Reading the Bible is "Like Picking Out Diamonds from Dunghills"--Part 2

(this is a continuation from Part 1) 

Where’s the Original Bible?   

Before our brief diversion into misleading translations, we were discussing how translator biases and disagreements over interpretation account for some of the diversity in our modern Bibles. But equally important, perhaps more so, is scholars’ and translators’ disagreements as to which ancient manuscript to use at the source text for those translations.    

As previously alluded, there is no single ancient document that scholars or theologians can identify as the definitive, original source text for any book of the Bible. Instead, translators are left to choose between stunning variety of ancient manuscripts, many of which are incomplete and hopelessly irreconcilable. The preface to the New King James Version of the Bible hints at the true extent of these inconsistencies:   

Since the 1880’s most contemporary translations of the New Testament have relied upon a relatively few manuscripts discovered chiefly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such translations depend primarily on two manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, because of their greater age. The Greek text obtained by using these sources and the related papyri (our most ancient manuscripts) is known as the Alexandrian Text. However, some scholars have grounds for doubting the faithfulness of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, since they often disagree with one another, and Sinaiticus exhibits excessive omission.     

The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest surviving complete copy of the New Testament. It dates to the mid 4th century CE and is presently housed in the British Library in London. Not only does the Sinaiticus exhibit “excessive omission”, but it also includes writings that are not represented in our modern New Testaments at all, namely the Epistle of Barnabas and the Sheppard of Hermas. In addition, it is replete with scribal “corrections” and alterations that scholars have painstakingly catalogued over the years.    

Another early extant copy of the Bible, which dates to a few decades later than the Sinaiticus, is the Book of Alexandria. Interestingly, it likewise contains writings not found in our modern New Testaments, namely I and II Clement.    

A third important early copy of the Bible is the Codex Bezae, which dates to the fifth century CE. It varies significantly from other early texts, to the great consternation of many scholars.    

After comparing some of these various ancient source texts to the Alexandrian Text discussed above and noting some discrepancies in the ancient documents, the Preface to the New King James Version predictably attempts to minimize the significance of these differences:   

[I]t is most important to emphasize that fully eighty-five percent of the New Testament text is the same in the Textus Receptus, the Alexandrian Text, and the Majority Text.     

But how and why we should be comforted by this statement is a mystery, because it explicitly recognizes that the three cited original source texts, which themselves are a synthesis of numerous inconsistent manuscripts (for instance, the Alexandrian Text is a synthesis of the Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and assorted incomplete fragments of papyri), are inconsistent as to a full fifteen percent of the New Testament!    

Bruce M. Metzger, PhD, a noted Bible scholar often cited by Literalists, estimates that there are about twenty four thousand ancient New Testament manuscripts in existence, with tens of thousands of known variations between them (The Case for Christ at 63-64). Professor Bart Ehrman, has pointed out that the number of variations in our surviving source texts exceeds the number of words in the entire New Testament. 

To list but a handful of the “manuscript differences” one uncovers by reviewing these ancient New Testament source texts, consider the following ten:  

  

1) Later manuscripts of 1 John 5:7-8 contain a phrase that earlier ones do not. Specifically, later versions say “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit…”. This phrase first appears in Miniscule 61, dating to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The reader can see How We Got the Bible at 100 for an interesting discussion of how this verse came to be included in modern English Bibles, but to make a long story short, it was originally inserted by Literalists to bolster the doctrine of the Trinity.    

2) Later manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark contain an ending that does not appear in the earliest versions of the book. Specifically, Chapter 16:9-20 of Mark, which describes Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to Mary Magdalene and others, do not appear in the earliest and bests texts, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Likewise, they do not appear in the oldest known manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate or Old Syriac. The vocabulary used in these verses is highly suspect and generally does not fit with Mark’s style. Furthermore, many expressions found in them appear nowhere else in the entire New Testament.    Because all of our earliest versions of Mark simply end his account with the discovery of the empty tomb (Chapter 16, verse 8), we can be assured that the expanded ending placed in our modern Bible is almost certainly inauthentic. After all, consider which is more likely: (a) Early orthodox Christians (who argued vehemently that Christ physically resurrected “in the flesh” and who were the keepers of the Bible for centuries) inexplicably deleted Mark’s original account of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances before compiling our most ancient texts and destroyed all older versions, thus accounting for its absence in our earliest manuscripts; or (2) these same orthodox Christians intentionally added references of Jesus’ post-resurrection to the end Mark to support their argument that he rose in the flesh and inadvertently failed to destroy all older versions. If we are to be fair, the second explanation is far more likely.    

