Luke 23:34 Textual Variant

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence

Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation.

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United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James White And good afternoon, welcome to the dividing line on a

Thursday afternoon As I have mentioned on the blog what we're going to do today is look at a textual variant at Luke 23 34

I'm not sure how long this will take might take the whole hour might take 20 minutes I don't know sort of hard to say

So we might be continuing on with the examination of the solo scriptura

Debate from 1993 we might not don't know. Well, we'll find out all depends if other folks

Participate or you know, whatever else it might be. We will see But I am joined today online by Alan Kirshner, hi

Alan, how you doing? Doing pretty good folks might know you from that lovely caricature of of you on our blog

Alan is one of the team of Paula Guion you may have seen a lot of his blogs have to do with textual critical issues the

King James only folks just love Alan and Probably like turrets and fan today.

There was her only Catholic who identified him as one of my minions He has now been elevated to minion status

So I would imagine is probably some King James only folks out there that have elevated you to minion status as well

Which is always good argumentation, you know when when people approach things that way But the reason

I asked Alan to join me today is by the way, dr. Wake I was just gonna say I think this might be in my initiation to the

The Alexandrian cult. Oh, yes, the Alexandrian called. Yes did you get your robe and the

Purple toga, all right. No, but I have a feeling after this show I might Well, we we thought we had rushed the purple toga to you fast enough, but if it didn't get there

I'm sorry about that but anyway, I Am looking at a certain paper that Alan wrote this would have been last year or when was this?

Yeah, but I think about two years ago. I took a New Testament textual critical course that or textual criticism course that Harvard Divinity with Eldon up and we had to Choose one variant for a major paper or final paper.

And so I chose Luke 23 34 a

Right. Now, I guess that would have been section 1884. I was looking at your title. It says Harvard Divinity School 1884

I was going boy you you've aged. Well, actually Yeah, the course number there

Now I put on the blog for people who wanted to see this

I gave the text and it is a very very familiar text But Jesus was saying father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing and they cast lots dividing up his garments

Among themselves. This is one of the sayings of Jesus from the cross now.

I admit that I oh, I don't know how long it was

Before I recognize that there is even a variant here, but I know I did not realize there is a variant when

I first wrote the Potter's Freedom for example Because when I dealt with this text and Norman Geisler's use of it,

I made no reference to it and I pretty clearly remember Realizing this at some point at a later time and I Believe you actually said you the first note footnote referenced me for bringing this variant to your attention, so Evidently, it would have been after the same same time that I ran across this particular variant then

Yeah, I think it was maybe three or four years ago you brought that to my attention and I knew I was going to be taking a course in textual criticism and And so I kind of kept it in the back of my mind

You know to do further In fact investigation on it and Yeah, now it's it's interesting.

Someone might ask how in the world could you look at a text very often without noticing?

Textual variants and it's pretty simple The primary Bible program

I use is Bible works and Unfortunately up to this point in time Bible works still doesn't have the textual data that you can get the tish and or stuff finally but generally as you're just looking at The text on the screen and you're you're utilizing that cutting and pasting and looking at the

Greek and things like that There's no there's no critical text that does does accordance have the critical text material

Accordance does not in fact, I believe Bible works and accordance. They have a third party.

That's the German That Provides the textual data in the na27 that actually it's libronics that has the stuttgart electronic study

Bible But Bible works still still doesn't there they were going to have it in 7 .0

but the projects way behind, you know, how textual critics are and so it hasn't been hasn't been completed yet But that's coming out of a completely different group so as I was looking at the text in in Bible works, there's no indication the variance and I Forgot to look

I said, I'm not sure if you may have looked but have you ever run across an English translation? that made note of the variant because I I am unaware of it's interesting that you mentioned that because I've looked at other you know, how some modern

English translations will have If there's a small handful of verses that they regulate to the the footnotes, right

I look at some of those, you know, the the weight of the external evidence and some of them are very similar to To this one except some of them will have

Aleph and and Bannock and who's together and whatnot and but very similar and it's interesting that you know,

I kind of find a little inconsistent Inconsistency when it comes to this variant now some given, you know, some

English translations will regulate, you know They'll make a footnote, you know and say, you know, some early man is right.

Well, I do not have this or else In fact, I think the NET Bible the net Bible. Yeah puts it in a bracket actually in the text so that's you know, that's interesting but as far as like for that I think in a previous chapter of Luke that's where the

The variance with the you know, the the drops of Jesus blood is and there

I'm not mistaken. I think that's that regulated to the footnote or not. I have to look at that again, but but the

But yeah, in fact, I was looking at some commentator like a Bach, you know with his comment

Terry on Luke and Marshall and and it seems like they I don't know.

It just seems like they don't they say yes Very but it seems that's the extent that they go in and both of them, of course believe that it is original original.

