jason@mit-amt.UUCP (Jason A. Kinchen) (12/22/86)
I offer this posting as a resource to those who are discussing the
supposed editing of New Testament documents. It seems to me that
both believers and non-believers in the Christian faith are
suffering from serious misconceptions with regard to the
historicity and authenticity of NT documents. I don't wish to
argue with anyone, rather I invite discussion based on scholarship
which would be edifying to both Christians and non-Christian
brethren.
None of the thoughts below is original; I have used a number of
sources to compile this history. I list them here to use in
quotations in the text of my posting.
Barnstone, Willis, ed., The Other Bible, Harper & Row, 1984
Chadwick, Henry, The Early Church, Pelican Books, 1967
Hennecke, Edgar & Schneemelcher, Wilhelm, eds., New Testament
Apocrypha, Vol.+1: Gospels and Related Writings, 1959
Throckmorton, Burton H., ed., Gospel Parallels, Thomas Nelson &
Sons, 1967
Wansrough, Henry, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday &Co.,
1984
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I will begin with several overviews on the general state of affairs
during the development of the early Church and its documents and
one overview on the way in which documents can be critically
examined to gain more information than can be received by merely
reading their content.
Overview 1) During the period of time when the NT canon developed,
Christianity was an outlaw religion. From the year 70 C.E. to 323
C.E., not only was the practice of Christianity against Roman law,
it was a capital offense. "Throwing Christians to the lions" was
not an idle phrase. Hence it was subject to unusual and
extraordinary pressures. It is important to keep this fact in mind
when studying the development of the canon. These people were
fighting for their lives, as well as their faith.
The suggestion that the canon was politically altered or edited
must be seen in this light. Not that they were people in authority
jockeying for political power within the existing structure, they
had none. Nor can they be seen as conflicting factions of rebels,
fighting over who would be on top in the new post-revolutionary
order. Armed, organized resistance was never offered.
Now these perceptions do not release Christianity from the
allegation of political motivation, but they do put it into quite a
different context. People discussing these issues must shift gears
from the supposition that Christianity is established majority
view, whether they are sympathetic to that view or not. In the
period being discussed, Christianity is in the minority, fighting
for it's life.
An example is that someone claimed that Bishop Ignatius of Antioch
destroyed what he considered non-canonical gospels. I for one have
never heard of that event taking place, but even allowing for my
incomplete scholarship, such an event does not make sense.
Ignatius was an officiant of an outlaw religion and would have had
no authority to order a mass book burning, nor could he have forced
any rival sects, such as the gnostics, to destroy any books that
they didn't want to. Even among the orthodox, he would only have
had authority among his own congregants, which certainly did not
represent all of Christendom at the time.
Actually, considering it's later history, the early development of
the Church is relatively less politically motivated. It is was a
populist underground movement. Christians had no rights if they
were found out and could ot even own property. This is not to say
that an underground movement is by definition free of politics, but
this period was much more unsullied than later periods after it was
legalized and became the state religion of the Roman Empire.
Overview 2) The Christian record is almost certainly incomplete,
owing to one significant historical event: the destruction of
Jerusalem. In 70\C.E. the Romans succeeded in putting down a
revolt of the province of Judea which culminated in the absolute
levelling of Jerusalem, although individual fortresses, like
Masada, hung on for some months. This tragedy of the Jewish faith
is shared by Christians because the mother Church of Christianity
established by Peter and James the Just was located there. Any
records or documentation of the apostolic tradition there perished
without a trace just as the apostolic age drew to a close, and
before a canon was even thought necessary. (Why canonize writings
when you've got the apostles still living to tell you about it?)
The Christian written record then relied on what existed in the
gentile Churches in 70\C.E., and on the oral tradition of worship
as it existed in those places.
Overview 3) I think it's important in looking at the NT canon to
realize now what we've got, and how logically deductions can be
made about the era we would examine. In other words, how can one
trace the development of the canon at all when the manuscripts we
have are dated hundreds of years after the fact. I am not a
scholar, but I will attempt to outline how the scholarship is done.
