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.
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)
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"