I wanted to take this opportunity to announce the release of a new monograph that deals especially with the deity of Christ, and especially from a grammatical perspective. Based on my doctoral dissertation but with significantly more material and thoroughly updated, Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance was published last week by Peter Lang. If you’re familiar with Sharp’s Rule, which was articulated especially in relation to Christ’s deity, you will understand the need for Sharp’s name in the title. (This announcement is timely, too, since it’s Sharp’s birthday! He’s 273 years old.) The monograph represents about 25 years of research, off and on, and touches on some key passages such as Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1. It’s available at Amazon. But since it is an academic book, it’s a bit pricey: $69.95.

Besides affirming the deity of Christ in both of these passages, the book deals with constructions that do not fit Sharp’s rule and thus have a different force. “Pastors and teachers” in Eph 4:11 and “apostles and prophets” in Eph 2:20 are discussed at length, for example. In neither of these passages is it likely that the groups are identical. The fact that the book came out after Gordon Fee’s magisterial Pauline Christology has afforded me the opportunity to interact with Fee’s arguments that “our great God and Savior” refer to the Father rather than the Son. I disagree with him on this, and argue that the epithet speaks of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, the book had several typos in the Greek due to some font issues at the printer’s. But a corrigenda sheet will accompany each hard copy so that you can spot the errors and make the corrections. If you write to me (dbw@csntm.org), I can send you the corrigenda sheet (in case you buy a copy that was already dispatched to the reseller before the typos were detected).
The monograph will be on sale at the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual meeting coming up in Boston later this month.

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Three days after I came home from our first expedition of the season (to Albania and Greece), I took off again—this time, on a road trip. With two other guys, we drove north to Ann Arbor to photograph the Greek New Testament manuscripts at the University of Michigan. UM boasts the largest collection of Greek NT MSS in America: 1 out 6 MSS are in their collection! We will be photographing all of them except for the papyri which have already been digitized.

Two teams went to Ann Arbor this week. Four people flew in and four drove. We are a little slow in setting up, but the library has cooperated marvelously with us. We are occupying four tables in the manuscript room—about one third of the whole room! Altogether, there are over 20,000 images to shoot. But to date, far and away the most challenging manuscript has been codex 2364, or shelf number MS 182. For starters, this is an ultra-tiny manuscript. It measures 3.5 inches by 2.75 inches—barely larger than the fragmentary leaf known as P52. Think of a 3 x 5 card and cut it in half. That’s pretty close to the size of this document. But it’s also just as thick as it is tall!

The text is 12th–13th century, and it includes the four Gospels. Yes, all of them. The handwriting is so small that it’s hard to believe that such delicate work could have been achieved eight hundred years ago. I am not sure how it would have been done; if anyone has a clue, I’d appreciate the information. The font size is about 3 points. It looks like this. So, not only is it difficult to imagine someone producing this text, it is also difficult to imagine the kind of person who could read it.

I prepared the manuscript for photography. It barely opens wide enough to photograph, which presents its own challenges. But in order to prep the manuscript, I had to measure dimensions, document content, check on the date, confirm shelf number, note how many columns and lines per column it has, record its material (parchment or paper), and list any other important material. Most manuscripts’ leaves are numbered, although there are almost always mistakes with these numbers. Usually a page is skipped or two others in sequence have the same number. The ‘wee beastie’ as we are affectionately calling this tiny text is unnumbered. This creates a significant problem for photography: we must have the same amount of recto (right) side images as verso (left) side images. If we don’t, then we have to go back through the manuscript and find the error. If we accidentally duplicate a page, it might take us 10–15 minutes to find out where. If we skip a page, it might take us double that time. The wee beastie needed to be numbered very, very accurately—yet we are not allowed to write the number in pencil in the text (which most manuscripts have). So, I took slips of paper, marked with the leaf numbers, and placed them after every ten leaves. After triple and quadruple checking every section, I was satisfied that I had probably gotten the leaf count right. (I ended up being wrong twice!) It came to an astounding 492 leaves. That computes to 984 pages! That was a challenge just to prepare for shooting.

We learned that Wee Beastie had never been microfilmed before. One of the librarians tried to take a few pictures of it recently, but gave up quickly. When I told her our nickname for the manuscript, she said that she had a much more vulgar term!

Finally, the photographers took their turn. The first 61 leaves are on paper—the text was written out in a much later hand to replace the leaves that had disappeared over the centuries. These leaves are made of paper. But starting on leaf 62, the manuscript is parchment. This continues on until leaf 326, when it reverts to paper. Just over half the manuscript is thus on the original parchment, while the rest is replacement leaves.

The binding is tight, which means that the photographers can’t open it very far. And with a tiny manuscript, even the slightest jostling of the table, even a gust coming across the manuscript as someone walks by, can cause the letters to blur. Further, the f-stop needs to be set very high so as to maximize depth of field focus. The higher the f-stop, the greater depth of focus can be achieved. But it comes at a price: the higher the f-stop, the longer the shutter is open. The reason this is necessary is because we’re dealing with proportions: a relatively flat page on a large manuscript that varies, say, ¼” across its face can be shot at a lower f-stop because proportionately it doesn’t vary very much. But on a tiny manuscript, the same variation is proportionately equal to a 1-2” dip in the page! We had to use f-16 for Wee Beastie; it requires a good five seconds of exposure for each page.

Three people were needed to shoot the manuscript: one computer operator and two ‘page turners.’ One person holds the manuscript in place by using one hand as a block to keep the manuscript from moving. She puts her hand under the black cloth, and with her other hand holds the verso side at a right angle to the page being shot. Another person holds the recto side in place, making sure to keep the fingers from getting in the way of the text. Small hands are needed for this work! And because the vellum leaves are so thin, a white sheet of paper needs to be placed behind the vellum on every shot. The text in many places has etched through the vellum so that only a silhouette of each letter can be discerned. The whole thing looks like a miniature stencil.

Tomorrow, we should be done shooting the Wee Beastie—a manuscript that has heretofore never been photographed and hardly ever read. And when the photography is done, the work of transcription begins. But instead of having to read tiny text through a magnifying glass, we will be able to blow up each image to about 30 square feet without any pixilation! Our goal of making the photographs more readable than the original in this case will become an uncontested claim. And another copy of the Word of God will be accessible for research and study.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008. The day started at 11 am at the Greek Bible Institute in Pikermi, just outside of Athens. Late start because we thought driving to the famed monasteries of Meteora would take four hours. Four of us (Billy Todd, Tim Ricchuiti, Brian Wright, and Dan Wallace) shoehorned ourselves into a tiny car, and took off for the road north. But we were not prepared for what would await us today.

We took the E75 up the east coast of Greece’s mainland. For the most part, a very fine, modern highway. After we had traveled for about 2 & ½ hours, we got an email on Tim Ricchuiti’s cell phone from Jeff Baldwin, the director of the Greek Bible Institute and a former student of mine. Jeff grew up in Greece (his dad, Bill Baldwin, another Dallas Seminary grad, was the founder of the school decades ago) and is completely bilingual. He has many friends in low places (since he’s not Orthodox), but even low places here are sometimes high enough. As I said, we were headed for the monasteries built high up on top of rocks that ascend straight up into the heavens hundred of meters above the town below. We thought we would visit them today, and tomorrow see if we could examine some manuscripts there. The monasteries here have nearly 60 Greek New Testament manuscripts. In centuries past, the only way that people could get to the top of these rocks was to get pulled up on a rope. But once, when a rope broke, the rules changed. Now, there are steps to the heights. A veritable stairway to heaven. Led Zeppelin would be envious. We were eager with anticipation (as much as four Testoterone-laden eggheads can be). But the email from Jeff changed our plans instantly.

For the rest of the story, you’ll have to go to www.bible.org. The link to the essay is here.

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I learned something really important on day two of the Greer-Heard Forum: fried fish and dark beer taste even better when you’re sitting around a bunch of theologues. Thoughts of blood barely trickling through my arteries were squeezed out by images of Martin Luther engaged in his famous "table talk" enjoying a catch from Katie’s fish pond and nursing a mug of her homemade brew. We didn’t have any famous scholars in our midst on Saturday night, but we were surrounded by great food and stimulating conversation about the theological controversies of our day. Indeed, the lectures we had heard just hours before provided plenty of grist for the mill.

Day two of the Forum featured Michael Holmes (Bethel University), Dale Martin (Yale University), David Parker (Birmingham University), and William Warren (New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary). Each man spoke for approximately 30 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of interaction with the keynotes, Ehrman and Wallace. In keeping with the spirit of the previous night’s dialog, Holmes and Warren took Wallace’s "side" while Martin and Parker were on Ehrman’s. Each lecture was quite different and made its own contribution, as I’ll try to briefly show below.

Michael Holmes
Holmes argued against three models of what the manuscripts would have looked like in the earliest period of copying—the models proposed by David Trobisch, William Peterson, and Kurt Aland. Trobisch suggests that by mid-second century there was controlled copying and that what was being copied was a canonical text somewhat different from the original text. There is no substantial evidence for this, and Wallace had already pointed out that this model fits the Qurâ’an better than the New Testament. Peterson has argued that the text had changed dramatically in the second century, but Holmes effectively debunked Peterson’s examples. Aland argued that every reading, both original and secondary, has been preserved somewhere in the manuscripts. However, Holmes showed that some readings were barely preserved, suggesting that there would be many that had not been.

Holmes’ basic point was that copying by its very nature is a conservative practice and that what the scribes would have done early on was good enough—good enough for preserving the essence of the original text and good enough for making clear what the original meant.