3) In Mark 1:1, many of the oldest manuscripts do not include Jesus’ title as “Son of God.” This “divine” title was added by the church to bolster its claim of Jesus’ divinity.    

4) The oldest and best manuscripts mistakenly attribute the Old Testament quote in Mark 1:2 to Isaiah rather than to Malachi. Later scribes corrected this obvious error by altering the text to attribute the subsequent quotes simply to “the Prophets.”    

5) Mark 11:26 does not appear at all in many ancient texts.    

6) Mark 15:28 does not appear in many ancient texts.   

7) Part of Luke 22:19 and all of Luke 22:20 do not appear in some ancient manuscripts.   

8) The oldest manuscripts do not contain John 8:1-11, which records the only gospel account of the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus’ famous statement to “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. About a dozen of the ancient manuscripts (the “Family 13” miniscules dating to the ninth century) peculiarly place the story of the adulterous woman not in the gospel of John, but after Luke 21:38. However, based on the historical record, scholars are quite certain that this story was never part of John’s or Luke’s “original” account.    

9) The oldest manuscripts do not contain Acts 9:37, in which Phillip apparently requires a eunuch to profess a certain “belief” that “Jesus Christ is the Son of God” prior to being baptized with water. The eunuch’s confession of faith appears for the first time in the Codex Laudianus, which is dated to the sixth century. This spurious addition was inserted long after Acts was written, likely in an effort to bolster the orthodox position that specific “beliefs” were required in order to receive baptism and be saved.   

10) Matthew 23:14 is not found in the earliest manuscripts.     

And the Older Copies Weren't Really Any Better   

One may be tempted to think that the early Church Fathers must surely have had "truer", uncorrupted copies of these books, copies that we may one day unearth or recreate through the aid of textual criticism. But if this is true at all, it is only marginally true. Even as early as the third century the church father Origen lamented:   

The difference 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.     

And, the so-called Father of Church History, Eusebius (c. 300) quotes the Bishop of Corinth, Dionysius, as similarly lamenting:   

When my fellow-Christians invited me to write letter to them I did so. These the devils apostles have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others.... Small wonder then if some have dared to tamper even with the word of the Lord Himself, when they ahve conspired to mutilate my own humble efforts.       

Literalists Attempt to Rationalize Away the Problem   

While Literalists are quick to point out that most of the manuscript differences among the source documents are relatively “minor” in nature, and they attribute many of them to errors in transcription by the scribes charged with making copies of the sacred documents, their mere existence is troubling. 

Even if all discrepancies resulted from scribal errors of a minor nature, they still provide incontrovertible proof that human error has corrupted what Literalist often argue is “God’s infallible Word.”    Furthermore, having conceded that its possible for humans to have “inadvertently” altered God’s word, if only in minor ways (they assure us), it seems to me that Literalists should have a hard time explaining why humans, especially ideologically motivated humans with a known propensity for forgery (like the early Literalist Christians) could not have also intentionally altered God’s word in material ways to suit their purposes. Said another way, why would God have permitted his Word to be corruptible by human error, but not by human intent? If it is corruptible at all, it is surely corruptible by both.    

