I recently finished reading a book called, Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman, a professor and distinguished scholar of early Christianity and the New Testament.
Ehrman spent time in conservative circles (attracted to the Bible by Young Life initiatives, studying at Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College) but ultimately pitched camp toward the liberal end of things.
His work focuses on textual criticism as it pertains to the New Testament writings. Textual criticism is a method of approaching literary sources that have come to us from a succession of manuscripts… or, a way to study old books. Before the printing press was invented books were copied by hand. Not surprisingly a lot of the hand-copied manuscripts of any old book prove to be riddled with “errors”.
I put errors in quotes because that’s just it, to have an error there has to be a standard from which something must stray. But what textual criticism points out, and attempts to sort out, is that we have lots of manuscripts (copies of portions of books, sometimes entire books) that all vary from one another in all sorts of different ways. There often isn’t a standard or “original” text to which we could compare the hand made copies.
This isn’t just the case with Shakespeare plays and Plato’s Republic. This is the case with the Bible as well, or more accurately, with the books of the Bible. In fact, when it comes to the books of the Bible there are no remaining originals; all we have access to are the copies… actually, copies of copies of copies, etc.
Textual criticism enters the scene and does its best to sort through the thousands of variations within the manuscripts to decipher which reading is probably the most accurate, which reading is closest to what the original author wrote (or said, in the case of a dictated book).
It’s quite a wild ride if you really get into it. The variations are more often than not pretty inconsequential (grammatical slip ups and what not), but there are some controversial bits as well, most of which Ehrman is glad to point out in his assortment of very accessible books.
On a lighter note here's an example of one of those variations, as quoted from Misquoting Jesus:
[Of all the many thousands of accidental mistakes made in our manuscripts, probably the most bizarre is one that occurs in a minuscule manuscript of the four Gospels officially numbered 109, which was produced in the fourteenth century. Its peculiar error occurs in Luke, chapter 3, in the account of Jesus’ genealogy. The scribe was evidently copying a manuscript that gave the genealogy in two columns. For some reason, he did not copy one column at a time, but copied across the two columns. As a result, the names of the genealogy are thrown out of whack, with most people being called the sons of the wrong father. Worse still, the second column of the text the scribe was copying did not have as many lines as the first, so that now, in the copy he made, the father of the human race (i.e., the last one mentioned) is not God but an Israelite named Phares; and God himself is said to be the son of a man named Aram!]
It’s probably best to keep manuscript 109 out of print. Otherwise it might go to my head.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
follow up: Islamophobia
If you haven’t yet, please read Sub-sub-librarian’s comment on my Islamophobia post. This post is a response to Subsub’s insightful contribution, but hopefully not the final word… put on your thinking cap and join in! You don’t even have to know all the names of all the people, or all the meanings to all the words. God knows I don’t! [That last sentence becomes potentially ironic as you read further.]
Subsub,
Thank you so much for your generous and thoughtful comment. I appreciate the honest and moderate nature of your critique of Eagleton's argument. I confess that I too have some reading to do regarding the New Atheist conversation, more so than you.
Meanwhile, I especially appreciate your differentiation between the New Atheists, such as Dawkins and Hitchens, and the novelists Rushdie and Amis. It is certainly necessary to distinguish between the differing agendas represented by each of these individuals.
This deviates from the point of your comment, but I have a thought that was sparked by, “…can you blame [anyone] for having a beef with [any religion] what with [the multitude of irrational injustices it has conjured up] and all”. Indeed no. No one should be blamed for the personal ways that they take issue with institutions that have caused them harm. I do think, however, that one must be careful when taking issue with a religion as a whole, especially in the public sphere. Taking issue with the broad entity of "Islam", for example, is different from taking issue with the more specific entity of a particular political or extremist expression of "Islam". The very nature of religion today is complex and multi-representative -- one religion can represent an array of individuals and agendas. This isn't necessarily a good thing, but it is the reality.
Therefore, one of the primary tasks of INTer-religious dialog is to explore and catalog the myriad of religious expressions; perhaps going so far as to dismiss as inaccurate the manifestations of religion that do not align with the seeds of mutuality and compassion that can be found within religious texts, rituals, and traditions. And one of the primary tasks of INNer-religious dialog is for representatives of a particular religion to explore and account for the expressions of that religion, and where necessary labor to transform and redeem harmful expressions.
Returning to your comment regarding theology, you are right that it is not an empirical science. I think a distinction between theology and apologetics would be helpful, with theology being the logos/study of theos/God, and apologetics being the apologia/defense of God. The former is the establishment of an ongoing discourse and the latter is an attempt to provide some sort of empirical proof of the existence of God.
Traditionally Christian theology has included apologetics as one of its offspring. But perhaps the apple in this case has fallen a bit too far from the tree. There are representatives from both sides of the New Atheist debate that approach theology as if it is a verifiable science. Apologists do this, and so do some proponents of atheism. The debate then becomes about whether or not theology is a viable verifiable science. But in fact theology is a conceptual endeavor. To enter into theological study in the first place, whether for or against the concept of God, one must surrender the compulsion to attempt proving or disproving God’s existence.
