mas, above); they were simply the literate people in the Christian congregation


who could make copies (since they were literate) and wanted


to do so.


Some of these people—or most of them?—may have been the


leaders of the communities. We have reason to think that the earliest


Christian leaders were among the wealthier members of the church,


in that the churches typically met in the homes of their members


(there were no church buildings, that we know of, during the first two


centuries of the church) and only the homes of the wealthier members


would have been sufficiently large to accommodate very many people,


since most people in ancient urban settings lived in tiny apartments. It


is not unreasonable to conclude that the person who provided the


home also provided the leadership of the church, as is assumed in a


number of the Christian letters that have come down to us, in which


an author will greet so-and-so and “the church that meets in his


home.” These wealthier homeowners would probably have been more


educated, and so it is no surprise that they are sometimes exhorted to


“read” Christian literature to their congregations, as we have seen, for


example, in 1 Tim. 4:13: “Until I come, pay special heed to [public]


reading, to exhortation, and to teaching.” Is it possible, then, that church


leaders were responsible, at least a good bit of the time, for the copying


of the Christian literature being read to the congregation?


Problems with Copying


Early Christian Texts


Because the early Christian texts were not being copied by professional


scribes,8 at least in the first two or three centuries of the church,


but simply by educated members of the Christian congregations who


could do the job and were willing to do so, we can expect that in the


earliest copies, especially, mistakes were commonly made in transcription.


Indeed, we have solid evidence that this was the case, as it


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 51


was a matter of occasional complaint by Christians reading those texts


and trying to uncover the original words of their authors. The thirdcentury


church father Origen, for example, once registered the following


complaint about the copies of the Gospels at his disposal:


The differences among the manuscripts have become great, either


through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse


audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have


transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or


deletions as they please.9


Origen was not the only one to notice the problem. His pagan opponent


Celsus had, as well, some seventy years earlier. In his attack on


Christianity and its literature, Celsus had maligned the Christian


copyists for their transgressive copying practices:


Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose


themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or


several times over, and they change its character to enable them to


deny difficulties in face of criticism. (Against Celsus 2.27)


What is striking in this particular instance is that Origen, when


confronted with an outsider’s allegation of poor copying practices


among Christians, actually denies that Christians changed the text,


despite the fact that he himself decried the circumstance in his other


writings. The one exception he names in his reply to Celsus involves


several groups of heretics, who, Origen claims, maliciously altered the


sacred texts.10


We have already seen this charge that heretics sometimes modified


the texts they copied in order to make them stand in closer conformity


with their own views, for this was the accusation leveled


against the second-century philosopher-theologian Marcion, who presented


his canon of eleven scriptural books only after excising those


portions that contradicted his notion that, for Paul, the God of the


Old Testament was not the true God. Marcion’s “orthodox” opponent


Irenaeus claimed that Marcion did the following:


52 Misquoting Jesus


dismembered the epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the


apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that


He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also those passages


from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order to


teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.


(Against Heresies 1.27.2)


Marcion was not the only culprit. Living roughly at the same time


as Irenaeus was an orthodox bishop of Corinth named Dionysius who


complained that false believers had unscrupulously modified his own


writings, just as they had done with more sacred texts.


When my fellow-Christians invited me to write letters to them I did


so. These the devil’s apostles have filled with tares, taking away some


things and adding others. For them the woe is reserved. Small wonder


then if some have dared to tamper even with the word of the Lord


himself, when they have conspired to mutilate my own humble efforts.


Charges of this kind against “heretics”—that they altered the texts


of scripture to make them say what they wanted them to mean—are


very common among early Christian writers. What is noteworthy,


however, is that recent studies have shown that the evidence of our


surviving manuscripts points the finger in the opposite direction.


Scribes who were associated with the orthodox tradition not infrequently


changed their texts, sometimes in order to eliminate the possibility


of their “misuse” by Christians affirming heretical beliefs and


sometimes to make them more amenable to the doctrines being espoused


by Christians of their own persuasion.11


The very real danger that texts could be modified at will, by


scribes who did not approve of their wording, is evident in other ways


as well. We need always to remember that the copyists of the early


Christian writings were reproducing their texts in a world in which


there were not only no printing presses or publishing houses but also


no such thing as copyright law. How could authors guarantee that


their texts were not modified once put into circulation? The short


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 53


answer is that they could not. That explains why authors would


sometimes call curses down on any copyists who modified their texts


without permission. We find this kind of imprecation already in one


early Christian writing that made it into the New Testament, the


book of Revelation, whose author, near the end of his text, utters a


dire warning:


I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:


If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in


this book; and if anyone removes any of the words of the book of this


prophecy, God will remove his share from the tree of life and from


the holy city, as described in this book. (Rev. 22:18–19 )


