Have you ever read a commentary on a passage in the New
Testament that involves a textual variant, and you say, “Hmm; let’s see what
this other commentator says,” and the other commentator says almost the exact
same thing? It’s as if one of them borrowed
the other writer’s words, or as if they are slightly rephrasing what was
written by an earlier author.
For example, consider what Bart Ehrman wrote in Misquoting
Jesus (also published as Whose Word Is It?) on page 48, where
the author is illustrating scriptio continua – but can’t spell the
jargon – and uses the example, “lastnightatdinnerisawabundanceonthetable”
– and you think, “That sounds a lot like what J. Harold Greenlee wrote on page
62 of Scribes, Scrolls, and Scripture. What an amazing coincidence!
Or consider what Bruce Metzger wrote on page 47 of his
influential handbook The Text of the New Testament, referring to a
phenomenon observed in Codex Vaticanus: “Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing
has been spoiled by a later corrector, who traced over every letter afresh,
omitting only those letters and words which he believed to be incorrect.” Years ago, Steven Avery, a KJV-Onlyist,
pointed out in an online forum that one might conclude that Metzger had read page
203 of Frederic Kenyon’s much earlier work, Our Bible and the Ancient
Manuscripts, and recollected its contents:
“Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing has been spoilt by a
later corrector, who, thinking perhaps that the original ink was becoming
faint, traced over every letter afresh, omitting only those letters and words
which he believed to be incorrect.”
And one could also compare Metzger & Ehrman’s
The
Text of the New Testament, in the 2005 edition, and notice that their
description of minuscule 33 is rather similar to the description given by
Kirsopp Lake, a prominent scholar
of the previous generation, in
his book called
The Text of the New
Testament. And one could notice that
in both books, minuscule 1739 is “of extreme importance,” and in both books, minuscule
565 is “one of the most beautiful of all known manuscripts,” and in both books,
579’s text is “extremely good,” and other remarkable similarities.
On page 378 of When Critics Ask, Dr. Geisler addresses a question about
Mark 16:9-20. He begins with a statement
about the 1984 edition of the NIV, which is no longer true since this feature
in the NIV was altered in the 2011 revision.
Then he makes several claims:
(1) “These verses are lacking in many of the oldest and most
reliable Greek manuscripts, as well as in important Old Latin, Syriac,
Armenian, and Ethiopic manuscripts.”
This is typical of many commentaries which are echoing Bruce
Metzger, who wrote that the ancient manuscripts
Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus, and
one Old Latin manuscript (Codex Bobbiensis), one Syriac manuscript (the
Sinaitic Syriac), many Armenian manuscripts, two Georgian manuscripts, “and a
number of manuscripts of the Ethiopic version” do not contain Mark 16:9-20. Geisler has merely blurred the data that he
got from Metzger – and in the process he turned two manuscripts into “many,” as
well as obscuring the important detail that he is referring to minute
minorities of Latin and Syriac manuscripts.
Geisler also has failed to update his description of
Ethiopic evidence. In 1980, Metzger released
the article
The
Gospel of St. Mark in Ethiopic Manuscripts, in New
Testament Tools & Studies, Volume X of
New Testament Studies –
Philological, Versional, and Patristic.
In that article, Metzger retracted his earlier claim and concluded that
all existing Ethiopic manuscripts of Mark 16 include verses 9-20. Metzger mentioned this material in a footnote
in his
Textual Commentary. Unfortunately
Geisler never got that information, and no one has told him, so he is still
teaching his readers a false claim about the Ethiopic manuscripts.
This sort of mistake can be observed in a tall stack of commentaries
which are nothing but echoes of Metzger where text-critical subjects are concerned. The authors did not want to plagiarize, so
they took all kinds of liberties in their descriptions of the evidence. The resultant mess is not quite as misleading
as those times when Bart Ehrman claimed that the story of the adulteress (John
7:53-8:11) originated in the Middle Ages, but it’s still pretty bad.
(2) “Many of the ancient church fathers reveal no knowledge
of these verses, including Clement, Origen, and Eusebius. Jerome admitted that almost all Greek copies
do not have it.”
Once again, Geisler is performing reverse ventriloquism. The first edition of Metzger’s influential handbook The Text of the New Testament was the basis for those
two sentences. Metzger wrote: “Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius
show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; other Church Fathers state
that the section is absent from Greek copies known to them (e.g., Jerome, Epist.
cxx. 3, ad Hedibiam, “almost all the Greek copies do not have this
concluding portion”).
Unfortunately Geisler is uninformed about the corrections
that Metzger made in later editions.
After erroneously stating that Eusebius shows no awareness of Mark
16:9-20, Metzger realized his mistake and quietly adjusted the sentence in the
later editions of his book, removing the name “Eusebius.” Yet the
Defending Inerrancy website promoted
by Geisler (and others) is still spreading an error about Mark 16:9-20 and
Eusebius, even though
the Greek text of Eusebius’ composition Ad Marinum, in which Eusebius uses Mark 16:9 several times, is now available with an English translation.