Ehrman responded that we can’t project back into the first century what happened in later centuries, but Holmes said that we have to go on the basis of evidence rather than conjecture. Wallace again brought up the relation of P75 to B and argued that we can see what some of the earliest copying practices would have looked like from those manuscripts. He also pointed out that the text of Mark that Luke and Matthew used is assumed to be almost identical to the original of Mark by virtually all redaction critics. Otherwise, they cannot make claims about Matthean motifs if such existed in Matthew’s previously corrupted copy of Mark. Ehrman continued to present himself as very skeptical about what we can know, while Wallace continued to take a moderating position: we cannot know for sure, but we need to base our views on what is most probable.

Dale Martin
Martin, who is one of Ehrman’s good friends (a point whose significance will soon be seen), was the only non-textual critic on the panel. He gave perhaps the liveliest lecture of the bunch. Although he was supposed to argue on behalf of Ehrman, he essentially ripped him for not having a theology of scripture, for leaving the faith with insufficient evidence to do so, and for ignoring interpretation and tradition too much. He especially picked on Ehrman’s spiritual journey. Though Martin unleashed a few curveballs, other aspects of his presentation were much less surprising. In addition to saying that scripture should be read for its narrative and not its theology, he declared that "the original text is a myth" and "there is no original text." Consequently, he argued that any work whose aim was to get back to the original (or the closest thing to it) was wrong-headed.

Ehrman responded first with the words, "Dale and I used to be friends"! He asked Martin why he thought it was appropriate to bring up Ehrman’s personal spiritual journey. Martin simply replied, "You made it public. You put it in your books." Indeed, Martin pointed out the fact that Ehrman chose to make his own spiritual journey the first chapter in two of his popular books, and thus set the tone for the whole of each book with his opening gambit. Ehrman’s spiritual journey was in print, in the very same books where he makes his most radical pontifications. So, according to Martin, it was fair game. Frankly, what Martin said about Ehrman made Wallace’s demonstration of Ehrman’s contradictions seem like a compliment by comparison! I think this clearly shows that Wallace was in no way using an ad hominem argument when he addressed Ehrman’s published views, especially since Wallace specifically said that he didn’t know what Ehrman’s views really are.

The exchange between Martin and Ehrman got a little heated at times. This made for an interesting scene, since Martin was on the right, Ehrman was on the left, and Wallace was stuck in the middle. Wallace was quiet for a long time, appearing to enjoy watching the volleys being tossed over his head. Finally, when the moderator asked if he’d like to say anything, Wallace asked, "Why should I? I’m having too much fun just observing" ! Wallace did, however, speak for a few minutes once the dust settled. He agreed with Martin that many evangelicals flirt with bibliolatry, that they often ignore both tradition and interpretation, and that they also can pour a later theology into the New Testament. But he criticized Martin’s argument about the myth of an original text: "Just because we don’t have one today doesn’t mean it didn’t exist at some point; the scribes were copying something."He also picked up on Martin’s narrative approach and asked that if it didn’t matter which manuscript was being read, then how could Martin explain that there are two more fairly lengthy narratives (John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20) in the later manuscripts than in the earlier ones? Wallace followed that up by asking whether translators should simply not care which text they’re translating, suggesting that such a scenario would take us back to the days of Erasmus. Martin didn’t have enough time to respond to Wallace’s questions, but he acknowledged that they were significant and said he thought he could handle them all.

David Parker
Parker is one of the best textual critics in the world and has his own institute at the University of Birmingham in England. He has in recent years argued against trying to get back to an original text, even arguing that an original is irrelevant or meaningless since the original documents could have been modified significantly by the author several times. In such a case, which is the original? In his lecture he spoke about the work of Muenster and Birmingham of trying to get back to the earliest form of the text by using genealogical studies and tools to do so. He showed a couple of fascinating (but way too detailed) slides on this front, noting that scholars working on the human genome project have basically been involved in textual criticism, too. But he also argued that we can’t get back to the original, that it wasn’t particularly relevant, and that our job should simply be to get back to the earliest form.

Ehrman asked Parker why the earliest form was so important if it didn’t accurately reflect what an author wrote. Wallace pitched in and said that if Parker’s views are right, then not only should intrinsic evidence be abandoned but so should all of exegesis! He noted that Parker’s views are too narrowly focused, thinking of textual criticism as an end in itself. Parker simply said that he was not an exegete, just a textual critic.

It sure was interesting to hear Ehrman’s two team members arguing against his views! After all, when it came to Parker’s claims, Ehrman and Wallace were actually on the same side. (It’s also significant that much of what Ehrman has done in textual criticism is to appeal to intrinsic evidence, which presupposes that he has a pretty fair idea of what an author wrote.)

Bill Warren
Warren’s lecture was basically Textual Criticism 101. It would have been better placed, in my opinion, as the first lecture on Saturday, but since it was the last, people had already heard the gist of it many times over. Warren actually argued for tentativeness about several things. When Ehrman responded, he said that he basically had no problem with what Warren was saying. Wallace, however, said that he thought we could move toward greater certainty by observing what Matthew and Luke did with Mark. He used Mark 1:41 as a test-case, and enlisted Ehrman’s treatment of this in his argument. Here the text either says that Jesus was compassionate or angry when he healed a leper. Wallace noted that Matthew and Luke don’t have either word, but since they drop references to Jesus’ anger elsewhere while maintaining statements about Jesus’ compassion, Mark almost surely said that Jesus was angry in this place. If he had said that Jesus was compassionate, Matthew and Luke would surely have mentioned it. To borrow a cliche, their silence was deafening. But Wallace showed that, by using one of Ehrman’s favorite examples, textual critics are presupposing that we can get back essentially to the author’s words in order to do both redaction and textual criticism. Even Ehrman assumed this! And the fact that Wallace used an example from Mark—which Ehrman underscored as a book that had very few early copies, and thus could have been changed radically before it was found in our extant copies—showed that Ehrman’s skepticism about Mark in particular was unfounded. Wallace even mentioned p. 135 of Misquoting Jesus, where Ehrman had argued that even though we don’t have any second century copies of Mark, we do have books written within twenty years of Mark that utilize Mark.

Given its nature and placement, Warren’s lecture was the least invigorating of the weekend. But it did give Wallace a chance to articulate further his argument about Matthew and Luke’s use of Mark as a way for us to measure how the earliest copying of the manuscripts would have looked.

Ehrman’s Wrap-Up
Ehrman admitted that no cardinal belief of Christianity is affected by any variants (one of the chief points that Wallace had been arguing the whole weekend!). But he also said that since the second century is shrouded in mystery, and since almost all of our variants come from that period, the study of these variants is important and open to interpretation (as to which are closer to the original, why some variants arose, how the scribes went about their work, etc.).

Wallace’s Wrap-Up
Wallace likewise said that we can’t know exactly what the original text said, but we can have a bit more certainty than some skeptics would claim. He also argued that a high Christology was not the basic drive for the orthodox scribes; rather, historicity or harmonization in the Gospels was. (He gave a great illustration of this that would take too long to discuss here; get the recording!) Finally, Wallace summed up why he thought the study of the variants was important: because the Bible is the Word of God. Wallace was unashamed of his evangelical position on this, but he quickly added that he followed a doctrinal taxonomy that answers four questions:

1. What beliefs are essential for the life of the church?
2. What beliefs are important for the health of the church?
3. What beliefs are important for the proper functioning of a local church?
4. What beliefs should not be fought over, are speculative, and unimportant?

He pointed out the fact that textual criticism belongs to the last three categories, but that the Forum was essentially about numbers 2 and 3.

Q&A
The whole Forum concluded with some decent Q&A time. A couple of things really stuck out. First, a questioner asked Ehrman about his text-critical method, noting that Ehrman seemed to always find the least orthodox readings and argue that they were the original readings. What Ehrman said was, frankly, unbelievable. He basically said that he would find the reading that he liked, and then find the evidence to support it! This sure sounded as though he was starting from his conclusions rather than beginning with a question. Not surprisingly, some folks audibly gasped at this response.

Second, someone asked Wallace why he didn’t hold to a doctrine of preservation (which is something that he had mentioned earlier in the conference). He said that (1) the doctrine was recent, first articulated in the Westminster Confession; (2) the verses employed to support the doctrine don’t teach such a thing; and (3) the Old Testament text has not been completely preserved. There are, in fact, some places in which the Old Testament text requires some conjectures that have no manuscript basis whatsoever. Further, Wallace didn’t want to be a Marcionite, elevating the New Testament (in terms of inspiration) over the Old Testament. (In other words, he didn’t want to be bibliologically schizophrenic!) But, importantly, he added that although he had no doctrinal basis for believing in preservation, he has plenty of historical evidence that this is what God has essentially done.

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I have argued in previous installments of this series that in John 10:28-30 Jesus claims to be “one†with the Father in the exercise of the divine prerogative and power of giving eternal life to the people of God and preserving them against any spiritual attack. Christ’s use of the monotheistic statement of YHWH in the Old Testament that he alone is God because no one can snatch them from his hand (Deut. 32:39; see also Is. 43:13), which Christ applies to himself and to the Father, sets us up to understand "I and the Father are one" also as an allusion to the Old Testament’s most famous monotheistic affirmation, the Shema (Deut. 6:4).

Those who deny that Jesus Christ is one God with the Father point to certain elements of the context to show that such an interpretation is mistaken. Immediately before Jesus’ famous statement in John 10:30, he states, "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all (v. 29 ESV, HCSB, NASB, NET). Jesus says two things here about the Father that anti-Trinitarians often understand as implying that Jesus is not God.

