Christian apologists say that our copies of the New Testament are backed by early manuscript evidence.

Not really. I’ve responded to that argument in depth here, but let’s revisit the argument visually.

Matthew manuscripts

Here’s the manuscript data for Matthew. Start at year 1 at the bottom of the chart. The years advance moving up, along the left side.

The crucifixion is at about 30 CE, and Matthew was written in about 80. The reddish bar representing this original Matthew, the document we’re trying to recreate, is at year 80 (on the left side). That bar is 1071 verses wide (see the verse count along the bottom).

Moving up the chart, the first manuscript data point is at the year 150, papyrus #104 (P104) with 7 verses.

Next are three more small manuscripts containing 9, 5, and 10 verses, dated to roughly 200.

At the year 250, we have four more, including Matthew’s largest early manuscript, P45, which has 62 verses.

In 300, we get four more, including our first uncial manuscript, U171, which has 15 verses.

(The oldest New Testament manuscripts are categorized as papyrus [written on papyrus] and uncials [written on parchment using capital Greek letters]. Minuscules [small Greek letters on parchment] and lectionaries [Bible selections used for church services] are additional categories, but those manuscripts aren’t old enough to be on our list.)

Finally, at the top, is Codex Sinaiticus from about 350 CE, which is our oldest complete New Testament.

There are lots more manuscripts containing Matthew, but none older than these. This is the data that attempts to support the argument that our copies of Matthew were built on a reliable foundation of early manuscript evidence.

These 12 pre-Sinaiticus manuscripts were once complete copies of Matthew, but time has eroded them down to just this. What would we learn about Matthew and the volatile message of the early church if these 12 manuscripts were complete? What would we learn if we had every early manuscript copy of Matthew? There might have been dozens. Maybe hundreds.

This chart helps illustrate what little we have to go on when trying to narrow the 300-year gap from originals to the fourth-century codices like Sinaiticus. New Testament scholars do impressive work when finding the likely earliest reading from contradicting sources, but they’re putting together a jigsaw puzzle that has all the pieces but no certainty that any of those pieces are correct. Seen another way, suppose a new papyrus fragment were uncovered that had the vocabulary of a Christian document but didn’t match any known New Testament or noncanonical document. Who’s to say that that’s not actually part of the New Testament but in so early and different a form that we just don’t recognize it?

Finally, let me repeat two caveats. The dates are just educated guesses, and the copies are fragmentary. P45, a few pages of which are shown above, doesn’t contain 62 complete verses of Matthew but contains fragments of 62 verses.

Manuscripts of Paul’s epistles

Let’s look at another section of the New Testament, the seven authentic Pauline epistles, and we’ll find a slightly different story. These epistles are Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon.

The big difference is P46, which has ninety percent of the verses in these 7 letters. While that’s an important contribution, let’s not read too much in it. Instead of one large early manuscript, as with Matthew, we have two for Paul. Remember that the apologist bragging point that started this series of posts was, “There are 25,000 New Testament manuscripts, making it the most reliable ancient document!” It doesn’t really work that way in practice, when only a handful of the oldest manuscripts form the Greek core that is used to make a modern translation.

As discussed in that earlier post, four manuscripts (P45, P46, P66, and P75) are early and large enough to give new insights into the complete New Testament that we have with Sinaiticus. Another 65 manuscripts that also precede Sinaiticus are useful but tiny (some can be seen in the charts above).

Acknowledgement: a thoughtful suggestion from long-time commenter epeeist pushed me to analyze the data visually.

Related posts:

• New Testament Manuscript Reliability Less Than You’ve Been Told
• 25,000 New Testament Manuscripts? Big Deal.
• How Long from Original New Testament Books to Oldest Copies?
• A Simple Thought Experiment Defeats Claim that Bible Is Accurate

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Image from Wikimedia, public domain
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What do you call the magic words and curses, relics and charms, prophecies, potions, divination, numerology, and more that godly people have (and still do) use? How about “magic”?

In this conclusion, we’ll look at curses, magic words, divination, and numerology used by the players in the Christian story. (Part 1 here).

