On Tuesday, April the 24th, Faith Life released its docudrama, “Fragments of Truth” in which the overarching question addressed; “Is the text of the New Testament reliable?” I had the opportunity to view the film with a few friends. Here are my thoughts.
Craig Evans is the main commentator throughout the documentary and the main thesis of the film is drawn from his paper published a few years ago,
Craig A. Evans, “How Long were Late Antique Books in Use? Possible Implications for New Testament Textual Criticism,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 25.1 (2015): 23-37.
In this paper, Evans’ main thesis is that the “autographs and first copies” of the New Testament writings survived into the second and third centuries and were “in a position to influence the form of the Greek text.” Here is the full abstract of the paper;
“Recent study of libraries and book collections from late antiquity has shown that literary works were read, studied, annotated, corrected, and copied for two or more centuries before being retired or discarded. Given that there is no evidence that early Christian scribal practices differed from pagan practices, we may rightly ask whether early Christian writings, such as the autographs and first copies of the books that eventually would be recognized as canonical Scripture, also remained in use for 100 years or more. The evidence suggests that this was in fact the case. This sort of longevity could mean that at the time our extant Greek NT papyri were written in the late second and early to mid-third centuries, some of the autographs and first copies were still in circulation and in a position to influence the form of the Greek text."
When his piece was published a few years ago there was quite a backlash from scholars in the discipline of papyrology and New Testament Textual Criticism. For example, Brice Jones, over on his blog, gave a scathing review and many high profile scholars such as Malcolm Choat, J.K. Elliott (featured in the film), Gregg Schwendner, and Brent Nongbri (who was mentioned in the film) gave their criticisms in the comments section of the article.
There are many assertions made in the film that many scholars (including myself) will disagree upon. I would recommend looking at other blogs for a point-by-point discussion. In this review, I wish only to draw intention to a particular weakness in Evans' argument, namely this, that closeness in time and proximity to the "autographs" (even if they survived 200 years) leads to stability in textual transmission.
I will highlight two reasons why this argument is flawed, 1) a failure to precisely define the term 'autograph,' and 2) an assumption that a direct copy or (to use Evans' term) "first copies" from the so-called 'autograph' equals textual stability.
In order to illustrate my point I will quote a section from my article "What are the NT Autographs?";
"Though the topic at hand concerns literary compositions, two documentary examples of a petition to the Egyptian Prefect Publius Ostorius Scapula (ca. 3—10/11 CE) provide a rare glimpse of multiple draft copies of the same work; P.Mich.inv. 1436 and P.Mich.inv. 1440. Although both papyri were written by the same person, inv. 1436 contains several additions and corrections which favors its identification as the first draft of inv. 1440. The text of both papyri are fragmented and incomplete, lines 2-10 of inv. 1436 were repeated in lines 11-17 of inv. 1440. The scribe revised the text of inv. 1436 above lines 6, and 8, and marked line 9 for deletion, nonetheless, these alterations were not integrated into the text of inv. 1440. Therefore, it must mean that there were “additional rewritings, now lost” of the petition. Though inv. 1440 is a polished copy with no extant editorial alterations, it “was apparently not dispatched, but was unearthed together with the much-corrected copy, inv. 1436”." (Mitchell, 302-303)
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| P.Mich. inv 1436 showing extensive editing |
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| P.Mich. inv 1440 revealing that no revisions from inv 1436 were retained |
Despite these flaws in Evans' argument and other shortcomings in the docudrama, Reuben Evans the director, the camera crew and other editors did a fantastic job on the visuals. The images of the manuscripts were fantastic and at times simply breathtaking. They did a wonderful job at production and the quality was excellent (though the Q&A segment at the end was a bit dry). I will recommend this documentary to friends, if only to entice them with beautiful images of P66 and other treasures of Biblical manuscripts and pique their interest in the rich history of the transmission of the New Testament.
[EDIT: You can find the documentary "Fragments of Truth" on YouTube here]
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hanson, Ann Ellis, “Two Copies of a Petition to the Prefect,” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphic 47 (1982): 233-243;
_______________, “The Archive of Isidoros of Psophthis and P. Ostorius Scapula, Praefectus Aegypti,” BASP 21.1-4 (1984), 81-83.
Mitchell, Timothy N., "What are the NT Autographs? An Examination of the Doctrine of Inspiration and Inerrancy in Light of Greco-Roman Publication." JETS 59/2 (June 2016): 287-308.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hanson, Ann Ellis, “Two Copies of a Petition to the Prefect,” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphic 47 (1982): 233-243;
_______________, “The Archive of Isidoros of Psophthis and P. Ostorius Scapula, Praefectus Aegypti,” BASP 21.1-4 (1984), 81-83.
Mitchell, Timothy N., "What are the NT Autographs? An Examination of the Doctrine of Inspiration and Inerrancy in Light of Greco-Roman Publication." JETS 59/2 (June 2016): 287-308.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteFirst, thanks for the review. Second, is the example you offer common enough to make your point? Even if so, do these edits really equal Textual instability? With all the copying that we actually have of the NT, would you characterize that as textually instable?
Maybe your point is that Evans overstates his position, but unless you categorize the entire NT tradition as unstable, you seem to have done the same.
To assume that there were multiple editions of or edited copies of the NT writings without evidence to that fact seems less than historical.
While I agree that the definition of ‘autograph’ is a necessary function in scholarly circles, for his intended audience, the autograph equals the letter as written/dictated by its author, probably without thinking about corrections, but nevertheless meaning the document sent to the intended readers/hearers. Evans is not the first or only scholar to make the point about the longevity of NT autographs and there is the statement about the original letter to the Ephesians still being in possession of that church in the second century.
I am NOT arguing for Evans position, I just don’t see Textual instability in the historical record at any stage we have evidence.
Tim
Thank you for your comments Tim. Overall, I agree with Evans' conclusion, that the transmission of the New Testament writings was relatively stable. I just think there are problems with his arguments propositions, mainly because he fails to define 'autograph' (along with a host of other issues). My main point is really a simple one. Let me explain.
DeleteImagine that archaeologists were to unearth a house in Ephesus that was undoubtedly John the Apostle's. And along with the discovery a horde of papyri that John had written. We were able to identify John's scribal hand. Now, imagine that copies of notebooks containing portions of the John's Gospel were discovered in this horde, except that these copies showed extensive line throughs, re-writings, etc, because these were the draft copies of his work. Technically speaking, these copies are the 'autographs' of John's Gospel. And discovering them would actually cause a big stir and some uncertainty on the text of John's Gospel, but only if we are giving weight to these autographic copies. In reality though, these are not what Evans is referring to in his article and in his paper when he mentions 'autograph.' He his actually referring to the version of John that was initially released and is the 'ausgangstext' of all extant copies descended from it today.
This is what is taking place in the Michigan papyri mentioned in blog post above. Two versions of the petition were found in the hand of the author. Both are technically 'aurographs.' Unfortunately, we do not have a copy of the petition that was dispatched and released to the intended recipient. Because of this, there is uncertainty as to the final form of this petition. This, of course, is not the case with the New Testament writings. That form of text that was initially released by the author(s) is the one that circulated and is the archetype for all other descendants. It is this version that Evans should be referring to, and he fails to do this in his paper, and in the documentary.
Tim M,
ReplyDeleteI included your review in a list of reviews embedded in my review, at http://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2018/05/movie-review-fragments-of-truthiness.html
Thank you James. I will edit my review and add a link to yours as well.
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