This is not a threat that the reader has to accept or believe everything


written in this book of prophecy, as it is sometimes interpreted;


rather, it is a typical threat to copyists of the book, that they are not to


add to or remove any of its words. Similar imprecations can be found


scattered throughout the range of early Christian writings. Consider


the rather severe threats uttered by the Latin Christian scholar Rufinus


with respect to his translation of one of Origen’s works:


Truly in the presence of God the Father and of the Son and of the Holy


Spirit, I adjure and beseech everyone who may either transcribe or


read these books, by his belief in the kingdom to come, by the mystery


of the resurrection from the dead, and by that everlasting fire prepared


for the devil and his angels, that, as he would not possess for an eternal


inheritance that place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth


and where their fire is not quenched and their spirit does not die, he


add nothing to what is written and take nothing away from it, and


make no insertion or alteration, but that he compare his transcription


with the copies from which he made it.12


These are dire threats—hellfire and brimstone—for simply changing


some words of a text. Some authors, though, were fully determined


to make sure their words were transmitted intact, and no threat could


54 Misquoting Jesus


be serious enough in the face of copyists who could change texts at


will, in a world that had no copyright laws.


Changes of the Text


It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the only changes being


made were by copyists with a personal stake in the wording of the


text. In fact, most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts


have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away


the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple—slips


of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled


words, blunders of one sort or another. Scribes could be incompetent:


it is important to recall that most of the copyists in the early centuries


were not trained to do this kind of work but were simply the literate


members of their congregations who were (more or less) able and


willing. Even later, starting in the fourth and fifth centuries, when


Christian scribes emerged as a professional class within the church,13


and later still when most manuscripts were copied by monks devoted


to this kind of work in monasteries—even then, some scribes were


less skilled than others. At all times the task could be drudgery, as is


indicated in notes occasionally added to manuscripts in which a scribe


would pen a kind of sigh of relief, such as “The End of the Manuscript.


Thanks Be to God!”14 Sometimes scribes grew inattentive;


sometimes they were hungry or sleepy; sometimes they just couldn’t


be bothered to give their best effort.


Even scribes who were competent, trained, and alert sometimes


made mistakes. Sometimes, though, as we have seen, they changed


the text because they thought it was supposed to be changed. This was


not just for certain theological reasons, however. There were other


reasons for scribes to make an intentional change—for example, when


they came across a passage that appeared to embody a mistake that


needed to be corrected, possibly a contradiction found in the text, or a


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 55


mistaken geographical reference, or a misplaced scriptural allusion.


Thus, when scribes made intentional changes, sometimes their motives


were as pure as the driven snow. But the changes were made


nonetheless, and the author’s original words, as a result, may have become


altered and eventually lost.


An interesting illustration of the intentional change of a text is


found in one of our finest old manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (so named


because it was found in the Vatican library), made in the fourth century.


In the opening of the book of Hebrews there is a passage in


which, according to most manuscripts, we are told that “Christ bears


[Greek: PHER


–


ON] all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). In


Codex Vaticanus, however, the original scribe produced a slightly different


text, with a verb that sounded similar in Greek; here the text


instead reads: “Christ manifests [Greek: PHANER


–


ON] all things by


the word of his power.” Some centuries later, a second scribe read this


passage in the manuscript and decided to change the unusual word


manifests to the more common reading bears—erasing the one word


and writing in the other. Then, again some centuries later, a third


scribe read the manuscript and noticed the alteration his predecessor


had made; he, in turn, erased the word bears and rewrote the word


manifests. He then added a scribal note in the margin to indicate what


he thought of the earlier, second scribe. The note says: “Fool and


knave! Leave the old reading, don’t change it!”


I have a copy of the page framed and hanging on the wall above


my desk as a constant reminder about scribes and their proclivities to


change, and rechange, their texts. Obviously it is the change of a single


word: so why does it matter? It matters because the only way to


understand what an author wants to say is to know what his words—


all his words—actually were. (Think of all the sermons preached on


the basis of a single word in a text: what if the word is one the author


didn’t actually write?) Saying that Christ reveals all things by his


word of power is quite different from saying that he keeps the universe


together by his word!


56 Misquoting Jesus


Complications in Knowing


the “Original Text”


And so, all kinds of changes were made in manuscripts by the scribes


who copied them. We will be looking at the types of changes in greater


depth in a later chapter. For the moment, it is enough to know that


the changes were made, and that they were made widely, especially in


the first two hundred years in which the texts were being copied,


when most of the copyists were amateurs. One of the leading questions


that textual critics must deal with is how to get back to the original


text—the text as the author first wrote it—given the circumstance


that our manuscripts are so full of mistakes. The problem is exacerbated


by the fact that once a mistake was made, it could become


firmly embedded in the textual tradition, more firmly embedded, in


fact, than the original.