First, Jesus says that the Father gave him his sheep. Why would the Father need to give the Son anything if he possesses it necessarily by virtue of his being God? This kind of question comes up repeatedly with reference to statements throughout the Gospel of John that express the Son’s dependence on the Father. The Son does what he sees the Father doing (5:19-20). The Son cannot do anything on his own, independent of the Father (5:19, 30; 8:28). The Father gives the Son life in himself (5:26) and the authority to judge (5:22, 27) and to give eternal life (17:2). The Son does the works that the Father gave him to do (5:36; 17:4). The Father gives the Son his people, his sheep (6:37, 39; 10:29; 17:2, 6, 9, 24). The Son’s teaching is not his alone but is the Father’s (7:16-17). He does not speak on his own (7:17; 14:10). He speaks what he hears from the Father who sent him (8:26; 15:15), from God (8:40), what the Father instructs him (8:28), commands him (12:49), and gave him (17:8) to say. The Son’s speech is the Father dwelling in him doing his works (14:10). He did not come on his own (8:42). The Father gave his name (17:11, 12) to the Son. He gave him glory (17:22). He also gave him the cup of sacrificial death (18:11). In short, the Son is apparently dependent on the Father for everything he has, says, and does. How, then, can the Son be considered in any way equal to God?

Classically, orthodox Christians have understood these statements to reflect the dependence of the Son on the Father that characterized him in his humiliation”that stage of the Incarnation that extended from his conception to his resurrection. By becoming a human being (John 1:14), the Son humbled himself, taking a position that entailed utter dependence on the Father for everything he had, said, and did. In some sense, the Son had left behind the glory that he had alongside the Father since before creation, a glory to which he was to return following his death and resurrection (John 12:16; 17:5). (Since the risen Christ is still human, orthodox theologians regard the period following his resurrection as a second stage of the Incarnation" the stage of exaltation.) During this first phase of the Incarnation, the Son’s entire modus operandi was to glorify the Father (John 7:18; 12:28; 15:8; 17:4). Jesus therefore credited his miracles as well as his speech to the Father. Thus, even when Jesus performed acts that revealed in some way his divine glory, he did so that the Father might be glorified through and in him (John 1:14; 2:11; 11:4, 40; 13:31-32; 14:13; 17:1).

This explanation is consistent with the fact that these numerous statements in John all appear to refer to the Son’s dependence on the Father during his mortal life on earth. Although the Gospel of John explicitly teaches that the Son existed as a divine person before becoming a human being (John 1:1-3, 10; 8:58; 13:3; 16:28; 17:5), all of the references to the Son’s dependence on the Father are statements by Jesus focused on giving the Father credit for the things Jesus was saying and doing at the time.

This classical Trinitarian interpretation would therefore understand these Johannine passages in much the same way as Christians historically have understood the famous "Christ hymn" in Philippians, which says that although Christ existed in God’s form, he humbled himself as a servant, becoming a man, and dying on the cross, after which God highly exalted him above all creation (Phil. 2:6-11). As the divine Son, Christ was entitled to the recognition, honor, and glorious privilege of God (v. 6), but he humbled himself for the Father’s glory (v. 11). In that state of humiliation, Christ depended on the Father as a servant depends on his master, and was therefore dependent on the Father to exalt him (v. 9).

There is much to commend this line of thinking, and I think it is right, or at least mostly right. Some Trinitarians, however, think that a qualification is in order. They argue that it is a mistake to limit the force of all of these statements in John to the period of Christ’s humiliation. They suggest that the Son’s dependence on the Father in the Incarnation, though perhaps deepened or radicalized by his humiliation as a mortal human, should be understood as in some way revelatory of the eternal relationship of the Son to the Father. The theological maxim that expresses this view is that the economic Trinity reveals the ontological Trinity: how the incarnate Son relates to the Father in space-time reveals something of the relationship between the Son and the Father in eternity. We might put it this way: the fact that the Father sent the Son into the world, rather than the other way around, is not an accident. It is not as though the three persons of the Trinity drew straws to determine who would become a man and die on the cross. There is something appropriate and fitting about the Son coming on behalf of the Father. The very titles "Father" and "Son" indicate an asymmetrical relationship between the two persons, such that it is proper and fitting that the Father sent the Son, that the Son seeks to do the will of the Father, etc., and not the other way around.

I think there is some support for this qualification to the classical view in something that Jesus in the Gospel of John says about the Holy Spirit: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13-14). Here Jesus says that the Holy Spirit "will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears." This statement says about the Holy Spirit exactly what Jesus had earlier stated about himself: "Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own" (John 7:17). "The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own" (John 14:10). "I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father" (John 15:15). Jesus also says that the Holy Spirit will glorify him (that is, glorify Jesus, the Son), rather than the Spirit glorifying himself" just as Jesus came not to glorify himself but to glorify the Father. Yet the Holy Spirit clearly does not become incarnate or otherwise experience a "humiliation" comparable to the Son becoming a human being. Thus, it may well be that the "dependence" language in John is not merely or exclusively a function of the humiliation of Jesus’ coming in the flesh, but more broadly reveals the Son as acting on the Father’s behalf.

The instructive parallel of the Holy Spirit also shows that this dependence language does not imply inferiority of nature. We cannot plausibly understand Jesus to mean that the Holy Spirit remains ignorant of some truth until Jesus imparts it to him, or that the Spirit is inferior to Jesus. Rather, when Jesus says that the Holy Spirit does not speak on his own but speaks what he hears from Jesus, he means that the Holy Spirit’s ministry of revelation will be performed for the purpose of revealing and glorifying the Son. Jesus’ coming into the world as a mortal human being is indeed a special act of humiliation, but it appears that humility is a virtue or moral attribute that characterizes the divine persons of the Trinity. The Son comes to glorify the Father, the Father for his part glorifies the Son, and the Holy Spirit comes to glorify the Son.

The second thing we need to discuss that Jesus says in John 10:29 (according to most scholars) is that the Father is greater than all. (There are textual variants here, and the NRSV adopts the strange reading “What my Father has given me is greater than all else."If this reading turns out to be correct, the statement would be describing the sheep as greater than anything else" an odd statement, but one that clearly could not pose any objection to viewing Christ as God. I will, however, for the sake of argument assume that the majority view is correct here.) Anti-Trinitarians assume that Jesus is including himself in saying that the Father is greater than everyone" that is, that the Father is greater than Jesus. And that may well be. We know that Jesus could make such a statement, since he does so explicitly in John 14:28, "the Father is greater than I." If so, Jesus in both of these passages would be saying that the Father was greater than he was. Does this contradict the idea that he is God? Again, not necessarily, if we understand these statements in the context of the Son’s humiliation in becoming a mortal human being. On the other hand, it is probably not the case that the two statements should be equated in this way.

In John 14, Jesus looks forward to his return to the Father’s presence and to the sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples, through whom even "greater" things would take place than the miracles Jesus had performed in the ministry of his earthly humiliation (v. 12). This statement clearly does not mean that the disciples would be greater than Jesus or even that they would do greater works than Jesus, because it would in fact be Jesus, through the Holy Spirit he was going to send to them, working within them to do those greater works, bringing glory to the Father and the Son (vv. 13-21). It is in this context of the Son’s exaltation and return to heaven and of the Spirit’s descent to the disciples that Jesus encourages his disciples to rejoice that he was going to the Father, "because the Father is greater than I" (vv. 26-28). Jesus’ ministry was limited by virtue of his living in mortal flesh; he was about to expand his ministry immeasurably by returning to the Father, whose greatness was not limited by the Incarnation, and sending the Spirit. Thus, Jesus affirms the relative greatness of the Father not as a denial of Jesus’ own divine identity but as an expression of his humiliation and radical dependence on the Father in the period leading up to his death.

When we look again at John 10:29, it is evident that Jesus is not denying divine power or identity. Jesus has just affirmed that no one could snatch the sheep from his hand (v. 28), and he now affirms that likewise no one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. In this context Jesus reminds his hearers that of course the Father is greater than everyone. No one can snatch the sheep from the Father’s hand because there is no one greater than the Father who could pull off such a feat. But then Jesus, far from drawing the supposedly obvious conclusion that he was inferior in power to the Father, makes the opposite assertion: "I and the Father are one" (v. 30). In context this can only reasonably mean, at the very least, that Jesus and the Father are perfectly one in their exercise of divine power to preserve the sheep and repel all attacks against them. "The Father is greater than all, so that no one can withstand him" but Jesus is one with the Father, so that no one can withstand him, either. Thus, in context, Jesus in John 10:29 is not saying that the Father was greater in divine power than he, but that the Father’s unparalleled greatness in power is his power, too. Far from disproving Christ’s equality with God, the logic of his argument in this passage strongly proves that he was claiming to be no less than God.

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For a long time, Albania has closed its doors to western scholars. Last summer, a four-person team from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts went to Tirana to photograph 13 manuscripts in the National Archive. They were unprepared for what would happen on their first day on the job. They saw an old typewritten, in-house catalog of manuscripts, and noticed that there were forty-seven (47) NT MSS! The Dallas Morning News reported on this to some degree, featuring a full-page article on the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.

In addition to this article, Christianity Today is scheduled to post a more in-depth story about the manuscript discoveries on March 10 at their website. Be sure to check it out.

I’ll leave the details of the importance of these manuscripts to the CT article, and will post later about what we discovered.

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I know that I am not very faithful. I want to be, but I have this problem—an infection, an inclination, an uncanny ability to disappoint people. No, I am not just saying that to identify . . . I really do have this ability. I have won the gold medal in the triathlon of let-down, disenchantment, and flake-out. Be it forgetfulness, thoughtlessness, or just plain selfishness, I can make a mess of things. I am often faithless, to others and to God.

Yet, at the same time, while I have periods of faithlessness, I still believe—in God. In other words, I am never perpetually faithless. Confused maybe, but not faithless. I do know whom I have believed in.

