Is there a Definitive New Testament?

Is there such a thing as a definitive New Testament? By definitive I mean to say a Greek New Testament that is “most nearly complete and accurate, [and] authoritative.”¹ That is to ask, is there a version of the Greek New Testament that serves as the standard to which translations in all languages are compared for accuracy?

            Actually, I can answer this question. There is no such thing, in fact, as a definitive New Testament.² This essay aims to give one small example as to why there is no definitive Greek New Testament. In church services one recent Sunday morning (May 17, 2026), the pastor was expounding on Luke 24:44–53. I was following along using two English translations and the Greek New Testament.³ Suddenly, I found a glaring difference between the two translations. For the beginning of verse 24:52 the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) read the following:

“And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy…”

While the Revised English Bible (REB) read the following:

“And they <…> returned to Jerusalem full of great joy…”

The pointed brackets indicate text missing from the translation and hence the difference between the two translations.

Much to my surprise the words “worshipped him and” were missing in the REB! So the minister must have been reading from the NRSV (or a similar translation) because he made a point of emphasizing their worship of Jesus (literally “bowed the knee to him”) in his remarks on the passage.

So, I turned to see what the Greek text read. The Nestle-Aland 28^th edition included the Greek words ^[]proskunēsantes auton^\ “worshipped him.” The marks around the Greek words (^[]…^\) indicate that “the words, clauses, or sentences between the signs are omitted by the witnesses cited.”

The witnesses cited by the Nestle-Aland edition were: Codex Bezae (5^th /6^th century), Old Latin Manuscripts (4^th to the 13^th centuries), and the Sinaitic Syriac (4^th century).⁴ Some of these ancient Latin and Syriac versions eliminating the phrase are relatively early. But they are much later than the original autograph (of which there is no copy).

The Bible Society Committee that decided to include the phrase “worshipped him” was sharply divided. A minority of the committee voted not to include “worshipped him” in the text, considering them to be scribal interpolations. The majority, however, considered them to have been either accidentally or deliberately omitted from the text.⁵ The minority of the committee argued that one can discern “a Christological-theological motivation that accounts for” the words being added to the text but “no clear reason that accounts for their having been omitted.”⁶

There is a tendency on the part of the scribes of the Western Text (Bezae, Old Latin and Sinaitic Syriac) “to adjust” the text:

Words, clauses, and even whole sentences were changed, omitted, and inserted with astonishing freedom, wherever it seemed that the meaning could be brought out with greater force and definiteness…Another equally important characteristic is a disposition to enrich the text at the cost of its purity by alterations or additions taken from traditional and perhaps from apocryphal or other non-biblical sources.⁷

Here is some additional information as to how this disagreement between manuscripts is treated in modern translations: Constantine Tischendorf did not include the words “They worshipped him and” in the text but put them in a note.⁸ The New International Version (NIV) includes them in the text (the NIV is the most popular translation of the Bible by sales in America). An American Translation excludes “worshipped him and” (this is the translation of the New Testament scholar Edgar J. Goodspeed). The New American Bible for Catholics has the words in the text but translates them as “they did him homage.” The Holman Christian Standard Bible includes them in the text translating them as “After worshipping him.” The New American Standard Version does not include the words “worshipping him” in the text and has no note about them. The modern Greek translation of the Greek Orthodox church includes them in the text. Westcott and Hort (text critics of a previous century) preferred the shorter reading in Luke 24:52, regarding the words “worshipped him” as “Western non-interpolations” (in spite of the “generally inferior Western witnesses”).⁹

            What should we conclude from the brief essay? It is: The Bible does not spring immediately from the mouth of God to the printed page of the book on the table beside your bed. It must first pass through the inspired (or not) brains of the original writers and debatable ambiguities of modern textual criticism, as well as the theological biases and peccadillos of modern translators. The New Testament, it turns out, is much less, or perhaps much more than the original autographs.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹M. Agnes, Ed. in Chief, Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4^th ed.), under definitive.

²I give my reasons for thinking such to be the case in Hedrick, “The Greek New Testament is a Virtual Text.” Wry Guy Blog, Saturday August 8, 2020: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2020/08/the-greek-new-testament-is-virtual-text.html.

³The Greek New Testament was the Nestle-Aland 28^th edition.

⁴See Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3^rd ed.; Oxford: 1992).

⁵Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2^nd ed.; United Bible Societies, 1994), 163. See also the “Note on Western Non-Interpolations,” 164–66.