Curses

God cursed Cain (Genesis 4:11). Noah cursed the descendants of Ham (Gen. 9:25). Elisha cursed the boys who insulted his bald head (2 Kings 2:23–4). Jesus cursed a fig tree (Mark 11:14).

The Psalms are full of curses on enemies. Here’s a fragment from Psalm 109.

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.

May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

And on and on it goes. Fun fact: these old curses can be dusted off and used today. (In polite company, these are called “imprecatory prayers”—so much nicer than “curses.”) For example, pastor Wiley Drake in 2009 publicly declared that he called down a curse on President Obama. That’s right—he asked God to kill President Obama. The assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller weeks earlier had been, in his mind, an answer to his prayers. Jesus does talk about turning the other cheek, but who has time for that when there’s righteous smiting to be done?

I suppose the logic is, if you can pray for good things for people, why not bad things? And if you can imagine that prayers for good might nudge the Almighty to grant your wish, you can imagine the same for the prayers for bad. There’s no need to feel bound by the ordinary laws of nature when Jesus promised, “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12).

More on prayer here.

Magic words

Then there are words of the “abracadabra” variety. For example, God spoke the universe into existence (“Let there be light,” etc.). Jesus healed Lazarus with words. The gospel of Mark, written in Greek, carefully noted the Aramaic words Jesus used to heal a mute man (7:33–5) and raise a dead girl (5:35–42).

Missionary John Chau’s personal introduction to the Sentinelese people, “My name is John, I love you, and Jesus loves you,” was in English, which suggests that he was hoping for divine assistance. Perhaps he wanted the magical eloquence that God promised Moses when Moses protested against public speaking (Exodus 4:12).

We find the idea of magic words in English when we say “God bless you” after a sneeze (originally, a shield against evil). “Goodbye” originally meant “God be with ye,” expressing the wish that God keep you safe on your journey.

Divination

This is the “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” category. Several Bible passages tell us that sorcery and related arts are forbidden:

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. (Deuteronomy 18:10–11)

The story of the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28) also paints witches in a bad light.

And yet the Bible also speaks favorably about divination. Joseph foretold the future by interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams (Genesis 41), and we learn that he could read the future by scrying with a silver cup (Gen. 44:5). The high priest used the Urim and Thummim, magic stones that divined God’s will (Exodus 28:30, Numbers 27:21, 1 Samuel 14:41–2). The disciples of Jesus cast lots (cleromancy) to determine the successor to Judas (Acts 1:26).

Numerology

Nutty Harold Camping believed in numerology, the idea that numbers have magical meaning. He predicted that the end of the world would happen on May 21, 2011, which was, by his reckoning, (5 × 10 × 17)² days after the crucifixion. That number may seem like an odd bit of trivia, but Brother Camping used the biblical pairing of numbers with meaning.

Do you remember on what day God rested after creating the world? It was the seventh day, and 7 is the number of completion. Noah’s 40 days and 40 nights of rain? The number for a long period of time is 40, and we see it in Jesus’s temptation in the desert (40 days) and the Israelites’ wandering in the Sinai (40 years).

Back to Harold Camping: biblical numerologists say that 5 = atonement, 10 = completion, and 17 = heaven, so the number of days from crucifixion to May 21, 2011 was (atonement × completion × heaven) squared. (Events didn’t work out as Camping planned.)

A few years ago, Paula White decided that the verse du jour was 1 Chronicles 22:9. This verse was particularly important because 229 would (in dollars) make a nice stretch goal for her followers. So she spun that verse into an appeal for $229, ignoring that the division of the Bible into chapters and verses wasn’t done by the original authors and is in fact a fairly recent addition (verses were first labeled in the mid-1500s and chapters a few centuries before that).

Conclusion

And there’s more.

• Jesus commanded demons, and some denominations do exorcisms today.
• Holy water acts like a potion.
• The laying of hands onto a sick or possessed person is thought to have magical power in some denominations.
• Moses and Aaron got into a magic contest with Pharaoh’s magicians, and once the ten plagues started, the magicians even tried to duplicate them (Exodus 7:22).

And so on.