I am going to take an odd and probably unexpected turn now. One of the most oft quoted passages of Scripture with regards to our tendency to weaken our grip on faith is 2 Tim. 2:13.

2 Timothy 2:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

Normally, we would turn to this passage and wipe the sweat off our brow in relief. Phew . . . When we are faithless, Christ will remain faithful. Faithful to what? To us! In other words, we may let him down, but he will never let us down. While I believe that this principle is true and can be found in many passages of Scripture, I don’t believe that this is what is being taught here. This verse is misused and the real message here is lost.

Most scholars would agree that this passage, starting in v. 11 and ending in v. 13, is part of a well established statement of faith, a creed, that was put to a rhythmic hymn. It was probably used at one€™s baptism. Being such, it is doubtful that it is originally from Paul. Notice Paul introduction in verse 11, “It is a trustworthy statement . . .†The “statement†was already in existence. Notice the rhythm and parallel structure.

For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him
If we endure, we will also reign with Him

If we deny Him, He also will deny us
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself

This was part of the early Christian kerygma or “preaching.” It was a creed or a statement of faith that was memorable because of the structure. Its structure is called parallelism. There is a parallel correspondence from one line to the next. There are a few types of parallelisms that are possible:

1. Synonymous Parallelism. The second line repeats the first in words or ideas (e.g. Ps. 24:1, Ps. 19:2, Prov. 1:20)

2. Antithetical Parallelism. The second line contrasts with the first line in words or ideas (e.g. Ps. 1:6, Mark 8:35)

3. Synthetic Parallelism. The thought of the second line supplements, or brings the first line to completion (e.g. Luke 12:49-51, Ps. 92:9).

It is clear that the first set in this creed is that of a synonymous parallelism. Notice how the second line repeats the same concepts as the first:

For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him
If we endure, we will also reign with Him

In this, we understand that “died” parallels “endure.” As well, “live” parallels “reign.”

The question now becomes Is the second set in this creed a synonymous parallelism as well? I believe that there is very little evidence for us to state otherwise.

If we deny Him, He also will deny us
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself

In this case, “If we deny him” would parallel “If we are faithless.” And “He will deny us” would parallel “He remains faithful.”

In other words, this particular verse does not speak about Christ’s faithfulness to us even when we are unfaithful, but speaks to his faithfulness to himself when we are faithless (e.g. when we deny him). This faithfulness to himself is one of judgment. If we are faithless, we will be judged.

Notice the explanatory addition to this creed: “. . . for he cannot deny himself.” This extends or explains why it is that Christ would deny people when they deny him. The reason is that he cannot deny himself. The implication is that his righteousness requires judgment. If he did not judge our faithlessness, then he would deny the necessary functionality of his attribute of righteousness and this he cannot do.  

This creed represents the early proclamation of many essential elements of the Gospel. We need to ponder the implications. Early Christians were taught of God’s salvation and judgment. Both of these were held in balance. In other words, the earliest Christians saw heaven and hell, acceptance and denial, mercy and judgment, belief and unbelief as the essence of the Gospel. This creed evidences that one was not taught without the other.

Paul immediately tells Timothy in the next verse to remind them of these things. The reminder again implies that it was a teaching already well established in the early Church. As well, the reminder serves as a warning that their are disjunctives in belief that the Church must uphold.

Having said all of this, many commentaries do not agree with my conclusion. Most would say that this would not be Pauline theology. Paul, according to them, believed that Christ is faithful even when we struggle in our faith. While I agree with this general truth—God is faithful even when struggle—I think that they are missing the point of what is being said.

First, this hymn is not necessarily Pauline, as I previously mentioned. It is an established creed or hymn.

Second, this passage is not speaking of people who are struggling in their faith, or even have a lack of faith from time to time. What it is speaking of is perpetual unbelief or perpetual denial. It is speaking about the reality of ultimate judgment for all those who deny Christ having never placed their faith in him. The “faithless” in “if we are faithless” is a present tense meaning it is a perpetual state of faithlessness.

Therefore, I think we need to be careful how we use this verse. While it is true that when we struggle in our faith, when we let God down, and when we have times of weakness that God will never let us go, it is also true that if we do not ever have faith in him—if we deny him—he will deny us for he cannot act against himself.

This has great implication to current discussions about the Gospel and how it is to be presented.

First, we must have a balance of life and death, love and judgment, rewards and consequences, indeed, heaven and hell. If one of the earliest creeds balanced the Gospel in such a way, how much more should we?

Second, we must recognize that the atonement was made for us because God could not deny himself. It was a necessary judgment that took place as Christ stood in our place. Those who propose that a substitution was not necessary, that God could forgive without basis, are essentially saying that God could deny himself. Forgiveness comes at a price because God’s righteous nature cannot be denied.

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Conversation involve questions. The asking of questions is either meant to illicit and answer or to provoke thought that provides an answer, even if the answer is a tentative “I don’t know.” I often tell my students that it is better to have an informed “I don’t know” than a forced make-ready answer.

When it comes to Christ, when it comes to following Christ, when it comes to who Christ is and what he did, there are some questions that need to be asked. The answers to these questions will and do divide. The division regards differences in beliefs, convictions, or knowledge concerning the object.

Christ asked Peter a very divisive question: “Who do you say that I am?” Others had differing opinions. Some said Elijah. Others John the Baptist. The contrastive de tells us that Christ was asking what Peter thought in contrast to what the others thought. “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” he answered (Matt. 16:16). With this answer Peter contrasted his beliefs about Christ with all the others who gave different options. Peter believed he was right and the others wrong.

This was an early confession, a creed, a statement of faith that was in response to a question. It was not from the lips of Christ, but one of his followers. Peter was the first to put his theology into a creed. This creed not only separated him from other contemporaries, but has separated Christianity as a confession of faith from all other alternatives since. “Who do you say that I am?”

But this was not the end. As I will attempt to demonstrate, there was a progressive development of a creedal belief in the New Testament that distinguished Christianity as a distinct system of belief.

By the time Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians (56AD), there was already the workings of a defined Christian creed. Not only was Christianity defined by a belief in Christ as the son of God, but added to this was the confession of Christ’s death burial and resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

Paul says that this was of “first importance.” In other words, this was essential to the Christian faith. As well, Paul says that he “received” this. It was given over to him and he “delivered” it to others. It was already part of the Christian tradition. As Keener notes in the IVP Bible Background Commentary,

“Handed on to you … what I had received†is the language of what scholars call “traditioning.†Jewish teachers would pass on their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to their own students. The students could take notes, but they delighted especially in oral memorization and became quite skilled at it; memorization was a central feature of ancient education. In the first generation, the tradition would be very accurate; this tradition may even be a verbatim citation.“

This was an established creed of the day, it was part of the tradition that was being handed down. This “tradition” is often referred to as the paradosis or the “things received or handed on.”

Paul further illustrates how this Christian creedal tradition included a belief and confession of Christ’s ontological identity with the father as well as his present Lordship in Phil 2.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5-11)

Paul borrows language commonly used in Greek homonoia speeches (cf. Keener). This passage is believed to be a creedal hymn that was pre-Pauline in origin (probably beginning in v. 6). It was part of the kerygmatic (preaching) essence of the Gospel (Ralph Martin, Word Biblical Commentary).

This developing creedal tradition that separated Christianity as a definite system of belief is further seen in Paul’s second letter to Timothy. There were more questions that had to be answered and your answer would separate you from the alternatives.

For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. 11 It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; 12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us; 13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. (2 Timothy 2:10-14)

This verse, like the previous, starting in v. 11 and ending in v. 13, is believed to be a well established statement of faith that was put to a rhythmic hymn. It was probably used at one’s baptism. Notice Paul introduction in verse 11, “It is a trustworthy statement . . .” The “statement” was already part of this baptismal song. Notice the rhythm and parallel structure.

For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him
If we endure, we will also reign with Him

If we deny Him, He also will deny us
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself

More importantly, notice the creedal additions. Added to the early Christian kerygma was the admonition for us to die with him. This was not a literal death, but one in which our old self dies with Christ—which often carried the implication of suffering and possible death. The Christian confession that was put to hymn was that if we die with him we will live with him. But just as important in this early Christian creed was the warning that if we deny him he will also deny us. This is a statement of divine judgment. Paul tell Timothy to “remind them of these things.” The reminder again implies that it was a teaching already well established in the early Church. As well, the reminder serves as a warning that their are distinctives in belief that the Church must uphold.

Jude speaks of these distinctive beliefs, this creed, this doctrinal distinction, this paradosis, this kerygma when he talks about contending for/fighting for the faith “once for all handed over [paradidomi] to the saints.”

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3 )

There was a definite system of belief that defined early Christian orthodoxy (”right teaching”).

What does all this mean? It means that the early church was well on their way to having a definite set of beliefs that distinguished them from outsiders. They had a definite orthodoxy. The taking of the name Christian had meaning. Yes, it had much to do with the way one lives (orthopraxy), but, as we have seen, it also had to do with what one believes (orthodoxy). The early church was creedal. One’s “membership” in the church was dependent first on what one believed—on how one answered certain questions.

I know that one of the taboos of our emerging generation is that we don’t like labels. I understand. Labels can be misunderstood, nuanced according to traditions, and controlling in a very bad way (try wearing the label “dispensationalist”!). We also don’t like to make judgment calls, especially when it comes to orthodoxy. We don’t want to say who is in and who is out. We don’t like to have “orthodoxy” at all.

While I am not in favor of over-defining our orthodoxy to such a degree where, in the end, the only one truly orthodox is your traditional circle (the “us-four-and-no-more-and-I-am-not-sure-about-you-three mentality), there are questions that must be asked. The answer to these questions will divide us from others. Wrong answers to these questions will place one outside of the Christian creedal confession.Â

Who do you say that Christ is?