It is certainly not as simple as one defending Christianity put it
that "they looked at all the ancient manuscripts, and they all
match." I know this is not a direct quote, but whatever was said
really did oversimplify to a dramatic extreme. In fact, there are
five different families of texts, all of which differ in content to
one another, and within these families are numerous sub-groups
which also differ from one another. For the curious, they are:
Alexandrian Text-considered the most "uncontaminated" of the texts
since it lacks aberrations found in others.
Byzantine Text-the most widespread of the Greek versions and was
the first to be translated into modern European languages.
The basis for the King James translation.
Western Text-this text contains the most eccentricities with
readings not found in any form in the others and omitting
entire verses. It's popularity was due to its being the basis
for the Old Latin Version of the bible and being the first to
be translated into Latin.
Syriac Text-originally thought to be a sub-group of Western texts,
now widely recognized as an independent family which also
related to the Alexandrian texts.
Caesarean Text-a text which lies between Alexandrian and Western
but is as old as Alexandrian. It is very significant because
of it's age, but still lack the extravagance of the Western
texts.
And this is only the Greek. The early translations from Greek form
more groups called versions. Significant among them are the Latin,
Syriac and Coptic versions.
At first glance, it may seem despairing to Christians that so many
different "editions" of the "Word of God" exist and are recognized
by scholars, secular and religious alike. But actually, it is an
advantage in tracing the origins of this tradition. If only one
version existed worldwide, it would be impossible to trace it's
development as far as location and disemination from any oral
tradition. One version would be immediately suspect and there
would be no way to determine if it had been changed at any point in
time. Since many differences exist and we are reasonably sure
where and under what circumstances the different groups developed,
the nature of the original source can be more accurately
determined. Corrections, additions, and mistakes in Alexandria,
for example, would not be propogated to Ceasarea, only to later
Alexandrian versions. This process of comparing different versions
is what I have seen referred to as textual criticism, and it also
refers to comparing these texts to quotations made from them by the
contemporary writers of the time.
The other reasons Christians should not despair is that although
the differences do exist and that they are quite noticeable, "the
fact is that in about 90 per cent of the New Testament, the
manuscripts all agree; the differences occur in a small percentage
of passages." (Throckmorton p. x)
Now we should be interested in what these scholars are actually
working from. The oldest complete bible, OT and NT, is Codex
Sinaiticus, dated middle fourth century, about the time that Rome
turned Christian. We have fragments of the Gospels and Acts dated
mid-third century from the Ferrar Group of Papyri. Below a list of
relevant sources for scholars, though by no means complete, is
informative. [Actually, we have fragments from early 2nd, though
the earliest manuscripts that the UBS Greek cites systematically
are from around 200. Quotations from the Church Fathers in the
2nd Cent. are also used. --clh]
Codex Sinaiticus(4th cent.)-Alexandrian text, contains
non-canonical material.
Codex Alexandrius(5th cent.)-Byzantine Gospels, Alexandrian
epistles of Paul. Contains non-canonical material, and most of
Matthew is missing.
Codex Vaticanus(4th cent.)-Alexandrian text, with Western elements
in Pauline epistles. Many Non-Pauline epistles and the pastorals
missing.
Codex Ephraemi(5th cent.)-Alexandrian, but many other mixed
readings. Of limited importance because of lack of consistency.
Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis(6th cent.)-Western text, with Latin
translation on opposing pages.
Washington Codex-contains four types of texts, the most independent
reading of ancient codices.
As stated above, having sources dated centuries after the fact is
difficult, but not insurmountable. Most scholars agree that we
have a reasonably accurate picture of canonical development
although they of course disagree on the details. I will attempt to
relate it, and would hope that those who would attempt to prove or
disprove theories of propagandizing and political "conspiracy" in
"editing" the New Testament, would make use of the facts available,
either from this posting or from more valid sources.