How is an imprecatory prayer different from an incantation? How is a miracle different from magic? Calling supernatural results “miracles” for God and Friends and “magic” for everyone else is just a groundless Christian conceit. You can define the words that way, but know that that’s an expression of your agenda and not how Merriam-Webster defines them.

This is another instance of Judaism and Christianity looking pretty much the same as all the other religions. Yes, the Bible has its own unique take on magic, but none of this is fundamentally new. The Bible borrows the magical ideas from related religions. If all religions were manmade except for Christianity, Bible magic wouldn’t look like that of neighboring religions.

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Image from Leonardo Yip, CC license
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John Chau, the missionary who was killed a few weeks ago by the inhabitants of a small island in the Indian Ocean, was arguably brave and selfless in his desire to spread the gospel. The tragedy was that his sacrifice was for nothing, even within a Christian context. The Great Commission, the charge Jesus gave to spread the gospel, wasn’t given to him. In fact, it wasn’t given to anyone now living, and the Bible makes that clear.

Here are six reasons why Christians should ignore the Great Commission.

1. Jesus wasn’t talking to you.

Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), but he was speaking to his disciples. Don’t flatter yourself—you’re not Luke or Peter or John.

Some might assume Jesus had more in mind. After all, he had to be thinking about who would carry on the evangelical task. Who would take up the challenge in the next generation and the next? The answer: nobody. Jesus wasn’t thinking about Christian evangelism centuries in the future. He saw the end within the lifetimes of his hearers.

Other chapters in the Bible make clear that Jesus was not addressing today’s Christian. An earlier commission also charges the disciples to spread the word, but this time Jesus gave them superpowers. They had “authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness” (Matthew 10:1).

Jesus also said to his disciples, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). Binding means to forbid and loosing means to permit, both by an indisputable authority. We see something similar in another gospel, a power you’d think would be reserved for God himself: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:23).

If the commission comes with superhuman powers to help carry it out but Christians today weren’t given those powers, then they probably weren’t given the commission either.

2. Christian leaders acknowledge the difference.

The Bible shows the disciples performing healing miracles. The book of Acts has Paul healing a lame man, Ananias curing blindness, and Peter raising the dead. “Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles” (Acts 2:43). In John, Jesus said, “He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.”

Another aspect of miracles is the amazing claims made for prayer. In Matthew, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” In Mark, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

But it doesn’t work that way for Christians today, and everyone knows it. Christians can’t reliably heal, and prayer doesn’t “work” like a light switch or a car works. To get out of this bind, Christian apologists sometimes sidestep the problem by saying that times have changed, and these remarkable abilities were available only to the disciples.

That works, but then the Great Commission reasonably falls into the same category. Only the disciples had these amazing abilities, and only the disciples were given the burden of the Great Commission.

3. You can’t have confidence that your interpretation is correct

Christianity has 45,000 denominations, and it’s budding off new ones at a rate of two per day. There are a lot of fundamental doctrines that separate these denominations. You may be confident in the rightness of your views on those important matters, but you can have no certainty that you’re right. There is no objectively correct way to interpret the Bible. When your Christian views differ from your neighbor’s, how can you prove which one is right? How can you insist that yours are correct?

4. It’s not everyone’s job to evangelize

Paul says that we have different gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4–11). Yours isn’t necessarily to evangelize. And don’t take on the teaching role lightly: “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1).  

5. When the Bible makes a crazy demand, Christians ignore the demand

Christians casually dismiss aspects of the Bible that don’t translate well into modern Western society—God’s support for slavery, polygamy, genocide, human sacrifice, and so on. The Bible makes God’s position clear, but loftier principles override the Bible, and Christians (correctly) take the sensible approach where there are conflicts. If pushing your beliefs on others also doesn’t feel right, maybe that’s because it isn’t.

And what’s the point of evangelization anyway? Fundamentalists will tell you that it’s the Holy Spirit that does the work, not your evangelization, “so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Surely the omnipotent Holy Spirit has the capability to save souls and isn’t constrained by what people do or don’t do.