That is to say, once a scribe changes a text—whether accidentally


or intentionally—then those changes are permanent in his manuscript


(unless, of course, another scribe comes along to correct the mistake).


The next scribe who copies that manuscript copies those mistakes


(thinking they are what the text said), and he adds mistakes of his own.


The next scribe who then copies that manuscript copies the mistakes of


both his predecessors and adds mistakes of his own, and so on. The


only way mistakes get corrected is when a scribe recognizes that a


predecessor has made an error and tries to resolve it. There is no guarantee,


however, that a scribe who tries to correct a mistake corrects it


correctly. That is, by changing what he thinks is an error, he may in


fact change it incorrectly, so now there are three forms of the text: the


original, the error, and the incorrect attempt to resolve the error. Mistakes


multiply and get repeated; sometimes they get corrected and


sometimes they get compounded. And so it goes. For centuries.


Sometimes, of course, a scribe may have more than one manuscript


at hand, and can correct the mistakes in one manuscript by the


correct readings of the other manuscript. This does, in fact, improve


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 57


the situation significantly. On the other hand, it is also possible that a


scribe will sometimes correct the correct manuscript in light of the


wording of the incorrect one. The possibilities seem endless.


Given these problems, how can we hope to get back to anything


like the original text, the text that an author actually wrote? It is an


enormous problem. In fact, it is such an enormous problem that a


number of textual critics have started to claim that we may as well


suspend any discussion of the “original” text, because it is inaccessible


to us. This may be going too far, but a concrete example or two taken


from the New Testament writings can show the problems.


Examples of the Problems


For the first example, let’s take Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Even at


the point of the original penning of the letter, we have numerous difficulties


to consider, which may well make us sympathetic with those


who want to give up on the notion of knowing what the “original”


text was. Galatia was not a single town with a single church; it was a


region in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in which Paul had established


churches. When he writes to the Galatians, is he writing to one of


the churches or to all of them? Presumably, since he doesn’t single out


any particular town, he means for the letter to go to all of them. Does


that mean that he made multiple copies of the same letter, or that he


wanted the one letter to circulate to all the churches of the region? We


don’t know.


Suppose he made multiple copies. How did he do it? To begin


with, it appears that this letter, like others by Paul, was not written by


his hand but was dictated to a secretarial scribe. Evidence for this


comes at the end of the letter, where Paul added a postscript in his


own handwriting, so that the recipients would know that it was he


who was responsible for the letter (a common technique for dictated


letters in antiquity): “See with what large letters I am writing you


with my own hand” (Gal. 6:11). His handwriting, in other words, was


58 Misquoting Jesus


larger and probably less professional in appearance than that of the


scribe to whom he had dictated the letter.15


Now, if Paul dictated the letter, did he dictate it word for word?


Or did he spell out the basic points and allow the scribe to fill in the


rest? Both methods were commonly used by letter writers in antiquity.


16 If the scribe filled in the rest, can we be assured that he filled it


in exactly as Paul wanted? If not, do we actually have Paul’s words,


or are they the words of some unknown scribe? But let’s suppose


that Paul dictated the letter word for word. Is it possible that in


some places the scribe wrote down the wrong words? Stranger things


have happened. If so, then the autograph of the letter (i.e., the original)


would already have a “mistake” in it, so that all subsequent copies


would not be of Paul’s words (in the places where his scribe got them


wrong).


Suppose, though, that the scribe got all the words 100 percent correct.


If multiple copies of the letter went out, can we be sure that all


the copies were also 100 percent correct? It is possible, at least, that


even if they were all copied in Paul’s presence, a word or two here or


there got changed in one or the other of the copies. If so, what if only


one of the copies served as the copy from which all subsequent copies


were made—then in the first century, into the second century and the


third century, and so on? In that case, the oldest copy that provided


the basis for all subsequent copies of the letter was not exactly what


Paul wrote, or wanted to write.


Once the copy is in circulation—that is, once it arrives at its destination


in one of the towns of Galatia—it, of course, gets copied, and


mistakes get made. Sometimes scribes might intentionally change the


text; sometimes accidents happen. These mistake-ridden copies get


copied; and the mistake-ridden copies of the copies get copied; and so


on, down the line. Somewhere in the midst of all this, the original


copy (or each of the original copies) ends up getting lost, or worn out,


or destroyed. At some point, it is no longer possible to compare a copy


with the original to make sure it is “correct,” even if someone has the


bright idea of doing so.