Yeah Yeah, well certainly we could say that The the provision of English footnotes and whether you relegate something to the footnote or something like that Is not exactly an exact science in most translations and The standards that are used as to whether a notes could be inserted or not are not overly overly uniform but all

I know is I was probably in my 40s or close to my 40s before I even

Recognized this and I don't think that I I don't think that I saw that in reading commentary and like that It just I just happen to see it in the in the textual

Material which means this text is normally discussed without any reference to the fact that there is a rather major Textual variance.

Let's explain what that is for folks because a lot of folks get a little bit nervous when we start talking about this particular subject and so on the blog

I have provided a scan from Swanson and you you included

Swanson's work New Testament Greek manuscripts. There's Have they expanded beyond acts because I have

Matthew Mark Luke John and acts. Um the last Yeah, I wonder if they I don't think they have but I could be mistaken on that yeah,

I've got I've got those I forget where I got them from but Ruben Swanson's the editor for people who are interested in looking at this.

It's a different way of providing the Textual information sometimes it's a little bit easier for people to Visualize what the variants are by putting it in this table format that we have on the blog and that you also reproduced in in your paper and It is a nice bird's -eye view

You know versus say and you can see something real quick first, right maybe the n827 and I mean albeit it is the

Greek witnesses But still and it doesn't take that much effort to figure out what the

Greek witnesses are So people who are looking at the blog and if you're listening to this at a later time You can go back to the blog for September 4th 2008 to see this particular graphic if you want to see it

My recollection is that Swanson collates against Vaticanus if I recall correctly so the very first line you see 34 then o

M stands for omit and Therefore there's nothing beyond that except for the list of witnesses which includes

Vaticanus which is B then p75 which I believe is the earliest

Papyri manuscript for this section of Luke that we have in our possession Right then we have the olive with a

C next to it Now then down below at the bottom line. You also have a lot an olive with an asterisk next to it

Why don't you explain to folks what the difference between those two is? Are you looking at the

The green yeah, the Greek witnesses here. We're looking at Swanson olive with a C and olive with an asterisk

Why why would all of be be listed twice? Oh, right? Well the for Swanson, you know, there's different nomenclature for in a 27 here, but yeah, the asterisk would be

That this is a Corrector What the

The original reading It's referring to a corrector. That's what it is referring to a corrector and actually it was corrected again with the the inclusion of it

Originally for Alice it it's saying that it it has it and then the corrector came along and You know

Expunged it and then another corrector came by and then I added as well So and that's actually what the graphic the large graphic below.

That is is exactly that you can see The text there and how it has been altered in that particular point that actually is

Sinaiticus Codex Sinaiticus, which is coming online. I don't think Luke Has been put online yet.

I forgot to check before the program to see if if Luke had been added, but Eventually people be able to grab hold of those particular graphics themselves and look very very carefully and then we have

D with the same type of asterisks and we can see down below. There's a correction of that The correct except this time.

It's like the the corrector who added it in at a late later point in time then interesting codex

W which is a primarily Byzantine Witness now,

I know we're throwing some stuff out here and some folks are going what in the world you people talking about actually Maybe a reassure the readers here, you know, obviously a pun intended to finish sound like Greek But you know once we get into I think some of the internal evidence

I think they'll be able, you know be able to follow that a lot more So obviously in textual criticism for those who don't know

You go to the external evidence first the actual Witnesses because they are more objective and and then you are able you're in a position to be able to judge

You know with Internal considerations against the external evidence, right? Right.

So we have we have these unseal manuscripts unseal meaning Magiscules they're written in a particular form.

They're the earlier manuscripts W is not B and all if are considered what are called

Alexandrian primarily Alexandrian manuscripts Sinaiticus as I believe you noted in your paper has some

Western influence at some points in it, but Primarily Alexander in p75 and Vaticanus the two those are the two

Premier Alexandrian manuscripts which have been vilified many many times by James only advocates

But for no particularly a decent reason and then when you have p75 papyrus 75 combined with with Vaticanus B That's very weighty.

That's considered to be very weighty by most modern critical scholars. That's right So W however is not in the

Alexandrian family So to have it in this particular list is rather intriguing

It's something that you address and we'll look at that a little bit later on in in your comments then theta and And and others in essence

Likewise do not have this particular phrase then it's found in the following forms and with the small difference of for example

Codex a Alexandrinus had does not have the word pater which means father and Then you have some minor differences for example the corrector of D Has in instead of T for what they are doing has the definite article

T which probably has to do with the Latin the fact it's a Influenced by the

Latin prime or anything else described probably just wasn't paying close attention there. Then we have interesting enough

Manuscript 33 which is a very important minuscule manuscript that most people feel is a copy of a much earlier exemplar

