IN SEARCH FOR APOSTASY
Here is an update from a scholar who is cunningly leading Christians back to Rome!
Daniel B. Wallace, Ph.D.
7 November 2002
This sabbatical has been dedicated to New Testament textual criticism, the science of determining the wording of the original documents. This discipline is needed because we no longer possess the originals of any New Testament book, and because there are hundreds of thousands of differences among the extant manuscripts (MSS). Only by a careful sifting of the data, and a rigorous comparison of MSS, can one increase in certainty as to what the original text said. And, of course, for evangelical Christians, textual criticism is of extreme importance because we are, above all, a people of the Book. But we cannot know what it means or how to apply it unless we first know what it says.
After Greece, I took a two-week breather back home, only to head out for Egypt at the end of August. The journey was a nine-day trip to Mt. Sinai, to St. Catherine’s Monastery. I had been planning this trip for three years, negotiating with the monastery by corresponding in modern Greek. Father Nicholas Katinas of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Dallas joined me, as did Dr. Timothy Ralston of Dallas Seminary. We spent a week looking at some of the “New Finds” manuscripts. These are manuscripts that were discovered in 1975 when a fire broke out at St. George’s Tower, revealing a hidden compartment. In the compartment were 1200 manuscripts and 50,000 fragments (all undamaged by the fire). Among the 1200 manuscripts are over 200 biblical manuscripts. Most exciting among the discoveries were leaves of Codex Sinaiticus, the fourth-century MS that Tischendorf carried off to Russia in 1844 and 1859. Sinaiticus contains the oldest complete Greek New Testament in existence-by 500 years! It now resides in the British Library in London. That’s another story. There are also over a dozen uncial MSS of the New Testament (uncial MSS are capital-letter MSS on parchment; all of them are dated no later than the tenth century and as early as the third century, making them quite valuable for determining the wording of the original). We were so privileged to spend a week in the library handling and examining these ancient treasures! But that report will have to wait for a later time as well.
I took one week off after Egypt, packed my bags and headed out for Münster, Germany. My wife, Pati, joined me for this trip (as she had for Greece). Why Münster? On the western edge of the old city is the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung, or the Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Founded in 1959 by Dr. Kurt Aland, this not-terribly-large four-story building houses microfilms and photographs of virtually all Greek New Testament manuscripts known to exist. A few decades ago, Dr. Eldon Epp noted that there are probably more textual critics at this institute than there are in the rest of the world. That situation has changed to some degree, but Münster is still the epicenter for New Testament textual studies. I am here working, in part, on exhaustive collations of MSS of Paul’s letters. Every variant is noted for each MS that is examined. By doing this kind of work, one can determine, to some degree, what a particular scribe’s tendencies were. For example, if one MS tends to have “Christ” where other MSS have “Lord,” its voice is discounted in places where other MSS join it in reading “Christ.” But if that same MS has “Lord” in disputed places, its voice is weighed more heavily. This kind of painstaking work has hardly been done on New Testament MSS, in large measure because there are very few who are both skilled in the task and have access to the photographs. On top of that, it is quite tedious work (especially because the microfilms are not easy to read, being cheap-grade photographs).
To a large degree, the discipline of textual criticism is an application of Melanchthon’s motto, ad fontes. For in this discipline, we are trying to recover the original text of the New Testament by examining the most ancient documents we can find. I visited the university library to examine the famous Codex Boernerianus, the ninth-century Greek-Latin diglot of Paul’s letters (Gregory-Aland 012, a.k.a. Codex Gp. This is now housed in the brand new (finished in October 2002) university library (Staats Universitätsbibliothek). What a joy it was to look at this ancient MS!
There are several pages on this MS that are virtually unreadable, and a few where the scribe had scraped clean his parchment, leaving nothing in its place. To date, those blank places have not been able to be read. But there is a new technology that can recover the text that used to be there. Known as multi-spectral technology (MSI), it has been used successfully by Dr. Greg Bearman (a professor at CalTech) on the Genesis Apocryphon to decipher 200 words that were completely unrecoverable by any other means. Dr. David Armstrong, a classics professor at the University of Texas has also used it to read some of the charred remains of the Herculaneum papyri. This technology is opening doors that have been long closed. There are over 100 Greek New Testament MSS that have been scraped and reused for different purposes. Known as palimpsests, these MSS have an undertext that is often undecipherable. But with MSI, that undertext will be able to be read. How exciting it is to live at a time when new discoveries will be made because of new technology! (It is almost incredible to think about: we know that discoveries will be made, we know how to make them, and we even have the MSS. All that is required is permission from the libraries and monasteries that possess these ancient treasures.)A few years ago, a famous textual critic declared that no new discoveries were left to be made in this field. However, not only are there hundreds of yet-to-be discovered MSS, hiding in the recesses of ancient monasteries, but there are also a good number of known MSS whose texts have not been completely legible… until now. Not only palimpsests, but also papyri, water-damaged MSS, and many other hard-to-read MSS can benefit from MSI. If you’ve read this far, your interest in the scriptures is no trivial thing. I ask you to consider praying for libraries and monasteries to open their doors to qualified individuals who can take MSI photographs, finally giving the world the words of these precious texts that have been hidden from us for so long! The promise of this new technology is one of the reasons I founded the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts this year (CSNTM). It became incorporated on 13 September 2002. If you’d like to find out more about the Center, simply visit the website, www.csntm.org, or write to me directly.