Despite the self-evident sensibleness of this contention, "faithful" Literalists have historically attempted to argue the contrary. Daniel Whitby, a prominent, Literalist theologian of the early 1700's, was one of them:   

Whitby['s]...basic view was that even though God certainly would not prevent errors from creeping into scribal copies of the New Testament, at the same time he would never allow the text to be corrupted (i.e., altered) to the point that it could not adequately achieve its divine aim and purpose. (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus at 85)     

And yet, after being confronted with a the work of John Mill, a fellow of Queen's College who spent the better part of his life analyzing surviving Greek manuscripts (cataloging more than thirty thousand textual variations among them), even Whitby was forced to admit:   

I GRIEVE therefore and am vexed that I have found so much in Mill's Prolegomena which seems quite plainly to render the standard of faith [referred to as the "rule of faith" above and which, as the reader will recall was the method by which the orthodox distinguished "authentic" texts from forgeries when compiling the Bible] insecure, or at best to give others too good a handle for doubting. (quoted in Misquoting Jesus at 85)     

Thus, if our modern Bibles are, as Literalists would have us believe, the infallible Word of God (at least in all material respects), they are so not because God has protected them over the centuries from human corruption, for the existence of manuscript differences and errors in translation is undeniable. Rather, if they are infallible, they are so only because the keepers of the Bible over the centuries have not made any material human mistakes in transcription or translation, nor have they intentionally perverted it in any meaningful way. And yet, like Whitby at his most honest, any fair contemplation of the evidence shows that this is not the case.      

Not All Variances are Errors   

It simply cannot be seriously maintained that all the known manuscript discrepancies in our Bibles were unintentional and immaterial. The most important of these differences, the additions that appear in later manuscripts which do not appear in earlier versions, can be directly traced to on-going and well-known debates within the early church on various theological issues, and perhaps not surprisingly, virtually all of these edits tend to bolster the orthodox, Literalist’s arguments. 

This tendency to add orthodox teachings to scripture is too consistent throughout the centuries to be merely the result of random scribal errors.    For example, the doctrine of the Trinity was not an explicitly stated theological concept when the earliest manuscripts were written, and it was the subject of much heated debate as late as the 4th century CE (and actually much, much beyond that, as any moder day Unitarian would tell you). That later manuscripts contain Trinitarian words or phrases which are not found in the earliest versions of those same manuscripts is compelling evidence of intentional revision by orthodox editors, not simply scribal error. 

Even Bible scholars frequently cited by Literalists have had to admit this fact:   

I think that these words [concerning the Trinity in 1 John 5:7-8] are found in only about seven or eight [source] copies, all from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. I acknowledge that this is not part of what the author of 1 John was inspired to write. (Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ at 65, quoting Bruce M. Metzger, PhD)     

The insertion of Jesus’ title as Son of God in later versions of Mark 1:1 provides a second example of a spurious and intentional addition. Jesus’ exact nature continued to be debated into the Fourth Century, with many Christians viewing him as having been purely human, others as purely God, and yet others as both. Those who viewed him as in some manner divine ultimately won the day. That his “divine” title as “Son of God” appears in later versions of Mark 1:1, but not in earlier ones, again reveals the hand of editors intent on bolstering their theological case, and perhaps on harmonizing the Gospels. (As a side note, "Son of God" was not considered a divine title at all to Jews, as evidenced by various Old Testament personalities who, like Jesus, were called such. However, Greek culture, thanks to various pagan religious myths, did consider the "sons of God" to be divine.)   

A third example is Paul’s supposed directives for women to be silent in church, found in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:12-15. 1 Timothy is a known forgery designed to, among many other things, advance anti-Gnostic, orthodox, misogynist views which were certainly not Paul’s own, so we will consider it no further. But what about 1 Corinthians, which scholars almost universally agree was indeed originally written by Paul?    

There are good reasons for thinking Paul did not write the passage about women being silent in chapter 14 [of 1 Corinthians]. For one thing, just three chapters earlier Paul condoned the practice of women speaking in church. They are to have their heads covered, he insists, when they pray and prophecy [teach]—activities done out loud in antiquity. How could Paul condone a practice (women speaking in church) in chapter 11 that he condemns in chapter 14? It has often been noted that the passage in chapter 14 also appears intrusive in its own literary context: Both before and after his instructions for women to keep silent, Paul is speaking not about women in church but about prophets [i.e., teachers] in church. When the verses on women are removed, the passage flows neatly without a break. This too suggests that these verses were inserted into the passage later. 