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 59


What survives today, then, is not the original copy of the letter, nor


one of the first copies that Paul himself had made, nor any of the


copies that were produced in any of the towns of Galatia to which the


letter was sent, nor any of the copies of those copies. The first reasonably


complete copy we have of Galatians (this manuscript is fragmentary;


i.e., it has a number of missing parts) is a papyrus called P46 (since


it was the forty-sixth New Testament papyrus to be catalogued), which


dates to about 200 C.E.17 That’s approximately 150 years after Paul


wrote the letter. It had been in circulation, being copied sometimes


correctly and sometimes incorrectly, for fifteen decades before any


copy was made that has survived down to the present day. We cannot


reconstruct the copy from which P46 was made. Was it an accurate


copy? If so, how accurate? It surely had mistakes of some kind, as did


the copy from which it was copied, and the copy from which that copy


was copied, and so on.


In short, it is a very complicated business talking about the “original”


text of Galatians. We don’t have it. The best we can do is get back


to an early stage of its transmission, and simply hope that what we reconstruct


about the copies made at that stage—based on the copies


that happen to survive (in increasing numbers as we move into the


Middle Ages)—reasonably reflects what Paul himself actually wrote,


or at least what he intended to write when he dictated the letter.


As a second example of the problems, let’s take the Gospel of John.


This Gospel is quite different from the other three Gospels of the


New Testament, telling a range of stories that differ from theirs and


employing a very different style of writing. Here, in John, the sayings


of Jesus are long discourses rather than pithy, direct sayings; Jesus


never tells a parable, for example, in John, unlike in the other three


Gospels. Moreover, the events narrated in John are often found only


in this Gospel: for example, Jesus’s conversations with Nicodemus (in


chapter 3) and with the Samaritan woman (chapter 4) or his miracles


of turning water into wine (chapter 2) and raising Lazarus from the


dead (chapter 10). The author’s portrayal of Jesus is quite different


too; unlike in the other three Gospels, Jesus spends much of his time


60 Misquoting Jesus


explaining who he is (the one sent from heaven) and doing “signs” in


order to prove that what he says about himself is true.


John no doubt had sources for his account—possibly a source that


narrated Jesus’s signs, for example, and sources that described his discourses.


18 He put these sources together into his own flowing narrative


of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection. It is possible,


though, that John actually produced several different versions of his


Gospel. Readers have long noted, for example, that chapter 21 appears


to be a later add-on. The Gospel certainly seems to come to an


end in 20:30–31; and the events of chapter 21 seem to be a kind of afterthought,


possibly added to fill out the stories of Jesus’s resurrection


appearances and to explain that when the “beloved disciple” responsible


for narrating the traditions in the Gospel had died, this was not


unforeseen (cf. 21:22–23).


Other passages of the Gospel also do not cohere completely with


the rest. Even the opening verses 1:1–18, which form a kind of prologue


to the Gospel, appear to be different from the rest. This highly


celebrated poem speaks of the “Word” of God, who existed with God


from the beginning and was himself God, and who “became flesh” in


Jesus Christ. The passage is written in a highly poetic style not found


in the rest of the Gospel; moreover, while its central themes are repeated


in the rest of the narrative, some of its most important vocabulary


is not. Thus, Jesus is portrayed throughout the narrative as the


one who came from above, but never is he called the Word elsewhere


in the Gospel. Is it possible that this opening passage came from a different


source than the rest of the account, and that it was added as an


appropriate beginning by the author after an earlier edition of the


book had already been published?


Assume, for a second, just for the sake of the argument, that chapter


21 and 1:1–18 were not original components of the Gospel. What


does that do for the textual critic who wants to reconstruct the “original”


text? Which original is being constructed? All our Greek manuscripts


contain the passages in question. So does the textual critic


reconstruct as the original text the form of the Gospel that originally


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 61


contained them? But shouldn’t we consider the “original” form to be


the earlier version, which lacked them? And if one wants to reconstruct


that earlier form, is it fair to stop there, with reconstructing, say,


the first edition of John’s Gospel? Why not go even further and try to


reconstruct the sources that lie behind the Gospel, such as the signs


sources and the discourse sources, or even the oral traditions that lie


behind them?


These are questions that plague textual critics, and that have led


some to argue that we should abandon any quest for the original text—


since we can’t even agree on what it might mean to talk about the


“original” of, say, Galatians or John. For my part, however, I continue


to think that even if we cannot be 100 percent certain about what we


can attain to, we can at least be certain that all the surviving manuscripts


were copied from other manuscripts, which were themselves


copied from other manuscripts, and that it is at least possible to get


back to the oldest and earliest stage of the manuscript tradition for


each of the books of the New Testament. All our manuscripts of


Galatians, for example, evidently go back to some text that was copied;


all our manuscripts of John evidently go back to a version of John that


included the prologue and chapter 21. And so we must rest content


knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best


we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the “original” text.


