Modern (Evangelical Protestant) New Testament Scholarship vs. Christina Darlington

In her book, Misguided by Mormonism, Christina Darlington provides a table entitled “A Comparison of the New Testament Manuscripts with That of Other Ancient Works”:

AUTHOR	BOOK	DATE WRITTEN	EARLIEST COPY	TIME GAP	NO. OF COPIES
Homer	Iliad	800 B.C.	400 B.C.	400 years	643
Herodotus	History	480-425 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,350 years	8
Plato	The Republic	400 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,300 years	7
Caesar	Gallic Wars	100-44 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,000 years	10
Livy	History of Rome	59 B.C. – 17 A.D.	4th century (partial) mostly 10th century	400 years 1,000 years	1 partial 19 copies
Tacitus	Annals	100 A.D.	1100 A.D.	1,000 years	20
Pliny Secundus	Natural History	61-113 A.D.	850 A.D.	750 years	7
New Testament		500-100 A.D.	114 A.D. (fragments) 200 A.D. (full books) 250 A.D. (most NT) 325 A.D. (complete NT)	+50 years 100 years 150 years 225 years	5366

Source: Christina Darlington, Misguided by Mormonism But Redeemed by God’s Grace: Leaving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for Biblical Christianity (2d ed.; 2019), 221.

Darlington, due to her uncritical acceptance of pop-level apologists (e.g., Geisler; McDowell; Turek) and ignorance of solid New Testament scholarship, even among those within her own belief-system (Protestantism), is repeating falsehoods.  This disconnect is shown when one reads Darlington's book and one recent volume by Evangelical Protestant scholars, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (InterVarsity, 2019), which I will use exclusively in this blog post.

Issue #1: The Number of Manuscripts of Non-Biblical Texts

James B. Prothro (basing his comments on the work of another Evangelical, Clay Jones in his article “The Bibliographical Test Updated”) wrote the following about how disingenuous the argument by Darlington and other pop-level apologists truly are:

Regarding the number of manuscripts themselves, a few examples will suffice. For Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Jones counts not ten so Bruce) but 251 manuscripts. Again, it is far less than the manuscript attestation for the Gospels, so the comparison’s basic point remains, but 251 is a far cry from ten! Likewise, Orr Ewing (and others) cite Plato as attested by only seven manuscripts, when there are again over two hundred. Perhaps the biggest gap in terms of numbers comes with Homer. Several writers state that the Iliad has only 643 manuscripts. Jones shows that internet searches (in 2012) reveal this to be a popular statistic on websites defending the New Testament’s reliability (though notably not websites devoted to Homer). Where precisely authors have gotten this count is not always transparent; it may have come from Bruce M. Metzger, who in a 1963 essay cited numbers that add up to 643 manuscripts for the Iliad.

Though the source is credible and the argument is popular, Metzger’s 1963 numbers are now simply inaccurate. Martin West, editor of the most recent Teubner edition of the Iliad, discusses 1,569 papyri in his monograph on that epic’s text (published in 2001) (Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001]). Indeed, since West’s monograph, more papyri have been edited and published, some quite old (most dating to the first two centuries on either side of the common era). This in addition to nearly two hundred nonpapyri (parchment and paper) manuscripts for the Iliad, increases the number of manuscripts by well over a thousand. (James B. Prothro, “Myths About Classical Literature: Responsibly Comparing the New Testament to Ancient Works,” in Elijah Hixson and Peter J. Gurry, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2019], 70-89, here, pp. 75-76; Jones’ article discusses the other authors from antiquity in Darlington’s list, too)

With respect to the table Darlington produces, Clay Jones (himself a conservative Protestant and, I am sure, no friend of “Mormonism”) produced a corrected table at the end of his aforementioned article. I will reproduce it here (albeit, only with the authors Darlington’s table produced) to serve as a comparison (note the great disparities between the Old and New figures):

Author	Work	Date Written	Earliest MSS	Time Gap	Old #	New
Homer	Iliad	800 BC	c. 400 BC	400	643	1,757
Herodotus	History	480–425 BC	10th C	1,350	8	109
Plato	Tetralogies	400 BC	895	1,300	7	210
Caesar	Gallic Wars	100-44 BC	9th C	950	10	251
Livy	History of Rome	59 BC–AD 17	Early 5th C	400	1 Partial,   19 copies	150
Tacitus	Annals	AD 100	1st half:850, 2nd: 1050 (AD 1100)	750–950	20	2 + 31 15th C
Pliny, the Elder	Natural History	AD 49–79	5th C fragment: 1;  Rem. 14–15th C	400 (750)	7	200
NT		AD 50–100	AD 130 (or less)	40	5,366	5,795

