Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence (Text and Canon of the New Testament) [Paperback]

Daniel B. Wallace (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2011 | Series: Text and Canon of the New Testament

How much did the theological arguments of the church affect the copying of the New Testament text? Focusing on issues of textual criticism, this inaugural volume of the Text and Canon of the New Testament series offers some answers to that question and responds to some of Bart Ehrman's views about the transmission of the New Testament text. Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament will be a valuable resource for those working in textual criticism, patristics, and New Testament apocryphal literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This collection of stimulating essays, edited by Dan Wallace, renowned scholar of New Testament manuscripts, interacts with Bart Ehrman's own groundbreaking book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. These essays deal mainly with issues of New Testament textual criticism, and each responds to a specific aspect of Ehrman's work. The studies attempt to 'push back' against some of Ehrman's stimulating theories. Their value lies in clarifying arguments, re-examining primary evidence, and advancing debates concerning fundamental issues surrounding the text of the New Testament. With the recent reissue of Ehrman's book, this collection forms a stimulating dialogue partner to be read alongside that work. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the text of the New Testament and in the way that text was brought together." --Paul Foster, Senior Lecturer in New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

"Dan Wallace has clearly become evangelical Christianity's premier active textual critic today. With painstaking detail and persuasive clarity, he and his former Dallas Seminary students demolish the contradictory and unconvincing portions of Bart Ehrman's theories about the orthodox corruption of Scripture. This book is a must read for anyone interested in this issue!" --Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

"Today virtually all scholars agree that there are readings in the transmission history of the Greek New Testament that more likely reflect the theology, not of the New Testament authors, but of scribes who changed the text. As Wallace points out in his introduction, this is not the issue at stake. The problem that this volume of essays seeks to address is when 'orthodox corruption' is made the default explanation whenever there is a grain of suspicion that a passage may have been tampered with for doctrinal reasons, or when it is used as a heuristic device to harvest the entire textual tradition in search for suitable variants to label as 'anti-adoptionistic,' 'anti-separationist,' 'anti-docetic' or 'anti-patripassianist.' As A. E. Housman remarked, 'every problem which presents itself to the textual critic must be regarded as possibly unique.' Such a sound view of textual criticism excludes every mechanical application of any principle to account for textual variation." --Tommy Wasserman, Academic Dean and Lecturer in New Testament, O–rebro School of Theology, O–rebro, Sweden

Today virtually all scholars agree that there are readings in the transmission history of the Greek New Testament that more likely reflect the theology, not of the New Testament authors, but of scribes who changed the text. As Wallace points out in his introduction, this is not the issue at stake. The problem that this volume of essays seeks to address is when 'orthodox corruption' is made the default explanation whenever there is a grain of suspicion that a passage may have been tampered with for doctrinal reasons, or when it is used as a heuristic device to harvest the entire textual tradition in search for suitable variants to label as 'anti-adoptionistic,' 'anti-separationist,' 'anti-docetic' or 'anti-patripassianist.' As A. E. Housman remarked, 'every problem which presents itself to the textual critic must be regarded as possibly unique.' Such a sound view of textual criticism excludes every mechanical application of any principle to account for textual variation. --Tommy Wasserman, Academic Dean and Lecturer in New Testament, Örebro School of Theology, Örebro, Sweden

Dan Wallace has clearly become evangelical Christianity's premier active textual critic today. With painstaking detail and persuasive clarity, he and his former Dallas Seminary students demolish the contradictory and unconvincing portions of Bart Ehrman's theories about the orthodox corruption of Scripture. This book is a must read for anyone interested in this issue! --Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

From the Back Cover

How much did the theological arguments of the church affect the copying of the New Testament text? Focusing on issues of textual criticism, this inaugural volume of the Text and Canon of the New Testament series offers some answers to that question and responds to some of Bart Ehrman's views about the transmission of the New Testament text. Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament will be a valuable resource for those working in textual criticism, patristics, and New Testament apocryphal literature.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Kregel Academic & Professional (October 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082543338X
• ISBN-13: 978-0825433382
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Textual Criticism At Its Best December 28, 2011

By MissDaisyAnne

Format:Paperback

"This inaugural volume of the Text and Cannon of the New Testament series includes essays by six authors. All of the chapters focus on the issues in textual criticism-in particular, how badly the scribes, who copied their exemplars by hand, corrupted the text. All but one of the chapters deals specifically with NT textual criticism; one addresses textual issues related to an early apocryphal text, the Gospel of Thomas." From the Preface, page 9.