What is the Gospel?

What did Christ do?

What is our need?

What are we to do?

What happens if we don’t believe?

What happens if we do believe?

What is our authority?

What defines right behavior?

If one believes right about questions like these, then he or she is orthodox because he or she has answered in distinction to the false options. But if someone gets these questions wrong, he or she is outside of Christian orthodoxy (heterodox).

It is important to note that if someone says they don’t know what the answers are, this is honest and noble, but we must recognize that an ”I don’t know” answer does not define orthodoxy, it defines indecision. If Peter would have answered Christ’s question “Who do you say that I am?” with “I don’t know” or “I can’t say for certain” or “Answering such a question would label me and I don’t like labels” or “Any answer I give is going to make someone angry, so I prefer not to answer” these would have amounted to a wrong answer—an unorthodox answer.

We don’t define the right answers any more than Peter did. God does. We discover them. There are difficulties, yes. We need to be humble in our approach to such issues. But we need to understand that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. The right answers have been a major part of what defines Christian orthodoxy from the very beginning, the wrong answer is outside of Christian orthodoxy.

I encourage all of us who empathize with postmodern skepticism, doubt, and suspicion to understand that our tendencies toward these attitudes does not define or redefine orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has been established from the very beginning. If we deny orthodoxy a place—a definite and important place—we are outside of orthodoxy.

Once orthodoxy is defined, recognized, and acknowledged the inevitable outcome will be separation. There will be those who are within the bounds of orthodoxy and those that are outside its bounds. There will be those with right answers, like Peter, and those with wrong answers, like the others. We will have to make judgment calls if we are going to “contend” for the faith.

While we must recognize that not all orthodoxy is equal and being unorthodox in some issues is worse than being so in others, this recognition cannot relativize our contending for the faith that was once for all handed on to the saint—the faith handed to you.

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Conversation involve questions. The asking of questions is either meant to illicit and answer or to provoke thought that provides an answer, even if the answer is a tentative “I don’t know.” I often tell my students that it is better to have an informed “I don’t know” than a forced make-ready answer.

When it comes to Christ, when it comes to following Christ, when it comes to who Christ is and what he did, there are some questions that need to be asked. The answers to these questions will and do divide. The division regards differences in beliefs, convictions, or knowledge concerning the object.

Christ asked Peter a very divisive question: “Who do you say that I am?” Others had differing opinions. Some said Elijah. Others John the Baptist. The contrastive de tells us that Christ was asking what Peter thought in contrast to what the others thought. “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” he answered (Matt. 16:16). With this answer Peter contrasted his beliefs about Christ with all the others who gave different options. Peter believed he was right and the others wrong.

This was an early confession, a creed, a statement of faith that was in response to a question. It was not from the lips of Christ, but one of his followers. Peter was the first to put his theology into a creed. This creed not only separated him from other contemporaries, but has separated Christianity as a confession of faith from all other alternatives since. “Who do you say that I am?”

But this was not the end. As I will attempt to demonstrate, there was a progressive development of a creedal belief in the New Testament that distinguished Christianity as a distinct system of belief.

By the time Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians (56AD), there was already the workings of a defined Christian creed. Not only was Christianity defined by a belief in Christ as the son of God, but added to this was the confession of Christ’s death burial and resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

Paul says that this was of “first importance.” In other words, this was essential to the Christian faith. As well, Paul says that he “received” this. It was given over to him and he “delivered” it to others. It was already part of the Christian tradition. As Keener notes in the IVP Bible Background Commentary,

“Handed on to you … what I had received†is the language of what scholars call “traditioning.†Jewish teachers would pass on their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to their own students. The students could take notes, but they delighted especially in oral memorization and became quite skilled at it; memorization was a central feature of ancient education. In the first generation, the tradition would be very accurate; this tradition may even be a verbatim citation.“

This was an established creed of the day, it was part of the tradition that was being handed down. This “tradition” is often referred to as the paradosis or the “things received or handed on.”

Paul further illustrates how this Christian creedal tradition included a belief and confession of Christ’s ontological identity with the father as well as his present Lordship in Phil 2.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5-11)

Paul borrows language commonly used in Greek homonoia speeches (cf. Keener). This passage is believed to be a creedal hymn that was pre-Pauline in origin (probably beginning in v. 6). It was part of the kerygmatic (preaching) essence of the Gospel (Ralph Martin, Word Biblical Commentary).

This developing creedal tradition that separated Christianity as a definite system of belief is further seen in Paul’s second letter to Timothy. There were more questions that had to be answered and your answer would separate you from the alternatives.

For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. 11 It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; 12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us; 13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. (2 Timothy 2:10-14)

This verse, like the previous, starting in v. 11 and ending in v. 13, is believed to be a well established statement of faith that was put to a rhythmic hymn. It was probably used at one’s baptism. Notice Paul introduction in verse 11, “It is a trustworthy statement . . .” The “statement” was already part of this baptismal song. Notice the rhythm and parallel structure.

For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him
If we endure, we will also reign with Him

If we deny Him, He also will deny us
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself

More importantly, notice the creedal additions. Added to the early Christian kerygma was the admonition for us to die with him. This was not a literal death, but one in which our old self dies with Christ—which often carried the implication of suffering and possible death. The Christian confession that was put to hymn was that if we die with him we will live with him. But just as important in this early Christian creed was the warning that if we deny him he will also deny us. This is a statement of divine judgment. Paul tell Timothy to “remind them of these things.” The reminder again implies that it was a teaching already well established in the early Church. As well, the reminder serves as a warning that their are distinctives in belief that the Church must uphold.

Jude speaks of these distinctive beliefs, this creed, this doctrinal distinction, this paradosis, this kerygma when he talks about contending for/fighting for the faith “once for all handed over [paradidomi] to the saints.”

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3 )

There was a definite system of belief that defined early Christian orthodoxy (”right teaching”).

What does all this mean? It means that the early church was well on their way to having a definite set of beliefs that distinguished them from outsiders. They had a definite orthodoxy. The taking of the name Christian had meaning. Yes, it had much to do with the way one lives (orthopraxy), but, as we have seen, it also had to do with what one believes (orthodoxy). The early church was creedal. One’s “membership” in the church was dependent first on what one believed—on how one answered certain questions.

I know that one of the taboos of our emerging generation is that we don’t like labels. I understand. Labels can be misunderstood, nuanced according to traditions, and controlling in a very bad way (try wearing the label “dispensationalist”!). We also don’t like to make judgment calls, especially when it comes to orthodoxy. We don’t want to say who is in and who is out. We don’t like to have “orthodoxy” at all.

While I am not in favor of over-defining our orthodoxy to such a degree where, in the end, the only one truly orthodox is your traditional circle (the “us-four-and-no-more-and-I-am-not-sure-about-you-three mentality), there are questions that must be asked. The answer to these questions will divide us from others. Wrong answers to these questions will place one outside of the Christian creedal confession.Â

Who do you say that Christ is?

What is the Gospel?

What did Christ do?

What is our need?

What are we to do?

What happens if we don’t believe?

What happens if we do believe?

What is our authority?

What defines right behavior?

If one believes right about questions like these, then he or she is orthodox because he or she has answered in distinction to the false options. But if someone gets these questions wrong, he or she is outside of Christian orthodoxy (heterodox).

It is important to note that if someone says they don’t know what the answers are, this is honest and noble, but we must recognize that an ”I don’t know” answer does not define orthodoxy, it defines indecision. If Peter would have answered Christ’s question “Who do you say that I am?” with “I don’t know” or “I can’t say for certain” or “Answering such a question would label me and I don’t like labels” or “Any answer I give is going to make someone angry, so I prefer not to answer” these would have amounted to a wrong answer—an unorthodox answer.

We don’t define the right answers any more than Peter did. God does. We discover them. There are difficulties, yes. We need to be humble in our approach to such issues. But we need to understand that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. The right answers have been a major part of what defines Christian orthodoxy from the very beginning, the wrong answer is outside of Christian orthodoxy.

I encourage all of us who empathize with postmodern skepticism, doubt, and suspicion to understand that our tendencies toward these attitudes does not define or redefine orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has been established from the very beginning. If we deny orthodoxy a place—a definite and important place—we are outside of orthodoxy.

Once orthodoxy is defined, recognized, and acknowledged the inevitable outcome will be separation. There will be those who are within the bounds of orthodoxy and those that are outside its bounds. There will be those with right answers, like Peter, and those with wrong answers, like the others. We will have to make judgment calls if we are going to “contend” for the faith.

While we must recognize that not all orthodoxy is equal and being unorthodox in some issues is worse than being so in others, this recognition cannot relativize our contending for the faith that was once for all handed on to the saint—the faith handed to you.

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I now turn to what is without a doubt the most popular interpretation of John 10:30 other than the traditional Trinitarian understanding, namely, the view that Jesus was asserting only that he and the Father were one in purpose. I should state at the outset that everyone agrees that from a New Testament perspective Jesus and the Father are one in purpose. The issue is whether the unity of which John 10:30 speaks is specifically a unity of purpose rather than a unity of divine power, nature, or identity. In other words, the claim to be considered here is whether John 10:30 means nothing more than that Jesus is united in purpose with the Father.