Which has a slight difference in? the tense of Of the verb but one of the things that that you noticed that you noted in all of these is that aside from very minor form variations all of everything that's that's a part of this text all the way down to the bottom of the line where you have the the original

Sinaiticus Sinaiticus you have see you have There's what looks like it's called a frac tour

M. Which means the majority text which is the entire Byzantine manuscript tradition L and Q many others family family 13 the the vast bulk of Greek manuscripts do contain this but of course the vast bulk of Greek manuscripts come from At least eight nine hundred a thousand years after the time of Christ so the the

Byzantine manuscript tradition Clearly contains this particular Phraseology, this is a variant that clearly comes up from from the second century, but What you pointed out, and I think it's very important is there isn't much variation amongst these

Witnesses as to what's being said here And you you brought up a very important point and and that was if someone was trying to just modify

This tried to sort of change it a little bit. They would they might want to just change one word They might want to make it very specific who

Jesus was praying for etc. Etc. They don't do that there there's no meaningful

Theological difference between any of the variants that are listed here Yeah, I know I was gonna discuss a little bit about that.

You know in the movie right consider some of that internal Evidence because yeah, you would think it is an anomaly

I think that if you did you have a certain theological tendency But with no theological variation within the within the clause itself in other words the witnesses

You know they're either being omitted or they are intact for the most part and so I you know

I think most textual critics would see that as a demonstration that this is an interpolation and not a

Decision right so let's let's let's make sure people understand that and an interpolation is

Where something and this is a fairly lengthy variant I mean most variants are only a word or some word order or something like that is

There's a pretty decent logion that we're looking at here You you either

Decide that it has been excised that is it was there originally and it has been pulled out or it's an insertion

It has been put in where it wasn't before and that really is the question that faces

The textual scholar at this particular issue and of course that's just another way of saying did

Luke write it originally Or did he not write it originally does this reflect the apostolic text does it does it not and I think you know now that I'm thinking back for just a moment

I think That the reason I started looking at this or I was brought to looking at this Had to do with the fact that when

I looked at the synoptic Gospels I think that's now that I'm thinking about I think this is what brought it about.

I was looking at the parallels and At this point Luke is alone in having this material

Mark and Matthew do not have Anything like this at this particular point in time, and I think that's what brought my attention to it initially as I recall

It wasn't a commentary like that. It was something like that so In essence could we summarize? Let's summarize the external evidence and let's start talking about how at least modern scholarship approaches subjects like this

Well, I was gonna say the you know it is interesting that you mentioned W Freeneus Codex Freeneus because that's a variegated text, and it's a very

The Luke I think Luke 8 through 24 Actually has a

Byzantine Type text there right and that's where our variant is so Actually we have

And not to mention you have the the earliest Syriac you know the three versions that this is interesting to you

I know you haven't touched on this yet, but the three most important versions in Syriac Latin and Coptic All of those three for example of Syriac the the earliest

Syriac manuscript there is fanatic Which most critics to say is one of the best and earliest ones does not contain this reading right the

Sehetic As well it does not contain that and part of the Boheric as well Yeah, and the

Boheric and well some some Boheric do but it's a part reading right right And but that's a later that would be a later

Coptic coming after Sehetic I think most of most critics would see this

Sehetic a little bit earlier than that and then when you look at the The Latin one of the best

Latin old Latin text by the way when I meant Syriac that's old Syriac as well though and as far as the old

Latin you have You know the which is the old Latin There's a number of old

Latin manuscripts in one of the best ones but one of the best earlier ones is a small letter a symbolizes this particular manuscript and Which is one of the earliest ones and it does not contain this reading to see here

You have three ancient Aversions dr. White in which

They do not contain and they're not just early but high quality ones that do not contain this reading and so Their exemplars their

Greek exemplars probably going back to you know the early part of the second century would not have this reading so I think that that Just corroborates, so you have actually taken all this together you have

You have early reading a Western reading You know with these the

Latin with Codex D you have Alexandrian very ancient

Alexander readings with 75 and Bend Canyon and then you have actually some would consider

Theta Caesarean right as one of the chief Representatives of the

Caesarean although, you know that's a little bit later, but still and of course the Visiting the

Codex W. So Wow, I mean that that's pretty convincing. Obviously.

Um, well, let's let's explain why that's convincing it a reading that has a support that comes from a wide variety of Of families and witnesses is more likely to represent a broader geographical distribution rather than One that has only one family in support of it

Because if you only have one family, it's not found anywhere else in any of the translations the early translations

I like that if you have it only in one then you may be looking at an entire family that had a very early exemplar that had a

Variant in it and that variant does not represent what went into other places in in the early centuries of the distribution of this text and so when you have a reading that has that wide distribution that is a

Weighty thing you you said scholars view it that is having more weight Well, that's where the weight is coming from at that particular point, correct?