The titles of the chapters and authors are as follows:
Chapter 1--Lost in Transmission: How Badly Did the Scribes Corrupt the New Testament Text? by Daniel B. Wallace
Chapter 2--The Least Orthodox Reading Is To Be Preferred: A New Canon for New Testament Textual Criticism? by Philip M. Miller
Chapter 3--The Legacy Of A Letter: Sabellianism or Scribal Blunder in John 1.1c? by Matthew P. Morgan
Chapter 4--Patristic Theology And Recension In Matthew 24:36: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Text-Critical Methodology by Adam G. Messer
Chapter 5--Tracking Thomas: A Text-Critical Look at the Transmission of the Gospel of Thomas by Tim Ricchuiti
Chapter 6--Jesus As Theos: Textual Examination by Brian J. Wright

Each of the above contributing authors were apart of Dr. Daniel B. Wallace's ThM program at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Each of the chapters were analyzed under "peer review."
"All five chapters address, directly or indirectly, issues raised in Bart Ehrman's
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, a monumental work that has raised numerous questions about intentional corruption of the NT by proto-orthodox scribes in the early centuries."
Two Essays are on Matthew 24:36 and John 1:1. Another essay is on "whether the least orthodox reading is to be preferred." A fourth essay is on "the textual transmission of the Gospel of Thomas." And lastly a study on Jesus as Theos ('''').

This was a challenging book for me to read. I faced the challenge head on, not mastering every detail, yet feeling deeply satisfied after finishing this heavy read.
It is easy, and maybe far to typical for a Christian to not want to read a book on Bible textual criticism. If I'd let myself maybe I would have felt the same.
"But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me." 2 Timothy 1:12 ESV
I did not finish this book feeling slighted, anxious, insecure, or "put-off." Instead I have a deeper belief in Scripture as God's treasured Word.
I felt each of the authors complimented each other. The book flows from one chapter to the next. Some of the chapters as explained above were on the same topic, each expressing their view from their own personality and teaching style.They were quick to lay out the reasoning behind their analysis, made their points clearly and understandably, each finished well with a closing remark on their end result after careful study.
I must admit the least attractive chapter to me was chapter 5 in looking "at the Transmission of the Gospel of Thomas." I am familiar with this book, but not curious to learn more. In this chapter there are comparisons between the Coptic of Thomas to the Greek fragments.
My favorite chapter was from Adam G. Messer, Chapter 4: Patristic Theology and Recension in Matthew 24:36. Messer gave a thorough and interesting teaching on the early false teachings of: Docetism, Sabellianism, Marcionism, Gnosticism. He also gave a lengthy list of the early church fathers, for example: Irenaeus of Lyon, Hippolytus of Rome, Origen of Alexandria, and Didymus the Blind. Messer gleaned information from research on what each of these men had to say about Matthew 24:36. Most of these early church fathers made a statement of what their belief was in their writings, I found this to be incredibly interesting.
It was while reading chapter 4 that I felt I'd finally grasped hold of the book.
It has been stated in other reviews that this is a book for the academic reading world. This is a fair statement. On the other hand, I am glad I read this book. This is a topic that has been of interest to me for a long time, as well as the history of the Bible period.
Even though this book was a challenge, I'm hoping in 2012 to read more books on this topic!

Thank you to Kregel for my free review copy in return for an honest review.
Kregel Book Tour December 26-30--2011

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars for readers of Bart Ehrman December 26, 2011

By Joan N.

