A New Series on Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Our Easter series addresses a set of textual problems that are crucial to the identity of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. John D. MeadeAs Easter approaches, many Christians will be remembering the gospel of Christ, that he died for our sins, was buried, and was raised “according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). No doubt, one scripture that many will read during holy week will be Isaiah 52:13–53:12, also known as the fourth servant song. This passage is a crucial text for understanding the events that took place in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. Numerous questions surround this famous text, the most important of which is the identity of the servant. Four servant songs Isaiah 52:13–53:12 is the last and by far the most famous of Isaiah’s four servant songs. In all four, the vexing question is the identity of the servant. In the first song (Isa. 42:1–9), Isaiah presents the nation of Israel as the servant. In the second (Isa. 49:1–13), at first, Israel is identified with the servant (49:3) but then, shockingly, the servant is tasked to turn Jacob back to the Lord and to gather Israel to him (49:5). The servant must be one who can both embody the nation and be distinct from it at the same time, as a king who represents his people completely. The third and fourth servant songs (50:4–9; 52:13–53:12) read straightforwardly, if the servant is the future king, David’s awaited descendant. Thus, the last three of the servant songs can be read as speaking about the one king in relationship to the nation: he embodies and represents the nation totally, but he must also now intervene and save the nation. The servant’s identity But not all readers arrive at this conclusion and interpretation has been varied. The identity of the servant in Isaiah 52:13–53:12 has been debated from the beginning. In Acts 8:26–35, the Ethiopian eunuch is reading the prophet Isaiah, but he does not know how to interpret Isaiah 53:7–8. The eunuch asks Philip to help him understand, “I ask you, concerning whom does the prophet say this? Concerning himself or concerning another?” (Acts 8:34). Philip begins from this scripture to preach Jesus to him. The identity of the servant has been debated from the beginning. Today, debate over the identity of the Servant continues to divide interpreters. Jewish interpreters typically say the servant is the nation of Israel. Most Christian interpreters claim the servant is Jesus the Messiah, while some commentators continue to hold that the servant is the prophet. Have most Christians been wrong for 2,000 years in interpreting the servant as Jesus? To answer this, we need to ask a prior question about the textual transmission of Isaiah 52:13–53:12. RelatedRecovering the Resurrection in Isaiah 53: Textual Criticism and EasterJohn D. MeadePart 3: The Servant’s Burial according to the ScripturesPeter J. GentryPart 4: Who Does the Servant Intercede For?John D. Meade The text The more fundamental question is what the text of the song is. English Bible readers may not be aware that there are several important problems in the textual history of this passage that affect translation and therefore interpretation. In fact, our major English versions disagree on which manuscripts preserve the original text, and therefore, they disagree at several key points within this passage. And these are no minor differences. They center on the servant’s identity and work, his suffering and death, his burial, his resurrection, and his bearing of sins and intervention at the rebellions of the many. Indeed, the problems cluster around the very tenets of the Gospel that Paul says he received as of chief importance (1 Cor. 15:3–5). A new series Over the weeks leading up to Easter, the Text & Canon Institute will be addressing some of the most important textual problems in the fourth servant song. Dr. Peter Gentry, Dr. Anthony Ferguson, and I will guide readers through these difficulties. We will treat these five textual issues: Does the servant startle the nations because he is disfigured or sprinkle them after being anointed? (Isa. 52:14–15) Is the servant stricken for the people’s rebellion, or are they? (Isa. 53:8) Is the servant’s death or his tomb that is with the rich? (Isa. 53:9) Who and what does the servant intercede for? (Isa. 53:12) Is the resurrection of the servant anticipated in what he sees? (Isa. 53:11) We want to help readers see the problems in the textual history of this passage by comparing English translations and commentaries. When readers see the analysis of difficulties in our primary sources, they can appreciate how textual criticism aims to determine the probable, original text and how those decisions influence Bible translation at the most fundamental level. Since texts were copied by hand, those hands sometimes changed the text when copying it. Many of these modifications are insignificant, but in Isaiah 52:13–53:12, there are important differences to the text we would do well to note and form opinions about. Join us this Easter season for a series of articles on the intersection between textual criticism and Bible translation as we give a deep reading of one of the most significant passages that informs us about the person and work of Christ. Be sure to subscribe to get the new articles in the series in your inbox. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human:
Who Really Killed Goliath? Knowledge of scribal mistakes may provide a better solution to the historical puzzle of who killed Goliath in 2 Samuel 21:19. Kaspars OzoliņšOne of the more puzzling verses in the Old Testament is 2 Samuel 21:19. This verse is situated in the context of a brief epilogue to David’s reign, after his return from fleeing from his son Absalom (2 Sam 15–19). Here’s the verse in the ESV, “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.” On the face of it, this verse seems to flatly contradict the famous story of David killing Goliath recounted in 1 Samuel 17. Further Problems Things get even more confusing when we examine the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 20:5 (much of Samuel-Kings is paralleled in the book of Chronicles): “And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.” This verse, quite distinctly, claims that it was Goliath’s brother who was killed by Elhanan. English Bible footnotes sometimes hint that the text of 1 Chronicles may solve the problem. The ESV note at 2 Samuel 21:19 reads, “Contrast 1 Chronicles 20:5, which may preserve the original reading.” In this case, the full solution is probably more complex and involves scribes making mistakes in both verses. Unfortunately, the Dead Sea Scrolls don’t offer us much help, since there is a gap at exactly this verse in 1QSam. Likewise, the versions don’t seem to offer us any particularly helpful insights, since they broadly agree with each respective verse in the Hebrew Masoretic tradition. In the history of scholarship, the tendency has been for conservative scholars to claim that Chronicles has the original text here (as in the ESV note), with the understanding that Samuel’s text has somehow been corrupted over time. By contrast, non-confessional scholars view the verse in 2 Samuel as retaining the original wording, whereas Chronicles is seen as having been deliberately altered in order to “harmonize” the contradiction with the story of David in 1 Samuel 17. The basic idea is that the oldest tradition is assumed to have preserved the story of an otherwise unknown Elhanan who killed Goliath, while later traditions deliberately attributed this heroic deed to David to shore up the reputation of Israel’s greatest king. A Closer Look at the Text When we juxtapose the Hebrew words in the problematic portions of the two verses side-by-side, interesting features emerge. To appreciate this, we can set the English to follow the Hebrew word order of verb-subject-object (color coded as blue-yellow-red). 