Yes And I would corroborate corroborate that with the genealogical relationship as well because you know

It's been known that Alice does have Western influence and some of these other manuscripts that would include this reading some

Boheric as well as that Western influence as well, and that's where we find this this reading in a singular tradition right in the

Western fact and You know to be balanced. It does go back to the second century.

There's the dietitian that would that would Have this reading and so we know it does go back to sometime in the second century but once again we see that this is in a singular tradition in the geographical as you mentioned the geographical distribution is

Very compelling and would suggest that this reading was introduced in the Western Transmission sometime during the second century we can

And Now you're looking at the na -27 information here Which is where it also indicates to us the

Sinaiticus both the original and the second corrector Contain have the text in it. This is one of the places where a fuller text like Swanson is more useful because it really doesn't give us the same type of level of information that Nassau doesn't give the same level of information as Swanson But basically what you're saying is the the witnesses that have this text are primarily within one

Textual family one tradition whereas the witnesses that do not have a much wider distribution and hence at Just as we summarize the external information then that external information from your perspective would point more to the

The idea this is not original that that phraseology is not original with Luke just simply on the external

We haven't looked at the internal stuff yet, but just the external stuff right, and that's that's why it's quite good to really exhaust the external first because When you have in my view this convincing external evidence why distribution geographical distribution

Attested by from the best quality early manuscripts not to mention junior genealogical relationship really have to keep that in mind because External evidence is not you know

You have it's not equal to internal evidence in other words if you have very weighty External evidence and then you have ambiguous internal evidence, which will see

I think we have an internal ambiguous internal evidence you know it

I think there's a The weight would go to the external zone Okay, so with that then and and by the way this this type of information

You didn't have to go through any special ceremonies to be able to get access to it You could buy these books online

You know sometimes people think that we're somehow hiding this from folks I just pause long enough to say that not only could our

King James only Friends obtain this kind of information, but our Muslim friends could find this information as well.

We openly Present this stuff to the world and say here's the data.

Here's the information We have confidence in these things. Here's why we do that so I just mentioned that in passing now

Let's look at the internal considerations, and this is where quite honestly Alan Things for a lot of folks start sounding just a tad bit not only confusing

But a little bit on the subjective side And I think that's gotten to be more so over the couple decades

Since I wrote the King James only controversy And and we'll see why initially when you began looking at into the internal considerations

The first thing that you made reference to is

That there really isn't anything in this text That immediately jumps out at a person and says ah

This was a scribal situation where inadvertently there is a

Deletion of a line because of such things as home I tell you tan or parable

EPSIS or Homo arctan or whatever else it might be weren't why don't you? Explain to folks if you could why you started with with that observation

Yeah, there's basically two types of internal evidence you look at transcriptional evidence transcriptional has to do with the scribe in the actual process of copying

What the thought process like you know and there could be purposeful or? intended

Changes or mistakes there could be unintentional mistakes as well as you mentioned and then there's

Intrinsic evidence intrinsic would be Looking at the

Actual the the author's style the author's vocabulary the the context

And And in this sort of case because it seems like it's because it's a theological

Clause a stain of Christ the larger unit often the transcriptional

Considerations are not I mean we're not looking at like a single word here or or or a

Scribe could you know Accidentally forget to You know just skip over it.

You know when you're copying although. You know that's happened in the past, but But normally, but normally when it does happen.

It's because of fairly easily recognizable Situations the example

I've used in the past when you have something called home I tell you it's on similar endings is if we put this in English if you have a word that ends in ing

And you're typing this out even today as we're copying something from a book or something like that We type ing or tion a common ending to a word our eyes go back to the original

Or as scholars referred to it the exemplar and when our eyes go back we find ing around the same spot on the page we expected to find it or a

Tion and we continue on from there the problem is we found it one line lower than where we actually ended and if we're not

Really paying close attention, and especially if it doesn't result in pure gibberish We've just accidentally

Deleted a phrase a word sometimes an entire sentence this happened in first John 3 1

Where and such we are was deleted in an early exemplar by home or tell you ton so when scholars see that and there is something in the text where you've got similar endings at the beginning in the end of This particular phrase or sentence as we have here

Then that weighs very very heavily on The determination of the text of variant itself, but what you're pointing out in their paper was there's nothing like that here

There's there's nothing that makes a scholar go ah this is how a scribe could have inadvertently by errors of sight and errors of thought

Deleted this particular this particular text yeah, correct. It's Yeah, there's no

Criteria of like more difficult reading in textual criticism of you know the when you compare two readings

You know you the reading that is more difficult to maybe the scribes mind Is often taken into great consideration because usually they're trying to smooth out something that's difficult in their apparent mind

But here that's not the case right we're dealing with a theological statement now you had a quote

I'm assuming you have your paper with you Good you had you had a quote on on page?

