We have discussed at some length on this blog the value (or lack thereof) of what I called the comparative argument for the reliability of the NT text. In particular, we discussed Bart Ehrman’s three objections to it and why I found one of them significant. In this post, I want to return to that same objection, but this time I’m going to stack it against one of Ehrman’s own reasons for thinking the NT textual tradition is unreliable or at least not reliable enough.Ehrman’s Argument
Here is Ehrman in his NT introduction:In the earliest centuries, the vast majority of copyists of the New Testament books were not trained scribes. We know this because we can examine their copies and evaluate the quality of their handwriting, and we can assess how accurately they did their work. The striking and disappointing fact is that our earliest manuscripts of the New Testament have far more mistakes and differences in them than our later ones. The earlier we go in the history of copying these texts, the less skilled and attentive the scribes appear to have been.*
And here is his objection to the comparative argument as applied to the number of manuscripts:
The same issue arises when it comes to his judgment about the quality of scribal copying. Assuming for a moment that early scribes were worse than later scribes, what does that actually tell us? The answer to that depends on what exactly we’re demanding. For Ehrman, the fact that early scribes are worse than later ones seems to mean we can’t arrive at the original text. But why? Couldn’t we just as well conclude that early scribes were good or even good enough and later scribes were better? Asked another way, about how many early variants does it take before we reach agnosticism? I have no idea.
Thankfully, we can compare the product of early and late witnesses and, when we do, we find that they both preserved an awful lot of the exact same text. (If they hadn’t, we would have trouble comparing them in the first place.)
Besides this, the places where we have the most data reveal that the majority of extant variants is actually found, not in the earliest manuscripts, but in our later manuscripts. Whether created there or not, we can’t say with complete certainty. But we can say something about the claim that our earliest manuscripts have far more mistakes and differences than our later ones. What we can say is that it’s simply not true.
Now, someone should say, “Well, that’s because we have so many later manuscripts!” That is true, but it only raises anew the problem with the original comparison. What sense does it make to compare the number of variants in earlier vs. later manuscripts when the real question is: “Have any of them preserved the original text?” As I like to ask my students, “How many good manuscripts does it take to have a good text?” Answer: one. I happen to think we have many more, but the point is that numbers aren’t the real issue.
For these reasons, I don’t see how Ehrman’s comparative argument against textual reliability gets us much further than the comparative argument for textual reliability. In both cases, we have no shared premise (as Pete Williams put it). These comparative arguments “work” only as long as we don’t recognize this. Once we do, we see that comparison is the wrong tool for the job.
What I’ve left unaddressed is Ehrman’s other metric of scribal ability, which is the quality of handwriting. But that I will leave for my co-bloggers who can address it far better than I can.
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Second, and more important: just because we are WORSE off for other authors than for those of the New Testament does not in itself mean that we can trust that we know what the NT authors wrote. I am a lot stronger than my five-year old granddaughter. But I still am not able to bench-press a half-ton truck. Yes, but you are MANY TIMES stronger than her! It doesn’t matter. I’m nowhere near strong enough. We have far more manuscripts of the New Testament than for any other ancient writing. But that doesn’t mean that we can therefore know what the originals said. We don’t have nearly enough of the right kinds of manuscripts.
Problems
As I noted in my previous post, this argument cuts both ways and the reason is obvious. Depending on what you’re lifting, both Ehrman and his granddaughter might be strong enough. After all, why is he trying to lift a half-ton truck rather than a 5-lb dumbbell? Ehrman doesn’t tell us.The same issue arises when it comes to his judgment about the quality of scribal copying. Assuming for a moment that early scribes were worse than later scribes, what does that actually tell us? The answer to that depends on what exactly we’re demanding. For Ehrman, the fact that early scribes are worse than later ones seems to mean we can’t arrive at the original text. But why? Couldn’t we just as well conclude that early scribes were good or even good enough and later scribes were better? Asked another way, about how many early variants does it take before we reach agnosticism? I have no idea.
Besides this, the places where we have the most data reveal that the majority of extant variants is actually found, not in the earliest manuscripts, but in our later manuscripts. Whether created there or not, we can’t say with complete certainty. But we can say something about the claim that our earliest manuscripts have far more mistakes and differences than our later ones. What we can say is that it’s simply not true.
Now, someone should say, “Well, that’s because we have so many later manuscripts!” That is true, but it only raises anew the problem with the original comparison. What sense does it make to compare the number of variants in earlier vs. later manuscripts when the real question is: “Have any of them preserved the original text?” As I like to ask my students, “How many good manuscripts does it take to have a good text?” Answer: one. I happen to think we have many more, but the point is that numbers aren’t the real issue.
For these reasons, I don’t see how Ehrman’s comparative argument against textual reliability gets us much further than the comparative argument for textual reliability. In both cases, we have no shared premise (as Pete Williams put it). These comparative arguments “work” only as long as we don’t recognize this. Once we do, we see that comparison is the wrong tool for the job.
What I’ve left unaddressed is Ehrman’s other metric of scribal ability, which is the quality of handwriting. But that I will leave for my co-bloggers who can address it far better than I can.
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*Bart D. Ehrhman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, sixth edition (OUP, 2016), 25.