2 Sam. 21:19And (he) struckElhanan son ofJaare-oregimthe Beth-lehemite —Goliath the Gittite wayyakelḥānān benyaʿrê ͗ōrĕḡîmbêthallaḥmî ͗ētgolyat haggittî1 Chron. 20:5And (he) struckElhanan son ofJaur —Lahmibrother ofGoliath the Gittite wayyakelḥānān benyāʿûr ͗ētlaḥmî ͗ăḥîgolyat haggittîThe key differences between the two verses are marked in bold The two main problems that require attention are (1) the identity of the Israelite hero and (2) the identity of the Philistine giant. The Hero’s Name The first problem is the easier one to solve. Notice that the family (or patronymic) name of the hero, Elhanan, differs slightly in both verses. In 1 Chronicles 20:5 he is Jaur but in 2 Samuel 21:19 he is Jaare-oregim.1There is more to say about the Jaare/Jaur/Jair name but the textual history is too much to get into for this article. The word “oregim” ( ͗ōrĕḡîm) actually means “weavers” and it is found at the end of both verses as a description of the spear carried by the giant whom Elhanan slew: “…the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s ( ͗ōrĕḡîm) beam.” For this and other reasons, it is likely that Elhanan’s father (or ancestor) did not bear such a compound name and that this extra ͗ōrĕḡîm has crept into the text of 2 Samuel 21:19 from the end of the verse through a series of scribal mistakes. The Giant’s Name The real difficulty, as mentioned above, is the identity of the Philistine giant. Because of the way the Hebrew text is laid out, this problem partly intersects with the issue we just addressed: the identity of Elhanan. In Samuel, Elhanan is identified as a Bethlehemite, but not in Chronicles. Conversely, in Chronicles, the giant’s name is given as “Lahmi,” whereas in Samuel, this name is missing. Notice further that these two features occur in precisely the same position in the Hebrew text, and that both words look very similar: Chronicles has “Lahmi” laḥmî (presumably the giant’s name), while Samuel has “[Beth-]lehemite” [bêt] hallaḥmî. The longer form is what’s called a “gentilic,” a place name assigned to an individual (like “American” or “European”). In forms of this type of word, the second half normally bears the Hebrew definite article ha-. This leaves us with three possibilities: (1) “Lahmi”really was the name of the Philistine giant, and therefore “Bethlehemite”has later crept into the text of Samuel; (2) Elhanan really was a Bethlehemite, and therefore we have a scribal error at Chronicles (i.e., “Lahmi” wasn’t the name of the Philistine giant); or (3) both were true: Elhanan was a Bethlehemite, and “Lahmi” really was the name of the giant he slew. One way to decide between these three options is to consider whether we have any evidence elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible about the identity of the Israelite hero and/or the Philistine giant. It turns out that in another list of David’s mighty men in 2 Samuel 23 (and in its parallel in 1 Chronicles 11), the same Elhanan shows up, and the text there explicitly mentions that he comes from Bethlehem. This is therefore very likely the same Elhanan as our giant-slaying hero. (Nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible do we find the name Elhanan.) If Elhanan really was a Bethlehemite, then what should we make of the Philistine giant’s name “Lahmi”? Let’s recall a few things about this name: (1) it only occurs in the Chronicles parallel; (2) it occurs in precisely the same place that the word “[Beth-]lehemite” is found in the Samuel text; and (3) it looks very similar to it in Hebrew (הלחמי vs. לחמי), differing in only one letter. The two even sound similar (hallaḥmî vs. laḥmî). On balance, these three factors (and others) should make us seriously consider the possibility that the name “Lahmi” has accidentally entered the text of Chronicles as a scribal confusion of the second half of the name “Bethlehemite.” One Last Problem With all this, however, the apparent contradiction still remains in place. Elhanan the Bethlehemite slew Goliath. A couple of clarifications should be given at this point. Notice from the chart that the word ͗ēt (which has no equivalent in English) is a way that Biblical Hebrew marks the direct object (the word that receives the action of a verb: “John hit the ball”). In our texts, the word ͗ēt precedes the name of the individual Elhanan killed. Although it occurs in each verse, its placement differs. The ͗ēt of 2 Samuel 21:19 is paralleled by “brother of” ͗ăḥî in Chronicles. Visually, both words look very similar in Hebrew (את vs. אחי), even though they have very different meanings. Conversely, the direct object marker ( ͗ēt) of 1 Chronicles 20:5 is paralleled by the very similar-sounding word for “house of” (bêt), which occurs as the first half of the gentilic “Beth-[lehemite]” discussed earlier. RelatedDoes Isaiah Predict the Virgin Birth?Peter J. GentryThe Bible and Slavery in Colonial AmericaMark A. NollHow Bible Software Solves Differences in Versification for YouRick Brannan When you think about it, the same three factors mentioned above are at play here: (1) “brother of” ( ͗ăḥî) is found only in Chronicles, whereas we find the direct object marker ( ͗ēt) in Samuel; (2) both words occur in the same place in the text when we align the two verses; (3) both words strikingly resemble each other visually. This same kind of complementary distribution, where two similar-looking words occur at the same point in the text, should make us suspect that one of these words is a scribal alteration of the other. So, was the direct object marker ͗ēt deliberately changed to “brother of” ͗ăḥî in Chronicles by a scribe in order to avoid an embarrassing contradiction? Or, instead, was this simply an accidental visual oversight, in which a scribe misread “brother of” ͗ăḥî (אחי) as the direct object marker ͗ēt (את) in Samuel? We ought to favor the second explanation for at least two reasons: (1) visually similar words are most naturally explained as accidental (not deliberate) scribal errors; (2) scribes who copied Samuel apparently were not bothered by the resulting contradiction! Putting It All Together A translation of the text of 2 Samuel 21:19, highlighting the suggested changes, would read as follows: “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Yaur, the Bethlehemite, struck down the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.” We can now put all the steps together, for both verses, and show the progression in the following table. 2 Samuel 21:191 Chronicles 20:5Original…and Elhanan the son of Jaur, the Bethlehemite, struck down the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beamStep 1An extra oregim appears after “Yaur” in 2 Sam.