7 and I will confess is it Joel? de

Lobo Yeah, de Lobo de Lobo is the name and he makes the the following comment on this particular

Text he says the presence or absence of a complete logion of Considerable length and striking content however can hardly be attributed to scribal carelessness

Addition or omission of this kind constitutes a deliberate change to the model it is clear the product of one particular scribe

Given that there is little change several scribes in different times and places would have introduced a chain I'm sorry little chance.

I found it There is little chance that I would have to point that out wouldn't

I? Yeah, that there is little chance that several scribes in different times and places would have introduced a change of this nature in exactly the same

Lucan verse Independently from one another so what he's saying is and and it makes perfect sense this goes back to one point in time it either an insertion or a

Removing of it the idea that that when we special like we look at Swanson That you have one scribe in Codex Alexander's putting in his version and then another scribe for D putting in his and other scribe for 33 putting in his his all

Putting him in in the same form at the same place independently of one another just simply is About as likely as you know lightning striking you 14 times at the same point or something

It's just it's just not really gonna. I'm not really gonna happen in that way so now

Maybe we can summarize What do most scholars say about the internal evidence looking at The scribes and what's going on this has become one of the big things and this is where you are right now

You're taking classes from these folks you mentioned that you were taking a class from Eldon J up for the folks watching or who will be watching on video as long as our video is functioning correctly today

Hopefully, oh good I fact I don't you told me about this book and but I don't think you have it at least from what you said you didn't seem to indicate because you're a poor seminary student, but Perspectives on New Testament textual criticism by app

I mean this thing if you whacked somebody with this thing you probably go to jail for assault with a deadly weapon it is humongaloid almost eight about 850

Pages, and I would assume these are Collected essays 1962 to 2004 by your professor for this particular class

He's been at this for quite some time. It is a massive tome, and he is one of the

Leaders in developing this idea of looking at the cultural and Theological settings of the scribes would that be a fair?

Statement to to make along those lines. Yeah, I would I would say that is you know his specialty is a

Quote -unquote and theological tendencies and acts he's written quite a bit on and another look as well and so the idea there is you look at especially the

Theological and Variant arises and you analyze these in reference to What the tendency of the scribe would have been and so what an ens in essence is the the primary?

Argumentation being put forward in regards this variant by textual scholars today based on internal evidence

Well You know as a caveat the

Intrinsic evidence we're looking at an author's style and vocab it's really

Limited it's very subjective. I mean obviously when you look at a author's you know

Vocabulary well, that's that would be like saying you know dr. Wade I'm I'd like to take two letters that you've written in your life, and that's the pool of your vocabulary

That's the extent of your vocabulary And not even taking consideration context or what you wrote you know and I mean very limited so that's just one example how this can be subjective, but some of the

Some who would argue that this is an excision that that is that they would argue for the longer reading that This reading is part of Luke they would mainly there's three

Arguments that they would deduce that I've come across one is that if it's a Luke and theme of forgiveness and ignorance

You know an axe Let's see here X 317 1327 the problem with that that's fine, okay?

It's it's a Luke and theme of forgiveness, but it's kind of an ignorance It's kind of a double -edged sword.

You know because one could turn around and say well How do you know that scribe was looking for a motif and and and looked for some floating

Dominical logion out there original a saying of Jesus that did not make into the canonical

Gospels and wanted to looking for a theme that would be comport with Luke and style

So it you know it kind of cuts both ways, so that's I think a subjective argument

Though there are you know they can be legitimate in some context, but in this I don't think so another argument

It's kind of similar to this that there's a parallel with Stephen. You know Stephen You know being persecuted and he asked the

Lord to forgive his persecutors Once again you know some would say well see

Luke was having this parallel with Stephen and and But Once again, you know a scribe could say well

He was looking at at accounts in Acts and looking for parallels that could fit with that so That's kind of just a synopsis.

You know I don't want to minimize You know they're they're they're arguments there, but given the amount of time that we have a second argument is the fall of Jerusalem It would they would say that the the fall of Jerusalem was evidence that you know the

Jews were not forgiving so scribed Do not want to appear that Jesus prayer went unanswered

So they you know they expunged that That's saying Once again the problem with that is you kind of when you're quoting

Doing that quote is a Scribe you're not that you what's the probability of?

Several scribes that you know different times in different places that is going to excise right that really

I mean So I don't you have to go back to one one original person who did that let me read real quickly what

Bruce Metzger says And then we can sort of bounce this around a little bit In his textual commentary says the absence of these words from such early and diverse witnesses as the ones we already went over Is most impressive and can scarcely be explained as a deliberate excision by copyists who?