⁶Metzger, Textual Commentary, 166.

⁷Metzger, Text of the New Testament, 132—33. Metzger quotes Westcott and Hort.

⁸Constantinus Tischendorf, Novum Testamentum Graece (2^nd ed., 1860).

⁹Metzger, Textual Commentary, 164–65.

Things Jesus may have said

Or perhaps he didn’t say it after all. In Luke 14:1–6 there is a certain disagreement in the manuscript tradition between manuscripts. The question is what is the earliest recoverable reading for Luke 14:5?

And he said to them, “Which of you shall have…or an ox fall into a well, will not immediately draw him/it out on the Sabbath Day?”

Here is the problem: The oldest reading for the missing word in the passage above is uios (son). It pairs up with ox (bous) to make a rather incongruous pair: if your son or your ox falls into a well will you not immediately draw him out? Of course, you would; you would break sabbath laws and rescue your son! Children are a heritage from God, the psalmist believed (Ps 127:3). You have absolutely no choice assuming you are humane, religiously inclined, and concerned about pleasing God. And the saying seems to assume that to be the case on the part of those hearing the saying.

            Later copyists, however, in some manuscripts changed son (uios) to ass (onos) as making a better pairing (compare Luke 13:15) with ox (bous), or changed the word son to sheep (probaton). A few manuscripts even use all three words: son, donkey, sheep.* Since one of the canons of textual criticism is “the more difficult reading is to be preferred,” the preferred reading, text critics aver, appears to be son.**

The similar saying in Luke 13:15 reads:

You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manager, and lead it away to water it?

There is a third saying appearing in Matt 12:11, which reads:

What man of you, if he has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?

None of these three sayings, as related as they are in concept and style, have parallels in the other two synoptics.

The Jesus Seminar in its deliberations did not regard Luke 13:15 as originating with Jesus. On the other hand, Luke 14:5 and Matthew 12:11 were given gray ratings.***

The rationale of the Fellows of the Seminar with regard to Luke 14:5 was that the historical Jesus did not debate the finer point of Torah nor did he debate about sabbath observance (like the rabbis). “The Fellows of the Seminar strongly agreed that Jesus did engage in activities that suggested that he had little concern for sabbath observance.”**** His actions, however, could have provoked those who did care about sabbath observance, which could have led to arguments about proper sabbath observance.

            The two earliest texts (P⁴⁵ P⁷⁵) that read “son” are from the third century. This time frame allows for over 100 years from original composition of Luke to the copyists in the third century, during which time texts were copied and altered. In other words, earliest recoverable forms are not the original and are still suspect.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*Metzger, Textual Commentary, 138–39.

**The King James Version, however, reads ass/donkey, as does the New King James Version.

***See Funk, et al., The Five Gospels, 36. A gray rating indicates: “Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.”

****Funk, et al., Five Gospels, 350.

A Discrepancy in John’s Gospel

A discrepancy is defined as "a lack of agreement."¹ This essay ponders an interesting disagreement in the Greek manuscripts at the end to the prologue (1:1-18) to John's Gospel. The issue is the following: what did the original flesh-and-blood author of the Gospel write in the original author's copy (the autograph) of John 1:18? As most regular readers of this blog are aware no autograph (original author's copy) of the Greek New Testament is known to exist. Only later copies (and copies of copies) of the autographs made through the years exist. A very few of the over 5000 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament are dated in the second century but most (one might even say, virtually all) date from the third century and later.

            In the late fourteenth century, the English translation of John 1:18 by Wycliffe-Purvey read (in Middle English, translated from the Latin):

No man sai euer God, no but the 'oon bigetun sone, that is in the bosom of the fadir, he hath teld out.²

            In the sixteenth century the King James translation read (translated from the Greek):

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.³

The phrase in which I am interested appears here as "the only begotten son." The two English words "only begotten" are used to translate one Greek word, monogenēs, which carries the meaning of the only one of his kind, or the one and only. Thus, a clearer translation is "the only son." The term "begotten" is misleading since it suggests that the son had a beginning, which is specifically denied in John 1:1-3.

