April 4, 2013
Barna Research Group reports that the number of American adults who view the Bible as “just…a book of stories and teachings written by men” has increased from 10% in 2011 to 17% in 2013. That’s a significant increase in just two years.
Read the entire report here.
March 19, 2013
Dan Wallace reports on the release of a new New Testament. A band off 19 liberal Christian and Jewish scholars got together for a “council” and decided to add 13 new books (two are prayers, and one is a song) to the New Testament.
Given some of those on this council (Karen King, John Dominic Crossan), it’s no surprise that they are Gnostic in character. Both the “council” and the new testament they produced is a farce.
December 21, 2012
If the title itself doesn’t give it away, the Queen James Bible is a new “gay Bible” based on the King James Version, complete with a rainbow-styled cross on the cover. It was named “Queen James Bible” because King James I of England, who authorized the creation of the Bible that bears his name, was rumored to be bisexual.
According to the unnamed editors[1] of this version, “The Queen James Bible seeks to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible as it pertains to homosexuality.[2] … We edited the Bible to prevent homophobic interpretations.”[3] It is a near-identical reproduction of the KJV, but with gay-friendly edits made to eight verses that have been traditionally been interpreted as speaking negatively against homosex. What follows is a comparison of the KJV to the QJV (changes in bold), followed by my comments on their changes:
December 13, 2012
Earlier this year Michael Kruger blogged his way through the 10 most common misconceptions about the NT canon.
Check them out to see which misconceptions you are guilty of, and then confess your intellectual sins in the comments section.
October 5, 2012
This story continues to fascinate me. It’s like CSI Miami for Biblical nerds! And new insights and arguments continue to be offered for and against the authenticity of the GosJesWife.
Christian Askeland has a nice 10 minute video demonstrating some of the peculiarities of the writing on the GosJesWife which cause scholars to doubt its authenticity.
Hugo Lundhaug and Alin Suciu discuss the problems around dating the GosJesWife and evidence that a paintbrush was used for the writing.
Timo Paananen disputes James Watson’s methodology for concluding that the GosJesWife is a patchwork of the Coptic GTh.
Peter Head examines some of the reasons King et al concluded that the writing was authentic, including the lack of ink in a hole created by an insect, the lack of ink where fibers have gone missing from the papyrus, ink on the frayed edges, and the faded ink on the recto and finds them wanting.
September 27, 2012
“Jesus said to them, ‘My wife’” highlighted.
The web continues to be abuzz with The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. So much is being written that it’s hard to keep up! Here are the latest and most important developments.
James Watson has written two more papers (here and here) further developing his original thesis that The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife is a collage of various words and phrases culled from the Gospel of Thomas to form a new composition that is supposed to appear like a new gospel. Andrew Bernhard has also tested Watson’s thesis in two papers (here and here), and agrees that “a modern author could have created the text of GJW simply by using short excerpts culled exclusively from Coptic GTh.”[1] Both of Bernhard’s papers present an excellent visual and summary of the extensive semantic borrowing of the GosJesWife from the Coptic GTh. He notes that only 14 out of 139 legible letters on the recto of the GosJesWife do not correspond to the Coptic GTh. Eight of these 14 letters make up the phrase “my wife.” Of the other 6 letter differences, they are either due to gender shifts in the pronoun or uninterpretable because they are single letters that come at the beginning or end of the line and lack sufficient context for reconstruction.
September 21, 2012
Karen King, professor of divinity at Harvard and specialist in Gnostic Christianity, recently announced the existence of a small (3” x 1.5”), late-4th century[1] fragment in which Jesus speaks of his wife. Written in Sahidic Coptic with black ink[2] on papyrus, the fragment contains eight lines of text on the recto and six lines of text on the verso, with all margins missing.[3] The extant text on the recto side reads:
1 Not [to] me. My mother gave to me li[fe
2 The disciples said to Jesus
3 deny. Mary is worthy of it.[4]
4 Jesus said to them, “My wife
5 she will be able to be my disciple
6 Let wicked people swell up
7 As for me, I dwell with her in order to
8 an image[5]
Although the text bears some striking resemblance to known Gnostic texts (particularly the Gospel of Thomas[6], and to a lesser degree the Gospel of Philip), it does not match any known apocryphal or Gnostic gospel. This may be an independent Gospel of unknown character (Gnostic, apocryphal, etc.) or, as Francis Watson has argued, it may be a modern forgery created using key words from the Coptic version of the Gospel of Thomas (more will be said concerning this momentarily).
July 24, 2012
I’ve been reading through the book of Proverbs with my wife. I’ve noticed something in the text that clues me into the history of the book, and poses interesting questions for the doctrine of Biblical inspiration.