Considering the fall of Jerusalem to be proof that God had not forgiven the Jews Could not allow it to appear at the prayer of Jesus had remained unanswered at the same time

The Logion though probably not a part of the original gospel of Luke bears self -evident tokens of its

Dominical origin let me translate that Dominical From the Lord coming from the

Lord and was retained within double square brackets in his traditional place Where it had been incorporated by unknown copyists relatively early in the transmission of the third

Gospel it sounds very similar to what he said about John 7 53 through 8 11 as well In regards to having on an origin with Jesus, but not having been part of the original itself

That's what what he says now. I don't remember if you looked at this in your paper, but Bart Ehrman in his works and in fact one of the more recent ones

This is another Brill publication studies in the textual criticism of the New Testament pages 384 and 385

This is what he has to say it is interesting to consider the manuscript tradition of Luke 23 in light of these issues

Let me back this up just a little bit I Jumped way way too far and let me back up to page 384

I've already mentioned one of the passages that creates some uncertainty among modern exegetes over the question of Luke's view of the culpability of the

Jews and the death of Jesus Luke 23 34 We're being crucified Jesus praise father forgive them if they don't know what they are doing modern readers may think

Jesus is praying for the Romans who are responsible for crucifying him But should be remembered that in Luke Pilate delivered

Jesus up to their will that is the will the Jews and that they then let Him off to be crucified moreover in the book of Acts it becomes quite clear that it was the

Jewish people who are responsible for Jesus death even though they acted out of ignorance in any event We know from comments made by Christian fathers that this is how the passage is read in the early church as a prayer that God Forgive the

Jews for their involvement in the death of Jesus But what were early Christians to make of this prayer for as I've already intimated in my comments on Barnabas and Melito Sardis there was a decided movement away from thinking that God would or should forgive

Jews for what they did as Christians became increasingly inclined to think of Jews as Christ killers We know from other sources the second and third centuries that Christians began blaming the destruction of Jerusalem by the

Roman armies in 70s CE On the Jews themselves not for a foolish uprising against the power of Rome But for killing

Christ whose death was avenged by the destruction of the city in the slaughter of its inhabitants What were such Christians to make of the fact that Jesus had prayed for the forgiveness of the

Jews clearly? They had not been forgiven was Jesus prayer not heard or maybe he had never uttered the prayer in the first place

It is interesting to consider the manuscript tradition of Luke 23 in light of these issues for as it turns out There is a textual problem with verse 34 the prayer of forgiveness starting with our earliest surviving manuscript the third century

Pyrrhus called p75 and Continuing with some other best of our best known and most important witnesses

The prayer in fact is completely omitted by some manuscripts and these witnesses Jesus never asked God to forgive the

Jews for what they were doing When confronted with a textual situation like this scholars, of course need to decide what Luke's gospel originally said in some manuscripts

Jesus prays the Jews to be forgiven and others He does not what which is the original reading and which is the altered reading in this case?

Some scholars have argued that it is the shorter text without the prayer of forgiveness That is actually original and the scribes have added the prayer to Luke's account

But why would they do so the most popular explanation is a bit complicated But it goes something like this in the book of Acts the first Christian martyr

Stephen who was stoned to death for his proclamation Of his faith in Jesus immediately before he dies Stephen prays

Lord. Do not hold the sin against them Stephen Jesus follower was forgiving toward his executioners would

Jesus himself be any less So according to this theory scribes who wanted to heighten the parallel between Jesus death and Stevens added and Stevens added the prayer to Luke 23

That's why it's found in some manuscripts, but not in others This is a clever argument, but there are compelling reasons.

I'm still reading airmen to reject it For one thing as interpreters of Luke and Acts have long observed

The many parallels between Jesus and the gospel and his followers and acts were put there by Luke himself Jesus receives the

Spirit is baptism So to his followers Jesus is empowered by the Spirit to proclaim God's Word So are his followers Jesus heals the sick cast out demons raised the dead and so to his followers

Jesus is largely rejected by the Jewish people. So are his followers. Jesus is opposed by the Jewish leaders, etc Etc.

And so it seems likely that is he who was has adduced a prayer on behalf of the executioners both by Jesus and Luke 23 and by Stephen Acts 7

I do find interesting that he clearly holds to a Lukan authorship early authorship of both these works

Moreover, it is worth noticing that when Luke creates such parallels He typically does so not by repeating the words of his gospel in the book of Acts But by expressing the parallels in other words

This matters because Stephen does not utter the same prayer as Jesus, but a differently worded one with similar meaning

What about scribes? You know that early Christian scribes often harmonized different accounts in the New Testament with one another That is to say when they ran across the same story in different places

They would make them word for word the same for example Lord's Prayer in Luke which scribes changed that read exactly like the

Lord's Prayer in Matthew In other words scribes created harmonizations that were verbatim alike the prayer of Luke 23 However is not the same as a prayer in Acts 7 it appears then that it was not created by scribes wanting to harmonize two

Accounts is put there by Luke himself So Ehrman's position is that this is original and that in essence it derives from a growing anti -jewish polemic

In the second century and he uses this as an example a number of times

It's become one of his favorite examples. In fact to use Luke 23 34

Now so the question I would have for you is your conclusion Was not that at all

Okay, go ahead responses to that was then I'd like to get your responses First, you know some

I've argued though that because of the anti -judaic bias it actually argues for it it would you know support the interpolation because if If outweighed that is them the the antecedent who

Jesus is asking for, you know, forgiveness is the Roman soldiers The argument is that asking for forgiveness for the

Roman soldiers would bolster or reinforce Built upon the Jews, right? And so that's it.