Those who promote the œone in purpose view in order to combat Trinitarian theology can point out that some mainstream Christian scholars have also interpreted John 10:30 in this way. J. H. Bernard, in the older ICC commentary on John, explicitly takes this position: A unity of fellowship, of will, and of purpose between the Father and the Son is a frequent theme in the Fourth Gospel (cf. 5:18,19; 14:9,23 and 17:11,22), and it is tersely and powerfully expressed here; but to press the words so as to make them indicate identity of OUSIA, is to introduce thoughts which were not present to the theologians of the first century (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, International Critical Commentaries [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928]). Similarly, R. V. G. Tasker, in his commentary on John, says that although the orthodox church fathers cited this verse in support of the doctrine that Christ was of one substance with the Father, the statement seems however mainly to imply that the Father and the Son are united in will and purpose (The Gospel According to St. John, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960], 136). Other commentators make similar statements.

Anti-Trinitarians often quote John Calvin in support of the same point. However, Calvin really does not agree with the one in purpose view. He writes:

He intended to meet the jeers of the wicked; for they might allege that the power of God did not at all belong to him, so that he could promise to his disciples that it would assuredly protect them. He therefore testifies that his affairs are so closely united to those of the Father, that the Father’s assistance will never be withheld from himself and his sheep. The ancients made a wrong use of this passage to prove that Christ is (homoousios) of the same essence with the Father. For Christ does not argue about the unity of substance, but about the agreement which he has with the Father, so that whatever is done by Christ will be confirmed by the power of his Father (Commentary on the Gospel According to John, trans. William Pringle [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949; orig. 1847], 416).

Calvin nuances his position here rather finely. On the one hand, he points out that in context Christ is speaking of his unity of power with the Father his claim that the power of God did truly belong to him†so that he could guarantee the eternal salvation of his people despite all manner of spiritual attacks against them. This is, then, for Calvin a oneness of power, not merely a oneness of purpose. The Son’s power to preserve his people is the power of God, not the power of a lesser, weaker creature. On the other hand, Calvin argues that the church fathers went beyond the point of the passage by trying to deduce from it the technical theological concept of homoousios that the Father and the Son are of one essence or being. His point seems to be that the words are one, in and of themselves, are not sufficient to establish that doctrine; such an implication goes beyond the demonstrable meaning of the text.

One may agree with Calvin without abandoning a Trinitarian interpretation of the passage. After all, Calvin was himself a Trinitarian, and his way of reading the passage as a whole is patently Trinitarian: the Father and the Son are distinct persons, yet the Son wields the power of God no less than the Father. Calvin goes on to comment on the reaction of the Jewish opponents of Jesus in John 10:33 as follows:

They argue therefore that Christ is a blasphemer and a sacrilegious person, because, being a mortal man, he lays claim to Divine honor. And this would be a just definition of blasphemy, if Christ were nothing more than a man. They only err in this, that they do not design to contemplate his Divinity, which was conspicuous in his miracles.

Thus, Calvin clearly supports the one in power view, although he cautiously warns against trying to prove too much from the words are one in John 10:30. This is a respectable and thoughtful position. As I explained in Part II, I think the recognition that in verse 28 Christ speaks of himself as God, using the wording of Deuteronomy 32:39, puts the words are one in verse 30 in a somewhat different light, strongly suggesting (at least) an allusion to the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4. With this additional information regarding the context of John 10:30—which Calvin does not mention or seem to have noticed we are on stronger ground in seeing Jesus’ statement as a claim to be one God with the Father. That is not an explicit or simply direct proof of homoousios, but it is a short step indeed to that implication.

The point may be made in a different way. Calvin clearly understands John 10:30 in its context in the Gospel of John in a Trinitarian way, as speaking of his oneness of divine power with the Father, but is simply being careful not to read off œone substance from the simple word one. Rather, Calvin sees the deity of the Son implicit in the statement given its context. Furthermore, Calvin places the focus or emphasis in John 10:30 on the Son’s divine activity the concrete expression of his deity in our salvation rather than on the metaphysical or ontological definition of the Son’s nature. According to Calvin, Christ was not seeking to explain his nature but to respond to the unbelieving Jews’ attacks against him. Thus, Calvin comments on John 10:36, Christ does not now argue what he is in himself, but what we ought to acknowledge him to be, from his miracles in human flesh. For we can never comprehend his eternal Divinity, unless we embrace him as a Redeemer, so far as the Father hath exhibited him to us.

Some contemporary commentators likewise caution us against reading too much explicitly into the word one or this single sentence on its own, while at the same time arguing that Jesus’ statement in the larger context of the Gospel of John does connote or imply a claim to deity. For example, Andrew Lincoln observes that the force of John 10:30 in its immediate context is that Jesus and the Father are one in securing the safety of the sheep in their care. There may be two agents but their protecting hand is one. This indication of Jesus’ full unity with the Father in his divine work of salvation has further implications for Jesus’ identity, and so later Christians who used this text in Christological debates and formulations about the metaphysical unity of the Father and the Son need not be faulted as totally misguided.†Lincoln points out that such further implications are confirmed by the rest of what the Gospel says about Christ’s relation to God, especially in the Prologue. “Father and Son are united in the work of salvation because they are united in their being (Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John, Black’s New Testament Commentaries 4 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson; New York and London: Continuum, 2005], 306).

D. A. Carson likewise argues that John 10:30 read in the broader context of what the rest of the Gospel says about John including its explicit affirmations that Christ is God (John 1:1, 18; 20:28). As for the immediate context, Carson comments that “the oneness of will and task, in this context, is so transparently a divine will, a divine task (viz. the saving and preserving of men and women for the kingdom) that although the categories are formally functional some deeper union is presupposed (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar NT Commentary [Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 394-95).

The point here is this: One can agree that the focus of John 10:30 is practical or even “functional†without ignoring or denying that the statement has ontological implications for our understanding of the person of Christ. I agree with those commentators who argue that the statement has clear implications in context of the deity of Christ even if one does not recognize John 10:30 as an explicit claim to deity. Nor is this way of reading John 10:30 dependent on or original with the orthodox church fathers embroiled in the Arian controversy. Almost a century before the Arian controversy, the biblical scholar Origen of Alexandria had this to say about John 10:30:

Our Savior and Lord in his relation to the Father and God of the universe is not one flesh or one spirit but something higher than flesh and spirit, namely, one God. The appropriate word when human beings are joined to one another is flesh. The appropriate word when a righteous person is joined to Christ is one spirit. But the word when Christ is united to the Father is not flesh or spirit but more honorable than these God. This then is the sense in which we should understand “I and the Father are one” (Origen, Dialogue with Heraclides 3-4, quoted in Joel Elowsky, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: John 1-10 [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007], 358).

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Re-posted for Rob Bowman by admin.

One of the many, many New Testament texts that orthodox Christians historically have regarded as testifying to the deity of Jesus Christ is John 10:30, in which Jesus famously says, I and the Father are one (Greek, ego kai ho pater hen esmen). But in what sense does Jesus mean that he and the Father are one? We may identify at least three main views:

One in person: Jesus is the very same person as the Father. This is the view held by Oneness Pentecostals. This view agrees that John 10:30 identifies Jesus as God, and concludes that it also identifies Jesus as the Father.
One in power: Jesus is one in divine nature, essence, or power with the Father yet personally distinct from him. This is the view usually favored by Trinitarians (orthodox Christians).
One in purpose: Jesus is united with the Father in purpose; that is, he is in full agreement with the Father, always acting in line with what the Father wants. This is the explanation typically given by those who deny the deity of Christ, including Unitarians and Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is also the answer that Mormons typically give, although they also usually claim to affirm that Jesus is God.

As you can see, orthodox Christians think the two anti-Trinitarian interpretations both get something right and both miss something. Oneness Pentecostals rightly see John 10:30 as attesting to Christ’s deity, but miss the distinction between Christ and the Father. Other anti-Trinitarians see this distinction between Christ and the Father but not the divine unity of nature, essence, or power that they share.

So, who’s right? I propose to make a case for concluding that the Trinitarian interpretation does justice to the text in context better than the other two interpretations. In this post, I will discuss the Oneness Pentecostal interpretation.

Not One in Person

The least plausible way to understand John 10:30 is that it means that Jesus is the Father. Such an interpretation is clearly wrong, for several reasons.

First, Jesus here differentiates himself from the Father by speaking additively of himself and the Father in the plural (I and the Father, not I am the Father ; we are, esmen, first person plural). This wording is most naturally understood as denoting two persons. If I said, Father and I are named Robert, you would of course understand that even though we both have the same name, we are two different persons. The very semantic structure of saying Father and I denotes two persons. Interpreting it as a circumlocution for I am the Father is highly implausible and exegetically unjustifiable. Likewise, if I were to say, My wife and I are one, you would know that I was not saying that I am my wife, simply because one’s wife is never oneself! You would therefore know that the oneness that characterizes my wife and me whatever it might be is something other than oneness of person.

Second, neither here nor anywhere else in the New Testament does anyone ever actually refer to Jesus as the Father. Had Jesus wanted to say that he was the Father, he certainly could have; but in fact he never said this. The lack of any such statement, taken by itself, is not decisive, but this lack considered in conjunction with the many statements differentiating the two personally is quite decisive.

Third, we have such statements in the immediate context. Jesus refers several times in this passage to the Father in the third person, as someone distinct from himself (in my Father’s name, v. 25; my Father, has given to me, v. 29; the works of my Father, v. 37). In this context, I and the Father is obviously a reference to two distinct persons, the speaker (I ) and someone else (called the Father ).

Fourth, had Jesus wished to affirm that he was the one person of the Father, the appropriate way for John, in reporting this statement, to express this in Greek would have been to use the masculine form of the Greek word for one, heis, rather than the neuter form, hen. We must be careful not to overstate or misstate the point here. It is not true that the masculine heis in any and every context means one person. It is not true that the masculine gender somehow in and of itself conveys singularity of personhood. Typically, the masculine form is used because the noun that the word one modifies happens to be masculine. For example, earlier in the passage Jesus refers to himself as one shepherd (10:16); the Greek text uses the masculine form heis because it modifies the masculine noun poimen (shepherd ).

In verse 30, the word one modifies, or is a further description of, the compound subject I and the Father. The pronoun I (ego) has no gender, but the Father (ho pater) does it is, of course, masculine. The neuter hen in this grammatical context treats these two referents, ego and ho pater, as referring to two distinct persons who share some sort of unity (however profound). The type of unity intended must always be inferred from the context, not from the gender of the word for œone treated independently of the context.

The use of heis, in this context, would have been at least more consistent with an affirmation of identity of person than the neuter hen. Had John written ego kai ho pater heis esmen, such a statement would simply have been confusing, or ambiguous, since I and the Father is still most naturally understood as referring to two persons. But the use of the neuter hen in the same sentence as I and the Father are really shuts the door on the one in person interpretation. It is the way these verbal elements combine their synergy in the formation of the whole statement that precludes such an interpretation, not the use of the neuter hen in isolation or in the abstract.

Thus, a consideration of these four factors combined the wording I and the Father together with the plural verb we are, the utter lack of precedent for identifying Jesus as the Father, the distinction made repeatedly in the immediate context between Jesus and the Father, and the use of the neuter one (hen) lead to the conclusion that Jesus is not here claiming to be the Father.

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I realize that some of you were expecting this blog to give a few examples of meaningful and viable textual variants. But that will have to wait till next week. For now, I wanted to take on a different topic. I suppose I could justify this by saying that it is still on the topic of textual criticism, because I am discussing a man who was arguably the best textual critic ever to come out of North America. But this particular blog is not about textual criticism per se, so the justification will obviously wear thin… To make up for my lame attempt at an excuse, I will incorporate a glance at what is perhaps the most famous text-critical problem in the New Testament.

I was at the annual Society of Biblical Literature conference in San Diego today. One of the sessions was dedicated to the memory of Bruce Metzger (who died in February, just days before his 94th birthday), a man who taught New Testament at Princeton Seminary for nearly five decades. There were four presenters, the first of whom was Bart Ehrman, Professor Metzger’s last doctoral student.

Ehrman relayed the famous ˜squirrel story" that anyone acquainted with Metzger lore knew about: One day, while walking with an unnamed student across the campus at Princeton Seminary, Metzger and student stopped to see a squirrel racing up a tree. The squirrel jumped from the tree to another that was out of its reach. Suddenly, the squirrel fell to the ground and died. Metzger turned to the student and said, "I know what the Greek word for squirrel is."

Ehrman went on to note that the story had some features to it that simply didn’t ring true: Metzger was a compassionate man who would hardly have made such an insensitive comment at the demise of the furry little creature; Metzger was a humble man, not given to bragging about himself to the effect of using the occasion to parade his knowledge; and squirrels, as a rule, do not die if they miss their target: they simply get up and keep on scampering.

After several years of hearing many variations on this story (I have heard at least two quite different variations myself), Ehrman finally found the occasion to get to the truth of this seemingly apocryphal story. He began to tell Metzger the story and when he came to the part about the squirrel’s unfortunate end, Metzger interrupted: "poor little squirrel." This was proof that the story was a myth since Metzger’s attitude was obviously at odds with what he was supposed to have said years earlier.

From this, Ehrman offered an analogy to the SBL crowd: getting to the truth of the historical Jesus is a tricky task, and legends about him would often spring up without any genuine historical base. In other words, Ehrman saw in the apocryphal story about Metzger a parallel with the stories about Jesus that are recorded in the Gospels.

There are some difficulties with Ehrman’s analogy, however. First, the squirrel story only involved one unnamed eyewitness at an undefined period. In fact, several different names were given for the student (including Ehrman’s!) in different versions of the tale. The period in which it supposedly occurred spanned decades. This is unlike the Gospels in that most of the stories involve more than one eyewitness and are stated as occurring at relatively specific times.

Second, the story has had many versions that often widely diverged from each other. (For example, one version that I heard but which was not mentioned in Ehrman’s telling of the tale: Metzger was walking across the campus of Princeton Seminary when he saw a squirrel acting quite erratically. It ran up one tree, then down again. Up another tree, then down again. It repeated the same acts a couple of times. Metzger stopped to observe its behavior. A crowd of students gathered around him to see what was so interesting. The squirrel continued its behavior then suddenly stood up, looked around, and keeled over. The students were waiting for some profound comment to come from the lips of the revered professor. He looked puzzled for a moment, then said, "Does anyone know the Greek word for squirrel?" I like that version of the story!) But here’s the problem: the many varieties immediately create suspicion about its historicity. What is most analogous is not the Gospels en toto, but the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53-8.11). That passage has more variations than any other pericope in the Gospels. It is not without reason that most New Testament scholars reject the authenticity of the story. And a large part of the reason is that the story has multiple versions, and is located in several places in the Gospels.

Third, the oral tradition about Metzger and the squirrel spread without controls, spanning the globe and cutting across decades. But it was oral tradition created in a time when the printed page had come to replace memory. We are not like the ancients whose memory was far more acute; unlike the ancient world, ours is a written culture, not an oral one.

Fourth, Ehrman is a devotee of Metzger. Almost anyone touched by Metzger’s life was. But Ehrman was especially so. He called Metzger his Doktorvater. He described Metzger as the greatest living textual critic in his book Misquoting Jesus. And he dedicated the book to him. Yet, in spite of his obvious fondness for Professor Metzger—or, more accurately, because of it—Ehrman was unwilling to perpetuate the myth. Instead, he did historical research and determined that the story was a myth. He set things right in a public setting (SBL) and spoke the truth about its roots. Now if Ehrman was a Metzger devotee and a good historian, it should not surprise us that he wanted any memory of Metzger to be accurate. The man was a giant among scholars who needed no embellishment; the truth about him was already astounding.

Putting all this together, the analogies with the historical Jesus that Ehrman suggested seem to be inadequate. Most stories about Jesus involved multiple witnesses; most stories about Jesus were pinpointed in time (or at least narrowed considerably rather than fitting more than one decade); most stories about Jesus did not take on such a wide variety of forms; and oral tradition in Jesus’ day was substantially more stable than it is today. There is one analogy that fits, however: Ehrman was a devotee of Metzger and yet investigated the truth of the story; so also, the evangelists were devotees of Jesus. Should we not expect them also to have investigated the truth about Jesus stories?

It is always refreshing to put to bed myths about a great hero because such bubble-bursting displays honest research and scholarship. And now that Ehrman has set the record straight in a public setting, there is born memory in community. Those of us who were at the meeting will tell the squirrel story as a fable and not confuse it with historical fact. Perhaps the evangelists could tell the difference, too.