This oldest form of the text is no doubt closely (very closely) related to


what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for our interpretation


of his teaching.


Reconstructing the Texts of


the New Testament


Similar problems, of course, apply to all our early Christian writings,


both those in the New Testament and those outside it, whether gospels,


acts, epistles, apocalypses, or any of the other kinds of early Christian


writing. The task of the textual critic is to determine what the earliest


62 Misquoting Jesus


form of the text is for all these writings. As we will see, there are established


principles for making this determination, ways of deciding


which differences in our manuscripts are mistakes, which are intentional


changes, and which appear to go back to the original author.


But it’s not an easy task.


The results, on the other hand, can be extremely enlightening, interesting,


and even exciting. Textual critics have been able to determine


with relative certainty a number of places in which manuscripts


that survive do not represent the original text of the New Testament.


For those who are not at all familiar with the field, but who know the


New Testament well (say, in English translation), some of the results


can be surprising. To conclude this chapter, I will discuss two such


passages—passages from the Gospels, in this case, that we are now


fairly certain did not originally belong in the New Testament, even


though they became popular parts of the Bible for Christians down


through the centuries and remain so today.


The Woman Taken in Adultery


The story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery is arguably the


best-known story about Jesus in the Bible; it certainly has always been


a favorite in Hollywood versions of his life. It even makes it into Mel


Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, although that movie focuses only on


Jesus’s last hours (the story is treated in one of the rare flashbacks).


Despite its popularity, the account is found in only one passage of the


New Testament, in John 7:53–8:12, and it appears not to have been


original even there.


The story line is familiar. Jesus is teaching in the temple, and a


group of scribes and Pharisees, his sworn enemies, approach him,


bringing with them a woman “who had been caught in the very act of


adultery.” They bring her before Jesus because they want to put him


to the test. The Law of Moses, as they tell him, demands that such a


one be stoned to death; but they want to know what he has to say


about the matter. Should they stone her or show her mercy? It is a


trap, of course. If Jesus tells them to let the woman go, he will be


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 63


accused of violating the Law of God; if he tells them to stone her, he


will be accused of dismissing his own teachings of love, mercy, and


forgiveness.


Jesus does not immediately reply; instead he stoops to write on the


ground. When they continue to question him, he says to them, “Let


the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at


her.” He then returns to his writing on the ground, while those who


have brought the woman start to leave the scene—evidently feeling


convicted of their own wrongdoing—until no one is left but the


woman. Looking up, Jesus says, “Woman, where are they? Is there no


one who condemns you?” To which she replies, “No one, Lord.” He


then responds, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”


It is a brilliant story, filled with pathos and a clever twist in which


Jesus uses his wits to get himself—not to mention the poor woman—


off the hook. Of course, to a careful reader, the story raises numerous


questions. If this woman was caught in the act of adultery, for example,


where is the man she was caught with? Both of them are to be


stoned, according to the Law of Moses (see Lev. 20:10). Moreover,


when Jesus wrote on the ground, what exactly was he writing? (According


to one ancient tradition, he was writing the sins of the accusers,


who seeing that their own transgressions were known, left in


embarrassment!) And even if Jesus did teach a message of love, did he


really think that the Law of God given by Moses was no longer in


force and should not be obeyed? Did he think sins should not be punished


at all?


Despite the brilliance of the story, its captivating quality, and its


inherent intrigue, there is one other enormous problem that it poses.


As it turns out, it was not originally in the Gospel of John. In fact, it


was not originally part of any of the Gospels. It was added by later


scribes.


How do we know this? In fact, scholars who work on the manuscript


tradition have no doubts about this particular case. Later in this


book we will be examining in greater depth the kinds of evidence that


scholars adduce for making judgments of this sort. Here I can simply


64 Misquoting Jesus


point out a few basic facts that have proved convincing to nearly all


scholars of every persuasion: the story is not found in our oldest and


best manuscripts of the Gospel of John;18 its writing style is very different


from what we find in the rest of John (including the stories immediately


before and after); and it includes a large number of words


and phrases that are otherwise alien to the Gospel. The conclusion is


unavoidable: this passage was not originally part of the Gospel.


How then did it come to be added? There are numerous theories


about that. Most scholars think that it was probably a well-known


story circulating in the oral tradition about Jesus, which at some point


was added in the margin of a manuscript. From there some scribe


or other thought that the marginal note was meant to be part of the


text and so inserted it immediately after the account that ends in John


7:52. It is noteworthy that other scribes inserted the account in different


locations in the New Testament—some of them after John 21:25,


for example, and others, interestingly enough, after Luke 21:38. In


any event, whoever wrote the account, it was not John.


