[back to DEUTERONOMY]
A few years ago, a Catholic friend and neighbor of mine put the foundation of her belief into words for me. There are lots of reasons to doubt the divinity of Christ, she said, but one powerful thing continues to keep her doubts at bay. During Jesus’ life, the apostles were doubtful, denying, noncommittal. Then something happened to transform them, and they were willing to sacrifice their own lives in the name of their newfound convictions.
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“I find it hard to account for that kind of radical transformation unless he really rose from the dead and was really the son of God,” she said with a shrug.
I didn’t say the obvious thing — that using one part of a book to prove another is meaningless. If I said I know Chapter 49 of the Koran is true because Chapter 50 says so, she would rightly laugh at me. But it wasn’t that kind of conversation, so I kept my mouth shut and gained a powerful insight into which book is the keystone and linchpin of the New Testament—the Acts of the Apostles, a.k.a. Acts.
Though its significance hadn’t hit me before, I’d already heard that argument several times before and have heard it since in various forms. The “Easter faith” of the apostles is the clincher. If you want to know something about Christianity, read a gospel. But if you want to understand Christianity, to get a sense of what makes it tick (and fizz, and shine, and honk, and occasionally explode), read Acts. Christ is born in the gospels, but Christianity is born in Acts.
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It’s in Acts that we get several post-resurrection appearances by Jesus; the Great Commission, in which Christ instructs his disciples to spread his teachings to all the nations of the world (the origin of evangelism); Pentecost, speaking in tongues, exorcism, and the raising of the dead; the first stories of persecution of Christians and the first Christian martyrs; the conversion of Saul/Paul (who was alleged to have been a persecutor of Christians), his early ministry, and his arrest and imprisonment; and the first glimmer of the spreading, enthusiastic, universal church that continues to motivate evangelists today.
As a result of all of this passionate and very human action, Acts delivers some of the best mythic narrative in the Bible. But by the end of the book, something more profound has been achieved than the gathering of heroes and transformation narratives: Christianity is converted from a Jewish sect to a religion in its own right. The teachings of Christ are now said to be for all humanity, not just a local group.
My neighbor may (or may not) be surprised to hear that the book in whose testimony she places such unsinkable faith is perhaps the most altered, amended, and interpolated book in the New Testament. Here’s bible editor and theologian Bruce Metzger writing in The Text of the New Testament: Writing in The Text of the New Testament, bible editor and theologian Bruce Metzger noted (disapprovingly) the position of many theologians including Brooke Westcott and Fenton Hort regarding the Book of Acts:
Words, clauses, and even whole sentences were changed, omitted, and inserted with astonishing freedom, wherever it seemed that the meaning could be brought out with greater force and definiteness…. Another equally important characteristic is a disposition to enrich the text at the cost of its purity by alterations or additions taken from traditional and perhaps from apocryphal or other non-biblical sources… Another impulse of scribes abundantly exemplified in Western readings is the fondness for assimilation… But its most dangerous work is ‘harmonistic’ corruption, that is, the partial or total obliteration of differences in passages otherwise more or less resembling each other.
That such a well-traveled and freely-altered book continues to convince smart people like my neighbor of anything is testimony to the incredible power of confirmation bias and provides a nice foreshadowing of the upcoming blog series. Acts also provides a handy lens through which Christians can see and “understand” nonbelievers: we are Paul before the Damascus road, the apostles before the Resurrection. They saw the light — someday, surely, goes the narrative, we will too.
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Next and final episode of the series, thank the Lord God Jehovah: REVELATION (date TBA)
Any chance you could at some point put links in your “Pages” section collecting all of the “Bookin’ through the Bible’ series of posts? I’ve read a few but not all, I’d it would sure be handy to have them all together.
-Kelly
Comment: matsonwaggs – 14. June 2008 @ 12:57 am
You can go to the Categories section of the left menu and click on biblestudy.
Comment: Dale – 14. June 2008 @ 10:54 am
Well, duh. I’m too lazy for that!
Thanks!
-Kelly
Comment: matsonwaggs – 14. June 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Dale –
Interesting post – it would, however be more interesting were it true. The quote you have from New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger – did you retrieve that from your personal copy of his book or from some internet site that butchered and distorted the actual text? See, I do have access to the third edition of “The Text of the New Testament”, and the quote you attribute to Metzger is actually a quote (pg 132) he uses from two liberal non-Christian Anglican ministers (Wescott and Hort), who were fully steeped in the concept of “there is no perfect Bible” and who had a major distaste for the King James Bible and its Antiochian Greek text, the Textus Receptus. Metzger is refuting their assertions, not agreeing with them and he certainly did not author what you claim. Also, nowhere is the book of Acts implicated in the quote Metzger uses. Finally, wouldn’t it be odd that Metzger would claim the NT is bogus in this text, yet in his interview with Lee Strobel answer this way to the question of if his study of the NT has caused him to believe it is reliable and true: “It has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient.” (The Case for Christ, pg, 71)
Funny isn’t it – you make fun of your neighbor for believing a text you claim was altered and distorted from its original writing, and yet you alter and distort the original work of Bruce Metzger to falsely back your agenda. Yes, this certainly is “free thinking”, but ‘free’ as in free-wheeling and reckless.