(3) “Many manuscripts that do have this section place a mark
by it indicating it is a spurious addition to the text.”
This claim is based on Metzger’s statement that “In other
witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional sigla used
by scribes to indicate a spurious addition to a literary document.” But has anyone ever tried to list those “many
manuscripts” that allegedly have special marks by Mark 16:9-20 to signify that
the passage is spurious? More on that in
a minute.
I have researched the ending of Mark in detail, and my
position is that these twelve verses were in the text when the Gospel of Mark
first began to be copied and circulated for church-use. Most of what Metzger wrote about this passage
is remarkably vague and selective. His
comments need significant clarification and supplementation, and when that is
provided, the text-critical contest looks very different.
But my purpose today is not to show that Mark 16:9-20 is
genuine Scripture;
I’ve already written about that. My point is that when text-critical subjects
such as Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are involved, most commentators are basically
parrots, not independent researchers. I
am sad to say that this is especially true of
evangelical
commentators. The failure of their
fellow scholars to correct the inaccurate text-critical claims in commentaries
and in books written by apologists is evidence that either their peers do not
care about the subject, or else are themselves equally oblivious to the facts
of the case.
When commentators perpetuate another author’s mistakes like
this, it is almost impossible to undo the damage. Metzger’s false claim that some Ethiopic
manuscripts end the text of Mark at verse 8 is
still being spread not
only by Norman Geisler but also
by Matt Slick at the CARM website, and
by James White at the Alpha & Omega Ministries website. And in the fourth (2005) edition of Metzger’s
handbook,
The Text of the New Testament, co-edited by Bart Ehrman, even
though on page 120 it mentions that Metzger showed that all known Ethiopic
manuscripts of Mark 16 support verses 9 through 20, on page 322 of the very
same book, there’s the claim that “a number of manuscripts of the Ethiopic
version” omit verses 9-20!
Commentators such as Larry Richards, who claims that “many
ancient Greek manuscripts” end Mark’s Gospel at 16:8, could not name any of
them except for Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and minuscule 304 – because there aren’t
any more than those three.
Writers such as
N. T. Wright and
Craig Evans, who claim that
“a good many of the manuscripts” or “Many of the older manuscripts” have
asterisks alongside Mark 16:9-20 to indicate that the passage is doubtful,
could not name those manuscripts if their lives depended on it – because
there
aren’t any. (
Dan Wallace attempted to list them and that was an epic fail. Two small groups of manuscripts have special notes accompanying the
passage, but the closest that any Greek manuscript comes to simply having an asterisk
is minuscule 138, which has an asterisk in the margin, but that manuscript has
the usual catena-comment on the passage, and the
asterisk is just a proxy for a
Eusebian section-number.)
And
writers such as
Ben Witherington III mislead their readers with false claims about Eusebius and Jerome – because the writers did not consult the
patristic writings directly, and instead just digested what Metzger wrote,
and regurgitated it, all mixed up, into their readers’ laps.
But
these commentators were not liars. They were sloppy, lazy parrots who depended on
obsolete resources. Evangelical
commentators and apologists have a text-critical parrot problem. Let the reader beware.
James, thank you for your research and commentary on this problem. We would not be aware of such unless you pointed it out.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think that a few decades ago some people (you might know who I mean) were heavily criticized in their dissertation research project for pointing out that Metzger and others simply were (define it as you will) "copying very closely" the wording of others without giving proper attribution to their sources....
ReplyDeleteWere this only to have occured at the present day, would Metzger also be among those whose books now would be withdrawn from circulation by major publishing houses? One can but wonder....
Great Article! It's surprising that such learned and respected men can propagate such obvious error. I did a presentation a while back about the NT Canon, and was almost shocked with how many people thought the 1st council of Nicaea created the canon, even among the more studied people in our church!
ReplyDeleteEither way, this reminds me of a quote from Wilbur Pickering's "Identity of the New Teatament text IV":
In his advice [the pope] to translators about how to proceed at the end of verse 8, A. Pope suggests putting the following:
[Some manuscripts end at this point]
[In some manuscripts the following words are found] SHORTER ENDING
[In some manuscripts the following words are found after verse 8]
LONGER ENDING
What interests me here is the lack of semantic precision in the use of the word “some”. The first time it means “three”. The second time it means “six”. The third time it means “about 1,700”!
You've got enough material for a book.
ReplyDeleteI have not read enough to know what I think about this topic, but it seems to me adding the information 3, vs 6, vs 1,700 manuscripts is not that much more helpful Whether you use numbers, or the word "some", there is no ability for the reader to make a judgement regarding each of the options. In fact printing the numbers may even be deceptive, as it may lead the reader to believe that total number of copies is of primary importance in evaluating the endings.
ReplyDeleteWhile we are on the topic of Mark endings, it seems like ya'll have widely read on this, what did you think of how this book deals with the endings?
http://fortresspress.com/product/dual-reception-eusebius-and-gospel-mark