From the Cross to the Church

Corrections to the Gospel Texts When a copyist changed Abiathar to Ahimelec in Mark 2: 26, he was doing the evangelist a favor. Ahimelec, the father of Abiathar, was in fact the high priest when that incident occurred. The change to the text, which may or may not as of that time been regarded as sacred, was intended to correct an error of fact. Although this is not a “correction” as we are using the term here, think back to the passage where Jesus was saying that he did not come to abolish the law (Mt 5: 17-19). If that pericope were composed in order to picture Paul as least in the kingdom of heaven, the author must have felt very passionately about his theology in order to put his theology into the mouth of Jesus. What is a scribe to do? Not change an error? What about potential misunderstandings? Does he have an obligation to clarify the text? Even more difficult, how could a scribe not make a correction when just a slight change could avoid a misinterpretation of the evangelist’s message? Certainly, some thought, one is obliged to clarify texts which suggest or support heresy. Did any of these things really happen? In Mark 15: 34, Mark reports Jesus as crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some early Christians were perplexed as to how Jesus could be a divine being and still suffer, as he was obviously suffering on the cross when he uttered those words. One of the theological speculations which attempted to solve this problem distinguished between Jesus the man and Christ the god. This form of Docetism taught that Christ the god entered Jesus the man at Jesus’ baptism. Christ stayed with Jesus through his ministry, enabling Jesus’ miracles, and left Jesus when Jesus was dying on the cross, because God cold not suffer. If the copyist were in a place where this form of Docetism was widespread, he might consider changing Jesus’ desperate plea of abandonment to “Why have you mocked me?” which is what we read in some texts. Another change related to Docetism and Adoptionist theology (holding that Jesus is not of the same substance of God, but is an adopted son of God) occurred in Luke’s account of the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3: 22). The voice of God at the baptism: “Today I have begotten you” becomes in some manuscripts, “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.” In the first, Jesus seems to become God’s son at his baptism. In the second, Jesus may be God’s pre-existent son. That is a huge difference in meaning. In Luke’s account of the presentation of Jesus to the temple, his parents were astounded at the praise heaped upon him by Simeon. Luke (2: 33) says “And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him.” Some manuscripts were changed to “Joseph and his mother marveled…” apparently to combat Adoptionism. The son of Joseph and Mary could not be the son of God except by adoption. One more example of a theology directed change occurs in Luke 2: 48, where Joseph and Mary find Jesus in the Temple amazing the Temple teachers. “Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress,” becomes, “We have been anxiously looking for you,” leaving the paternity of Jesus ambiguous. In chapter twenty-four of Matthew, Jesus is talking about the apocalyptic events about to destroy the age. Just after the parable of the fig tree, verse 36 says, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Some manuscripts omit the words, “nor the Son.” Was this an accident or an attempt to prevent the reader from misinterpreting the evangelist’s message? What has been discussed above are thought to be deliberate changes, most of which may have been made to promote a particular theological position. Most of the deliberate theological changes were made in second and third centuries, before a consensus formed on the canon of scripture. These theological battles were vigorously fought during these times, and these changes may be evidence of these struggles. As for the well-meaning scribe who fixed the reference to the high priest in Mark 2: 26, in most English translations you will find the original reference to Abiathar. The translators justify the retention of Abiathar on the grounds that the setting was in the days of Abiathar, not in the high priesthood of Abiathar. But there is another class of errors, simple mistakes. The most common of these would be simply confusing one word with another. It is surprisingly easy, relatively speaking, to skip a word, or even a line or a verse when that line or verse ends with the same word. Remember the lesson of the copyist discovered by Muratori: some thirty mistakes in thirty lines, having copied the same thirty lines by mistake. Accidental changes far outnumber the deliberate changes. Furthermore, accidental changes are usually not very important and can often be recognized. That said, the large number of accidental changes increases the probability that some changes are important or difficult to unravel. Key Points • The vast majority of changes to gospel texts are accidental, and the vast majority of these are not material. • The deliberate changes to gospel texts are made for high-minded reasons: to correct an error of fact, to prevent a reader from misinterpreting the evangelist’s intended meaning, to prevent a misunderstanding, to frustrate “heterodoxy,” or to promote “orthodoxy.” • What is now the canon of the New Testament had not yet been accepted by all the churches, although there was wide agreement with respect to the four gospels and the Pauline epistles in the third century.