Format:Paperback

This is the inaugural volume of the Text and Canon of the New Testament series. All of the essays by the six authors focus in issues of textual criticism.
The first chapter frames the discussion the rest of the book addresses. The text of the New Testament we have is a result of copies of copies. Can we tell, through rigorous analysis of surviving manuscripts and scribal methods, what the original text essentially looked like? Did the early church get it right in evaluating and designating just the twenty-seven books of our NT as Scripture?
"One the one side," writes Wallace, "are the King James Only advocates; they are absolutely certain that the KJV, in every place, exactly represents the original text." (22)
On the other hand are those who say there is no hope of knowing the original texts since we no longer have the originals and there could have been tremendous tampering with the texts. The argument may be carried on to the theology derived from these texts. "According to this line of thinking, the message of whole books has been corrupted in the hands of the scribes; and the church, in later centuries, adopted the doctrine of the winner - those who corrupted the text and conformed it to their own notion of orthodoxy." (25)
There are lots of manuscripts (more than 5,600), some 2.6 million pages of texts. There are more than a million quotes of the NT by the early church fathers. At least twelve of the manuscripts date from the second century. "Of the hundreds of thousands of textual variants in NT MSS, the great majority are spelling differences that have no bearing on the meaning of the text." (40) Less than one percent of the textual variants are meaningful.
Wallace takes Bart Ehrman to task. A high proportion of Ehrman's examples could easily be classified as accidental, with no theological motives. Wallace critiques Ehrman's text-critical method, noting that Ehrman prefers the least orthodox reading.
Philip Miller investigates Ehrman's conclusion that the NT text was corrupted at the hands of orthodox scribes, to make the texts say what the scribes already believed them to mean. (58)
Matthew Morgan investigates the legacy and heritage of two eighteenth-century manuscripts and the text of John 1:1.
Adam Messer highlights one example of the attention Ehrman gives to historical evidence and the implications drawn concerning theologically motivated changes.
Tim Ricchuiti concentrates on the Gospel of Thomas, first considered primarily a Gnostic and apocryphal text, but now esteemed by some to be on the same level as the New Testament Gospels.
Brian Wright investigates the relationship of Jesus and Theos (God).

This book will best serve those who have read Bart Ehrman and his views on the transmission of the New Testament texts. That being said, anyone interested in the issues of scribal changes in NT MSS will benefit from this book.
The book is written on the academic level. The average layman will have difficulty following the precise work.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Kregel Publications for the purpose of this review.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Read side-by-side w. Ehrman for a rounded view of things July 17, 2012

By Brian C. Leport

Format:Paperback

This volume is a series of essays of textual criticism. Daniel B. Wallace edits the book wherein five of his students from Dallas Theological Seminary present their work as his disciple. There is no ignoring that four of the six chapters are explicit rebuttals of various assertions made by Bart D. Ehrman. It is an evangelical apologetic and this is not a bad thing.

One of the reasons this book is worth reading is because I think the contributors do a good job of exposing the myth of objectivity. In other words, Ehrman's agnosticism doesn't make him an objective text critic while the subjectivity of other's religious commitments blind them. No, Ehrman himself is guided be particular principles that are often as bias as any evangelical. Where evangelicals may approach the task of text criticism with the presupposition that Scripture is reliable Ehrman approaches them with the presupposition that they are corrupted, often by the proto-orthodox in order to catholicize the Christian religion.

In Chapter 1: Lost in Transmission Wallace explains where he agrees and disagrees with Ehrman. (p. 20-21) He warns that text critics should avoid "absolute certainty" and "total despair" when trying to recover the original wording of the earlier versions of our texts. (p. 22) Wallace expresses confusion over whether Ehrman is certain that we can know certain things about the original autographs (e.g. He is very confident in his assertions that this or that corruption by the proto-orthodox reveals what the original text said.) or if he thinks the whole project is aimless as he seems to state elsewhere when he asserts that all the variants make it impossible to recover the autographs.

Wallace revisits the number of variants (pp. 26-40), the nature of those variants (pp. 40-43), and the theological issues at stake (pp. 43-49). This allows him to present his case for the reliability of the manuscripts of the New Testament.

