Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

by Bart D. Ehrman

  It is easy to see Luke's own distinctive view by considering what he has to say in the book of Acts, where the apostles give a number of speeches in order to convert others to the faith. In none of these speeches, though, do the apostles indicate that Jesus's death brings atonement for sins (e.g., in chapters 3, 4, 13). It is not that Jesus's death is unimportant. It is extremely important for Luke—but not as an atonement. Instead, Jesus's death is what makes people realize their guilt before God (since he died even though he was innocent). Once people recognize their guilt, they turn to God in repentance, and then he forgives their sins.

  Jesus's death for Luke, in other words, drives people to repentance, and it is this repentance that brings salvation. But not according to these disputed verses that are missing from some of our early witnesses: here Jesus's death is portrayed as an atonement "for you."

  Originally the verses appear not to have been part of Luke's Gospel. Why, then, were they added? In a later dispute with Marcion, Tertullian emphasized:

  Jesus declared plainly enough what he meant by the bread, when he called the bread his own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed in his blood, affirms the reality of his body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. Thus from the evidence of the flesh we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood. (Against Marcion 4, 40)

  It appears that the verses were added to stress Jesus's real body and flesh, which he really sacrificed for the sake of others. This may not have been Luke's own emphasis, but it certainly was the emphasis of the proto-orthodox scribes who altered their text of Luke in order to counter docetic Christologies such as that of Marcion.9

  Another verse that appears to have been added to Luke's Gospel by proto-orthodox scribes is Luke 24:12, which occurs just after Jesus has been raised from the dead. Some of Jesus's women followers go to the tomb, find that he is not there, and are told that he has been raised. They go back to tell the disciples, who refuse to believe them because it strikes them as a "silly tale." Then, in many manuscripts, occurs the account of 24:12: "But Peter, rising up, ran to the tomb, and stooping down he saw the linen cloths alone, and he returned home marveling at what had happened."

  There are excellent reasons for thinking that this verse was not originally part of Luke's Gospel. It contains a large number of stylistic features found nowhere else in Luke, including most of the key words of the text, for example, "stooping down" and "linen cloths" (a different word was used for Jesus's burial cloths earlier in the account). Moreover, it is hard to see why someone would want to remove this verse, if it actually formed part of the Gospel (again, there is no homoeoteleuton, etc., to account for an accidental omission). As many readers have noted, the verse sounds very much like a summary of an account in the Gospel of John (20:3-10), where Peter and the "beloved disciple" race to the tomb and find it empty. Could it be that someone has added a similar account, in summary fashion, to Luke's Gospel?

  If so, it is a striking addition, because it supports so well the proto-orthodox position that Jesus was not simply some kind of phantasm but had a real, physical body. Moreover, this was recognized by the chief apostle, Peter, himself. Thus, rather than letting the story of the empty tomb remain a "silly tale" of some untrustworthy women, the text now shows that the story was not just believable but true: as verified by none other than Peter (a trustworthy man, one might suppose). Even more important, the verse stresses the physical nature of the resurrection, because the only thing left in the tomb is the physical proof of the resurrection: the linen cloths that had covered Jesus's body. This was a fleshly resurrection of a real person. The importance of this point is made, once again, by Tertullian:

  Now if [Christ's] death be denied, because of the denial of his flesh, there will be no certainty of his resurrection. For he rose not, for the very same reason that he died not, even because he possessed not the reality of the flesh, to which as death accrues, so does resurrection likewise. Similarly, if Christ's resurrection be nullified, ours also is destroyed. (Against Marcion 3, 8)

  Christ must have had a real fleshly body, which was really raised, physically, from the dead.

  Not only did Jesus physically suffer and die, and physically come to be raised: for the proto-orthodox he was also physically exalted to heaven. A final textual variant to consider comes at the end of Luke's Gospel, after the resurrection has occurred (but on the same day). Jesus has spoken to his followers for the last time, and then departs from them:

  And it happened that while he was blessing them, he was removed from them; and they returned into Jerusalem with great joy. (Luke 24:51-52)

  It is interesting to note, however, that in some of our earliest witnesses—including the Alexandrian manuscript Codex Sinaiticus— there is an addition to the text.10 After it indicates that "he was removed from them," in these manuscripts it states "and he was taken up into heaven." This is a significant addition because it stresses the physicality of Jesus's departure at his ascension (rather than the bland "he was removed"). In part, this is an intriguing variant because the same author, Luke, in his second volume, the book of Acts, again narrates Jesus's ascension into heaven, but explicitly states that it took place "forty days" after the resurrection (Acts 1:1-11).