6. There’s no need for the Great Commission

Christians have been told that it’s their duty to save people. Just imagine if your neighbor went to hell simply because you were too lazy to convince him that he was a broken sinner who needed what your church was selling.

Paul makes clear that this fear is unfounded. Comparing the symmetry of Adam’s sin with Jesus’s sacrifice, Paul said, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). The price has been paid, so you’re good.

We see a similar attitude in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. The King gives eternal life to those who lived honorable lives on earth. Evangelism and mandatory beliefs aren’t necessary.

Christians, discard the great baggage of the Great Commission. There’s work enough to just live your life as a good Christian. If someone asks, you can give the “reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).

If you want to more closely follow the lead of Jesus, he spoke at length about helping the disadvantaged. That’s a charge that makes a lot more sense.

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 2/2/15.)

Image from Wikipedia, public domain
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In response to a list of biblical rules for a real man, let’s scour the Bible for more rules (part 1). If the original conservative agenda can guide a selection of rules, then anyone can play the game. Here’s the continuation of our list of 10 More Traits of Real Men.

5. Real men can personally perform miracles

Jesus made clear that his miracles were just the beginning.

Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these (John 14:12).

We see something similar with the Great Commission. It’s pretty clear that Jesus wasn’t giving it to ordinary Christians today but rather the apostles, but for Christians who imagine that Jesus was talking to them, they should expect to get “authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness” (Matthew 10:1) and the authority to decide which sins can be forgiven (John 20:23).

6a. Real men insist that their sassy children be stoned to death

The Bible says that there’s nothing wrong with a good thrashing (“Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being,” Proverbs 20:30), but it gets a lot worse than that.

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die (Deuteronomy 21:18–21).

That’s effective! I can’t imagine the son misbehaves after that.

6b. Real men stone non-virgins, too

And by “virgin,” of course, we’re talking about virgin women. Virginal purity isn’t a thing for men—and how fortunate for you gentlemen out there! The Bible has a kind of honesty-in-advertising guideline for women. Fathers, if you offer your daughter as a virgin and she isn’t as advertised, you’ll have to take her back:

[If] the tokens of virginity be not found for the bride, then they shall bring her to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die (Deuteronomy 22:20–21).

The good news is that the problem of feeding another mouth has been addressed.

7. Real men take sex slaves

Israelite forces were successful in battle against Midian. They killed all the men, destroyed all their towns, and returned with women, children, livestock, and other plunder, but Moses greeted them with anger. He said, in effect, “What part of ‘kill everyone’ did you not understand?!” His resolution of the problem:

[Now] kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man (Numbers 31:17–18).

 8. Real men never sin

We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them (1 John 5:18; see also 1 John 3:6, 3:9).

9. Real men abandon reason and evidence

The Bible is supposed to be confusing, didn’t you know? Here’s Jesus praying to God:

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children (Matthew 11:25).

It’s best to check your brains at the door and just have faith:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5–6).

10. Real men keep slaves

But of course real men conduct slavery in a godly way, and the Bible is a helpful resource. For example, can you keep slaves for life?

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life (Leviticus 25:44–6).

Slaves need to know their place, but how much punishment is too much?

Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property (Exodus 21:20–21).

We find support in the New Testament as well:

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh (1 Peter 1:18).

Hallelujah! How thoughtful of God to clarify. More.

And, of course, there’s more. A real man doesn’t mix things like wool and linen or two different crops in a field, and he doesn’t yoke together different animals like an ox with a donkey (Deuteronomy 22:9–11). A real man doesn’t put up with mixed-race marriages (Deut. 7:3, 23:3). And so on.

Admittedly, I’m picking verses following a let’s-make-the-Bible-look-foolish agenda, but that’s no less honest than the original article’s conservative Christian agenda. The Bible’s wisdom doesn’t look so timeless when you imagine it applied today.

To any Christians annoyed at my list, I encourage them to stop having such a hateful holy book.

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Image from TK Hammonds, CC license
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What makes a “real man”? We’ve all seen light-hearted rules like real men don’t cry, real men don’t eat quiche, real men don’t let other men eat quiche, and so on. James Dobson’s Family Talk site has a page that claims to have God’s rules for how to be a true man of God. The author summarizes the goal this way: “My wife and kids need a real man, not some wimpy guy that rides the ever-changing cultural tides of our times.”