That naturally leaves readers with a dilemma: if this story was not


originally part of John, should it be considered part of the Bible? Not


everyone will respond to this question in the same way, but for most


textual critics, the answer is no.


The Last Twelve Verses of Mark


The second example that we will consider may not be as familiar to


the casual reader of the Bible, but it has been highly influential in the


history of biblical interpretation and poses comparable problems for


the scholar of the textual tradition of the New Testament. This example


comes from the Gospel of Mark and concerns its ending.


In Mark’s account, we are told that Jesus is crucified and then buried


by Joseph of Arimathea on the day before the Sabbath (15:42–47). On


the day after Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and two other women come


back to the tomb in order properly to anoint the body (16:1–2). When


they arrive, they find that the stone has been rolled away. Entering the


tomb, they see a young man in a white robe, who tells them, “Do not


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 65


be startled! You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified.


He has been raised and is not here—see the place where they laid


him?” He then instructs the women to tell the disciples that Jesus is


preceding them into Galilee and that they will see him there, “just as


he told you.” But the women flee the tomb and say nothing to anyone,


“for they were afraid” (16:4–8).


Then come the last twelve verses of Mark in many modern English


translations, verses that continue the story. Jesus himself is said to


appear to Mary Magdalene, who goes and tells the disciples; but they


do not believe her (vv. 9–11). He then appears to two others (vv. 12–14),


and finally to the eleven disciples (the Twelve, not including Judas Iscariot)


who are gathered together at table. Jesus upbraids them for


failing to believe, and then commissions them to go forth and proclaim


his gospel “to the whole creation.” Those who believe and are


baptized “will be saved,” but those who do not “will be condemned.”


And then come two of the most intriguing verses of the passage:


And these are the signs that will accompany those who believe: they


will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; and


they will take up snakes in their hands; and if they drink any poison,


it will not harm them; they will place their hands upon the sick and


heal them. (vv. 17–18)


Jesus is then taken up into heaven, and seated at the right hand of


God. And the disciples go forth into the world proclaiming the


gospel, their words being confirmed by the signs that accompany


them (vv. 19–20).


It is a terrific passage, mysterious, moving, and powerful. It is one


of the passages used by Pentecostal Christians to show that Jesus’s followers


will be able to speak in unknown “tongues,” as happens in


their own services of worship; and it is the principal passage used by


groups of “Appalachian snake-handlers,” who till this day take poisonous


snakes in their hands in order to demonstrate their faith in the


words of Jesus, that when doing so they will come to no harm.


But there’s one problem. Once again, this passage was not originally


in the Gospel of Mark. It was added by a later scribe.


66 Misquoting Jesus


In some ways this textual problem is more disputed than the passage


about the woman taken in adultery, because without these final


verses Mark has a very different, and hard to understand, ending.


That doesn’t mean that scholars are inclined to accept the verses, as


we’ll see momentarily. The reasons for taking them to be an addition


are solid, almost indisputable. But scholars debate what the genuine


ending of Mark actually was, given the circumstance that this ending


found in many English translations (though usually marked as inauthentic)


and in later Greek manuscripts is not the original.


The evidence that these verses were not original to Mark is similar


in kind to that for the passage about the woman taken in adultery, and


again I don’t need to go into all the details here. The verses are absent


from our two oldest and best manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel, along


with other important witnesses; the writing style varies from what we


find elsewhere in Mark; the transition between this passage and the


one preceding it is hard to understand (e.g., Mary Magdalene is introduced


in verse 9 as if she hadn’t been mentioned yet, even though she


is discussed in the preceding verses; there is another problem with the


Greek that makes the transition even more awkward); and there are a


large number of words and phrases in the passage that are not found


elsewhere in Mark. In short, the evidence is sufficient to convince


nearly all textual scholars that these verses are an addition to Mark.


Without them, though, the story ends rather abruptly. Notice what


happens when these verses are taken away. The women are told to inform


the disciples that Jesus will precede them to Galilee and meet


them there; but they, the women, flee the tomb and say nothing to


anyone, “for they were afraid.” And that’s where the Gospel ends.


Obviously, scribes thought the ending was too abrupt. The women


told no one? Then, did the disciples never learn of the resurrection?


And didn’t Jesus himself ever appear to them? How could that be the


ending! To resolve the problem, scribes added an ending.19


Some scholars agree with the scribes in thinking that 16:8 is too


abrupt an ending for a Gospel. As I have indicated, it is not that these


scholars believe the final twelve verses in our later manuscripts were


the original ending—they know that’s not the case—but they think


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 67


that, possibly, the last page of Mark’s Gospel, one in which Jesus actually


did meet the disciples in Galilee, was somehow lost, and that all


our copies of the Gospel go back to this one truncated manuscript,


without the last page.