  This makes it difficult to believe that Luke wrote the phrase in question in Luke 24:51—since surely he would not think Jesus ascended to heaven on the day of his resurrection if he indicates at the beginning of his second volume that he ascended forty days later. It is noteworthy, too, that the key word in question ("was taken up") never occurs anywhere else in either the Gospel of Luke or the book of Acts. Why might someone have added these words? We know that proto-orthodox Christians wanted to stress the real, physical nature of Jesus's departure from earth: Jesus physically left, and will physically return, bringing with him physical salvation. This they argued against docetists, who maintained that it was all only an appearance. It may be that a scribe involved in these controversies modified his text in order to stress the point.

  Antiseparationist Alterations of the Text

  Early Christian Separationists

  A third area of concern to proto-orthodox Christians of the second and third centuries involved Christian groups who understood Christ not as only human (like the adoptionists) and not as only divine (like the docetists) but as two beings, one completely human and one completely divine." We might call this a "separationist" Christology because it divided Jesus Christ into two: the man Jesus (who was completely human) and the divine Christ (who was completely divine). According to most proponents of this view, the man Jesus was temporarily indwelt by the divine being, Christ, enabling him to perform his miracles and deliver his teachings; but before Jesus's death, the Christ abandoned him, forcing him to face his crucifixion alone.

  This separationist Christology was most commonly advocated by groups of Christians that scholars have called Gnostic.12 The term Gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis. It is applied to a wide range of groups of early Christians who stressed the importance of secret knowledge for salvation. According to most of these groups, the material world we live in was not the creation of the one true God. It came about as a result of a disaster in the divine realm, in which one of the (many) divine beings was for some mysterious reason excluded from the heavenly places; as a result of her fall from divinity the material world came to be created by a lesser deity, who captured her and imprisoned her in human bodies here on earth. Some human beings thus have a spark of the divine within them, and they need to learn the truth of who they are, where they came from, how they got here, and how they can return. Learning this truth will lead to their salvation.

  This truth consists of secret teachings, mysterious "knowledge" (gnosis), which can only be imparted by a divine being from the heavenly rea
lm. For Christian Gnostics, Christ is this divine revealer of the truths of salvation; in many Gnostic systems, the Christ came into the man Jesus at his baptism, empowered him for his ministry, and then at the end left him to die on the cross. That is why Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" For these Gnostics, the Christ literally had forsaken Jesus (or "left him behind"). After Jesus's death, though, he raised him from the dead as a reward for his faithfulness, and continued through him to teach his disciples the secret truths that can lead to salvation.

  Proto-orthodox Christians found this teaching offensive on just about every level. For them, the material world is not an evil place that resulted from a cosmic disaster, but is the good creation of the one true God. For them, salvation comes by faith in Christ's death and resurrection, not by learning the secret gnosis that can illuminate the truth of the human condition. And most important for our purposes here, for them, Jesus Christ is not two beings, but one being, both divine and human, at one and the same time.

  Antiseparationist Changes of the Text

  The controversies over separationist Christologies played some role in the transmission of the texts that were to become the New Testament. We have seen one instance already in a variant we considered in chapter 5, Hebrews 2:9, in which Jesus was said, in the original text of the letter, to have died "apart from God." In that discussion, we saw that most scribes had accepted the variant reading, which indicated that Christ died "by the grace of God," even though that was not the text that the author originally wrote. But we did not consider at any length the question of why scribes might have found the original text potentially dangerous and therefore worth modifying. Now, with this brief background to Gnostic understandings of Christ, the change makes better sense. For according to separationist Christologies, Christ really did die "apart from God," in that it was at his cross that the divine element that had indwelt him removed itself, so that Jesus died alone. Aware that the text could be used to support such a view, Christian scribes made a simple but profound change. Now rather than indicating that his death came apart from God, the text affirmed that Christ's death was "by the grace of God." This, then, is an antiseparationist alteration.

  A second intriguing example of the phenomenon occurs almost exactly where one might expect to find it, in a Gospel account of Jesus's crucifixion. As I have already indicated, in Mark's Gospel Jesus is silent throughout the entire proceeding of his crucifixion. The soldiers crucify him, the passers-by and Jewish leaders mock him, as do the two criminals who are crucified with him; and he says not a word—until the very end, when death is near, and Jesus cries out the words taken from Psalm 22: "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani," which translated means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).

  It is interesting to note that according to the proto-orthodox writer Irenaeus, Mark was the Gospel of choice for those "who separated Jesus from the Christ"—that is, for Gnostics who embraced a separationist Christology.13 We have solid evidence to suggest that some Gnostics took this last saying of Jesus literally, to indicate that it was at this point that the divine Christ departed from Jesus (since divinity cannot experience mortality and death). The evidence comes from Gnostic documents that reflect on the significance of this moment in Jesus's life. Thus, for example, the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, which some have suspected of having a separationist Christology, quotes the words in a slightly different form, "My power, O power, you have left me!" Even more striking is the Gnostic text known as the Gospel of Philip, in which the verse is quoted and then given a separationist interpretation: "My God, my God, why O Lord have you forsaken me?" For it was on the cross that he said these words, for it was there that he was divided.