Moreover, it is striking that the verses in question appear in different locations in some of our surviving manuscripts of Paul’s letter as if they had originally appeared as a marginal note (drawn from the teaching of the forged letter of 1 Timothy?) and inserted as judged appropriate in different parts of the chapter. On these grounds, a number of scholars have concluded that Paul’s instructions for women to be silent in 1 Corinthians may not be from Paul, just as the letter to Timothy is not from Paul.  What, then, was Paul’s attitude toward women in the church? In his undisputed letters, Paul indicates that “in Christ there is no male or female” (Gal 3:28), that is, that men and women were completely equal in Christ. 

Moreover, as scholars of the late twentieth century began to emphasize, churches connected in some way with Paul appear to have had women leaders. Just in the greetings to the church of Rome, for example, Paul mentions several women who worked with him as Christian missionaries (Rom 16:3,6, 12), another who was the patron of the church meeting in her home (16:3), one other, a woman named Phoebe, who was a deacon in the church of Cenchrea (16:1), and most striking of all, yet another women, Junia, whom Paul describes as “foremost among the apostles” (16:7). (Ehrman, cite forthcoming)     

This last comment by Paul, where he acknowledges that women were included among the apostles, was so difficult for orthodox translators (many of whom were staunch misogynists as we shall see) to stomach that, until recently, translations simply changed the name of the person in question to "Junias", presumably a man's name. But:   

[W]hereas Junia was a common name for a woman, there is no evidence in the ancient world for "Junias" as a man's name. Paul is referring to a woman named Junia, even though in some modern English Bibles (you may want to check your own!) translators continue to refer to this female apostle as if she were a man name Junias. (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus at 18)     

Yet, another example of intentional revision occurs in Luke 2:33. Originally this verse said, “And His [i.e., Jesus’] father and mother marveled at what was said about Him”, suggesting that Jesus’ father was Joseph, which could not be if Jesus were born of a virgin. Consequently, Literalist scribes altered later versions of the manuscripts to read, “Joseph and his mother marveled at what was said about him”, thereby preventing anyone from interpreting Luke as suggesting that Joseph was Jesus’ father. The altered version is the one that is preserved for us today in King James Version of our Bibles, although the New American Standard and New International Versions are among those that properly render the phrase as it was originally.    

Orthodox editors also made revisions to Luke 3:22 to counteract the claim by some early Christians that Jesus was not truly divine until he was “adopted” by God at his baptism. This theory, known as adoptionism, was popular among certain early Christian groups and, at least originally, had biblical support. For example, the oldest surviving source texts of Luke 3:22 quotes God as saying from the clouds at Jesus’ baptism, “You are my son, today I have begotten you”, which is a paraphrase of Psalm 2:7. However, orthodox scribes, who opposed the adoptionist theory, were naturally uncomfortable with a quote from God suggesting that Jesus was not begotten of God until the day of his baptism, especially when such language was different from that offered in Mark’s and Matthew’s accounts of Jesus’ baptism, and directly contradicted John’s account of Jesus’ pre-existent divinity!    

So, was Jesus begotten of God before his birth, as suggested in the opening chapter of John, or only after his baptism, as taught by the authentic Luke, or only upon his resurrection as taught by Paul? All of these inconsistencies were too much for Literalist orthodox editors to bear. To prevent the faithful from being “misled”, Literalist scribes and translators simply altered Luke 3:22 to read, “You are my beloved Son; in You I am well pleased”, an apparent illusion to Isaiah 42. This alteration had the three-fold benefit of preventing an adoptionist interpretation, harmonizing Luke’s account of God’s words with the accounts of Mark and Matthew, and linking Jesus to Isaiah and his prophecies. Perhaps it is for these reasons that the altered version survives to this day in virtually every modern translation of the New Testament (though the authentic reading is sometimes footnoted).    

In another striking example of orthodox alterations, a whole scene was inserted into Luke to counteract the docetic “heresy”, or the teaching that Jesus didn’t actually suffer during his passion due to his divine nature. The scene in question is the famous episode where Jesus, distressed over his impending fate, "sweats blood" in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke 22:43-44 describes the scene as follows:    

Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in great agony, he prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.     