Here, however, the problems begin. Although the translation of "only son" corresponds well with the similar readings in John 3:16, 18 and 1 John 4:9, text critics consider the reading "son" (huios) to be an early scribal change of John 1:18 to agree with the passages just cited above.⁴ The earliest manuscripts to preserve this verse in John (P⁶⁶ and P⁷⁵), however, have the reading  "unique God" (monogenēs theos) not "only son":

Unique God, the one being in the bosom of the Father— that one has made [him] known.⁵

What this unique God in the bosom of the Father makes known is the God whom no one has ever seen. This reading of John 1:18b was thought by a majority of the text critical committee considering the verse to be the earliest reading, although P⁷⁵ (dated at the beginning of the third century) reads "the unique God" (o monogenēs Theos). The word "him," lacking in the Greek, refers to the invisible God whom no one has ever seen in the first half of verse 18. And that makes the conundrum facing the translator of John 1:18 evident:  The sentence has [the] unique God revealing the God whom no one has ever seen. The reading "the only Son" (o monogenēs uios), which makes better sense, is regarded as a scribal correction because of the obvious difficulty. In textual criticism, the more difficult reading is to be preferred.

            One member of the committee thought it doubtful that the original author would have written monogenēs Theos ("Only God") and suggested in an addendum to the full committee's report that even this earliest reading might itself be a primitive transcriptional error. This suggestion was printed in square brackets and signed A. W. (Allen Wikgren?).

            As most text critics are aware, a reconstruction of the earliest reading is "if not the original, at least of the most reliable form of the text that can still be reached on the basis [o]f the material that has been preserved."⁶ Hence, the text situation in John 1:18 in the light of Wikgren's corrective comment points out the limitations of textual criticism as a critical study: it does not restore the original author's copy. In this case, however, the text-critical judgment of the Editorial Committee neither restores the original, nor restores the most reliable form of the text attainable given the material preserved from antiquity. And it raises the specter of a flawed original author's copy. Errors are something that every author knows only too well, as my correction of the quoted material in the first sentence of this paragraph demonstrates. Someone's typo there, after eluding the eagle eye of its author and the professional proofreaders of volume five of the NIDB, entered the print media world flawed.

            Faced with this difficulty, modern translators of the Gospel of John find different ways to resolve the difficulty. The translations, to judge from those Bible translations on my shelf, print later scribal corrections to the Greek text in some cases. The reading that seems to occur with frequency is "the only son" (o monogenēs uios).

One creative solution is to punctuate the sentence differently so that there are three separate designations for the son: "monogenēs,⁷ God, the One That Is, in the bosom of the Father—that one has made him known"⁸ But few translators of the English language Bible have followed this suggestion.

How does your Bible read for John 1:18?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Webster's New World College Dictionary (2002), under "discrepancy."

²Wycliffe Bible PDF, "Wycliffe Bible PDF Middle English," https://ebible.org/pdf/engWycliffe/

³The word him is written in italics because it is not in Greek.

⁴Bruce M. Metzger, ed. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2^nd ed.; Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 2000), 169-70. The text critics in this case have also published the 28^th revised edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament edited by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Germany.

⁵My translation.

⁶Joseph Verheyden, "TEXT, NT," in NIDB 5.540.

⁷The word monogenēs is actually an adjective but this solution reads it as if it were a noun.

⁸E. A. Abbott, Johannine Grammar (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006), 42, 55-56.

Is the Gospel of John Fictional?

What the stakes are, if it is at least partially fiction, is this: not everything written in the gospel happened, but some of it was created by authorial imagination. Around a month ago, I published a blog entitled, "Trickery in the Gospel of Mark,"¹ where I demonstrated that Mark was partially fiction ("a making up of imaginary happenings").²

            The narrator of the story in John becomes evident as a persona in the narrative when he directly addresses the readers, freezing the story in mid-telling and commenting on some aspect of what had just been shown and again resuming its telling.³ These comments are like parenthetical expressions interrupting the flow of the narrative. By comparison there is only one instance of this narrative device in the Gospel of Mark where the narrator becomes personified and directly addresses the reader (Mark 13:14).

            Among other things, the author uses this narrative device to present interior views (explain thoughts and motives) of characters in the drama and to explain what they are thinking and feeling. In real life, of course, the thoughts and motivations of others are hidden from us. We never know what people are thinking or their reasons for what they do. Even if they tell us, we only know what they told us they were thinking, and what they thought may well be different from what they said. The problem is also complicated by the fact that the Gospel of John is written around sixty years or so after the events narrated in the text,⁴ and the author was not an eyewitness to the events.⁵ This narrative device whereby the author presents interior views of characters in the narrative drama belongs more to the novelistic arts than to the historian's craft.