Issue #2: Counting Manuscripts of the New Testament

Jacob W. Peterson, commenting on how many of his fellow co-religionists (as well as even trained scholars therein) count manuscripts, wrote:

When it comes to the number of manuscripts, the New Testament documents are in rarefied company among the wider world of classical authors. As a general rule there are more of them, many are earlier, and they tend to be more complete. But the bulk, while more complete, are not early. The early ones are typically fragmentary and few in number. What should we make of the numbers? Are they meaningful? Are the numbers useful?

Authors who appeal to the number of New Testament manuscripts often get into trouble because of a lack of nuance or by overstating what the numbers actually mean and represent. Variations of the following quote appear repeatedly in the popular literature: “Two factors are most important in determining the reliability of a historical document: the number of manuscript copies in existence, and the time between when it was first written and the oldest existing copy” (Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, Don’t Chuck Your Brains at the Door [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011). These authors go on to cite the “24000+” manuscripts of the New Testament as sure proof its reliability.

Aside from the conflation of textual reliability with historical reliability, such claims commit the logical fallacy of assuming that a larger number and an earlier date necessarily equate to more reliability. The lack of qualification for the manuscript counts is a recurring issue as well. The problem typically occurs when the New Testament is compared to other classical works with respect to the number of manuscripts and the date of the earliest copy. For the New Testament, numbers from five thousand to twenty-five thousand are given, depending on what the author includes, and a date in the early second century is reported. This is usually followed by a summary, such as that of Norm Geisler: “No other book is even a close second to the Bible on either the number or early dating of the copies” (Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013], 345).

The problem is that, even when the number and dates of the manuscripts are right, the claims typically lack crucial context about the chronological distribution of the manuscripts, the fragmentary nature of the earliest manuscripts, and the unequal representation of some parts of the New Testament in the manuscripts. (Jacob W. Peterson, “Math Myths: How Many Manuscripts We Have and Why More Isn’t Always Better,” Myths and Mistakes, 48-69, here, pp. 48-49)

Peterson concludes his chapter thusly:

 . . .I want to offer a few points about how to approach and make use of the number of manuscripts in teaching, apologetics, or any context dealing with the nonspecialist . . .
Don’t count noses. There are two ways to interpret the number of manuscripts responsibly when it comes to the reliability of the New Testament text. On the one hand, a large majority of manuscripts are text-critically unnecessary for establishing the original text,  producing no more noticeable effect than a pebble in the ocean. On the other hand, it is precisely this lack of effect that is important when judging reliability. If the bulk of the papyri discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century and all other manuscripts since then have not resulted in major revisionists of our critical editions, then this attests to a remarkably stable text that can reliably be reconstructed even without them. The typical newly discovered manuscript is therefore more likely to be both statistically insignificant and confirmatory of a reliable text. It is important to note that confirming a text as reliable is distinct from making it more reliable. The latter is certainly reliant on the manuscript evidence, but when manuscripts cease contributing new information it is dependent wholly on method.

Use round numbers. The second point is to be content with round numbers. Using round numbers, such as fifty-three hundred, suggested in this chapter, is prudent for a number of reasons. All of the complicating factors outlined above make attempts at precision a needlessly tedious task that is almost certain to end in error. Even fifty-three hundred is potentially generous. If the rate of error in cataloguing the majuscules is consistent for every category of manuscripts, then fifty-one hundred is a better approximation. The reason for bumping up the number to fifty-three hundred from fifty-one hundred is that minuscules and lectionaries are less affected than majuscules by the problem of double counting. This is because they tend to be less fragmentary, and therefore there is less likelihood that two or more pieces might be held in different libraries and be given different GA numbers. However, minuscule and lectionaries are still subject to fires and floods, being misplaced, being sold into obscurity, and being incorrectly added to the catalog. Returning to why using a round number is sufficient, it needs to be remembered that finding one more minuscule is not going to convince someone Christianity is true.

