The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament

by Bart D. Ehrman

Book Overview

Victors not only write history: they also reproduce the texts. Bart Ehrman explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, examining how early struggles between Christian "heresy" and "orthodoxy" affected the transmission of the documents over which many of the debates were waged. He makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the social and intellectual...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199739781
• ISBN13: 9780199739783
• Release Date: July 2011
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Are the Scripture inerrant?

In earlier reviews of Ehrman's writings, I commented on his style as being light, and witty, but without sacrifice of meaning and content. It was an ideal style for a college text. This work, however, is written in echt akademisch. It's quite dense, and requires much re-reading of paragraphs and even sentences to grasp meaning. Although difficult, it is a compelling work of scholarship that has wide implications for those who cannot see scripture as anything but divinely inspired. Ehrman's thesis, simply, is that during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, scribes and copyists altered the words of their sacred texts to ensure that these reflected and emphasized orthodox (rather proto-orthodox) thinking and that they could not be used as evidence or witness by those holding differing views. He does his analysis within the context of three Christological debates of the time. Adoptionism, the view that Christ was a man but not God; docetism, the view that He was God, and not a man; and, separationism, the view that the divine Christ was distinct from the human Jesus. In a shorter chapter he also examines variants of texts that oppose patripassianist Christologies, those that held that God the Father suffered on the cross. To best explain his methodology, we might take the case of Luke 3:22, the baptism of Jesus by John. Many of the standard New Testaments essentially read, "You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased." However, the earliest versions of this pericope--versions found in the works of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, authors of the Didascalia, and later in Lactantius and Augustine--read "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." The "today" probably stuck in the craw of those scribes who found it too redolent of an adoptionist view, and the pericope was improved. But the earlier version could not be easily discarded, as it comes directly from Psalm 2, which proclaims the Kingdom of the Son of God (David), so other manuscripts which found their way into scripture (the New Jerusalem Bible of 1985 has the "today" version) were left uncut. Christianity of the 2nd and 3rd centuries was by no means monolithic. It's erroneous to think of an orthodox Church beset by heresies, although this is the picture provided by the great heresiologists. Rather there were a number of competing viewpoints, one of which was the proto-orthodox, or mainstream view that eventually dominated other arguments and in the 4th and 5th centuries, and became the prescribed orthodox dogma in both east and west. In this process of movement, "corruption" or redacting of texts to fit a prescribed view was probably commonplace. And the redacted texts and manuscripts eventually became canonical. Heavily documented with an extensive bibliography of secondary sources. Not as much fun to read as his later books, but almost awe-inspiring in its erudition. Ehrman really made his bones with this work.

Essential Reading on the New Testament

I read this book in January and was so encapsulated by it, I read it in one sitting. Ehrman's thesis is that proto-Orthodox scribes corrupted the text of the New Testament against proof-texts used by heretics. The various heresies such scribes attempted to protect their flavour of Christianity against including movements such as Modalism, where the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three modes (whence "Modalism") of the one person; Docetism (Jesus only appeared to have suffered) and adoptionalism (Jesus was not born the Son of God, but was adopted such). I cannot recommend this text enough to those interested in a study of the New Testament. There are many people, predominately fundamentalists, who labour under the (false) a priori assumption that the text of the New Testament has been relatively unchanged since the composition of the originals. This text puts the lie to this, and reveals that many of the variants are of theological importance, contra apologists to this claim (e.g., Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe). I have recommended this text to a number of people, and I strongly recommend it to those who read this review.

Is Orthodoxy the Right Opinion?

This work illuminates the intrigue behind the transmission of New Testament scripture during the early centuries of Christianity. Over five thousand extant manuscripts from the second to the sixteenth century contain probably hundreds of thousands of corruptions. Most are accidental and easily corrected by Greek scholars. However, intentional alterations serve to advance the theological agenda of one school of thought or another. Some of these corruptions emerged from the pre-Nicene Christological debate. The task of the textual critic is to ferret out the corruptions and unveil what is true to the autographs. Ehrman seeks to identify these intentional corruptions and explain them in terms of the Christological agenda of various factions. Eventually, those ideas which prevailed in the debate became codified in the creeds of the church. Ehrman calls those who held them "proto-orthodox." Proto-orthodox scribes are responsible for some of those corruptions. The average lay Christian may find it unsettling that the transmission of the New Testament has been tainted with errors which have not all been resolved even today. Nevertheless, it is important for one to know about the complexities involved in the history of its transmission and preservation. It is my favorite reference source in my personal library. I recommend it highly to all Christians who wish to have a deeper understanding of the history and intrigue behind the development of the New Testament as it is preserved for us today.

If literalness is important, be sure to change it as needed

I haven't seen the scribes' copies of the New Testament which were compared for this book. I don't read Greek anyway. So that puts me at a severe disadvantage when it comes to judging Ehrman's findings. I trust to Bible scholars to verify Ehrman's accuracy. As to his selection, it seems he has presented a great many examples of changes in the texts that seem made during early Christianty to rule out heretical interpretations. It seems he has done an incredible amount of reading and comparing of these early texts. There's a lot of scholarly details. Ehrman is sensitive to that: he recommends in the introduction that non-scholars may want to just read the beginning and conclusion of the four chapters that are very detailed. However, a lay reader could profit from reading everything. Ehrman selected four significant heresies to focus on. Each has a chapter. Each of those chapters presents textual changes that would make sense if scribes were trying to avoid the heresy covered in that chapter. There is also a introductory chapter and a concluding chapter. I was surprised how many textual changes Ehrman was able to present in each chapter. Sometimes it wasn't clear to me how the change led to text less likely to support a heretical view, but many of the changes seem quite plausible. I didn't feel that Ehrman was pushing convenient interpretations on me; it seemed that the textual changes spoke for themselves. But I did appreciate the historical background Ehrman provides. He seems to have a good understanding of the various Gnostic Christian beliefs present during early Christianity. Elaine Pagel's "The Gnostic Gospels" is a top down look at Christian Gnosticism, with a lot of her conclusions and some selected reference to details. Ehrman's book is instead a bottom up look, that presents a huge amount of details and a brief conclusion. Although it was more work for me to read Ehrman, it felt like I was participating in the process that led him to his conclusions rather than just hearing afterward of the conclusions he had arrived at. I like having so much exposed of what led an author to his/her conclusions, so I value Ehrman for his approach. Being from an age of print and electronics, I'd never considered that the New Testament texts wouldn't match the originals, but often not quite exact copies made by scribes who may have taken small, but significant, liberties with the text. Because the meanings appear to differ (even if subtly) in most if not all of the examples Ehrman provided, it makes one wonder how literal an interpretation of a modern New Testament can be, as it depended not only on passages changed in the Greek but also translated. Like translators, scribes have some power indeed.