            What follows are several examples of this artifice by which the narrator reads the minds of characters in the drama including the mind of his created character, Jesus.⁶

The Narrator Reads the Mind of Characters in John's Gospel:

1 The narrator knows the steward did not know the source of the wine, but that the servants did know (2:9).

2 The narrator knows what the disciples remembered (2:22).

3 The narrator knows the inner motivation of those who persecuted Jesus (5:16).

4 The narrator knows what Jesus knew "within himself" (en eautō) (6:61).

5 The narrator knows the motivation of the parents of the man born blind (9:22–23).

6 The narrator knows what the disciples were thinking (11:13).

7 Judas questions why ointment was not sold and the proceeds given to the poor. The narrator knows Judas' motive for saying this (12:6).

8 The narrator reads Jesus' mind. Jesus knew from the beginning who did not believe and who would betray him (6:64).

9 The narrator reads the mind of Jesus and Judas (13:1–4).

10 The narrator knows that Satan had entered into Judas (13:27).

11. The Narrator reads Peter's mind and explains what Peter meant by the proverb Peter spoke (21:18–19).

What does it mean for a text when its author is found to engage in an unhistorical methodology, but chooses to use the conventions of literary fiction instead? At the least, it means that its narrative should be read very carefully. How should one read a text known to be novelistic? My suggestion is that one read it like one would read the historical novel Gone with the Wind. By recognizing that although it may have some historical features, the narrative itself is compromised as history. In the case of John, the author is more a Christian theologian than a disinterested historian.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Wry Guy Blog, "Trickery in the Gospel of Mark," April 11, 2025: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=Trickery+in+the+Gospel+of+Mark

²Webster's New World College Dictionary (4^th ed), under "fiction."

³Hedrick, "Authorial Presence and Narrator in John. Commentary and Story," in J. E. Goehring, et al., eds., Gospel Origins and Christian Beginnings (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1990), 74–93. I found 121 instances of this narrative device, p. 81.

⁴W. G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (trans., H. C. Kee; Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1975), 246.

⁵Kϋmmel, Introduction, 245.

⁶After a cursory reading in English, I found over thirty examples of this device used by the author of John. Here are several other examples of mind reading by the narrator of John: 1:43; 2:22; 2:23; 4:1; 4:17-18; 4:39; 4:41; 6:61; 6:64; 10:6; 11:13; 12:16-17; 12:18; 12:33; 12:41; 12:42-43; 13:11; 13:21; 13:29; 16:19; 18:4; 18:9; 18:32; 19:28; 21:12.

Time Travel and the Bible

The people who wrote the New Testament (NT) were not, in their day, like those of us living today. They lived and wrote in the latter half of the first-century CE, many centuries before the Enlightenment of the eighteenth-century CE. The Enlightenment was an intellectual awakening in Europe and America that witnessed the birth of the critical method, the rejection of the hegemony of Christian belief, and the rise of reliance on human reason.

Hence, first-century people generally, by definition, were prescientific in their approach to the world. What things people generally today commonly assume about the world, would have seemed strange to them. For example, occasionally in the pages of the NT, the authors write as if they conceived the earth being flat, not globular, in shape. Hence, most people, who likely shared this view, upon hearing Rev 1:7 being read aloud (most people could not read), might not be surprised by John’s description of the imminent return of Jesus to the earth in judgment:

Look, he is coming with the clouds; every eye shall see him, even those who pierced him. (Rev 1:7; see also Rev 2:1, 20:8; Matt 4:8)

In the twenty-first century, however, the words, “every eye shall see him,” jump off the page for the careful reader. How can it be that from a globular surface every eye will see anything hovering over a point on its surface? And “even those who pierced him” suggests the event would occur in the lifetime of the writer, but it has been over 2000 years now and “those who pierced him” have long since died. Even the later author of Second Peter (3:3-11) recognized the problem and found a way to mitigate the immediacy of the return.

They knew nothing of unseen microorganisms, like germs that can cause disease. The world only became aware of germs that cause sickness in 1860 through the work of Louis Pasteur.¹ They also did not understand that such physical ailments as muteness and deafness (Mark 9:37-43), blindness Matt 12:22-24), epilepsy (Matt 17:14-21), leprosy (Mark 1:40-45), and mental illnesses (Mark 5:1-17) are biologically induced. They, on the other hand, believed them to be caused by demons or evil spirits. They thought such difficulties required the services of a faith healer or thaumaturge to exorcise the spirit forces that caused such abnormalities, rather than treatment by a physician. Medicine was not very advanced in those days. Some health issues, people imagined, could even be cured by a kind of religious magic.