As dramatic and memorable as this scene is, it appears only in later versions of the Gospel of Luke! It does not appear in the earliest and most reliable versions of Luke and is absent from Matthew, Mark, and John altogether. Although it is an obvious and spurious addition, it is preserved even in our modern Bibles (though again, some translations provide the authentic reading via footnote).    

One final example of Gospel alterations can be seen in their rather disingenuous anti-Semitism. It is exceedingly unlikely that the anti-Jewish sentiments expressed in the Gospels were written by first century Jews. It’s presence within them strongly suggests the influence of pro-Roman, non-jewish editors who, after the fact, offered up the Jews as scapegoats for the actions of the Roman authorities. As Professor Eisenman has noted:    

It should be categorically stated…that a Jewish document can be sectarian, that is, anti-Pharisee or even anti-Sadducee, as the Dead Sea Scrolls most certainly are and the Gospels at their most authentic sometimes are, but it cannot be anti-Semitic. This would be a contradiction in terms. (James The Brother of Jesus at 59)     

In this respect,   

[I]t is an illuminating exercise to trace the treatment of Pilate [the Roman Governor] through our surviving Gospels. The more he is excused, the more the Jews are blamed. Our earliest account, Mark, shows Pilate and the Jewish people reaching a kind of agreement to have Jesus crucified. Pilate then orders it, and Jesus is taken off immediately to his death (Mark 15:1-15). In Matthew’s Gospel, written somewhat later, Pilate is warned by his wife, who has had a bad dream, not to be involved in the affair; Pilate then shows that he wants nothing to do with Jesus’ death by washing his hand of the business. “I am innocent of this man’s blood. See to it yourselves,” he declares. The Jewish crowd then responds, “His blood be on us and our children” (Matt 27:25), a response doomed to wreak havoc in the hands of Christian persecutors of Jews throughout the Middle Ages.    

In Luke’s Gospel, written about the same time as Matthew, Pilate declares Jesus innocent three times, to no avail, and tries to arrange for King Herod, in town for the Passover Feast, to do the dirty work for him. But again it is to no avail. With little way out, Pilate yields to the demands of the Jewish leaders and orders Jesus crucified (Luke 23:1-15). In John’s Gospel, the final canonical account to be written, Pilate again declares Jesus innocent three times, and then finally, when his hand is forced, turns Jesus over—not, however to the Roman soldiers but to the Jewish people. Jesus is then crucified. (John 18:28—19:16) (Ehrman, Lost Christianities at 21)     

Thus, as time passed, the Gospels reflected ever increasing levels of hostility toward the Jews, and accommodation toward the Romans. This is exactly what we’d expect to see:   

[The Jewish historian] Josephus notes that all historical works form this period suffer from two main defects, “flattery of the Romans and vilification of the Jews, adulation and abuse being substituted for the real historical record.” (James the Brother of Jesus at xxii)     

In short, no document that offended Rome, not even the Bible, could long persist in the ancient world. Rome was brutal in its suppression of dissent, especially in persistent trouble spots like the land of the Jews. Furthermore, once Rome became Christianity’s sponsor in the time of Constantine, both Rome and the Church had every motivation to obscure the former’s role in Jesus’ death by offering up the troublesome Jews as scapegoats. Therefore, to the extent the Gospels vilify the Jews en masse (such as when the Jews amazingly and disingenuously cry out for the blood of Jesus to be on their heads and the heads of their children), and flatter the Romans in unbelievable ways (such as when the notoriously brutal and despised Pontius Pilate repeatedly declares Jesus’ innocence and is made to wash his hands of Jesus’ blood), we have evidence of late, non-Jewish editing of the Gospels. It should be remembered that most all the orthodox Church Fathers who selected and edited our Bibles were not Jews, and after Constantine many owed their livelihood to Rome.      