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The New Testament began as oral tradition in Judea. Of this there
can be little doubt. Whether one now believes the story of the
Christ or not, it is obvious that there were many people at the
time and place that did believe it. A church was established and
in the Jewish tradition of the synagogue meeting place, they said
aloud the holy passages of the OT which at that time were the only
"canonical" writings, as well as the oral stories of the Christ,
relayed from the memories of the apostles. Gradually, over a
couple of decades, while the apostles were still living, the oral
stories took a standard form, which we now refer to as "kerygma",
which proclaims the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus.
(Examples of this oral form may be represented in Peter's
discourses in Acts of the Apostles.) A side note on another point
of controversy is that since the preaching was predominantly oral,
and since scribes were undoubtedly among their converts, it would
not have been necessary for the apostles to be literate.
From this oral form, two documents emerged, probably in Aramaic.
One which tradition attributes to the Apostle Matthew, although
there is no reason to assume this, was a chronological document
outlining the events of the life of Jesus. The second is known as
Source, or simply S, which is a collection of sayings (logia) upon
which such things as Sermon on the Mount and some parables may be
based.
It is from these two sources that the canonical forms of the
Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) evolved, but this
evolution was quite complex. To quote the Introduction to the
Synoptic Gospels in the Jerusalem Bible:
Analyses . . . suggests three stages: a basic document,
a first revision, and a final revision, which is what we
now have. Between these different stages there were
interactions in various directions, bringing with them
the literary relationships of similarity and difference
which we now find in the gospels. Thus, for example,
the first revision of Mark will have been influenced by
the document which is at the source of Matthew, but in
its turn will have exerted an influence on the final
revision of Matthew. This lattice work of interlocking
influences, complex though it may seem, is the only
solution which adequately explains a complex situation.
Any claim to a simple solution of the synoptic problem
is illusory.
It seems that the Gospel of John was influenced by the synoptic
tradition, but also from a separate, very Hellenized tradition
which also slightly influenced Luke. (For more info on this
subject, see the General Edition of the Jerusalem Bible.)
These documents (in their various forms) and others began to take
on added importance as the apostolic era came to a close. As the
apostles died, and Jerusalem fell, there was a need for the church
to have authoritative apostolic sources to decide doctrine. Oral
tradition was no longer at the disposal of the early Church
Evangelists. But early on, they urged that apostolic succession
was the test of validity. And as might be expected, those
documents (with exceptions which will be noted later) that related
most directly to the apostolic tradition, were the ones used most
widely in worship. Indeed the gradual evolution of these documents
to the ranks of holy scripture presupposes that they were used
extensively in worship. Worship was still predominantly oral and
it is plain even in modern translations that NT documents, even
some epistles, were meant to be read aloud to a body of people.
So it is coming clearer what separated those documents that came to
be canonical from those which were considered heretical or at least
apocryphal: the relationship to the apostolic oral tradition.
Those which bore a relationship were obviously those most
frequently used in worship. Hennecke and Schneemelcher explain:
. . . the process of forming a canon was by no means so
much a process of elimination, a mass destruction as it
were or a violent rejection of all kind of writings.
Rather it appears that in the formation of the canon
there was firm adherence with a wonderful tact to what
was traditional, to what had already for internal
reasons gained an authoritative place in public worship.
It was indeed only rarely that in the churches a
reduction of the stock familiar writings came about: in
general the process of canon formation brought an
enrichment to the churches.
This statement of course is a generalization. The question of
what to include in the canon went on for centuries. The fact that
later Codices contained material which is now considered
non-canonical attests to the fact. However, the early guidelines
of the evengelists did serve to exclude documents of Gnostic
literature and include those which Marcion would have done away
with.