That explanation is entirely possible. It is also possible, in the opinion


of yet other scholars, that Mark did indeed mean to end his Gospel


with 16:8.20 It certainly is a shocker of an ending. The disciples never


learn the truth of Jesus’s resurrection because the women never tell


them. One reason for thinking that this could be how Mark ended his


Gospel is that some such ending coincides so well with other motifs


throughout his Gospel. As students of Mark have long noticed, the


disciples never do seem to “get it” in this Gospel (unlike in some of the


other Gospels). They are repeatedly said not to understand Jesus


(6:51–52; 8:21), and when Jesus tells them on several occasions that he


must suffer and die, they manifestly fail to comprehend his words


(8:31–33; 9:30–32; 10:33–40). Maybe, in fact, they never did come to


understand (unlike Mark’s readers, who can understand who Jesus


really is from the very beginning). Also, it is interesting to note that


throughout Mark, when someone comes to understand something


about Jesus, Jesus orders that person to silence—and yet often the person


ignores the order and spreads the news (e.g., 1:43–45). How ironic


that when the women at the tomb are told not to be silent but to


speak, they also ignore the order—and are silent!


In short, Mark may well have intended to bring his reader up


short with this abrupt ending—a clever way to make the reader stop,


take a faltering breath, and ask: What?


Conclusion


The passages discussed above represent just two out of thousands of


places in which the manuscripts of the New Testament came to be


changed by scribes. In both of the examples, we are dealing with additions


that scribes made to the text, additions of sizable length. Al-


68 Misquoting Jesus


though most of the changes are not of this magnitude, there are lots of


significant changes (and lots more insignificant ones) in our surviving


manuscripts of the New Testament. In the chapters that follow we


will want to see how scholars began to discover these changes and


how they developed methods for figuring out what the oldest form of


the text (or the “original” text) is; we will especially like to see more


examples of where this text has been changed—and how these changes


affected our English translations of the Bible.


I would like to end this chapter simply with an observation about


a particularly acute irony that we seem to have discovered. As we saw


in chapter 1, Christianity from the outset was a bookish religion that


stressed certain texts as authoritative scripture. As we have seen in


this chapter, however, we don’t actually have these authoritative texts.


This is a textually oriented religion whose texts have been changed,


surviving only in copies that vary from one another, sometimes in


highly significant ways. The task of the textual critic is to try to recover


the oldest form of these texts.


This is obviously a crucial task, since we can’t interpret the words


of the New Testament if we don’t know what the words were. Moreover,


as I hope should be clear by now, knowing the words is important


not just for those who consider the words divinely inspired. It is


important for anyone who thinks of the New Testament as a significant


book. And surely everyone interested in the history, society, and


culture of Western civilization thinks so, because the New Testament,


if nothing else, is an enormous cultural artifact, a book that is revered


by millions and that lies at the foundation of the largest religion of the


world today.


The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings 69

3


Texts of the


New Testament


Editions, Manuscripts,


and Differences


The copying practices we have considered thus far have been


principally those of the first three centuries of Christianity, when


most of the copyists of the Christian texts were not professionals trained


for the job but simply literate Christians of this or that congregation,


able to read and write and so called upon to reproduce the texts of the


community in their spare time.1 Because they were not highly trained


to perform this kind of work, they were more prone to make mistakes


than professional scribes would have been. This explains why our earliest


copies of the early Christian writings tend to vary more frequently


from one another and from later copies than do the later copies (say, of


the high Middle Ages) from one another. Eventually a kind of professional


scribal class came to be a part of the Christian intellectual landscape,


and with the advent of professional scribes came more controlled


copying practices, in which mistakes were made much less frequently.


Before that happened, during the early centuries of the church,


Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or


taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it is no surprise that different


localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say,


the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they


were for the most part “in-house” documents, copied from one another;


they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in


Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics,


which were not the same as those found in a place like Alexandria,


Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales


had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize


that the scribes in Alexandria—which was a major intellectual


center in the ancient world—were particularly scrupulous, even in


these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form


of the text of the early Christian writings was preserved, decade after


decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes.


Professional Christian Scribes


When did the church begin to use professional scribes to copy its texts?