Hidden in Plain Sight   

One might wonder how it is that orthodox leaders could have expected to hide all these inconsistencies for so long. In this respect, we must remember that, after the fourth century, the laity was not permitted to read the Bible directly, but rather had it read to them by priests. For centuries, Priests could simply choose to read those portions of the Bible that advanced the Literalist, orthodox agenda (such as the spurious addition of “Paul’s” prohibition against women speaking in church), while failing to read contradictory passages, such as Paul’s statement of equality in 1 Corinthians 12. Having no access to Bible’s themselves, much less earlier versions of the work to serve as a basis for comparison, the laity never knew the difference.      

Have We Found All the Alterations?   

In cataloging some of the known alterations and revisions to the Bible above, I have mentioned only a few of the more significant ones that persist in our modern Bibles. But, in addition to these, scholars have also identified numerous historical alterations which are mostly invisible to the modern reader because they have since been corrected via updated translations and modern revisions of older ones. So, even if our modern Bible’s could by some miracle be deemed infallible, it is indisputable that centuries upon centuries of earlier Christians, the one's who developed our familiar Christian dogma, were denied this same benefit. And yet, we are to believe that the Atonement Theology that they developed by reading these faulty texts is nonetheless correct.    

Can one be certain that scholars have catalogued all theologically-motivated alterations to scripture? Certainly not. We know that orthodox Christians intentionally altered the New Testament text to suit their agenda, we just don’t know how much they did so. The reason is that:   

We don’t have “originals” of any of the books that came to be included in the New Testatment, or indeed of any Christian book from antiquity. What we have are copies of the originals or, to be more accurate, copies made from copies of the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. (Ehrman, Lost Christianities at 217).     

In short, given the extensiveness and importance of the theologically motivated alterations that have been detected, given that we don’t have anything close to the originals to examine, and given that those surviving New Testament texts that we do have were all compiled and translated by orthodox Literalists, there is no way to be sure that our Bibles don’t contain significant additional alterations which defy detection. Indeed, it seems exceedingly likely that they do.      

Additional Literalist Rationalizations   

Literalist Christians argue that we should dismiss all these alterations, revisions, additions and edits to the Bible as “immaterial.” They are immaterial, they argue, because they simply confirm the truth of whatever particular Literalist doctrine the additions support. In other words, Literalists argue that because what the additions say is true anyway, we shouldn’t worry about them. An alteration supporting the Trinity is immaterial because the Trinity is true. An alteration suggesting Jesus suffered is immaterial because Jesus did suffer. An alteration supporting the notion that Jesus was divine at birth is immaterial because Jesus was divine at birth. “No harm, no foul” is the rationale. 

However, this argument ignores the fact that many, even most, Literalist doctrines were not accepted as “truth” by a large portion of the earliest Christians, and very likely wouldn’t be accepted as such today but for the Literalists’ ultimate victory and recasting of the scriptures:   

[I]f some other form of Christianity had won the early struggles for dominance, the familiar doctrines of Christianity might never have become the “standard” belief of millions of people…. The New Testament as a collection of sacred books might never have come into being. Or it might have come into being with an entirely different set of books…. (Ehrman, Lost Christianities at 6)     

The “no harm, no foul” rationale proffered by Literalists also ignores the fact that many of these alterations also serve the purpose of reconciling discrepancies among the Gospels, making them appear to bear witness to the same facts or “truths” when they often don’t. In other words, read in the original tongue, the doctrinal positions of the Literalists are not self-evidently true. 

For example, as we have seen, in its authentic form, Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism suggests that Jesus was not begotten of God until the day he was baptized! This directly contradicts other biblical accounts, which suggest that Jesus was divine at birth, or even before birth, or only upon his resurrection. By altering Luke’s account of the words spoken by God at Jesus’ baptism so as to harmonize them with the other gospel accounts, scribes made sure that the orthodox view of Jesus’ divinity was emphasized in our modern Bibles, and also disguised an obvious contradiction in what is supposed to be God’s infallible word. 

If the orthodox didn’t hesitate to alter the actual words of God quoted in the scriptures, then there’s no reason to believe that they would think twice about altering, for example, Paul’s letters. I will have much more on this later.    