…and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s (oregim) beamStep 2“brother of” is misread in 2 Sam. and “Bethlehemite” is misread in 1 Chron.…and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam…and Elhanan the son of Jaur, struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam Lessons Learned As can be seen, the textual issues involved are complex. Given the arguments outlined above, however, one plausible historical reconstruction is that Elhanan the Bethlehemite actually killed the brother of Goliath, whose name we aren’t given. That this giant was unnamed is not unusual, since the very next mini episode in 2 Samuel 21:20–21 mentions another giant (this time slain by Jonathan the son of Shimei), who is likewise left unnamed in the narrative. One should always pay attention to text-critical issues before resorting to other types of higher criticism. Finally, we can draw several important lessons from this solution. First, one should always pay attention to text-critical issues (what is sometimes called lower criticism) before resorting to other types of higher criticism (such as the claim that we are dealing here with two different, and contradictory, sources or traditions). Second, only in limited cases did scribes make deliberate changes when copying the text in front of them, so we should be cautious before making such claims unless there is very good evidence. As can be seen from this example, even minor differences in wording and spelling can sometimes make a big difference. The way we engage with and approach text-critical details in Holy Scripture is important and ought to be characterized by a degree of editorial constraint, in proportion to the evidence we actually possess. The reconstruction proposed here is an attempt to provide a possible solution to a significant issue. This article is a summary of the author’s much more detailed argument published in the journal Vetus Testamentum.Notes1There is more to say about the Jaare/Jaur/Jair name but the textual history is too much to get into for this article.
Does the Woman Caught in Adultery Belong in the Bible? Jesus’ famous act of mercy is missing in many manuscripts, raising questions about its place in the Bible. Tommy WassermanThe story of the Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53–8:11) is arguably one of the most beloved Jesus stories in the New Testament which includes the familiar quotation, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” However, the story is missing from some ancient manuscripts of John, as noted already by early church fathers like Jerome and Augustine. For this and other reasons, a majority of modern scholars regard the passage as a later insertion, and some even want to remove it altogether from our Bibles. One can imagine the outcry such a radical move could cause. Thus, in his study on early manuscripts and modern translations, Philip Comfort rejected the passage as a non-Johannine interpolation and lamented the habit of printing the tradition at all in editions and translations: “True, the passage has been bracketed, or marked off with single lines … , or set in italics. But there it stands—an obstacle to reading the true narrative of John’s Gospel.”1 Philip Wesley Comfort, Early Manuscripts and Modern Translations of the New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1990), 116. Andreas J. Köstenberger expresses a similar attitude in his commentary on John: “proper conservatism and caution suggests that the passage be omitted from preaching in churches” and it should not be regarded as “part of the Christian canon.”2 Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 248. More recently, Dan Wallace has suggested that the inclusion of the narrative in modern translations reflects “a tradition of timidity,” implying that at least Protestant churches should but did not yet dare to remove the story from the Bible. The story may well go back to a very early tradition about Jesus and a woman accused of many sins To be sure, the story is often marked out in various ways in both scholarly editions and Bible translations, for example, by double brackets and an accompanying footnote explaining that it is missing in the earliest manuscripts, including Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus from the third and fourth centuries, and goes unmentioned by Greek church fathers until the twelfth century. There is indeed a wide scholarly consensus that the story was not originally a part of the Gospel of John, but on the other hand, it may well go back to a very early tradition about Jesus and a woman accused of many sins, which gradually found its way into John. The earliest reference to such a story is found in the Didascalia Apostolorum, a third-century book of instructions on living a Christian life, which survives in Syriac: But if you do not receive him who repents, because you are without mercy, you shall sin against the Lord God. For you do not obey our Savior and our God, to do even as He did with her who had sinned, whom the elders placed before Him, and leaving the judgment in His hands, and departed. But He, the searcher of hearts, asked her and said to her: “Have the elders condemned you, my daughter?” She said to him: “Nay Lord.” And He said unto her: “Go, neither do I condemn you.” In this then let our Savior and King and God, be to you a standard, O bishops, and imitate Him.3Did. apost. 7; transl. by Arthur Vööbus Eusebius (c. 260–c. 340) in his church history attributes a similar story to Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–130) and the now lost Gospel of the Hebrews. Further, Didymus the Blind (c. 313–398) says he found the story “in certain gospels,” a reference which likely suggests he did not know the passage from John, but from a different gospel. Codex Bezae (c. 400 AD) showing a later dash mark in the left margin at the start of John 7:53 (f. 133v) The earliest manuscript evidence for the passage in John is the Greek-Latin Codex Bezae (c. 400 AD) which contains the story in its traditional place both in Greek and Latin on facing pages. Interestingly, later annotators have marked out the story in the margins, probably because it was treated separately in the liturgy. We know that in the assigned reading for Pentecost in the Byzantine liturgy, a lesson is read from John 7:37–8:12, but our story is skipped, likely because it was not present in the manuscripts when the lesson was first constructed. On the other hand, the story was assigned as a lesson at a later stage to celebrate the Feast of Saint Pelagia of Antioch and various other “sinner saints” such as Mary of Egypt, Theodora of Alexandria, and Eudokia of Heliopolis. It is probably no coincidence that the story first turns up in a Greek-Latin manuscript, because it apparently became established much earlier in the Latin West even though it clearly originated in Greek. Indeed, the story was assigned a chapter in Latin manuscripts at an early stage, probably in the early third century. The Latin church father Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397) knew it from the traditional place in John and cited it in different writings but in varying textual form. Perhaps this was because he translated the story himself from one or several Greek manuscripts. Ambrose’s contemporaries Jerome and Augustine were familiar with the Johannine story as well, but both acknowledged that it was not in every copy. When Jerome cited the passage in an argument against the Pelagians, he mentioned that he found it “in many copies of the Gospel of John,” and therefore not in all of them. When he completed his new Latin translation of the Gospels (as part of the Vulgate) several decades earlier, he had chosen to include the story in John. In doing so, he guaranteed its abiding presence in the Latin Christian tradition. The story was also incorporated in the Roman liturgy perhaps some time in the fifth century. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Augustine, who cited the passage about a dozen times, was also aware of its absence in some manuscripts. He even proposed an explanation why the story could have been omitted, suggesting that “men of slight faith” deleted it because they were afraid that their wives might commit adultery after hearing about the woman (On Adulterous Marriages 7.6). A few modern scholars who defend the story as original to the Gospel of John have argued along similar lines, that scribes may have excluded the pericope because Jesus is too lenient toward the sinner. However, this is highly unlikely, because scribes and scholars were trained never to delete, even when they doubted the authenticity of a given passage, and, besides, there was a long and widespread affection for stories about adulterous women across the ancient world (as reflected in other passages in the New Testament). There was a long and widespread affection for stories about adulterous women across the ancient world. Although the story is not preserved in any surviving Greek gospel manuscript before the eighth century, apart from Codex Bezae, there are still other traces of the story in the East too. For example, two ivory pyxides, likely Coptic in origin, are certain attestations of the story in an Egyptian setting. These two boxes depict the forgiven adulteress among other scenes from the life of Jesus. In a sixth-century Syriac chronicle there is reference to a Gospel manuscript, likely in Greek, in the possession of Bishop Mara (d. 532 AD), which had a “chapter” peculiar to the Gospel of John, but that this chapter was not found in other copies. Then follows a version of John 8:2–11. There is much to suggest that the story had been assigned its own “chapter” (kephalaion) in Greek gospel manuscripts no later than the fifth century. Unlike our modern chapters, this particular system of “Old Greek chapters” marks out the highlights in each of the four gospels with a focus on Jesus’ miracles and teachings. Thus, the first kephalaion in John was placed at John 2:1 (the wedding in Cana). Most extant Byzantine manuscripts contain eighteen chapters in John, but some add a nineteenth chapter—the story of the adulteress—as chapter ten. The story of the woman caught in adultery in Minuscule 1 (12th c.) is located at the end of the manuscript with a long, explanatory note about it. INTF In several important medieval manuscripts that represent a family of manuscripts (known as Family 1), at the end of John 7 where one expects to find our story there is instead a critical note to inform the reader concerning “the kephalaion concerning the adulteress,” that it is not found in most manuscripts, nor mentioned by the divine fathers John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodore of Mopsuestia and the rest. This ancient scribe or editor, probably working in the fifth century, decided to relocate the story to the end of John, where it is found in this family of manuscripts. By this time, then, the popular story had already been inserted into John and even assigned its own chapter in some manuscripts but was omitted or relocated in others. Today, the large majority of surviving Greek manuscripts of John include the story. It is read in the Byzantine liturgy and thus accepted as inspired by the Greek Orthodox Church. It is part of the canonical Vulgate used by the Catholic Church, and it is present in virtually all Protestant Bible versions albeit often marked with brackets and footnotes. On the other hand, it is clear that the story was interpolated into the Gospel of John at an early point in a climate of Gospel book production in which the story was regarded as “gospel.” Incidentally, from the concluding verse of the Fourth Gospel we learn that many stories about things that Jesus did were in circulation, some of which had not yet been written down (John 21:25), but genuine “gospel stories” all the same I presume. So, should the beloved story of the Woman Caught in Adultery be read in our churches? Yes, I think so. The story has the earmarks of a genuine gospel story albeit not original to John.Notes1 Philip Wesley Comfort, Early Manuscripts and Modern Translations of the New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1990), 116.2 Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 248. 3Did. apost. 7; transl. by Arthur Vööbus
Taking Stock of the “First-Century Mark” Saga What can we learn from the overzealous excitement about the earliest known copy of our earliest Gospel? Elijah HixsonThe “First-Century Mark” saga is an unfortunate series of events surrounding an early papyrus fragment of Mark’s Gospel that began publicly in late 2011 and, at the time of this writing, is still not fully resolved. The story begins with a tweet from Dr. Scott Carroll on December 1, 2011, “For over 100 years the earliest known text of the New Testament has been the so-call[ed] John Rylands Papyrus. Not any more. Stay tuned . . . .” At the time, Dr. Carroll was working for the Green family who owns Hobby Lobby, helping them to purchase the materials that would eventually form the basis of the Museum of the Bible’s collection. The news of Carroll’s “earliest known text” began to make headlines in February 2012, when Dan Wallace used a debate with Bart Ehrman to announce the existence of a fragment of Mark’s Gospel that an unnamed, world-class paleographer had dated to the first century. The announcement surprised Ehrman and the audience. Allegedly, this item was part of a private collection and was to be published shortly thereafter. Years came and went, and no first-century Mark fragment was ever published. Wallace could not give more information because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement that barred him from speaking about the manuscript until it had been published. Years came and went, and no first-century Mark fragment was ever published. It was not long before rumors about the fragment made their way to the popular level. Apologists and scholars (e.g., Dr. Craig Evans and Dr. Gary Habermas) saw it as powerful evidence for the reliability of the Christian message. After years of speculation and what seemed like leaked information, an early fragment of Mark was finally published in the Spring of 2018 in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series—a series of papyri owned by the Egypt Exploration Society (EES)—not a private collection. The EES collection was excavated over a century ago in modern-day Al-Bahnasa, Egypt. This meant the new fragment was not part of a private collection but one that had been known and