The above examples both represent cases where the break with
apostolic tradition is overt and obvious. Gnosticism makes no
pretensions about the fact that they break with apostolic
tradition and their literature, such as the Gospel of Truth or the
Gospel of Thomas, bears little relationship to the oral roots
which early Church fathers required. But the Gnostics did not
mind, their claim was that even the apostles had it wrong, that
they were gifted with knowledge of God that allowed them to
understand the Christ without apostolic authority. Now this
claim, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is
easy to see why the early Church Fathers did not accept it into
orthodoxy, nor had they any reason to accept Gospels obviously
written outside this apostolic tradition, just because they
carried an apostle's name. However, it's really just difference
of opinion about what should be canonical. The Manicheans, the
modern gnostics, have no more reason to accept the Christian canon
than Christians do to accept theirs.
The same was true of Marcion, who held that the OT was irrelevant
and misleading and that traditional Christian documents were
corrupted by this semetic influence. Apostolic tradition clearly
defined the continuity between Old and New Covenants and held its
semetic origins. Marcion claimed that only Paul had any validity
and that parts of his epistles had also been corrupted. Hence,
another clear break with the tradition was put forth, and the
Church fathers rejected it. Unfortunately, there exist no
followers of Marcion from which we can get that side of the story.
This is not to say that the NT canon is clearly without fault.
There was significant controversy over what was included. The
Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation in particular were
rejected by some and held in serious question by other Church
Fathers as late as 220 C.E. The authorship of the Petrine
epistles was then, and still is held in serious question. Books
called the Shepherd of Hermas and The Epistle of Barnabas were
included as late as the fifth century. And early on some Church
fathers included books such as the Apocalypse of Peter. So,
although it was clear that they had a test for a canon, it was not
clear which passed and which failed.
And then there were books which might have been included and
exerted influence on tradition, but never received wide
distribution in Rome, Asia Minor or North Africa. They remained
the literature of isolated sects, although in some cases they
contained nothing overtly heretical. The Jewish Christian Gospels
are among these documents (The Gospel of the Hebrews, The Gospel of
the Ebionites, The Gospel of the Nazarenes) and only fragments
remain of them on papyri scattered all over the world.
Basically, among gospels for example, their exist three types not
included in the canon: 1) Those which are overtly heretical in that
they openly and intentionally deviate from apostolic succession.
Even using modern textual criticism, this can be determined for
Gnostic literature.
2) Those which bear a relationship to the Synoptic tradition, but
for lack of distribution they never received serious consideration.
However, some were quoted by early Church writers. 3) A type
which I haven't spent time on, which is a sort of supplementary
Gospel. Ones in which a particular event of Jesus life is expanded
on. Infancy Gospels and ones which relate individual episodes of
Jesus life, i.e. Gospel of Nicodemus, are among this group. These
are usually pious Christians or in some cases pious Gnostics who
have fastened their interest on Jesus and attributed folk legends
to his life. No real harm or heresy was meant, nor were they
attempting to bring about doctrinal or political change. These
gospels are often recognized by their similarity to legends of
other monarchs.
Underview) Simply put: we don't nearly as much as some Christians
on this newsgroup would claim, but we don't know nearly as little
as others on the newsgroup seem to think either. Almost no serious
scholar, whether atheist, Jew, Arab, or Christian, doubts the
existence of a man whose life followed, generally speaking, the
outline provided in the Synoptic Gospels, or the tradition which
erupted from his life and death. We have at least as much evidence
for the existence of Jesus as we do for Alexander the Great. We
have much more evidence than for some monarchs' existence who it
would never occur to us to question.
On the other hand, almost no serious scholar believes that NT is
handed down word for word directly from the people whose names it
bears with no changes. Just about all ancient manuscripts have
undergone some revision and editing over the centuries, and it
would not be reasonable to assume that the NT escaped, especially
in the face of evidence to the contrary.
But between those two positions is a lot of ground, and it is open
to interpretation. Nobody agrees on the specifics, not scholars,
not clergy, and certainly not people of opposing viewpoints, inside
and outside of the faith. My only hope would be that these
discussions would remain civilized, maybe even cordial, and that
they would confine themselves to the facts as they are generally
known and accepted.
Peace and Happy Holidays,
Jason Kinchen
jason@media-lab.MIT.EDU