Cold-Case Christianity
Page 26
A comparison of the Qumran manuscripts of Isaiah “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text.”179 Some of the 5 percent differences were simply a matter of spelling (like you might experience when using the word favor instead of favour). Some were grammatical differences (like the presence of the word and to connect two ideas or objects within a sentence). Finally, some were the addition of a word for the sake of clarity (like the addition of the Hebrew word for “light” to the end of 53:11, following “they shall see”). None of these grammatical variations changed the meaning of the text in any way.
What was it that compelled the ancient scribes to treat these documents with such precision and meticulous care? It was clearly their belief that the documents themselves were sacred and given to them by God. When Paul and Peter identified the New Testament documents (such as the gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul) as Scripture, they ensured that the documents would be honored and cared for in a manner befitting the Masoretic tradition. The first-century Christian scribes didn’t have access to photocopiers, microfiche, or digital imaging like modern police-department records divisions do, but they understood the importance of divine record keeping, and they used the first-century equivalent in technology (the meticulous tradition of their predecessors) to carefully guarantee the accuracy of the texts.
CONSISTENT AND WELL PRESERVED
Given the evidence from the chain of custody and what we know about the diligence of the first-century copyists, what is the most reasonable inference we can draw about the accuracy of the Gospels? Unlike Jassen’s statement in my cold-case investigation, the message of the apostles appears unchanged over the span of time; it is the same in the first and twenty-first centuries. Like the notes from the first detective, the details of the first-century account appear to have been adequately preserved. The Jewish records division was capable and efficient; it copied and guarded the eyewitness accounts over time.
SO, WHY DO SOME CONTINUE TO DENY IT?
Some are still skeptical of the accuracy of the Gospels, in spite of the strong circumstantial evidence that supports such a conclusion. Let’s see if a little abductive reasoning can help us determine if any of the objections of critics are reasonable when they describe the Scriptures as “fictitious.”
IGNATIUS, POLYCARP, AND CLEMENT DIDN’T QUOTE SCRIPTURE PRECISELY
Some have argued that the writings of the first-century students of the apostles either cannot be authenticated or fail to precisely quote the Gospels in a way that would vouch for their accuracy. These critics claim that the letters attributed to Ignatius, for example, are not truly from this student of John. Many have also argued that those passages where these second-generation students appear to be quoting from a gospel (such as their references to the Sermon on the Mount) are not precise word-for-word quotes; they argue that the students were only alluding to vague and unreliable early oral accounts that hadn’t yet been inked on papyrus and were corrupted long before they were ever finalized.
BUT …
While there has been controversy related to some of Ignatius’s letters, there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the seven letters we’ve isolated in our chain of custody. Yes, there are additional letters that appear late in history and are falsely attributed to Ignatius, but the seven letters we’ve referenced are listed in the earliest records of Ignatius’s work, and they are corroborated by Polycarp’s letter (which refers to Ignatius).
It is true that Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement often referenced passages of Scripture in a way that captured the meaning of the passage without quoting the specific verse word for word. But this was not uncommon of authors at this time in history. Paul also paraphrased Scripture (the Old Testament) on occasion (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:9, where Paul is likely paraphrasing both Isa. 64:4 and Isa. 65:17). Polycarp’s and Clement’s use of paraphrase is not evidence that the New Testament documents didn’t exist at the time these second-generation authors wrote their letters any more than Paul’s use of a paraphrase is evidence that the Old Testament did not exist when he wrote his letters.
Most importantly, the Jesus described by these letters is identical to the Jesus described by the apostolic eyewitness, even if the students of the apostles paraphrased or used their own words to describe Him.
THERE ARE MANY COPYIST INSERTIONS THAT ARE OBVIOUS CORRUPTIONS
Skeptics have also challenged some of the late insertions we talked about in chapter 6. It does appear that some copyists intentionally corrupted the manuscripts they were duplicating either to fill in a detail or to make some theological point that was missing in the original text. If this is the case, how can we trust that anything we have is reliable or accurate? If some parts of the text have been corrupted, none of the text can be trusted.
BUT …
The fact that these corruptions are obvious should alert us to something. Why are the corruptions and late additions we mentioned in chapter 6 so evident? They stand out to us because we have hundreds of ancient copies of the Gospels to compare to one another. There are no better-attested ancient documents than the New Testament Gospels. By way of comparison, the Greek researcher and historian Herodotus wrote The Histories in the fifth century BC. We trust that we have an accurate copy of this text even though we posses only eight ancient copies. By contrast, we possess thousands of ancient copies of the New Testament documents. These copies come to us from all over the ancient world surrounding the Mediterranean. When compared to one another, the diverse manuscripts, coming from a number of different Christian groups located in a number of different regions, reveal the variations immediately. The textual deviations are obvious because we have a rich treasure trove of manuscripts to examine and compare. With this many copies at our disposal, we can easily identify and eliminate the variations. As a result, we can remove the late additions and reconstruct the original with a high degree of confidence.