The book opens with the words, “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel” (Proverbs 1:1, ESV). These words read like the words of an editor, not Solomon himself. They were added by the individual(s) who compiled Solomon’s proverbs and edited them into the form and order we see in our Bibles. There is reason to believe, however, that this collection of Solomonic proverbs consisted only of the first nine chapters. Proverbs 10:1 reads, “The proverbs of Solomon.” If the introduction to the book of Proverbs tells us these are the proverbs of Solomon, why mention this again unless (1) there had been a shift in authors from Solomon to someone else somewhere between chapter one and chapter nine, or (2) if the proverbs beginning with chapter 10 were not part of the original collection of proverbs. There is no indication of a change in authorship between chapter one and chapter nine, so it follows that chapter 10 begins a new collection of Solomonic proverbs that was not part of the original collection. How long did the first collection circulate before this second collection was added? We do not know, but clearly enough time elapsed that when the new collection was added to the first, it was important to preface the collection by noting that these, too, were the proverbs of Solomon.
June 29, 2012
Daniel Wallace is a prominent evangelical NT textual critic. He has written about the field in various places, but never in much detail, and never in a book dedicated to the topic. So I was very excited when I heard he was editing a collection of essays on the topic.
Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament is not a general book on the topic of NT textual criticism, but a collection of essays criticizing the analysis and methodology of Bart Ehrman. Indeed, if you have heard any of Wallace and Ehrman’s three debates, you will already be familiar with much of the material Wallace presents in his chapter. But it is nice to have that wealth of information put to print and to have access to all of the details Wallace provides in the footnotes. Here are a few facts about the NT manuscripts that are of note: (more…)
June 20, 2012
June 20, 2012
The English name “Jesus” is an English transliteration of the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name of our savior, Yeshua. Yeshua is an updated form of the old Hebrew name, Yehoshua, transliterated into English as “Joshua.” That’s right, Jesus’ and Joshua had the same name, and thus Jesus’ name could rightly be pronounced “Joshua” in English! This is made clear in the Greek New Testament in which the name of Joshua the son of Nun and the name of Jesus of Nazareth are both “Iesous.”
Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen. 45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David (Acts 7:44-45, KJV)
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. (Heb 4:8, KJV)
Most translations other than the KJV translate Iesous as “Joshua” in these verses since they are clearly referring to Joshua the son of Nun who succeeded Moses and led the children of Israel into the Promised Land. I used to use these verses as examples of poor translation on the part of the KJV translators since it was clearly Joshua and not Jesus who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land, but truth be told the KJV translators were not only accurately translating the Greek, they were doing so in a more consistent manner than most modern translators since they translated every occurrence of Iesous as “Jesus” even when it referred to someone other than our savior.
May 23, 2012
Daniel Wallace revealed some additional details regarding some early NT papyri manuscripts in a video interview with Michael Licona, one of which is the highly touted first century fragment of Mark.
In a nutshell:
I can’t wait to find out more about the collection in 2013!
May 2, 2012
It’s long been the conclusion of scholars that Esther and Nehemiah are the only books of the OT not represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The May/June 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), however, reports that Norwegian scholar, Torleif Elgvin of the Evangelical Lutheran University College in Oslo, Norway, and Esther Eshel of Bar-Ilan University are publishing a collection of two dozen previously unknown DSS fragments from Cave 4, the Bar-Kokhba caves, and Wadi ed-Daliyeh in a book titled Gleanings from the Caves (T&T Clark publishers). If this checks out, then Esther would remain the only book not found in the DSS. Of course, if Nehemiah and Esther were written on the same scroll as most scholars believe, then while we may not have an extant copy of Esther from the DSS, there is good reason to believe the text was present in the community as part of the Nehemiah scroll.
March 6, 2012
In the early 20th century German theologian Walter Bauer proposed that Christian orthodoxy is a historical fiction. Heretics were not those who departed from the original teachings of Jesus and the apostles, but those on the losing side of a political battle for dominance by one group of Christians over another. Orthodoxy represents the side who won, not the side of those who remained faithful to Jesus’ teachings. There is no such thing as Christianity per se, but rather a collage of various Christianities.
While Bauer’s proposal was severely critiqued by other scholars and joined the ash-heap of theological history, as is the case with most bad ideas, someone comes along later, picks up the idea, brushes off the ashes, repackages it, and tries to sell it again. Such is the case with the Bauer thesis. Today it is being peddled by people such as Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels. Speaking to a postmodern generation that prizes diversity, detests absolute truth claims, and thinks truth claims are an attempt to gain power and exert control, they have found a receptive audience for their pluralistic view of Christian origins and history. For them, the only true heresy is orthodoxy itself: the claim that there is one enduring truth, and one Christian faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.
February 7, 2012
That’s the claim Daniel Wallace made during his most recent debate with Bart Ehrman at UNC Chapel Hill. In his summary of the debate at Parchment and Pen, Wallace writes:
We have as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts (six of which were recently discovered and not yet catalogued) and a first-century manuscript of Mark’s Gospel! … Bart had explicitly said that our earliest copy of Mark was from c. 200 CE, but this is now incorrect. It’s from the first century. I mentioned these new manuscript finds and told the audience that a book will be published by E. J. Brill in about a year that gives all the data. … I noted that a world-class paleographer, whose qualifications are unimpeachable, was my source.”