  Proto-orthodox Christians knew of both these Gospels and their interpretations of this climactic moment of Jesus's crucifixion. It is perhaps no great surprise, then, that the text of Mark's Gospel was changed by some scribes in a way that would have circumvented this Gnostic explanation. In one Greek manuscript and several Latin witnesses, Jesus is said not to call out the traditional "cry of dereliction" from Psalm 22, but instead to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you mocked me?"

  This change of the text makes for an interesting reading—and one particularly suited to its literary context. For as already indicated, nearly everyone else in the story has mocked Jesus at this point—the Jewish leaders, the passers-by, and both robbers. Now, with this variant reading, even God himself k said to have mocked Jesus. In despair, Jesus then utters a loud cry and dies. This is a powerful scene, filled with pathos.

  Nonetheless the reading is not original, as shown by the circumstance that it is lacking in nearly all our oldest and best witnesses (including those of the Alexandrian text) as well as by the fact that it does not correspond to the Aramaic words Jesus actually utters (l ema sabachthani—which mean "why have you forsaken me," not "why have you mocked me").

  Why, then, did scribes alter the text? Given its usefulness for those arguing in favor of a separationist Christology, there can be little question why. Proto-orthodox scribes were concerned that the text not be used against them by their Gnostic opponents. They made an important, and contextually suitable change, so that now rather than abandoning Jesus, God is said to have mocked him.

  As a final example of a variant of this kind, made in order to counter a separationist Christology, we might consider a passage that occurs in the Epistle of 1 John. In the oldest form of the text of 4:2-3, we are told: By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ.

  This is a clear, straightforward passage: only those who acknowledge that Jesus really came in the flesh (as opposed, say, to accepting the docetist view) belong to God; those who do not acknowledge this are opposed to Christ (anti-Christs). But there is an interesting textual variant that occurs in the second half of the passage. Instead of referring to the one "that does not confess Jesus," several witnesses refer instead to the one "that looses Jesus." What does that mean— looses Jesus—and why did this textual variant make its way into some manuscripts?

  To start with, I should stress that it is not in very many manuscripts. In fact, among the Greek witnesses it occurs only in the margin of one tenth-century manuscript (Ms. 1739). But this, as we have seen, is a remarkable manuscript because it appears to have been copied from one of the fourth century, and its marginal notes record the names of church fathers who had different readings for certain parts of the text. In this particular instance, the marginal note indicates that the reading "looses Jesus" was known to several late-second- and early-third-century church fathers, Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen. Moreover, it appears in the Latin Vulgate. Among other things, this shows that the variant was popular during the time in which proto-orthodox Christians were debating with Gnostics over matters of Christology.

  Still, the variant probably cannot be accepted as the "original" text, given its sparse attestation—it is not found, for example, in any of our earliest and best manuscripts (in fact, not in any Greek manuscript except for this one marginal note). Why, though, would it have been created by a Christian scribe? It appears to have been created to provide a "biblical" attack on separationist Christologies, in which Jesus and Christ are divided from each other into separate entities, or as this variant would have it, in which Jesus is "loosed" from the Christ. Anyone who supports such a view, the textual variant suggests, is not from God, but is in fact an anti-Christ. Once again, then, we have a variant that was generated in the context of the christological disputes of the second and third centuries.

  Conclusion

  One of the factors contributing to scribes' alterations of their texts was their own historical context. Christian scribes of the second and third centuries were involved with the debates and disputes of their day, and o
ccasionally these disputes affected the reproduction of the texts over which the debates raged. That is, scribes occasionally altered their texts to make them say what they were already believed to mean.

  This is not necessarily a bad thing, since we can probably assume that most scribes who changed their texts often did so either semiconsciously or with good intent. The reality, though, is that once they altered their texts, the words of the texts quite literally became different words, and these altered words necessarily affected the interpretations of the words by later readers. Among the reasons for these alterations were the theological disputes of the second and third centuries, as scribes sometimes modified their texts in light of the adoptionistic, docetic, and separationist Christologies that were vying for attention in the period.

  Other historical factors were also at work, factors relating less to theological controversy and more to social conflicts of the day, conflicts involving such things as the role of women in early Christian churches, the Christian opposition to Jews, and the Christian defense against attacks by pagan opponents. In the next chapter we will see how these other social conflicts affected the early scribes who reproduced the texts of scripture in the centuries before the copying of texts became the province of professional scribes.

 

  CHAPTER 7 The Social Worlds of the Text

  It is probably safe to say that the copying of early Christian texts was by and large a "conservative" process. The scribes—whether nonprofessional scribes in the early centuries or professional scribes of the Middle Ages—were intent on "conserving" the textual tradition they were passing on. Their ultimate concern was not to modify the tradition, but to preserve it for themselves and for those who would follow them. Most scribes, no doubt, tried to do a faithful job in making sure that the text they reproduced was the same text they inherited.