Let me give you an example of how this process of comparison works. Imagine that you are my patrol partner one afternoon as we are working beat 514C. We get a call from dispatch on our MDT (the mobile computer in our police unit) that summons us to a robbery taking place at a local mini-mart. The dispatch operator sends us the call but accidentally types the wrong street name and misspells the weapon. We recognize that there is no street by this name in our city, but we know that a very similar street (with the same hundred block) does exist in our beat. As we head in that direction, we notify dispatch and receive a new communiqué with the corrected street name. In this second dispatch, however, the operator makes an additional error and misspells the word Markey. We again notify the dispatcher and receive yet another message, but once again, there is a misspelling. The dispatcher makes two more repeated efforts to correct the misspelling but, in the pressure of the moment (remember a robbery is occurring), is never quite able to do it without some form of error:
Now let me ask you a question: With the robbery in progress and time of the essence, should we stop at the curb and wait for dispatch to type the call correctly, or do we have enough information, given the growing number of duplicated lines the dispatcher is sending, to proceed to the call? The more the dispatcher repeats the call, even with a number of typos and errors, the more confidence we have that we know what kind of call we are handling and where the crime is occurring. The more copies we possess, the more we can compare them to determine the dispatcher’s original meaning, and the more confidence we can have in our conclusion.
Something very similar to this occurs when we examine the ancient biblical manuscripts. Yes, we can see the errors and late additions, but that’s the beauty of our large manuscript collection: it allows us to remove the inaccuracies with confidence.
THERE ARE MANY BIBLICAL NARRATIVES THAT DIFFER FROM ONE ANOTHER
Skeptics have also observed the different way in which the gospel writers described the same even
ts and have argued that these variations constitute contradictions that simply cannot be reconciled. These irreconcilable differences, according to the skeptics, invalidate the accuracy of the biblical account.
BUT …
We’ve already discussed the nature of eyewitness accounts in chapter 4, and we now know that we should expect variations among true eyewitness accounts. These expected variations are not a problem for those of us who are working as detectives, so long as we can understand the perspective, interests, and locations from which each witness observed the event. It’s our duty, as responsible investigators, to understand how eyewitness statements can be harmonized so we can get the most robust view of the event possible.
THE MOST REASONABLE CONCLUSION
Let’s return once again to the process we know as abductive reasoning to determine which explanation related to gospel accuracy is the most reasonable. Once again we’ll list all the evidence that we’ve looked at in this chapter, including the evidence cited by the skeptics. Alongside these facts, we’ll consider the two possible explanations that can account for what we have seen so far.
Given the record of the second-generation disciples of John, Peter, and Paul, we can have confidence that the essential teachings of the Gospels have remained unchanged for over two thousand years. The first explanation, that the Gospels and other New Testament documents were written early and taught to the students of the apostles, is the most reasonable conclusion, and this explanation is also consistent with the evidence for early dating we examined in chapter 11. The evidence from the chain of custody and the nature of the copyists support the first explanation, and this explanation offers reasonable responses to the challenges offered by skeptics. The second explanation, on the other hand, fails to adequately account for the evidence offered by Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement. The first explanation is feasible, straightforward, and logical. It exhausts all the evidence we have assembled, and it is superior to the alternative explanation. It is, once again, the most reasonable explanation.
THE GOSPELS PASS THE THIRD TEST
We’ve now evaluated the nature of the gospel eyewitness accounts in three of the four areas in which we evaluate witnesses in criminal trials. The most reasonable inference from the evidence indicates that the gospel writers were present and corroborated. By studying the chain of custody and the manner in which these records have been preserved over time, we can now draw the reasonable conclusion that they are also accurate. Are we ready to say that they are reliable? Almost. There is still one final area we need to examine.
CASE NOTES
76. Penn Jillette and Raymond Joseph Teller, Penn and Teller: Bullshit!, Season 2, Episode 11, Showtime Network (2005).
77. Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005), 35.
78. “Date,” Codex Sinaiticus, accessed April 12, 2012, http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/date.aspx.
79. For more information about Ignatius, refer to Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (London: Penguin, 1968). Kindle edition.
80. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians (OrthodoxEbooks), Google eBook, 126.
81. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians (OrthodoxEbooks), Google eBook, 114.
82. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans (OrthodoxEbooks), Google eBook, 154.
83. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 114.
84. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 114.
85. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 124.
86. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 114.
87. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 114.
88. Ignatius of Antioch, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” A Collection of Gospels, Epistles, and Other Pieces Extant from the Early Christian Centuries but Not Included in the Commonly Received Canon of Scripture (Glasgow: Thomson, 1884), 85.
89. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 100.
90. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 123.
91. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 105.
92. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, 154.
93. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 113.
94. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 107.
95. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 112.
96. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians (OrthodoxEbooks), Google eBook, 166.
97. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 98.
98. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 128.
99. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
100. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 116.
101. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
102. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
103. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
104. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
105. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
106. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
107. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 124.
108. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 129.
109. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 116.
110. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 85.
111. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 124.
112. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 124.
113. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 125.
114. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 125.
115. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, 167.
116. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, 154.
117. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 125.
118. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, 167.
119. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 99.
120. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 114.
121. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 97.
122. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 108.
123. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 98.
124. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians (OrthodoxEbooks), Google eBook, 139.
125. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 116.
126. Ignatius, “Epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp,” quoted in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers—Justin Martyr—Irenaeus (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885), 95.
127. Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans,” 86.
128. For more information about Polycarp, refer to Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (London: Penguin, 1968), Kindle edition.
129. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” The Epistle to the Philippians, ed
. J. J. S. Perowne (Cambridge University Press, 1895), 26.
130. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
131. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
132. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 26.
133. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
134. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 27.