Later he described the newly discovered manuscript as “just a small fragment.” Nevertheless, if this is a manuscript copy of Mark’s gospel, and if it can be reliably dated to the 1st century AD, this would be the greatest NT manuscript find to date, surpassing even p52 (a small portion of John’s Gospel, dated to ~125 AD)! We’ll have to wait and see.
UPDATE 2/16: Dr. Wallace has written specifically on this issue on the Dallas Theological Seminary website and added a tiny bit more information by saying “it was dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers. He said he was ‘certain’ that it was from the first century.” In the comments I have also quoted Dr. Ben Witherington III regarding the owner of the fragment, and a bit more detail about it. Witherington made it sound as if it is much more than a “small fragment.” I guess we’ll have to wait until next year to see how small is small.
January 17, 2012
Have you ever heard it said—or said it yourself—that if all the Bibles and Biblical manuscripts in the world were destroyed tomorrow, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the NT from the writings of the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers alone? Recently, while listening to an interview featuring NT textual critic, Daniel Wallace, I learned that this claim is demonstrably false.[1] Unfortunately this has been repeated in one form or another by many individuals, including prominent NT textual critics.
Apparently this misinformation began to circulate widely in 1841 with the publication of Robert Philip’s memoir of John Campbell titled The Life, Times, and Missionary Enterprises of the Rev. John Campbell. The Life contains a written anecdote of Campbell, who was rehearsing a story told to him by Reverend Dr. Walter Buchanan pertaining to the research David Dalrymple conducted into the church fathers’ citations of the NT. According to Campbell, Buchanan and Dalrymple were both in attendance at a literary party when someone raised the question: “Supposing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the three first centuries?” No one had an answer. According to Campbell, two months later Dalrymple contacted Buchanan and reported to him that he had taken up the question raised at the party, researched the writings of the church fathers, and had an answer to the question. According to Campbell, Buchanan told him that Dalrymple told Buchanan he discovered that all but 7 or 11 verses (Dalrymple could not recall the exact number) of the NT were quoted in the early church fathers.
December 22, 2011
I recently taught on the historical reliability of the Gospels and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. One of the areas I focused on was the apparent contradictions and errors in the Gospels, demonstrating how most of these are easily resolvable, and thus not contradictions/errors at all. But not all Biblical difficulties are so easily resolved. In fact, there are some for which I do not presently have a good answer. If you are a careful reader of Scripture, I’d bet there are Biblical difficulties you have encountered for which you lack a good answer as well. What are we to do with such difficulties given the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy? What should our posture be toward the Christian faith once having discovered irresolvable difficulties in the text?
Some individuals respond by concluding that Christianity is not true. Some go so far as to conclude that God does not even exist! I submit to you that these responses are ill-founded; the result of elevating the doctrine of inerrancy to a status it should not be accorded in one’s theological taxonomy. While the Bible is an indispensable aid to our faith and Christian growth, an inerrant Bible is not necessary for the truth of Christianity, and thus the doctrine of inerrancy—and Bibliology in general—should be subservient to more central doctrines such as the resurrection of Jesus in our theological taxonomy. Let me explain.
November 17, 2011
Ben Witherington has written a short series of blog posts (part 1, 2, and 3) on the question of literacy in first-century Israel. He makes an important point that is often overlooked in these discussions: There is a difference between being able to converse in a language, read a language, and write a language. By today’s standards, literacy in a language refers to the ability to both read and write a language. But if we apply this standard to antiquity—particularly to the Jewish people— we will minimize the number of people who were truly literate since many could read, but few could write.
Could Jesus read? Yes. The Jewish literacy rates were higher than the Greco-Roman world because of the Jews’ strong emphasis on male education for purposes of Torah-reading. Furthermore, Jesus was not a peasant. His family were artisans, and they owned land. Evidence that Jesus could read is as follows:
October 24, 2011
A team of artists, medievalists, theologians, biblical scholars, and art historians headed up by Donald Jackson “brought together the ancient techniques of calligraphy and illumination with an ecumenical Christian approach to the Bible rooted in Benedictine spirituality” to produce an illuminated, hand-written Bible (New Revised Standard Version). Such an undertaking has not been made in centuries.
Six scribes have been at work writing in a modern calligraphic script using hand-cut quills on calfskin vellum. Each page is 3’ tall and 2’ wide. Work began in 2000. The final volume of seven volumes (includes the Pauline and catholic epistles and Revelation) was just recently completed on May 9, 2011. The final product is ~1150 pages, contains 775,000 words, and weighs 165 pounds. The project cost about 8 million dollars. You can get a facsimile for the small sum of $140,000! Put that on your Christmas wishlist!
September 26, 2011
The Israel Museum teamed up with Google to make high-resolution, searchable images of the Dead Sea Scrolls available online. It even provides a translation for you. To begin with, only five scrolls are available for viewing. Two of them are Biblical documents: the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Habakkuk commentary. This is really cool!
FYI, last month I posted a link to a site that allowed you to view the Great Isaiah Scroll. That link is now connected to the Israel Museum/Google Dead Sea Scroll site.
The picture above is a picture of Isaiah 7:14 in the Great Isaiah Scroll.