Finally, given the tendency of Literalists to construct entire theological concepts from only one or two Bible verses, any alteration to God’s Word must be considered material and spurious. For example, the Literalist Christian theological doctrines of the Rapture, the Trinity, Original Sin, Jewish responsibility for Jesus’ death, and the subservient status of women (just to name a few) find New Testament support in only a handful of verses oft cited by Literalist. If some or all of these verses are spurious, then these theological concepts are themselves questionable at best and fraudulent at worst. Any alteration to a supposedly infallible, God-inspired document must be considered substantive, meaningful, and unacceptable, Literalist justifications notwithstanding.    

Educated Literalists who are aware of the above problems with their position sometimes resort to arguing that, biblical alternations not withstanding, the very survival of their faith is evidence of its authenticity:   

Why of all first-century figures, including the Roman emperors, is Jesus still worshiped today, while the others have crumbled in to the dust of history? It’s because this Jesus--the historical Jesus—is also the living Lord. That’s why. It’s because he’s still around, while the others are long gone. (Ben Witherington, III, PhD quoted in The Case for Christ at 141)     

Elaine Pagels sum up this particular Literalist argument beautifully:   

Traditionally, Christian theologians have declared that “the Holy Spirit guides the church into all truth”—a statement often taken to mean that what has survived must be right. Some historians of religion have rationalized this conviction by implying that in Christian history, as in the history of science, weak, false ideas die off early, while the strong and valid ones survive. The late Raymond Brown, a prominent New Testament scholar and Roman Catholic Sulpican priest, stated this perspective baldly: What orthodox [Literalist] Christians rejected was only “the rubbish of the second century”—and he added, “it’s still rubbish.” ( Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas at 76-77)     

But, the flaws in these “survival of the truest” arguments should be apparent to all. First, if indeed the Holy Spirit guides the decisions of the church “into all truth”, how do we explain the mistakes that churches of all denominations and persuasions throughout the centuries have made and now acknowledge? In the Catholic tradition, Crusades, witch hunts, inquisitions, corruption, Papal incest, the peddling of indulgences, and outright purchase of the throne of St. Peter are all documented facts of church history. To name a few more specific examples of Church mistakes, the Catholic Church burned Joan of Arc at the stake for heresy, only to name her a Saint some 500 years later. In 591 CE, the Vatican, via Pope Gregory the Great, declared that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, only to recant this teaching more than one thousand years later, in 1969. In the 16th Century, Pope Paul the 4th banished the Jews of Rome to live in a ghetto, where they were confined from sunset to sunrise, and the Middle Ages are replete with examples of church-sponsored persecution of Jews, including the Spanish Inquisition. It was not until this century that Pope John Paul II finally acknowledged how misguided the Catholic Church had been in persecuting the Jews, apologizing for it publicly.    

The history of Protestant Churches is likewise riddled with mistakes which they now only reluctantly acknowledge--the Salem Witch Hunts, support of slavery, and collaboration with murdering dictators just to name three.    Given this, how can anyone seriously assert that the “Holy Spirit guides the church into all truth” or, if it does, that the Church has at all relevant times been guided by the Holy Spirit? More specifically, are we to believe that the Church was temporarily misguided when it did the horrible things noted above for which it later apologized, but was perfectly guided when it designated some Christian writings as canonical (biblical) while brutally suppressing those Christian writings that it deemed “heretical”?    

Second, the Literalist contention that in the marketplace of ideas truth ultimately prevails, is likewise unpersuasive. Even if we accept the doubtful premise that, if ideas are permitted to compete for the heart and sole of humanity, true ones generally become accepted over time while false ones fall away, the same cannot be said where coercive and suppressive techniques such as those discussed above, and many more that will be detailed below, are used to prevent the competition of ideas in the first place! For anyone to now assert that, after a fifteen hundred year history of propaganda and suppression of so-called heresy through book-burnings, inquisitions, forgeries, torture, burnings at the stake, misleading translations, and brain-washing on a massive scale, we are to accept the Literalist Church’s present-day existence as evidence of the truthfulness of its message is simply absurd.   

Third, Buddhism and Hinduism are both older than Christianity and have, by comparison, almost no history of coersive proselytizing, yet their membership rivals that of all Literalist Christian churches combined. If the Literalist “survival of the truest” argument is to be accepted, then these religions must share the title, but I don’t know many Literalist who would willingly concede this point.    