That's a cut of all directions. Yeah, that's exactly it Once again, there's a subjective internal evidence cutting both directions.

So that's an interesting argument as well as you know Well, where is you know, okay, if there's anti -judaic tendencies in the

Western, uh, you know a tradition well Where is the interpolation found mostly in the

Western? So that's so you know Yeah, in other words there there

And this is really something that concerns me on a broader level and I'm trying to figure out in a very brief amount of time

I have left how to express this in a short edition to the second edition of King James only controversy, but I am concerned about the movement in in textual criticism that in essence and and I I recognize that looking at the the context of scribes and the life that they live and things like that is important, but I cannot read the minds of people who were transcribing texts 1 ,500 years ago and I have made some pretty silly errors

Sitting in an air -conditioned office with fluorescent lights at a computer that does spell -checking with LASIK surgery

I've made some pretty odd Transcriptional errors when I was copying something out of a book.

I didn't have to worry about the heat I didn't have to worry about the light. I wasn't writing with a quill. I was typing on a very nice modern computer

And it would be completely silly for someone to read into the errors that I made

Something about you know that derives from my theology or something like that. It didn't have anything to do with that at all it was just simply a mistake of my mind a

Distraction that had nothing to do with my cultural context or anything else, right? And so I I am rather Concerned when people today

Try to mind read people that we don't even know their names. We don't know what their theology was

We don't know what their interests were. We don't know if they're still thinking about some sort of bocce ball tournament

They had the night before with the other monks in the cave or something. We don't know we have no way of knowing

Yeah, go ahead Yeah, obviously

I had to deal with you know the in certain internal considerations and give a try to give some plausible reason for its excision, right and I Suggested that a plausible reason would be a numerical motivation.

That is right, but I highly qualified that by what I mean by numerical motivation is that The the symbolism numeric symbolism in the second century

And I know Hengel has argued that the four Gospels came together as the canonical as a unit by the mid second century and so it was very much in the mind of scribes how many things of Christ or were and You know the the seven things of Christ all the other six things of Christ have no textual doubt but you have six the number seven was

I mean that was To think of Jesus having seven or I mean six things on the cross

Seriously would have been sacrilegious It's not just well, you know, that's a unfavorable number.

It was there was a Motivation to to have you know, yeah seven perfect numbers and and so Now again,

I highly qualified that I had to give some plausible and there's maybe a couple other reasons you know how this made it into why a scribe would

You know bring this into the the text But that wasn't my argument.

My argument was the external evidence because that is highly subjective Yeah, and it's it's very difficult even with the alleged canons of Internal evidence shorter readings over longer readings of people argue that and say well, you're just picking one particular text type because of that that automatically gets rid of the

Byzantine and besides that there seems to be some evidence that especially the early papyri manuscripts were more tended toward Missing something than adding something in and so I mean people argue on both sides that once you get into this subjective area

You know Bart Ehrman can can weave his particular Context But the problem is we don't know that that's what the context was.

We have no way of knowing that that Any scribes that that touched this text were overly concerned about?

The whole issue of interpreting whether they've them Was only an application to that particular point in time and the soldiers at the foot of the cross or them as in Mankind them as in the

Jews all that stuff. Yeah, there may have been discussions of those things But how do we have how do we know that the particular scribes?

Themselves were a part of those discussions. We don't know that we we can assume it But we don't know that they they might have very different ideas

We might be very surprised if we went back in history and started talking these guys and discovered that their interests were completely different than what we thought they were and When that mind reading becomes the way you determine the text that really concerns me, especially when you have

The kind of external evidence that we have in this particular instance, and so I was looking for it here as I recall

Right toward here. We go the conclusion In essence you said in my estimation given the judgment of the weight of both the external internal support is

Reasonable to place about a seventy five to nine percent degree of probability the longer reading is an early scribal insertion into the transmission history now obviously

Just as with the letters that the UBS places on variants a b c d etc, etc

I think they got rid of these but anyway That is subjective in and of itself

You know the range you're giving it but you're going primarily with The external evidence at point and it seems like the primary weight that you come down on is there is such a wide distribution genealogically and geographically in the lack of the the reading

That that simply can't be ignored Right, and that yeah, that's what I concluded and I said my main paper was on external evidence

I dealt with internal considerations as well. And there's one thing though that I did not

Bring into my paper, which I actually was hoping you might be able to and I think this might be your interest as well

And I hope you can discuss this before time runs out and that is maybe some of the theological implications to this

Yeah, there are theological implications. There are major theological implications and I I think one of Let me back up just a moment.