Here’s that list, built on the rock of the Bible.

God’s Real Man List

1. Real men don’t leave their wives. See Ephesians 5:25-32, Mark 10:9, Job 31:1
2. Real men honor their wives as co-heirs. See 1 Peter 3:7
3. Real men teach their children God’s ways (both in word and in action). See Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Ephesians 6:4, Psalm 78:5-7
4. Real men build into the lives of other men. See Proverbs 27:17
5. Real men don’t use their words to demean others. See Ephesians 4:29
6. Real men don’t let their anger get away from them. See James 1:19-20
7. Real men lead best when they love most. See Ephesians 5:1-2; John 13:34-35
8. Real men are sacrificial for the sake of their Lord, family, and others. See John 15:13
9. Real men are servants. See Mark 10:45
10. Real men can show their emotions (this includes crying). See John 11:35, Matthew 21:12, Matthew 9:36

But why this list? Don’t forget that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). You really can’t go wrong when pulling Iron Age biblical examples into the 21st century, amirite, Dr. Dobson?

So, with that wind of certitude filling our sails, let’s look further in the Bible to see what else it says and make a new list, 10 More Traits of Real Men.

1. Real men don’t get married

The list above has at least two rules about men’s relationship with their wives, but Paul had no use for marriage:

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry (1 Corinthians 7:8–9).

You can rationalize this one away by saying that Paul wrongly thought that the End was coming soon, but what’s left of your faith when you must say that the books of the New Testament are seriously wrong?

2. Real men listen to God over common-sense morality

God made some crazy demands in the Bible. Christians, what would it take for God to convince you to accept a modern equivalent of these demands?

• Abraham accepted God’s demand that he sacrifice his son Isaac (more).
• After discovering the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf, Moses commanded the Levites to punish fellow Israelites: “Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor,” and 3000 were killed (Exodus 32:26–29).
• God demanded human sacrifice: “The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal” (Exodus 13:2). More.
• God demanded that Babylon be punished, with the Israelites as executioners: “Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished” (Isaiah 13:15–16).
• God demanded genocide. He said that within the tribes that must be destroyed, “you shall not leave alive anything that breathes” (Deuteronomy 20:16–18) and that, for the Amalekites, Israel should “put to death men and women, children and infants” (1 Samuel 15:2–3). More here, here, and here.

I realize that we’re made in God’s image and that our sense of morality should line up with God’s, but forget that. A real man does what God says, regardless of how it immoral it seems.

3. Real men know that daughters can be sacrificed

In his younger days, God wasn’t omniscient, so he had to send scouts to Sodom to verify the rumors he’d heard. Lot protected these angels from the angry mob eager to teach these strangers who’s boss by raping them. Lot is portrayed as a godly man, though he doesn’t look very godly after he offered his two virgin daughters to the mob as a rape substitute. More.

4. Real men throw the first stone if their friend or relative strays

Suppose a friend suggests that you worship another God. Now imagine that it’s your best friend, or that it’s a family member, maybe a child or your wife. How should you respond?

Forget that freedom of religion is protected by the U.S. Constitution; things work differently in the Bible’s little world.

Do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God (Deuteronomy 13:6–11; see also Deut. 32:41–2, Exodus 22:20).

Concluded in part 2.

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Image from Victor B., CC license
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This Bible quiz is a guest post from long-time commenter avalon. He put together another one a few months ago here.

I got a poor score, but I learned a lot. Take the quiz and see how you do.

Questions

1. What price did David pay to marry King Saul’s daughter?

2. What is the significance of God walking between the animals that were cut in two during His covenant with Abram?

3. Why did Paul mention a rock that followed the Israelites in the desert?

[Our ancestors during the Exodus] drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:4)

4. Which prophet compared the male genitals of Egyptians to donkeys and horses?

5. After Noah’s ark landed, Genesis refers to the arc of color appearing in the sky as a rain-bow. If God had a “bow,” what would his arrows be?

Continue for the answers: