesus in the gospels, they are in Aramaic and translated to Greek. But that doesn't mean the Gospels were originally written in Aramaic any more than bits of text in elvish in the Lord of the Rings proves that the original text of Lord of the Rings is elvish.

I could write a story right now about experiences I've had in Mexico. I could include quotes by people that spoke to me in Spanish. But I would be composing the story in English and that would be evident to someone who had a copy of my story in English and a Spanish translation and spoke both languages. The New Testament is written in Greek about people who spoke Aramaic.

>Adolf Deissmann(who would actually argue many of the instances are more international phrases than isolated hebrew-isms).

So one of the sources you cite disagrees with you?

Speaking of sources, you haven't cited any scholarly works that actually support your crazy idea, much less that it's the slightly majority view.

It's a problem common to all written works, even modern ones (e.g. Shakespeare), and is not a matter of divine revelation or natural law, so the field of textual criticism is not within the Church's competence. The art/science of textual reconstruction is based primarily on common sense; the best description of how it's done is in Metzger, cf. www.amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X/. Next is the Catholic Encyclopedia article http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04497a.htm.

Read Brojangles' reply, which is more accurate than mine. In this case, the KJV does have the line, but it's translated differently. There are many cases where the KJV includes or excludes lines that appear in modern translations, but this isn't one of those cases.

But to answer your question, this is the book you want.

Ehrman is one of the leading textual critics alive today. If one wants to seriously study the Bible from an academic standpoint, I don't think he can be entirely avoided. (Crossan on the other hand can be disregarded entirely). He took over updating The Text of the New Testament after Bruce Metzger died and I think that's where you have to start to study textual criticism.

I think there's good stuff in his popular work too, you just have to be careful. The scholarship is sound, but when he also goes beyond just the evidence and makes interpretive judgements that theists will generally disagree with. In addition to Blomberg's book, here is a useful review of Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus by Daniel Walace in JETS.

I believe he started his BA at Moody and then transferred to Wheaton. His encounters with textual criticism moved him from Fundamentalism to Liberal Christianity, but it was issues of theodicy that led to him abandoning the faith entirely.

>I will say though, he does believe that Jesus was a historical person. I heard an interview with him and some juvenal atheists and he took them to task for flippantly claiming that Jesus never existed. So he's at least good for that!

That interview is my standard go-to when I encounter Jesus mythicism nonsense online. Here's the quote:

>There is so much evidence . . . . . this is not even an issue for scholars of antiquity. There is no scholar in any college or university in the western world who teaches classics, ancient history, new testament, early christianity, any related field who doubts that Jesus existed.

I then usually point out that Jesus mythicism is the historical equivalent of the anti-vaccine movement or flat earthers. Popular among internet blowhards but rejected by all serious scholars, regardless of religious belief/disbelief.

(Tagging /u/ChristianRemington since he may be interested in the interview).

The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration is a good read on this issue. In general I don't think Ehrman is a great historian, but this book is pretty good. it is not only informational, it is a fun read.
https://www.amazon.com/Text-New-Testament-Transmission-Restoration/dp/019516122X

Bruce Metzger worked with Erhman on this book but if Erhman makes you suspicious, then Metzger has one on his own on the Canon of the NT, but both of those are about the NT only, not about the results.

Philip Jenkins' Jesus Wars is also eminently readable, but you might want to check the ToC to see if the subject matter is what you're looking for.

>If you want me to take the evidence seriously, this is the only way.

Baloney, it isn't the only way to take evidence - one simply critically exams the evidence - that the way to accept or reject evidence. But let's play your game.

Bruce Metzger was probably the most renowned NT textual critic in the last 100 year.

While the UBS5 or NA28 gives the conclusions of the textual committee that decided on the precise reading for each passage of the Greek New Testament, Metzger's A Textual Commentary of the NT gives the reasoning for each of these variant passages.

Here is Metzger's conclusion:

By comparison with the New Testament, most other books from the ancient world are not nearly so well authenticated. The well-known New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger estimated that the Mahabharata of Hinduism is copied with only about 90 percent accuracy and Homer's Iliad with about 95 percent. By comparison, he estimated the New Testament is about 99.5 percent accurate. So the New Testament text can be reconstructed with over 99 percent accuracy. And, what is more, 100 percent of the message of the New Testament has been preserved in its manuscripts! [B. M. Metzger, "Recent Trends In The Textual Criticism Of The Iliad And The Mahabharata", Chapters In The History Of New Testament Textual Criticism, 1963, E. J. Brill: Leiden, pp. 142-154.]

Now of course you will reject Metzger since he is a Christian. But curiously Metzger also wrote The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration with famed athiest/agnostic and Biblical critic Bart Erhman.

Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.

Here is what Erhman said in a footnote in his book Misquoting Jesus: Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. 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.

So now we have, in addition to a Christian expert that says the Biblical text is 99.5% accurate we have an atheist/agnostic expert who agrees.

Note: to review the many errors in Erhman's book Misquoting Jesus see here

>I don't, but the possibility is there due to their organizational ties. You don't think it's in their best interest to skew evidence to further their narrative?

Can we level this same criticism at you? That you will "skew evidence to further their narrative"?

How does one even have a conversation if one assume s that their interlocutor is so biased that it interferes with their rationality?

It seems the best we can do is assume that we are all being as unbiased as we can and the critically examine the evidence and arguments.

Here's what I read in my grad school class. This is probably the best place to start IMO. Link.