And finally, the idea that the “heretical” ideas of the past have not survived to the present, while those of Literalist Christianity have, is simply a false premise to begin with. Although, the “heretical” spiritual ideas of our Christian ancestors do not exist today in any large-scale, institutionalized form (except perhaps in secret societies that developed during the time they were actively suppressed), they nonetheless have persisted to the present as evidenced by the popularity of so-called “New Age” spirituality, which has much in common with the Gnostic and pagan ideas that were suppressed for centuries. Even many of our most popular movies--such as The Matrix and the Star Wars series, just to name two—are replete with Gnostic ideas. Indeed, these ancient, “heretical” teachings have survived every century’s attempts at repression:   

In all periods of the world’s history, and in every part of the globe, secret orders and societies have existed outside the limits of the official churches for the purpose of teaching what are called “the Mysteries”: for imparting to suitable and prepared minds certain truths of human life, certain instructions about divine things,…about human nature and human destiny….  *** [B]ehind all the official religious systems of the world, and behind all the great moral movements and developments in the history of humanity, have stood what St. Paul called the keepers or “stewards of the Mysteries” [1 Corinthians 4:1]. From that source Christianity itself came into the world. From them originated the great school of Kabalism, that marvelous system of secret, oral tradition of the Hebrews, a strong element of which has been introduced into [the] Masonic system. From them, too, also issued many fraternities and orders, such for instance, as the great orders of Chivalry and of the Rosicrucians, and the school of spiritual alchemy. Lastly, from them too also issued, in the seventeenth century, modern speculative Freemasonry. (W.L. Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry at 22-23.)     

If “survival” is the test of truthfulness, the “heretical” ideas of our Gnostic ancestors have at least equal claim to the “orthodox” idea of our Literalist ones.       

Conclusion   

To conclude this chapter, we have seen how the battles for Christianity shaped our New Testament. To quote Professor Ehrman:   

[T]hese confrontations were waged largely on literary grounds, as members of the proto-orthodox group produced polemical tractates in opposition to other Christian perspectives, forged sacred texts to provide authorizations for their own perspectives (forgeries, that is, claiming to be written by Jesus’ own apostles), and collected other early writings into a sacred canon of Scripture to advance their views and counteract the views of others. It is out of these conflicts that the New Testament came into being, a collection of twenty-seven books taken to be sacred, inspired, and authoritative. (Ehrman, Lost Christianities at 7)     

Even so,   

[W]hen we talk about the “final” version of the New Testament, we are doing so in (mental) quotation marks, for there never has been complete agreement on the canon throughout the Christian world. (Ehrman, Lost Christianities at 231)   

What Literalists today consider the divine, infallible Word of God is indisputably a compilation of various inconsistent source texts that have, at best, been subjected to the unconscious biases of translators throughout the ages and, at worst, have been intentionally altered and relentlessly edited to serve the objectives of those in power, namely orthodox Literalists. As one Christian scholar has noted:   

Our modern Greek text [from which our modern English translations are derived] may be described as a reconstructed or restored text. Only two alternatives are available if we seek to print a Greek text. Either we can select one manuscript and make it the standard text, or we can consult a number of manuscripts and authorities and by comparison reconstruct a text which we feel is like the original. If we choose the former course, we are destined to failure, for no one manuscript is free from obvious scribal errors. If we choose the latter course, we will be assured of getting much closer to the original New Testament autographs. For this reason the latter course has always been followed in the printing of the Greek New Testament. This means that our modern text is an edition of the New Testament text restored through all the aids of textual criticism. (How We Got the Bible at 104).     

Thus, if there ever was an infallible version of the Bible, it is undoubtedly lost to us today, and has been lost for almost two thousand years. No fair-mined, rational, and knowledgeable person can conclude otherwise. We have no Gnostic Bible’s today only because the orthodox Literalists were the one’s who compiled our Bibles, suppressing all other scriptures and disguising the Gnostic ideas in those they retained. How Literalist gained their power over the Bible is the subject of the next chapter.