There are good reasons for thinking that this happened sometime


near the beginning of the fourth century. Until then, Christianity was


a small, minority religion in the Roman Empire, often opposed, sometimes


persecuted. But a cataclysmic change occurred when the emperor


of Rome, Constantine, converted to the faith about 312 C.E. Suddenly


Christianity shifted from being a religion of social outcasts, persecuted


by local mobs and imperial authorities alike, to being a major player in


the religious scene of the empire. Not only were persecutions halted,


but favors began to pour out upon the church from the greatest power


in the Western world. Massive conversions resulted, as it became a


popular thing to be a follower of Christ in an age in which the emperor


himself publicly proclaimed his allegiance to Christianity.


More and more highly educated and trained persons converted to


72 Misquoting Jesus


the faith. They, naturally, were the ones most suited to copy the texts


of the Christian tradition. There are reasons to suppose that about this


time Christian scriptoria arose in major urban areas.2 A scriptorium is


a place for the professional copying of manuscripts. We have hints of


Christian scriptoria functioning by the early part of the fourth century.


In 331 C.E. the emperor Constantine, wanting magnificent Bibles


to be made available to major churches he was having built, wrote a


request to the bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius,3 to have fifty Bibles produced


at imperial expense. Eusebius treated this request with all the


pomp and respect it deserved, and saw that it was carried out. Obviously,


an accomplishment of this magnitude required a professional


scriptorium, not to mention the materials needed for making lavish


copies of the Christian scriptures. We are clearly in a different age


from just a century or two earlier when local churches would simply


request that one of their members cobble together enough free time to


make a copy of a text.


Starting in the fourth century, then, copies of scripture began to be


made by professionals; this naturally curtailed significantly the number


of errors that crept into the text. Eventually, as the decades grew into


centuries, the copying of the Greek scriptures became the charge of


monks working out of monasteries, who spent their days copying the


sacred texts carefully and conscientiously. This practice continued on


down through the Middle Ages, right up to the time of the invention


of printing with moveable type in the fifteenth century. The great


mass of our surviving Greek manuscripts come from the pens of these


medieval Christian scribes who lived and worked in the East (for example,


in areas that are now Turkey and Greece), known as the Byzantine


Empire. For this reason, Greek manuscripts from the seventh


century onward are sometimes labeled “Byzantine” manuscripts.


As I have pointed out, anyone familiar with the manuscript tradition


of the New Testament knows that these Byzantine copies of the


text tend to be very similar to one another, whereas the earliest copies


vary significantly both among themselves and from the form of text


found in these later copies. The reason for this should now be clear: it


Texts of the New Testament 73


had to do with who was copying the texts (professionals) and where


they were working (in a relatively constricted area). It would be a


grave mistake, though, to think that because later manuscripts agree


so extensively with one another, they are therefore our superior witnesses


to the “original” text of the New Testament. For one must always


ask: where did these medieval scribes get the texts they copied in


so professional a manner? They got them from earlier texts, which


were copies of yet earlier texts, which were themselves copies of still


earlier texts. Therefore, the texts that are closest in form to the originals


are, perhaps unexpectedly, the more variable and amateurish


copies of early times, not the more standardized professional copies of


later times.


The Latin Vulgate


The copying practices I have been summarizing principally involve


the eastern part of the Roman Empire, where Greek was, and continued


to be, the principal language. It was not long, however, before


Christians in non-Greek-speaking regions wanted the Christian sacred


texts in their own, local languages. Latin, of course, was the language


of much of the western part of the empire; Syriac was spoken in Syria;


Coptic in Egypt. In each of these areas, the books of the New Testament


came to be translated into the indigenous languages, probably


sometime in the mid to late second century. And then these translated


texts were themselves copied by scribes in their locales.4


Particularly important for the history of the text were the translations


into Latin, because a very large number of Christians in the


West had this as their principal language. Problems emerged very


soon, however, with the Latin translations of scripture, because there


were so many of them and these translations differed broadly from


one another. The problem came to a head near the end of the fourth


Christian century, when Pope Damasus commissioned the greatest


scholar of his day, Jerome, to produce an “official” Latin translation


74 Misquoting Jesus


that could be accepted by all Latin-speaking Christians, in Rome and


elsewhere, as an authoritative text. Jerome himself speaks of the plethora


of available translations, and set himself to resolving the problem.


Choosing one of the best Latin translations available, and comparing


its text with the superior Greek manuscripts at his disposal, Jerome


created a new edition of the Gospels in Latin. It may be that he, or one


of his followers, was also responsible for the new edition of the other


books of the New Testament in Latin.5


This form of the Bible in Latin—Jerome’s translation—came to


be known as the Vulgate (= Common) Bible of Latin-speaking Christendom.


This was the Bible for the Western church, itself copied and


recopied many times over. It was the book that Christians read, scholars


studied, and theologians used for centuries, down to the modern


period. Today there are nearly twice as many copies of the Latin


Vulgate as there are Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.


The First Printed Edition of


the Greek New Testament