Be clear about manuscripts’ (limited) apologetic value. This brings us to the final point, which is the importance of understanding what manuscripts can and cannot do. In the negative, manuscripts alone cannot prove the truth of Christianity. What manuscripts can do is provide evidence of a reliable text. A reliable text attested by thousands of manuscripts is just that: a reliable text. But a reliable text is not a guarantee of reliable content. Just as a reliable text of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War still requires interpretation and verification to assess its historicity, so does the New Testament. Having a reliable enough text is undoubtedly important, because without it arguing for the accuracy of its material would be impossible. Yet providing arguments for the trustworthiness of a text’s actual claims is not something with which textual criticism can help. Those types of important arguments must come from other fields of inquiry. (Ibid., 67-69)

The following comments from Daniel Wallace are apropos about the disconnect between scholarship and pop-level apologetics (exemplified by Darlington in her book):

Apologists have had a tendency to regurgitate other apologetic works, which in turn are based on other apologetic works. Meanwhile, the scholarship that is supposedly behind the popular declarations in many an evangelical trade book is out of date, misunderstood, or simply ignored.

A classic example of the disconnect between scholarship and apologetics is how textual variants are (mis)counted.  A steady stream of apologists for more than half a century have been claiming that variants are counted by wording differences multiplied by manuscripts attesting them. Neil Lightfoot’s How We God the Bible, a book first published in 1963 and now in its third edition with more than a million copies sold, seems to be the major culprit. Lightfoot claims:

From one point of view it may be said that there are 200,000 scribal errors in the manuscripts, but it is wholly misleading and untrue to say that there are 200,000 errors in the text of the New Testament. This large number is gained by counting all the variations in all of the manuscripts (about 4,500). This means that if, for example, one word is misspelled in 4,000 different manuscripts, it amounts to 4,000 “errors.” Actually, in a case of this kind only one slight error has been made and it has been copied 4,000 times. But this is the procedure which is followed in arriving at the large number of 200,000 “errors.” (Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1963], 53-54).

The only problem with this statement is that it is completely wrong . . textual critics “are not counting the numbers of manuscripts that attest a variant; we are counting the number of variants attested by our manuscripts.” If variants were actually counted the way Lightfoot suggests, the number of variants among the Greek New Testament manuscripts would be in terms of millions. (Daniel B. Wallace, “Foreword,” Myths and Mistakes, xiii, emphasis in original; see Wallace’s article on his blog, “The Number of Textual Variants—An Evangelical Miscalculation”)

Issue #3: The Dating of P52

Darlington claims that the NT is attested (albeit, in fragmentary form) around 140 A.D. This, of course, assumes that the text in question (P52--Darlington does not mention this text, but this is considered to be the earliest fragment of the NT [here, from the Gospel of John]). Notwithstanding, the commonly accepted view (one I used to hold, too, admittedly) of it dating c. 125-150 A.D. is simply wrong. As Elijah Hixon notes:

More recently, other manuscript specialists have rejected the AD 100-150 date for P52. Don Barker, a papyrologist at Macquarie University, writes, “It is difficult to place [P52] in a very narrow time period,” and he assigns P52 to anywhere in the second or third centuries (“The Dating of New Testament Papyri,” NTS 57, no. 4 [2011]:574-75). Barker continues, “This may be unsatisfactory for those who would like to locate [P52] in a narrower time frame but the palaeographical evidence will not allow it” (Ibid., 575). Christian Askeland cites Nongbri and Barker’s work with approval, condemning “indefensible arguments for ridiculously early dates of various New Testament papyri” in his own article on the difficulties of paleographic dating (“Dating Early Greek and Coptic Literary Hands”).

Whether or not Nongbri and Barker are correct that P52 could be as late as the third century, they are absolutely correct that dates of circa AD 125 or 150 are too early. (Elijah Hixon, “Dating Myths, Part One: How We Determine The Ages of Manuscripts,” Myths and Mistakes, 90-109, here, pp. 103-4)

Conclusion

As we have seen, while impressive at first blush, when examined in light of scholarship and history facts, Darlington's table is based on sloppy research and an uncritical acceptance, not of serious scholarship by even her fellow Protestant scholars, but pop-level apologetics. Imagine if a Latter-day Saint were to do something like this--critics would (correctly) argue that the apologetic was intellectually lazy and disingenuous. And so it is with Christina Darlington--these, and other arguments she makes in her book are proofs that she is clearly no expert on "Mormonism," the Bible, and a host of other topics she falsely presents herself to be. See the listing of articles on this blog refuting Darlington's book at:

Listing of Responses to Christina R. Darlington's "Misguided by Mormonism"