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<p><a href=”http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/category/dan-wallace-contra-mundane/”><img height=”170″ width=”335″ align=”right” style=”width: 335px; height: 170px;” src=”http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/images/Parchment%20and%20Pen/danpandp6.jpg” alt=”" /></a><br /> Wow! Nearly five dozen brave people have put their reputations on the line by taking this little quiz. Well done, folks. You all get an A just for courage. Now, for the questions again with their answers and explanations:</p>
<p>1. The first published Greek New Testament was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. UBS1<br /> b. Complutensian Polyglot<br /> c. <em>Novum Instrumentum<br /> </em>d. <em>Textus Receptus</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;The UBS1 (or first edition of the United Bible Societies&quot; Greek New Testament was published in 1966). The Complutensian Polyglot was the first <em>printed</em> Greek New Testament (1514), but it was not published for eight more years. The <em>Textus Receptus</em> is the name that was finally given to that form of text that finds its roots in Erasmus’s <em>Novum Instrumentum Omne</em>. But the <em>Novum Instrumentum</em>, published on March 1, 1516, has the honor of being the first Greek New Testament printed by a moveable type printing press to be published.</p>
<p>2. How many of the original New Testament books still exist?<span id=”more-455″></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. all of them<br /> b. Paul’s letters<br /> c. just the Gospel of John<br /> d. none of them</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;d.&quot; All of the original documents vanished long ago. This should not surprise us since virtually all ancient Greco-Roman literature vanished centuries ago. Why should the New Testament be any different?</p>
<p>3. How many manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament are known to exist today?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. less than 50<br /> b. approximately 2000<br /> c. approximately 3000<br /> d. more than 5000</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;d.&quot; In fact, the most recent statistics from the clearing house for Greek New Testament manuscripts, the <em>Institut f&Atilde;&frac14;r neutestamentliche Textforschung</em> in Munster, Germany, tell us that 5752 manuscript copies are known to exist. However, this number is a bit deceiving because (a) some of the manuscripts are actually part of other, previously catalogued manuscripts (thus, for example, two different papyrus fragments may actually belong to the same manuscript, even though they were originally assigned a different catalog number); (b) some of the manuscripts that were at one time known to exist have gone missing or have been destroyed. The number 5000 is thus a very conservative estimate with these two caveats in mind.</p>
<p>4. A textual variant is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. the wording of a verse or passage found in one or more manuscripts<br /> b. a word or phrase found in at least one manuscript that differs from the wording of the text printed by the editor(s) of a Greek New Testament<br /> c. any place where the original wording of a document is in doubt or is not uniform among the manuscripts<br /> d. a manuscript that contains a particular wording</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;b.&quot; A textual variant is any place among the manuscripts which varies from some standard such as a printed Greek New Testament. The standard may actually be simply some other Greek New Testament manuscript; in this case, any differences from that manuscript would still be called textual variants. <em>Reading</em> is the answer to &acirc;&euro;&oelig;a&acirc;&euro; ; <em>textual problem</em> is what &quot;c&quot;  describes.</p>
<p>5. The prevailing theory of textual criticism held today among scholars is known as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. reasoned eclecticism<br /> b. majority text view<br /> c. rigorous eclecticism<br /> d. independent texttypes view<br /> e. providential view</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;a&quot;. Textual criticism, generally speaking, has two components: external evidence and internal evidence. External evidence is concerned with Greek manuscripts, early versions (or translations), and quotations from the New Testament in church fathers. Internal evidence is concerned with what the author was most likely to have written (intrinsic probability) and what the scribes or copyists were most likely to have done to the text that they copied (transcriptional probability).</p>
<p>Reasoned eclecticism does not give absolute preference to either external or internal evidence. Each textual problem is weighed on its own merits. The vast majority of New Testament textual critics hold to this view today.</p>
<p>The majority text view gives priority to external evidence; further, it affirms that the original text is to be found in the majority of <em>Greek</em> manuscripts.</p>
<p>Rigorous eclecticism is just the opposite of the majority text view: it gives priority to internal evidence, especially intrinsic.</p>
<p>The independent texttypes view gives priority to external evidence, but not strictly to the &quot;majority text.&quot; This view regards the three major texttypes (or groups of manuscripts that follow a certain pattern of readings) to be second-century editions. When two out of three of them agree, that agreement tells us what the original text was.</p>
<p>The &quot;providential view&quot; is a name I made up, but I’m sure that someone holds to something like this! Many King James only advocates, for example, would argue that God must have preserved scripture a certain way, and the KJV is how he did it.</p>
<p>6. The oldest complete New Testament known to exist today is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. P52 (also known as Rylands 457)<br /> b. Vaticanus (B)<br /> c. Sinaiticus (<span style=”font-size: 13pt; color: black; font-family: ‘Hebrew’,’sans-serif’;”>a</span> or Aleph)<br /> d. Chester Beatty Papyri</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;c.&quot; P52 is the oldest fragment, dated c. AD 100-150. The Chester Beatty papyri are old but incomplete. Vaticanus is slightly older than Sinaiticus but it ends at Hebrews 9.13. Certainly more was written originally, but the last several leaves of that codex disappeared centuries ago and were replaced by later leaves. Sinaiticus is the oldest complete Greek New Testament (dated to the fourth century AD) by half a millennium. It’s on display in the British Library.</p>
<p>7. Westcott and Hort were:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. British scholars who developed a theory of textual criticism that is followed today in liberal seminaries<br /> b. Theological liberals whose text-critical views can be entirely dismissed because these men were theological liberals and thus biased against the Bible<br /> c. All of the above<br /> d. None of the above</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;d.&quot; Westcott and Hort were British scholars, but their view has been significantly modified by textual critics today. They were not theological liberals, although their views were to the left of many evangelicals. Nevertheless, to argue against a viewpoint because those who promoted it may have been less than theologically orthodox is not always a logical move, for it presupposes either blindness to the real issues or intentional deceit on the part of the scholars. In 1881, after 28 years of labor, Westcott and Hort published their Greek New Testament along with an accompanying volume. What they achieved in those two volumes stands as a landmark in erudition and clarity in New Testament studies. But we have made at least <em>some</em> progress in the last 125 years!</p>
<p>8. The long ending to Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16.9-20) is not found in:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. Aleph and B<br /> b. most ancient MSS<br /> c. the Alexandrian texttype<br /> d. the Caesarean witnesses</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;a.&quot; The long ending of Mark, in fact, has far better credentials than the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53-8.11). as far as the manuscripts reveal. Yet if we had to choose, most of us would prefer to keep the latter passage in the Bible and remove the former. This illustrates that many Christians bring a lot of emotional baggage with them when it comes to what the Bible says. We cannot pick and choose what is scripture based on what we <em>like</em>.</p>
<p>9. The total number of textual variants among the Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic commentaries on the New Testament is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. ten<br /> b. between 1000 and 1500<br /> c. approximately 100,000<br /> d. approximately 300,000 to 400,000</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;d.&quot; There are, in fact, more variants than there are words in the New Testament. This should not be surprising in light of how many manuscripts there are! The more manuscripts we have, the more variants there will be. The real issue is how <em>serious</em> these variants are. Do any of them affect a fundamental belief of Christians? Do they impact less important beliefs? These will be topics that we will explore in the coming weeks.</p>
<p>10. The most important rule for textual critics to follow when deciding on the wording of a particular textual problem is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a. the harder reading is to be preferred<br /> b. the shorter reading is to be preferred<br /> c. the reading that best explains the others is to be preferred<br /> d. the reading that most clearly affirms inerrancy is to be preferred</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The correct answer is &quot;c.&quot; When textual critics look at all of the evidence&rdquo;external and internal&rdquo;they choose the reading that best explains the rise of the other readings. Virtually all textual critics adopt this principle. The difference in application among scholars has to do with the relative weight that they give to the various components of textual criticism. It may be surprising to many readers that &quot;d&quot; is not a criterion, except for a few radical right-wing scholars. But even here, the vast majority of textual problems (some would say all of them) do not impact in any way the doctrine of inerrancy. So, for the one who adopts this principle as the major guide to doing textual criticism, how is he going to decide on all the passages in which invoking inerrancy is irrelevant?</p>

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Michael Patton put up A Brief Primer on Textual Criticism last week without my knowledge. He didn’t know that I wanted to begin something of a series on this topic. Sheesh! We need to talk to each other a bit more often! I’ll try not to duplicate what he has written too much. But I do want to introduce you to this vital topic. And, just for fun, I’d like to start with a quiz. (This will help me to know how to &tilde;pitch this series of blogs.) I’m going to ask ten multiple-choice questions. Simply give your answers to the questions in your response. Do not add any commentary; just give your answers. In a few days, I’ll supply the right answers along with an explanation. If you’re too embarrassed to give your name in your comment, just say you’re Michael Patton using someone else’s computer.

1. The first published Greek New Testament was:

a. UBS1
b. Complutensian Polyglot
c. Novum Instrumentum
d. Textus Receptus

2. How many of the original New Testament books still exist?

a. all of them
b. Paul’s trade letters
c. just the Gospel of John
d. none of them

3. How many manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament are known to exist today?

a. less than 50
b. approximately 2000
c. approximately 3000
d. more than 5000

4. A textual variant is:

a. the wording of a verse or passage found in one or more manuscripts
b. a word or phrase found in at least one manuscript that differs from the wording of the text printed by the editor(s) of a Greek New Testament
c. any place where the original wording of a document is in doubt or is not uniform among the manuscripts
d. a manuscript that contains a particular wording

5. The prevailing theory of textual criticism held today among scholars is known as:

a. reasoned eclecticism
b. majority text view
c. rigorous eclecticism
d. independent texttypes view
e. providential view

6. The oldest complete New Testament known to exist today is:

a. P52 (also known as Rylands 457)
b. Vaticanus (B)
c. Sinaiticus
d. Chester Beatty Papyri

7. Westcott and Hort were:

a. British scholars who developed a theory of textual criticism that is followed today in liberal seminaries
b. Theological liberals whose text-critical views can be entirely dismissed because these men were theological liberals and thus biased against the Bible
c. All of the above
d. None of the above

8. The long ending to Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16.9-20) is not found in:

a. Aleph and B
b. most ancient MSS
c. the Alexandrian texttype
d. the Caesarean witnesses

9. The total number of textual variants among the Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic commentaries on the New Testament is:

a. ten
b. between 1000 and 1500
c. approximately 100,000
d. approximately 300,000 to 400,000

10. The most important rule for textual critics to follow when deciding on the wording of a particular textual problem is:

a. the harder reading is to be preferred
b. the shorter reading is to be preferred
c. the reading that best explains the others is to be preferred
d. the reading that most clearly affirms inerrancy is to be preferred

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Scholars today often note that the original New Testament disappeared long ago. Although late in the second century, Tertullian speaks confidently of the originals still existing, his reliability has been discredited. Even if he were right, that would hardly mean that the original documents still exist today. Continue Reading »

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I have spent much time researching the deaths of the Apostles, looking at both primary and secondary historical resources. There are many legends concerning their deaths which makes the historical evidence hard to interpret since many times the accounts conflict with one another. Most early Christians wanted their home to be crowned with the stature of having been the final resting place of one of the twelve. It is probably for this reason that there were embellishments forged. 

It is hard to sift through the wheat and the chaff. Some are credible and some are not. The basic thing we need to know is that the martyrdom of some of the Apostles is more certain than others. Historians will have different degrees of certainty concerning the circumstances of their deaths. For instance, unbiased historians will not take issue with the martyrdom of Peter, Paul, and James the Apostle because of strong historical evidence. Many of the other accounts have decent historic validity as well. Some accounts, however, raise the eyebrow and cause the honest historian to remain agnostic. However, if all the accounts are true and boiled down to their least common denominator, it is very feasible and likely that all but one of the Apostles suffered and died a martyr’s death, even if we can’t be sure of the exact details. Continue Reading »

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The key passage on justification by faith is Romans 3.21-26. Some have even called this the most important paragraph ever written. I don’t know if I would go that far, but I would certainly put it on my short list. I want to give a brief exposition of it—really just touching on the contours of the text in this blog. But I hope that it will open up some discussion.

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Question/Answers Segment: Law/Gospel: How do we square the teachings of Christ on the Sermon on the Mount with the Old Testament Law and the Paul’s teaching of Grace? Thanks Ron Quiggins!

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PandP Blogging community:

The problematic, infamous, seriously provocative, the I-only-wear-light-blue-jean-shirts professor Dan Wallace will be posting every Tuesday. He has tasted the blog world and he loves it! . . . well, maybe love is too strong a word, but he does like it . . . well, maybe I don’t know what he thinks, but nevertheless he is posting starting today!  Continue Reading »

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