Theology isn’t about whether or not there is a God, but about what kind of God there is if there is one.
One should approach the subject of the debate (God) by way of the more tangible conduits of divine experience. Human beings. We need to move away from a debate about whether or not God exists, and toward an effort to understand the ways in which divine experience (supposed or actual) affect our social and relational interactions. How does God (whether or not God is real) influence the way people live and act? Can people who believe in God and people who don’t do so in a way that motivates them to live mutually beneficial lives?
There are concepts of God that do need to be discontinued, because of the hostile and sometimes fatal affect that they have in the world. Science can contribute to this task, religion is by no means off limits to any kind of scientific inquiry, but ultimately the task must be accomplished by a discipline that is suitable to the subject, by theology.
I just added, “Breaking the Spell” (by: Daniel Dennett, for those interested) to my Amazon wish list, I anticipate it being a valuable contribution to my exploration of religion as the multi-faceted phenomenon that is it.
Thanks again. You are most erudite.
Subsub,
Thank you so much for your generous and thoughtful comment. I appreciate the honest and moderate nature of your critique of Eagleton's argument. I confess that I too have some reading to do regarding the New Atheist conversation, more so than you.
Meanwhile, I especially appreciate your differentiation between the New Atheists, such as Dawkins and Hitchens, and the novelists Rushdie and Amis. It is certainly necessary to distinguish between the differing agendas represented by each of these individuals.
This deviates from the point of your comment, but I have a thought that was sparked by, “…can you blame [anyone] for having a beef with [any religion] what with [the multitude of irrational injustices it has conjured up] and all”. Indeed no. No one should be blamed for the personal ways that they take issue with institutions that have caused them harm. I do think, however, that one must be careful when taking issue with a religion as a whole, especially in the public sphere. Taking issue with the broad entity of "Islam", for example, is different from taking issue with the more specific entity of a particular political or extremist expression of "Islam". The very nature of religion today is complex and multi-representative -- one religion can represent an array of individuals and agendas. This isn't necessarily a good thing, but it is the reality.
Therefore, one of the primary tasks of INTer-religious dialog is to explore and catalog the myriad of religious expressions; perhaps going so far as to dismiss as inaccurate the manifestations of religion that do not align with the seeds of mutuality and compassion that can be found within religious texts, rituals, and traditions. And one of the primary tasks of INNer-religious dialog is for representatives of a particular religion to explore and account for the expressions of that religion, and where necessary labor to transform and redeem harmful expressions.
Returning to your comment regarding theology, you are right that it is not an empirical science. I think a distinction between theology and apologetics would be helpful, with theology being the logos/study of theos/God, and apologetics being the apologia/defense of God. The former is the establishment of an ongoing discourse and the latter is an attempt to provide some sort of empirical proof of the existence of God.
Traditionally Christian theology has included apologetics as one of its offspring. But perhaps the apple in this case has fallen a bit too far from the tree. There are representatives from both sides of the New Atheist debate that approach theology as if it is a verifiable science. Apologists do this, and so do some proponents of atheism. The debate then becomes about whether or not theology is a viable verifiable science. But in fact theology is a conceptual endeavor. To enter into theological study in the first place, whether for or against the concept of God, one must surrender the compulsion to attempt proving or disproving God’s existence.
Theology isn’t about whether or not there is a God, but about what kind of God there is if there is one.
One should approach the subject of the debate (God) by way of the more tangible conduits of divine experience. Human beings. We need to move away from a debate about whether or not God exists, and toward an effort to understand the ways in which divine experience (supposed or actual) affect our social and relational interactions. How does God (whether or not God is real) influence the way people live and act? Can people who believe in God and people who don’t do so in a way that motivates them to live mutually beneficial lives?
There are concepts of God that do need to be discontinued, because of the hostile and sometimes fatal affect that they have in the world. Science can contribute to this task, religion is by no means off limits to any kind of scientific inquiry, but ultimately the task must be accomplished by a discipline that is suitable to the subject, by theology.
I just added, “Breaking the Spell” (by: Daniel Dennett, for those interested) to my Amazon wish list, I anticipate it being a valuable contribution to my exploration of religion as the multi-faceted phenomenon that is it.
Thanks again. You are most erudite.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Islamophobia
Something I came across on The Immanent Frame blog which is itself something that I recently came across, strikes an interesting thought and an intriguing cultural phenomenon:
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/10/01/arnold-eisen-and-terry-eagleton-discuss-reason-faith-and-revolution/
En route to some homemade pizza or else I'd write more, but I have my priorities...
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/10/01/arnold-eisen-and-terry-eagleton-discuss-reason-faith-and-revolution/
En route to some homemade pizza or else I'd write more, but I have my priorities...
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