Besides Codex G, I also wanted to examine some of Dresden’s other Greek New Testament MSS. I was grieved to learn that four of the university’s Greek New Testament MSS had been destroyed in World War II. I can’t tell you how heartsick I am to learn of the destruction of these precious scriptures, irreplaceable treasures that they are! And even though the tragedy occurred before I was born, the news hit me as though it happened yesterday. I believe that one of the highest priorities of these libraries and monasteries should be to make high-resolution photographic copies of these treasures (or allow someone else to make them), and preserve them off-site. Only in this way can the pain of loss be somewhat lessened. When the great library of Alexandria burned up many centuries ago, mankind lost much of its knowledge of the ancient world. The real tragedy is that this same kind of thing happens today (on a smaller scale, of course), even though it can be avoided.
All in all, the trip to Wittenberg was an incredible experience. I’ve had a good amount of time to reflect on the significance of a single act that started the Protestant Reformation. Today’s world is quite different from Luther’s in many ways, and yet there remain the epistemological and practical questions regarding authority and truth. Nearly 500 years after Luther took his stand, Protestants and Catholics are beginning to wrestle with reconciliation. Gestures have been made on both sides. Language is toned down, and there is an increasing recognition that each branch of Christendom (including Orthodoxy) has a contribution to make-and even that no single branch has a corner on the whole truth. On the one hand, evangelical Christians have to ask themselves what `faith alone’-that great clarion call of the Reformation-really means. Is the doctrine of justification by faith alone a necessary doctrine for salvation, so that all those who do not embrace it explicitly are damned to hell? Or is it an important clarification of the gospel which is nevertheless not the core of the gospel? Our attitude toward one another within Christendom depends on how we answer this question. One of the interesting facets of this question has to do with the methodological battle cry of the Reformation, ad fontes. Indeed, when we go back to the scriptures, it does indeed seem clear that Paul has a doctrine of justification by faith alone. But that doctrine is not as easy to find in James, Peter, or Jude. Yet Paul seemed to accept these other apostles, along with their theological commitments, as genuine and true. But if they did not see things quite the same way as Paul did, who are we to insist on beliefs and formulations that just might exclude even some of the apostles?
In truth, Luther was a Paulinist. He held to a canon within the canon. Paul’s letters, especially Romans and Galatians, were the crown jewel of Luther’s theology. Is that altogether a bad approach? Is it possible to hold to a canon within the canon and yet to embrace a high view of scripture? And should Paul be considered the capstone of theological articulation? These are important questions that we must wrestle with. Further, by replacing tradition with revelation as the ultimate authority, Luther opened a Pandora’s Box whose implications he could hardly have anticipated. If revelation is the ultimate authority, then how should we interpret it? If we are to use reason-as Luther even hinted at the Diet of Worms in 1521-then does this not make reason a higher authority than revelation? And if reason has this kind of power, what does this say about total depravity and the noetic effects of sin? How can a Christian reconcile the use of reason to grasp the meaning of scripture with a mind that has been tainted by sin?
Protestantism gave rise to liberalism when reason usurped the throne of revelation. During this time, Catholicism remained far more conservative. And today, evangelicals and Catholics generally have much more in common than either of them has with liberal Christianity. In the least, this complex tapestry of western Christianity is not yet finished. The Weaver has more to do. And we all must humbly bow before him as he does his work in our lives both individually and corporately.
Now here is a summary of some of the things this renowned scholar stated:
” Only by a careful sifting of the data, and a rigorous comparison of MSS, can one increase in certainty as to what the original text said.”
“There are also over a dozen uncial MSS of the New Testament uncial MSS are capital-letter MSS on parchment; all of them are dated no later than the tenth century and as early as the third century, making them quite valuable for determining the wording of the original).
“For in this discipline, we are trying to recover the original text of the New Testament by examining the most ancient documents we can find.”
” How exciting it is to live at a time when new discoveries will be made because of new technology! (It is almost incredible to think about: we know that discoveries will be made, we know how to make them, and we even have the MSS.”
“However, not only are there hundreds of yet-to-be discovered MSS, hiding in the recesses of ancient monasteries, but there are also a good number of known MSS whose texts have not been completely legible… until now.”
“Protestants and Catholics are beginning to wrestle with reconciliation. Gestures have been made on both sides. Language is toned down, and there is an increasing recognition that each branch of Christendom (including Orthodoxy) has a contribution to make-and even that no single branch has a corner on the whole truth. On the one hand, evangelical Christians have to ask themselves what `faith alone’-that great clarion call of the Reformation-really means. Is the doctrine of justification by faith alone a necessary doctrine for salvation, so that all those who do not embrace it explicitly are damned to hell? Or is it an important clarification of the gospel which is nevertheless not the core of the gospel?”
“Indeed, when we go back to the scriptures, it does indeed seem clear that Paul has a doctrine of justification by faith alone. But that doctrine is not as easy to find in James, Peter, or Jude. Yet Paul seemed to accept these other apostles, along with their theological commitments, as genuine and true. But if they did not see things quite the same way as Paul did, who are we to insist on beliefs and formulations that just might exclude even some of the apostles?”
“And should Paul be considered the capstone of theological articulation? These are important questions that we must wrestle with.”
” And today, evangelicals and Catholics generally have much more in common than either of them has with liberal Christianity. In the least, this complex tapestry of western Christianity is not yet finished. The Weaver has more to do.”
Haven’t the apostle Paul warned us against apostates using good words and fair speeches?
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:18)
But the preservation of the Holy Scriptures which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Rome? (that is, to bring down the Originals down from Vatican:
Or, Who shall descend into the universities and monasteries? (that is, to bring up the Scriptures again from the dustbins of history.)
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which is promised in the Holy Scriptures of God’s faithfulness in preserving His pure, holy and inspired words unto this generation!
Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee? (Proverbs 22:20 & 21)
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. (Matthew 24:35)