Did Early Christians Corrupt the Bible? Answering Origen's Quote

[00:00:00]Everybody knows about Origins quote.

[00:00:02]It's it's been around for a long long time. Let me give you the broader statement of what Origin says. This is in his commentary on Matthew, specifically Matthew 19:19.

[00:00:14]This is about the rich young ruler who comes to see Jesus. And uh it's talking about what you need to obey. And he talks about uh honor your father and your mother and love your neighbor as yourself. Now, that's different from what Mark has, but Origin had problems when the Gospels don't say exactly the same thing. And what's interesting is the most ubiquitous textual variant we have are variants that occur between Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Because they're all using the same source, at least one source. Matthew and Luke both used Mark and they also used a different source that's called Q which could be oral tradition or written. I think it's a combination of both. But the general consensus of New Testament scholars is that Mark's gospel was written first and Matthew and Luke changed some things because they were authors. Luke, he did it from spending two years in Palestine while Paul was an accessory in prison before he went to Rome. And so he's interviewing people.

[00:01:23]He talked to Mary. He talked to other people, I'm sure. So, uh, he's going to get this from the eyewitnesses. He was a good historian. [snorts] Mark gets it from Peter. The ancient church unanimously said Mark got his gospel from Peter's messages. And Peter would repeat these over and over and over again in different settings. One scholar pointed out, let's say Peter gave 16 messages a month. one for each chapter of Mark.

[00:01:54]And let's say Mark's gospel wasn't published for say um 30 years.

[00:02:02]Well, how many times would Peter have said the same story? So, every year it's a dozen. Then you multiply that by 30.

[00:02:11]So, you know, it's it's a it's probably about what 360 times he's saying the same story over and over again. And it's not to people who could not read. Uh the Jews were far far more literate than has been uh mentioned before as were the Greeks and Romans. But we won't get into that. That's a that's a different issue.

[00:02:33]Okay. So uh let me give you the the full context and then I'll just go through rapidly some key points about this.

[00:02:41]It's this is a blanket charge that skeptics love to use against the careful careful copying of the New Testament.

[00:02:49]But do they give examples? Hardly ever.

[00:02:53]And here's the quote in context. But it is clear that the differences between the copies have become numerous. Either from the shoddy work, this is a more modern translation of copious or from wicked recklessness of some. either in neglecting to correct what is written or even in adding or removing things based on their own opinions when they do correct. We discovered that the disagreements between copies of the Old Covenant. He's talking about the Old Testament are cleared up if God grants it when we use the other versions as criterion. The Hebrew Bible was translated into Syriak and Greek and other ancient versions very very early on. And then he goes on, he says, 'We marked some passages with an obelisk since they do not appear in the Hebrew text. We added other passages and marked them with asterisks that it might be clear that they do not appear in the Septuagent, but were added by us from the other translations in agreement with the Hebrew text. Now, what he's talking about here specifically is his major work, the Hexipla. Have you heard of the Hexipla?

[00:03:58]>> I haven't.

[00:04:00]It's hexopl implies that it's seven different versions of something. This was his life's work to look at seven different um versions each one in a different language for the Old Testament. We don't have any complete copies of the hex. We have pages here and there and that's it. But uh it wasn't copied because it was massive, absolutely massive document. Now, uh, what we do know though is it's the most minute details that Origin got frustrated at that the manuscripts disagreed on these things. He was I I won't uh it's it's really the best term to use for him. He was anal. and he's a a detailed scholar, great scholar, but he was very anal in terms of sometimes he'd miss the forest for the trees and he'd be looking at um uh just the details that that irked him. Now, one of those details when it comes to the New Testament is the gospels where they have different wording for things. And Origin said sometimes people make up these readings on the spot. Well, he made one up also about the um Legion, the the man who was suffered with a couple thousand demons in him.

[00:05:17]>> Mhm.

[00:05:17]>> Um [clears throat] and anyway, that's so we do have these kinds of changes, but it's interesting. We know that origin did this. We have these early scholars who write commentaries. They talk about variance. So we know uh very early on from these various church fathers going all the way back to the second century about the variance.

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