Comment: schumacr – 04. October 2008 @ 10:25 am
Try as I might, I make errors, and this appears to be one of them — one of my least favorite, in fact. I’m not perfect, just unforgiven.
I did indeed take it from a secondary source (though textual, not virtual) which seems to have made the same error of attribution. But just to put things in perspective, that’s all it is: Metzger didn’t say it, Brooke Westcott (not “Wescott,” by the way) and Fenton Hort did, both of whom considered themselves Christians and would not appreciate your presumption in claiming otherwise. Countless other Christian commentators have said the same about Acts, as you surely know.
Your all-too-common claim that a single technical error renders an argument “untrue” is just silly. I’m sorry for thinking Metzger got Acts right, I will make the correction, and I thank you for your help in keeping my work as honest as possible.
Comment: Dale – 04. October 2008 @ 11:30 am
Dale –
I don’t mean to have a back-and-forth tennis match with you over this, but correcting your oversight still has not made your case. How do you or your readers know if Westcott and Hort’s assertions are true? Wanting them to be true doesn’t make it so. Now all you’re doing is backing your assertions with Westcott and Hort’s claims that have been refuted by Metzger and other NT scholars like F.F. Bruce. You’ve merely taken one step backwards into more quicksand. And saying ‘other commentators’ cast doubt on Acts to help buttress your position is weak as well. Like who? And have they refuted books on Acts such as the firmly grounded/scholarly work of Colin Hemer (Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History)? I doubt it.
Metzger did get Acts right, Dale. Look, if you want to be an atheist and say you don’t believe the Bible, go for it. I certainly respect your right to do that and live your life as you would like. But unless you really want to do your homework and truly go where the evidence leads, I wouldn’t advise trying to debunk the historicity of the NT or be an armchair textual critic. Plenty of far more educated folks like Bart Ehrman (Ph.D Princeton) who actually studied under Metzger have tried (like in his book “Misquoting Jesus”) and failed miserably.
Peace.
Comment: schumacr – 04. October 2008 @ 2:06 pm
Definitely true. Fortunately my post was not intended to prove the assertions (something that can’t be done in 1000 words or less), just to reflect my view that they are well-supported.
Tennis is the right metaphor. As I’m sure you’ll agree, your assertion that Metzger is sound is just as unsupported as mine. Same with your confident dismissal of Ehrman. We need not agree, which is quite fortunate.
I’m sure at this point that you will dismiss my sources as “non-Christians” or otherwise inadequate to the task, but I’m talking about those aligned with the higher criticism approach — Dibelius, Kasemann, Schnelle, Bornkamm, et al. — all of whom have weighed in at some length on the serious problems in Acts.
The caveat that wiser folks say otherwise is perhaps the least worthy argument you’ve advanced. There’s plenty of wisdom on all sides, and we’re all free to come to our own conclusions about their relative merits. But it’s important to get the facts straight, which is why I’m most grateful for your correction of my sloppy error.
Which brings me to a meta-point: You found it “funny” that I made this error in a post about textual errors. In fact, it underlines my point. Human beings can’t convey accurate information even when they are trying and even within the same generation. Nothing more should need to be said about the likely veracity of the bible.
Peace to you as well.
Comment: Dale – 04. October 2008 @ 3:32 pm
Dale –
Actually, more can certainly be respectfully said. The critics you reference are of the Rudolph Bultmann ilk and bring their anti-supernatural presuppositions to the text so it’s no wonder they dismiss the miracles in Acts.
You reference your neighbor as saying the disciples died for their faith and so you jump into Acts to discount it, but did you know Acts only contains the death of James (Acts 12:2) and no other disciple?
Those events are actually recorded in extra-biblical history, Christian and non-Christian alike (Hippolytus, Josephus, Tacitus on general Christian marytrdom, etc.) So now you will have to extend your
skepticism to include their works as well – did someone alter those texts too? And broadening the question, what is your criteria for accepting/rejecting historical writing from antiquity? Do you reject
the works of Plato, Plotinus, Homer, and if not, why not?
Next, remember that whenever you claim an ancient text has been altered and that we don’t know what was originally said, you have to answer the basic question of “How do you know?” This is the fundamental flaw in Ehrman’s work. The only way you can truly make that claim stick is to have the originals or original copies to compare it to, which of course, allows you to get back to what the text actually said. Now some try and use stylistic comparisons (e.g. Paul wouldn’t write like this, etc.) but this is a weak argument as it falsely constrains an author to not be able to write in different styles or genres (poetry, didactic, etc.), which of course is wrong as many authors do that today.
Finally, remember that even secular scholars admit Luke was a first-rate historian. Hemer alone chronicles hundreds of verified historical facts in Acts. The problem with the Biblical skeptic is they
have to wrestle away the fact that the Gospels and Acts are rooted in space-time history with each account littered with historical references that have all checked out, while other texts that you refer to (the Koran) are basically self-referencing books with no such verifiability. The Bible is only rejected because it contains supernatural elements that, because of their presuppositions, the naturalistic/evolutionary philosopher can’t allow.
If you like, check out one of my slideshows on this topic at :
http://www.slideshare.net/schumacr/six-steps-step-4-can-god-be-known/.
Comment: schumacr – 06. October 2008 @ 3:30 pm
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