In Chapter 2: The Least Orthodox Reading is to be Preferred: A New Canon for New Testament Criticism? Philip M. Miller asks if Ehrman's methodological canon includes the predetermination to find the "least orthodox" reading to be the most likely to be original. In other words, Ehrman is driven to prove his thesis of a diverse, multi-faceted Christianity and any semblance of catholicity is to be rejected.

Miller provides a history lesson in textual criticism going back to the views of some early Christian writers on how textual variants emerged before fastforwding to Johann Wettstein's observation that the "orthodox" variation is not to be immediately preferred. Along came J.J. Greisbach and pushed it further: we should be suspect of orthodox variations. (p. 61) Miller examines a handful of others before arriving at Ehrman's 1993 The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Miller decides to examine Ehrman's methodology by (1) examining Ehrman's thesis on a given alteration; (2) discussion external and internal evidence; and (3) analyzing Ehrman's finding in light of that evidence (pp. 67-68).

Matthew 24.36; John 1.18; and Hebrews 2.9b concluding that Ehrman is likely to decide against "orthodoxy" even when there should be much less confidence. (pp. 68-81) Even more telling is how often Ehrman goes against tne NA27/UBS4 findings, especially in relation to the letter grade they gave. Ehrman is consistently siding in favor of readings that he finds to be against perceived orthodoxy. (p. 81-84) The rest of the chapter looks at the criteria found in Ehrman's work and critically evaluates it, especially the perceived "Canon of Unorthodoxy". (pp. 84-89)

In Chapter 3: The Legacy of a Letter: Sabellianism or Scribal Blunder in John 1.1c? Matthew P. Morgan examines the textual variant where ''' '''' '' ' ''''' is written ''' ' '''' '' ' '''''. Most of the essay concerns itself with whether or not there was Sabellian influence on the later term. In other words, did Sabellian scribes attempt to equate "God" and "the Word" in such a way that there was no room for the idea that the Word shared the traits of God [the Father], but that he wasn't one and the same? Morgan does extensive studies on various manuscripts noticing the types of differences and hypothesizing how those may have arisen.

In Chapter 4: Patristic Theology and Recension in Matthew 24.36: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Text-Critical Methodology Adam G. Messer asks whether or not an "orthodox" scribe (as Ehrman would put it) removed '''' ' '''' because it challenged the orthodox view that Jesus was God. Ehrman's methodology is critiqued in this essay as is proposal that scribes removed it for the aforementioned reason. It is noted that the parallel in Mark 13.32 retains the words and that Matthew 24.36 still has the word ''''' in reference to the Father. So even if we do not have the phrase '''' ' '''' we have the same idea in both Matthew and Mark.

Messer proposes that the textual differences could have been attributed to various groups including Docetist and Sabellians. That Ehrman proposes the "orthodox" as the most likely to be at fault portrays his bias. Most of the content of these first four chapters focuses on that reality.

The last two chapter have a different aim, though they remain in the category of NT textual criticism. In Chapter 5: Tracking Thomas: A Text-Critical Look at the Transmission of the Gospel of Thomas Tim Ricchuiti examines the "reliability of the textual transmission" (p. 190) of this gospel by viewing the Greek and Coptic text. Chapter 6: Jesus as '''': A Textual Examination Brian J. Wright examines the text history of those passages that might refer to Jesus as "God", namely John 1.1; 1.18; 20.28; Acts 20.28; Galatians 2.20; Hebrews 1.8; and 2 Peter 1.1. This last chapter interacts with Ehrman a bit, but it isn't as focused as the earlier chapters.

Does this book have value? Yes, it is a great resource for textual criticism. The essays are easy to read, even for a novice such as myself. I think the more important contribution is that it shows that people like Ehrman are far from objective. This doesn't mean these evangelical students are less subjective, but rather than everyone, even text critics, approach their task with an angle. It would be a great book to read beside Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture of the sections in his popular books where he deals with the same passages these authors address.