studied for over 100 years. As I quickly put the pieces together, it became clear that this tiny manuscript, designated P.Oxy. 5345 (or P137), was the “First-Century Mark.” The earlier dating was simply incorrect, and there had been confusion as to who owned the manuscript and how it would be published. It was not owned by the Greens and it was not from the first century after all. A great deal of the speculation was simply wrong. P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345 (or P137), containing Mark 1:7–9, 16–18, measures just 4.4 × 4 cm. Wikipedia Far from resolving the issue, the publication raised new and more serious questions. Most of these revolved around the fact that P137, according to some reports, had been offered for sale to a private collection (presumably the Greens’). The serious problem with this situation is that unpublished papyri in the Oxyrhynchus Collection cannot be sold. (Early on, some of the collection’s published papyri were given away to other institutions, but this was quite different.) The EES responded to the startling suggestions by issuing a statement saying that the fragment “has never been for sale, whatever claims may have been made arising from individual conversations in the past.” We now know this is not true. It has since come to light that P137 was indeed offered for sale to Hobby Lobby along with other papyri without authorization from the EES, allegedly by someone working for the EES who had access to the manuscripts. The excavations at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt around 1900 uncovered thousands of papyri, including the now infamous P137. Wikipedia As of November 2019, the EES had “identified around 120 pieces which appear to be missing,” and in February 2021, they reported that “The police investigation in the UK is continuing into the unauthorised removal of texts from the EES collection and their sale to Hobby Lobby and others.” Someone had been trying to pawn the EES’s papyri from right under their noses. The prime suspect is none other than Wallace’s world-class paleographer. The matter has not been resolved, and a police investigation is ongoing so we are limited as to what more we could say. At the time of writing, Obbink has been living in a houseboat in England and avoiding authorities. Although the story is still not fully resolved, now is a good time to step back and consider lessons learned from the “First-Century Mark” saga. Here are four suggestions. 1. If something sounds too good to be true, it might be. Assume it is until there is an informed scholarly consensus. A consensus can be wrong, but it is the purpose and nature of scholarship to find and eliminate weak points in the argument. As the external examiner at my own PhD examination said to me as we began, “It is my job to shake this thesis as hard as I can and see if I can get any bits of it to fall out.” Such is the nature of good scholarship, and a consensus is almost always on firmer grounds than a lone objector—especially in the context of arguing a position. P137 was not the first manuscript claimed to be from the first century,1See Peter J. Gurry and Elijah Hixson, “Introduction” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity (2019), 14–20. and none of the others claimed first-century New Testament papyri has proven to be so. However, it’s worth mentioning that the descriptions of the person who dated the manuscript left little to the imagination with regard to his identity. There was never much doubt that the unnamed paleographer was probably Dirk Obbink, and these suspicions turned out to be correct. At the time, Obbink was among the most respected and influential papyrologists alive. Recently, I spoke to another papyrologist who described Obbink as being the LeBron James of papyrology. Dr. Dirk Obbink was a professor at Oxford and one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient papyri. (Photo) Simply put, in 2011, Dirk Obbink’s word was gospel when it came to dating papyrus manuscripts, and it would have been reasonable to take Obbink at his word. Still, good practice is to wait for a consensus. Years later, when P137 was published, the date that was always traced back to a single specialist had changed—by the same specialist. 2. Overhyped expectations can result in undervaluing the actual evidence. Once the cat was out of the bag, the popular-level response to “First-Century Mark” led to unjustified expectations from several sources. P137 is still an amazing discovery! It is probably the oldest manuscript of Mark in existence. It is almost certainly the oldest manuscript of Mark 1:7–9, 16–18. Nevertheless, because the expectation was for a first-century manuscript, some were disappointed. When we raise our expectations higher than what the facts allow, we set ourselves up to be disappointed. For example, when we teach that the Rylands fragment (or P52), which is our earliest New Testament manuscript, was written “around 125” or even “as early as AD 100,” we are setting people up to be disappointed when they find out that manuscript dating cannot be so specific. The more accurate date is the full range of the second century. Even a date in the 190s is still remarkably early, relatively speaking. But, when the expectation is significantly earlier, even a remarkably good piece of evidence backfires and leaves people feeling empty and let down. RelatedFour Benefits of Reading Greek ManuscriptsAmy S. AndersonWhat’s the Big Deal about a New Papyrus with Sayings of Jesus?Michael W. HolmesDoes the Woman Caught in Adultery Belong in the Bible?Tommy Wasserman 3. Don’t cite unpublished research. A significant problem with “First-Century Mark” was that it was unpublished for so long. Without publication, it was impossible to verify or challenge, not only the date, but also the contents, the quality of the text, and even the very existence of the fragment itself. It is true that some unpublished expertise can be extremely valuable (especially if it comes from a source with Obbink’s authority on manuscript dating), and it is also true that mere publication does not prove a theory or mean that an article is correct—and this is especially relevant in the world of self-publishing. Still, any academic publisher worth its paper and ink will have sent the research to at least one other competent set of eyes to look for holes in the arguments, to verify claims, and to see if the argument holds up under scrutiny. 4. Show integrity at earliest possible opportunity. Although he has been rightly criticized for announcing the unpublished and unverifiable “First-Century Mark” at a debate, Wallace was right to admit his mistake once the fragment was published and he was no longer bound by the non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Wallace apologized for his actions, both to Ehrman “and to everyone else for giving misleading information about this discovery.” The Museum of the Bible has also owned its mistakes and expedited the process of returning items known to be acquired for their collection under the seller’s pretense. Claims that P137 had been offered for sale were not initially taken seriously by the EES (and not without reason). It wasn’t until Michael Holmes, acting on behalf of the Museum of the Bible, shared with them the purchase agreement for some papyri and a handwritten list describing their contents in June 2019 (first publicized by Brent Nongbri on his blog) that these claims were taken seriously. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: The EES quickly confirmed that the fragments described in the handwritten list were indeed P137 and other Oxyrhynchus Papyri in their collection. Once a representative from the Museum released evidence that there was something shady going on, an investigation was undertaken. One of the results is that thirty-four papyri in the Museum collection were identified as having been “taken without authorisation from the EES” and were returned to the EES. Should the Green Collection/Museum of the Bible have been more diligent to determine legal provenance before purchasing the papyri? Absolutely. However, regardless of what other criticisms one might have for the Museum of the Bible, this is one way they did the right thing. They had items that they suspected had been stolen, and they worked to make it right. Not every institution is willing to give back stolen artifacts, but in this case, the Museum was not only willing to do so, but they also had to convince the EES that the papyri had been stolen in the first place. Would that we also would have such a zeal for the right thing that we would pursue it even when it costs us to do so. In neither case did the offending party try to quietly put away their wrongs. They didn’t silently delete evidence of their wrongs or give a quiet, half-hearted apology and move on—they publicly took responsibility for their wrongs and did what they could to make them right as much as possible. That’s a good lesson for all of us.Notes1See Peter J. Gurry and Elijah Hixson, “Introduction” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity (2019), 14–20.
How Much Can the Most Famous Dead Sea Scroll Prove? The Great Isaiah Scroll is a crucial piece of the Old Testament puzzle, but it doesn’t give us the whole picture. Anthony FergusonThe Dead Sea Scrolls are famous. Very famous. Unlike other archeological discoveries like Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel inscription in Jerusalem or the discovery of the Elephantine Papyri in Egypt, the term “Dead Sea Scrolls” is a household phrase that can draw crowds to museums unlike any cuneiform tablet. Almost everyone has some knowledge of this discovery and significance, and rightly so. The most famous—and substantial—of these biblical manuscripts is, without a doubt, the Great Isaiah Scroll (a manuscript scholars designate as 1QIsaa). The factors that justify this manuscript’s notoriety and fame include the timing of its discovery, its size, its contents, and its closeness to the Hebrew text behind our English Bibles known as the Masoretic Text (MT). Given these facts, 1QIsaa furnishes a solid starting point for one’s study of these intriguing texts from the Dead Sea. But these facts sometimes lead one to unhelpful conclusions about the biblical texts from the Dead Sea, if 1QIsaa is all we know or we assume that every biblical manuscript from the Dead Sea is like it. In this article, we’ll survey the importance of this manuscript while also nuancing its impact on our understanding of the biblical text as preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its Claim to Fame The timing of the manuscript’s discovery rightly contributed to its fame since it belonged to the first batch of manuscripts discovered in early 1947. When Bedouin first journeyed into Cave 1 to explore the sound of breaking jars, they retrieved three or four manuscripts wrapped in cloth from a jar. One of these manuscripts was the now famous 1QIsaa. This discovery encouraged the Bedouin and scholars to further explore this region so that over the next fifteen years roughly 1000 manuscripts would be discovered. The cascade effect of this initial discovery was truly immense. Unlike most manuscripts from the Judean Desert, 1QIsaa is preserved almost in its entirety. This is due to its being stored in a jar covered with pitch. By God’s grace, it sat for millennia in a sort of sealed time capsule. Because this manuscript is well preserved, the various problems associated with fragmentary manuscripts like calculating column heights and hypothesizing about what words have been lost to the harshness of the desert are almost nonexistent when studying 1QIsaa. One of the remarkable features of the Great Isaiah Scroll is how well it’s preserved, including the very beginning (right) and end (left) of the scroll. Photo from Wikipedia The very first words and the last words of the manuscript are all preserved, and the text consists of only a few holes (i.e., lacunae). Stitching holes exist in the right-hand margin of column 1 which indicates that leather once existed to the right of the first words of Isaiah. There was probably once a handle sheet to the right of the first column to protect the text of this manuscript. The handle sheet has done its job since, although it has since been lost to time, the beginning of the document remains. The contents of this manuscript have also brought it a level of notoriety since it preserves the text of Isaiah, one of the more famous books of the Old Testament. This book appears to have been quite popular among the works found in the library of the Dead Sea since many copies of Isaiah were found there. The New Testament quotations of Isaiah suggest the same as does the amount of attention paid to this important book by contemporary scholars. Christians sometimes refer to Isaiah as the fifth Gospel because of how much it tells about the coming hope of the Messiah. Although Bedouin discovered other texts alongside 1QIsaa such as a commentary to Habakkuk, 1QIsaa became more popular. This may be, since it was a biblical text, not a commentary, but it is also likely due to the fact that it concerned Isaiah. RelatedAppreciating the Diverse Evidence from the Dead Sea ScrollsAnthony FergusonRecovering the Resurrection in Isaiah 53: Textual Criticism and EasterJohn D. MeadeWhat We Know about the People behind the Dead Sea ScrollsAnthony Ferguson The popularity of this manuscript is also due to its relationship to the Masoretic Text. The consensus among the first generation of scholars who analyzed this text was that 1QIsaa preserved a popular version of the Masoretic Text. Since the analysis of these scholars, the trend has shifted. Whereas the original scholars who studied 1QIsaa noted its similarities to the Masoretic Text, current scholars tend to highlight its differences. These differences are real, but often minor. Emmanuel Tov, for example, indicates that 1QIsaa is non-aligned but regarding minor details such as a different approach to spelling.1Emanuel Tov, “A Didactic and Gradual Approach toward the Biblical DSS,” in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays, Volume 3 Vetus Testamentum, Supplements (Brill: Leiden, 2015), 303. (The term non-aligned refers to texts that are inconsistent in their agreement with the Septuagint, MT, and Samaritan Pentateuch while preserving unique readings).2Emanuel Tov, “Groups of Biblical Texts Found at Qumran,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls, ed. Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 98. We could synthesize the conclusions of scholars this way: early scholars tended to emphasize the similarities between 1QIsaa and the Masoretic Text. The trend, now, is to emphasize the differences. Regardless of one’s emphasis, when one removes the minor differences such as spellings, the text of 1QIsaa is quite close to the Masoretic Text, and this feature is a major reason for its notoriety. The Limits of 1QIsaa to our Understanding of the Biblical Text 1QIsaa contributes immensely to our understanding of the Old Testament text. On the one hand, it is strong indirect evidence to the antiquity of the Masoretic Text. That is, in the cases where 1QIsaa and the Masoretic Text disagree, scholars most often view the reading of the Masoretic Text as more original, and this is for good reason, since most of the differences preserved in 1QIsaa appear to derive from common scribal tendency or from scribal error. Thus, although the Masoretic Text as we know it is best represented by medieval codices dating to around 1000 AD, the parent text of 1QIsaa appears to be a text close to these medieval codices. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: This is where Christian scholars and apologists can make a mistake. 1QIsaa is the most popular biblical Dead Sea Scroll and for good reason. It was one of the first manuscripts discovered and it preserves almost all of Isaiah in a form close to the Masoretic Text. All of this is true. Based on this information, it is tempting to assume that just because 1QIsaa aligns closely to the Masoretic Text, we can therefore be confident that our Old Testament text is a reliable copy of the original. I agree that we should be confident, very confident in this fact, but the problem is that 1QIsaa is not sufficient proof, and this is for a few reasons. First, 1QIsaa is a copy only of Isaiah, not the entire Old Testament. Thus, we can’t conclude that 1QIsaa proves that the entire Old Testament has been copied carefully. It is only a copy of Isaiah. Extrapolating from this one manuscript of this one book to the full copying of the entire Old Testament is dangerous. Second, scholars date 1QIsaa to the second century BC, which makes it our oldest copy of this book. Yet, it is still hundreds of years removed from the original copy of Isaiah. As important as 1QIsaa is, it doesn’t completely close the gap for us. Third, although 1QIsaa remains close to the Masoretic Text, other ancient texts are further removed. There is a spectrum of how close the Dead Sea Scrolls align with the Masoretic Text: some are almost identical while other diverge more significantly. My point is simple: since the Dead Sea Scrolls represent a spectrum of more or less agreement with the Masoretic Text, the Great Isaiah Scroll does not represent the entire picture. One (Important) Piece of the Puzzle 1QIsaa does not single-handedly prove that the Old Testament has been carefully copied from antiquity. Its contribution is still important, but less extensive. In short, I would say that 1QIsaa is a popular version of a text very close to the Masoretic Text, and thus, it attests to the antiquity of the Masoretic Text of Isaiah long before our earliest copies from the Middle Ages. The copies we have of the Old Testament are a reliable guide to the original, but this conclusion depends on more than one very famous manuscript. The copies we have of the Old Testament are a reliable guide to the original, but this conclusion depends on more than one very famous manuscript. It depends on a variety of data such as the practice of textual criticism, the study of manuscripts, scribal habits, various early translations, the nature of a covenant, and the evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This conclusion also depends on our view of God and what the Bible attests about itself. As we do textual criticism, let’s not forget that the Old Testament testifies to the God who sovereignly controls all things. We make best sense of the biblical data when we carefully consider the evidence while remembering that the evidence we have is not by accident, but according to God’s plan.Notes1Emanuel Tov, “A Didactic and Gradual Approach toward the Biblical DSS,” in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays, Volume 3 Vetus Testamentum, Supplements (Brill: Leiden, 2015), 303.2Emanuel Tov, “Groups of Biblical Texts Found at Qumran,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls, ed. Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 98.
The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Fiasco Lessons from the headline-grabbing forgery that duped Harvard’s oldest endowed professor and enthralled the media Christian AskelandDan Brown famously spun his Da Vinci Code yarn in which Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor, demonstrated that Jesus Christ actually married Mary Magdalene. In a tale stranger than fiction, Brown’s dream came true through the now-infamous Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, which ironically was promoted through a Harvard professor. Inscribed in Coptic, the ancient Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet, this papyrus fragment became the most recent in a series of spectacular fakes designed to shock faithful Christians and churn the mainstream media with fantastic headlines. This is the story of the attempted ruse and what we can learn from it. The Story Breaks In 2012, I attended the International Coptic Congress in Rome, Italy, a normally staid event tragically marred on this occasion by media sensation and disinformation about what came to be called the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment. Public relations staff at Harvard University had coordinated a news blitz at our conference of two hundred scholars without first consulting the conference organizers. No scholar at the conference could produce a viable comparison for the fragment’s ugly writing in a known, authentic manuscript. Nobody wanted to defend its authenticity, and most people ridiculed the thing openly. The Vatican hosted several of our events, and the major theme of the congress suddenly became this obvious forgery of a Coptic fragment in which Jesus alludes to his wife. In English, the fragment reads: … My mother she gave to me L[ife] …… The disciples said to Jesus …… denies. Mary is [not] worthy of it …… Jesus said to them “My wife” …… she will not be able to be a disciple to me and …… Let a man the which bad let no T[?] …… I myself am with her concerning …… an image … The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife papyrus was written in a very crude Coptic script. Photo from Wikipedia Because the forger did not employ a modern equivalent to ancient cedar oil, the ink lacked viscosity, running to-and-fro like a failed pastel painting from your childhood. Unlike real papyrus-inscribed text, which is made with reed pens, this writing resembled that of a paint brush. The character forms did not parallel ancient literary styles like one would find in a biblical manuscript or ancient documentary styles like a business document or private correspondence. The papyrus, which could easily have been purchased from eBay, seemed ancient, but the text had all the appearances of a cheap fake. But why let facts get in the way of a good story! None of the reporters seemed to care about our concerns, except to the extent that they had been prepped for a shocked response from religious conservatives. The expectation was that this discovery would potentially overthrow patriarchal views on celibacy and on women-in-ministry, and would further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity. The expectation was that this discovery would … further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity. Of the two hundred scholars at the conference, perhaps fifty specialized directly or indirectly in manuscripts and ancient writing. The reporters had not really come to hear our opinions, though, since their articles were already written, based solely on feedback from select sources. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Smithsonian broke the story, highlighting the Harvard credentials of the lead scholar and the supposed vetting by various other experts. Not by accident, the announcement occurred a stone’s throw away from Vatican City, seemingly with the support of the gathered scholars. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Problems Emerge for Jesus’ Wife In reality, two world class specialists (Bentley Layton and Stephen Emmel) had already identified this papyrus as a probable forgery, formally rejecting an article submitted to the Harvard Theological Review weeks before the Rome conference. The journal editors simply ignored the peer reviewers’ opinions and pushed forward. Within days of the Rome announcement, however, the blogosphere caught on fire with specialized experts from Europe and North America tearing the forgery into metaphorical shreds. Although the forger had not yet been identified, Andrew Bernhard, an independent researcher who had formerly studied at Oxford, created the “Patchwork Hypothesis,” demonstrating that the forgery had created the Gospel of Jesus’ text by using a 2002 PDF of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas he found online. In only a few weeks, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife debacle seemed to have imploded, and authenticity no longer seemed defensible. Headlines from the initial announcement sensationalized the idea that Jesus had a wife. For many, Christmas and Easter involve remembering Christ’s Advent and his resurrection. For the secular media, these seasons too often represent an occasion to float absurd theories about Jesus. The Harvard Theological Review partnered once again with the Smithsonian, The New York Times and The Boston Globe to resurrect Jesus’ wife fragment from the dead. How, you might ask, could they do such a thing, when the papyrus had so conclusively been proven a forgery? In the context of a dedicated issue of the Harvard Theological Review as well as a professional webpage, Harvard PR executed a two-fold strategy. First, the publications completely and totally ignored the Patchwork Hypothesis just as they had previously ignored the peer reviewers. Second, the scholars used their various networks to produce a variety of scientific results which in retrospect were misconstrued to demonstrate authenticity. Two weeks before Easter, the world would see a Smithsonian documentary demonstrating that science had validated the scholarly opinions from Harvard. RelatedWhat Are the Apocryphal Gospels?Markus BockmuehlPutting the New Papyrus of Jesus’ Sayings in ContextIan N. MillsWhy There Are Just Four Gospels in the BibleC. E. Hill Although carbon dating did place the papyrus roughly between 600–800 AD, skeptics had never argued that the papyrus material was anything other than ancient. Ultra-high resolution showed that the character Alpha which represented the my in “my wife …” was not altered, yet no scholar had ever suggested as much. Raman spectroscopy demonstrated chemical similarity between the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife ink and the ink on a Gospel of John fragment from the same collection. It showed the presence of soot (or graphite) in both inks, a feature expected in the case of a modern forgery. Somehow, several pictures of this Gospel of John fragment, later known as the Harvard Lycopolitan John, appeared on the Harvard website, and, because of these pictures, Jesus’ Wife was once again proven a forgery. Cracking the Related Case Because I wrote my doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge on the Coptic versions of John’s Gospel, I’ve had a longstanding interest in this accompanying John fragment. Harvard did not respond to requests for an image of the Coptic John fragment which had been mentioned in the original presentation. The fragment would have been useful to a colleague of mine who was constructing a critical edition of the Sahidic Coptic gospel of John. When the pictures appeared on the website, naturally my interest was piqued. The vowels were all wrong, immediately alerting me to the Lycopolitan dialect of the Coptic. Normally, one expects the Sahidic dialect in Coptic papyri, and only two papyri preserve John’s Gospel in Sahidic. The Qau Codex contains most of John’s Gospel and is easily accessible online, especially if one googles “earliest Coptic manuscript.” The Lycopolitan John fragment showed even clearer signs of forgery. Image source This new forgery, the Harvard Lycopolitan John, had been directly copied from the internet PDF of the Qau Codex, duplicating every line break and erring conspicuously at the turn of a digital page. Where the editor of the Qau codex had restored text with impossible suggestions, the forger reproduced these same impossibilities. The Harvard Lycopolitan John preserved the same ink and the same handwriting as the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. None of this had occurred to the scholars affiliated with the Harvard publication, nor had they considered that Lycopolitan had disappeared no later than the sixth century. Lycopolitan should not appear on a piece of papyrus harvested in between 600–800 AD. If this second papyrus was a fake and used the same ink and scribe, then most papyri must be fakes. Other scholars rightly referred to this new discovery as the “smoking gun.” In 2016, Ariel Sabar identified the forger in an explosive piece for The Atlantic. His subsequent book tells the whole sordid tale in gripping detail. Lessons Learned According to satirical comedian Stephen Colbert, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Conservatives, the feeling sometimes goes, rely on pseudo-science and are skeptical of climate change, evolutionary theory, and big government’s role in solving society’s problems. Liberals, however, are thought to act as servants of reason and the envoys of human progress who advance their mission for the common good, even the good of those conservatives who tragically cannot accept reality. This is, at least, how some present the matter. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Colbert’s notion arose as a joke at the 2006 Correspondent’s roast of President Bush, but today it has too often metastasized into overt policy at secular colleges in North America which are designed to exclude conservatives by painting them as beyond the pale. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the larger echo chamber of liberal apologetics at secular private and public colleges that too often marginalize religious and social conservatives.