I need to put this on the blog sometime I've been thinking about doing this for a long long time I'm sure accordance can do this and of course

Alan has been a longtime advocate of the Mac platform and I have only over the past month or so Rich is rolling it rolling his eyes.

No come to come to see the truth light and I have discovered the joys of computers that actually work, but Anyway, I don't know if accordance can do this

But in Bible works one of the things that I've set Bible works up to do is that when I have the various Greek texts if I have

The Byzantine platform I have the Nessie Island Maybe Stephanos or something like that Bible works can can put color and the bat in the background of words that vary from the standard text that you choose and so in other words when

I bring up the the Greek reading Panel or I'm reading the Greek and I have different versions

It will mark in each one where there's a variant in in the textual readings, which is extremely useful

Yeah, accordance has that. Well, in fact, I have that right up there and yeah, you're right. It's very useful.

You can see You don't even have to read the text You know if there's a variant and what's not a variant actually the nature of it exactly now

What's amazing to me is as I as I scroll through the text The vast majority of the text does not have any color in it

Yes, there are variants but the vast majority of the text is the same between all these printed editions of the

Greek New Testament They come from very different perspectives. And what that means is We get to the theological aspect of this.

I I remember it's amazing the things that stick in your mind from your youth I remember sitting in a class that my father was teaching

Back in Pennsylvania and we left Pennsylvania when I was 11. So somewhere around Eight nine ten years of age

I'm sitting in the back of a room and my dad's teaching on proper methods of interpretation and Don't ask me why a kid of my age would have remembered this but I remember him talking about textual variants and Emphasizing to us that there is no doctrine of the faith that is based upon a

Single verse the Bible that contains a textual variant and that further we should not base huge and expansive conclusions dogmas and doctrines and so on so forth on a text that has a

Meaningful textual variant within it now. I remember that as clear as day and that's what

Leads me to my conclusions on this particular subject and that is there a lot of folks Who will utilize this text?

Let's say aha. You see here is clear evidence that There is no specific elective will in God Because Jesus's prayer is just this general thing now.

I can't remember I'm sure someone has but in the general uses of this text that I have seen

There is this general assumption that this that our toys means the world in other words

The very very opposite of what the early scribes and textual scholars are talking about where they're going

Well, it's the Romans. Is it the Jews all of a sudden? It's just meant to be them

Everybody father forgive them for they know not what they're doing And sort of taken that way to mean aha

Here is the clear indication the only way that the father could forgive them is if the atonement is made for them and therefore that's what we need to do with this text and I had never seen anyone addressing this who

Started off by saying well, you know We need to be careful pushing this text to make that kind of conclusion in Light of the fact that there is a textual variant at this particular point.

I had never seen a I I'm not saying that I've read everything there is to say to read in Luke 23, but going through seminary and Reading lots of books on theology and things like that.

I had not run into that and So I think it's one of the first lessons that we need to probably take from that Yes, they do yes, yes they do

Because they they want to you know work that into this idea and so I Don't think

What I think we should do the text like this is we should start with the recognition That there is a serious question to be offered concerning the nature of this text itself.

It's not found Matthew It's not found mark. It's if obviously if there's a parallel text something like that that would make that would make a

Huge difference in how we read it But then we need to be very careful that as we read it

We look at it carefully. Who is the object? What is the purposes here, but we cannot come to a dogmatic conclusion

It says oh, yeah All that stuff in Ephesians 1 where there really isn't any serious textual variation whatsoever that that changes meaning and all that stuff in Romans 9 whether again, there isn't a serious text over and it changes me we get to throw all that out

Because of our particular understanding of what out toys is and the reading of Jesus prayer in Luke 23

So I think that's where we need to be very careful Yeah, it's uh, yeah this variant in that like you said most pastors may not even

Are aware of this but it is interesting to note though real quick that Mel Gibson in his in his head

We had filmed the passion of Christ places these words on Jesus's lips not once but twice but twice

And so I find that kind of a little bit ironic. Yeah. Well, I'm sure I'm certain that Mel is probably unaware of the text

But yeah, well Alan, thank you very much for joining us in the program. That was a fast hour, wasn't it?

Well, that was the fastest hour that I've had in a long time We could talk Friday for another hour

We probably could but I think most of people in the audience would not be listening So no, but we did when you get to textual critical freaky talking, you know, they'll talk forever as you are right now

We're out of time. We'll see you on Tuesday. God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

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