What the manuscript evidence shows and does not show

Program / Course 17: Defending Scripture / Lesson 3.4

What you will learn

• State what the manuscript evidence establishes about the text of the Bible with fair confidence.
• State what the evidence does not establish, including limits on early dates and on authorship.
• Compare the cautious assessment of Metzger with the more apologetic tone of Bruce and the skeptical emphasis of Ehrman.
• Evaluate popular claims about the reliability of the text, in both directions.

The big idea

The manuscript evidence supports a modest but important conclusion: the text of the Bible has been handed down with a high degree of accuracy, and in most places scholars can say with confidence what the earliest recoverable wording was. It does not show that every word is certain, that the original authors can be identified from the manuscripts, or that the contents are true. Questions of truth, inspiration and authority require other kinds of argument. A fair student learns to say exactly what the evidence can bear.

Key terms

Textual certainty

How confident scholars are that a reading is the earliest recoverable one. It varies from near certainty in most places to real doubt in a few.

Original text

The wording that left the author’s hands. Some scholars prefer the phrase initial text or earliest recoverable text, since an author may have issued more than one version.

Reliability

A word that can mean accurate copying, accurate history or truthful teaching. These are different questions.

Apologetics

The reasoned defense of the Christian faith. Apologetic writing aims to persuade and should be read with that purpose in mind.

Eyewitness

A person who saw the events described. Whether a New Testament book rests on eyewitness testimony is a separate question from how well it was copied.

Gap

The time between when a book was written and the date of our earliest surviving copy.

Background

Popular arguments about the Bible often move between three different claims without noticing. The first is that the text has been copied accurately. The second is that the books were written by those whose names they bear or by people close to the events. The third is that what the books say is true. The manuscript evidence speaks mainly to the first. It tells you little directly about the second or third, though it bears on them indirectly.

Scholars who write about the subject differ in emphasis. Bruce Metzger, a Christian scholar whose work on the text is a standard reference, expresses confidence in the text and is plain about uncertainty. F. F. Bruce, in a short older book, writes with an apologetic aim. Bart Ehrman, once an evangelical and now an agnostic, stresses the number and importance of variants and the human character of the process. Readers of all three will find the facts largely shared, with a difference in tone and in conclusions.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What the evidence supports

The New Testament is attested by thousands of Greek manuscripts, the earliest of which date from the second and third centuries, and by early translations and quotations. The gap between composition and the great fourth-century codices is a few centuries, which is short by ancient standards. Scholars find that the vast majority of the text is secure, and that the main doctrines and narratives of the New Testament do not depend on disputed readings.

The Old Testament shows a similar picture with different details. The Dead Sea Scrolls bring the Hebrew text back by about a thousand years, and the careful practices of Jewish scribes are well documented. For both Testaments, scholars can say that a faithful line of transmission can be traced, with variety in some places.

Step 2: What the evidence does not show

The earliest manuscripts leave gaps. There is no copy of any Gospel from the first century, and the earliest evidence for many passages is a century or more after composition. Some books survive in a smaller number of early copies than others. For the period between the original writing and the earliest copies, scholars rely on inference and on quotations in the Fathers.

The manuscripts do not show who wrote the books. Titles such as According to Matthew were added early but are not part of the original text, and scholars debate how early. The manuscripts also do not show that any event described really happened. Such claims depend on historical argument, and on faith in the case of miracles. A textually perfect copy of a false story would still be false, and a text with variants can still report real events.

Step 3: Reading the experts

Compare the way each writer frames the same facts. Metzger describes the text as established with a high degree of reliability and notes the passages where uncertainty remains. Bruce answers critics who question whether the New Testament documents can be trusted, and he emphasizes the number and age of the manuscripts. Ehrman emphasizes that variants exist, that some are theologically interesting and that copyists were human.

Each approach has a risk. Apologetic writing can make the case sound stronger than the evidence allows. Skeptical writing can make ordinary scribal variation sound like a scandal. A reader should look for what each author actually claims, what evidence is offered, and whether the conclusion goes further than the evidence.

Step 4: Testing popular claims

Take the claim that the New Testament is 99 percent pure. The figure is sometimes repeated, but it depends on how one counts, and the scholars who lead the field do not use such numbers without explanation. Take the opposite claim that the Bible has been rewritten countless times. This is also not supported, because the major variants are identified and discussed in the apparatus of critical editions.

A third claim is that the early church deliberately altered the text to support its doctrines. A few readings may have been shaped by doctrinal concerns, and scholars debate how many. But the main teachings of the church can be found in readings that no one disputes. A good student tests each claim against the sources, and does not rely on a confident summary.

1. Which of the three claims, accurate copying, authorship or truth, does the manuscript evidence address most directly?
2. What would you want to know about the gap between composition and earliest copy for a given book?
3. How should you read an author who says that the evidence proves the Bible true?
4. How should you read an author who says that variants show the Bible cannot be trusted?
5. What is the difference between a text being well preserved and a text being true?
6. What kinds of evidence other than manuscripts bear on the Bible’s reliability?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching ties the reliability of Scripture to the faith of the church. The church encourages textual study, and the Catechism affirms that the Gospels hand on faithfully what Jesus did and taught, while acknowledging that the evangelists shaped their material.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians receive the Scriptures in the church’s liturgical Tradition and do not treat the manuscript evidence as the foundation of their faith. They are interested in textual study but hold that the church’s life gives the context in which the text is read.

Protestant (evangelical)

Evangelical scholars often argue that the evidence supports the trustworthiness of the text and the Gospels as historical sources, and they defend inerrancy of the original writings. They accept that copies contain variants and say that none affects a central doctrine.

Protestant (mainline and critical)

Many mainline scholars accept the textual evidence but are more cautious about the historical claims of the Gospels. They emphasize the theological interests of the evangelists and treat the question of reliability as one to be settled passage by passage.

Skeptical

Skeptical scholars accept that the text is mostly recoverable, but argue that this has little bearing on whether the events happened. They hold that apologetic use of the manuscript evidence confuses the question. Believers answer that careful transmission is a necessary condition for any reliable testimony.

Why it matters

Much public argument about the Bible starts with the manuscripts. If you know what the evidence can and cannot show, you can hear a claim and ask whether it goes beyond the facts. This is useful to believers who want to defend their faith honestly and to skeptics who want to criticize it fairly. It also prepares you for the next module, which deals with the questions of contradiction and interpretation that the manuscripts cannot settle.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Which of the three authors discussed would you find the most persuasive, and why?
2. How much does your own confidence in the Bible rest on the manuscripts, and how much on other things?
3. What question about the Bible would you still want answered after this module?

Independent assignment

Sort the claims

In your own notebook, write down six statements about the reliability of the Bible, three that you have heard from believers and three from skeptics. For each, identify whether it is about copying, authorship or truth, and say whether the manuscript evidence supports it, contradicts it or does not address it. Write 300 to 400 words in all. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.

Further study

• Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration Read the closing chapters for a measured assessment of the text.
• F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Compare the apologetic tone with Metzger’s more cautious one.
• Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses Read selectively for the argument about eyewitness testimony in the Gospels, which goes beyond the manuscripts.
• Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament Read selectively for the history of recognition.
• Luke 1:3 Luke says he has traced everything carefully from the beginning.
• John 20:31 John states the purpose of his book.