And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. (Acts 19:11-12 RSV)

            Of course, the spirit of science was alive before and during the first century, but it was not the view of the general population and is not represented among the thoughts of NT writers, much less those of the Old Testament. For example, Aristotle (4^th century BCE) knew that the earth was spherical because in an eclipse, the earth’s shadow on the surface of the moon was always circular. Some years later, Eratosthenes (3^rd century BCE) is credited with proving that the earth was spherical in shape.²

            Readers of the NT must remember that they are traveling back in time some two thousand years when they delve into its pages. There were bright spots, sure enough, but in general, the world was as dark as it was in the Dark Ages.³ What little scientific progress there was did not benefit the welfare of the general population of the world. Hence, do not read the NT as if it provides an accurate description of the nature of the world and how to get along in it. When reading the NT in the 21^st century, one must exercise a willing suspension of disbelief and aim not to inculcate its views on how the world works. To do so, would be to risk losing the world in which you now live with its scientific achievements and medical advances.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Pasteur

²Eric M. Rogers, “The Triumph of a Theory,” pp. 111-116 in Louise B. Young, ed., Exploring the Universe (2^nd edition; Oxford: Oxford university, 1971). And Aristotle, “The Shape of Heaven and Earth (4^th Century B.C.),” Young, Exploring the Universe, 116-121. Carl Sagen, Cosmos (New York: Wings Books, 1980), 12-16.

³The Dark Ages consist of the centuries (ca. 500-1500) following the fall of the Roman Empire.

⁴https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

Are there Narrative Gaps in the Parables of Jesus?

Parables are not straight forward. They only tell you imprecise stories. At times, a parable is simply ambiguous, always polyvalent, or appears to leave gaps in the flow of the narrative. Such gaps influence capturing an elusive meaning for the story. Readers must find a way, or ways, to bridge the gap before they can struggle with a parable’s meaning.¹ Here are three parables that have or appear to have narrative gaps influencing how they are understood. At times the gaps undermine how one has always understood the story.

            Luke 13:9, the conclusion to the story of two bumbling farmers (Luke 13:6-9), breaks-off in mid-sentence leaving the reader with a physical gap in the narrative. Literally, 13:9 concludes: “And if it [the tree] bears fruit in the future, […]; and if not you will cut it down.” In this case, the latter half of the sentence is missing. Most translators, aware of the missing text, accommodate the ellipsis (i.e., gap in the text) in some way. For example, the NRSV and REB² fill it in the following way: “And if it bears fruit in the future, <well and good>” (pointed brackets indicate the translator’s conjecture; except translators don’t generally use pointed brackets). One can easily imagine the vintner’s shoulder shrug and open palms as he unexpectedly drops the last phrase. What should one make of the gap and how should one take the vintner’s subtle refusal to cut-down the tree?³

            There appears to be a crucial gap in Jesus’ well-known parable about a father and his two sons (Luke 15:11-32).⁴ The gap in the flow of the narrative occurs between Luke 15:24 and 25. Why did the father not notify his older son about the celebration? The celebration was in full swing when the older brother happened to come-in from the fields. He had to ask a hired hand what was going-on. He was clearly ignorant of the younger son’s return. The older son felt slighted, for his father had never given him so much as a young goat for a celebration. (15:29). Was the father’s slight of the older son deliberate or simply the oversight of a father who doted on the younger son and had taken the older son for granted? If this be the case, how does the gap influence how one reads the parable?

            Jesus’ story about a shepherd and a lost sheep (Luke 15:4-6) also may have a gap in Luke’s version of the parable. It occurs between 15:5 and 6. In verse 4, the shepherd discovers one sheep is missing and he leaves the flock of 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to search for the lost sheep. When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders rejoicing (verse 5). When he comes home, he celebrates his finding the lost sheep with friends and neighbors (verse 6). Did the shepherd go directly home with the sheep on his shoulders after finding it, abandoning the 99 in the wilderness? If there is a gap between verses 5 and 6, the shepherd might be construed as returning to the flock and bringing all 100 of the flock to a place of safety before he returns home. Alas, that is not how the story appears in Luke. In Luke, it is a story about an irresponsible shepherd who abandons his flock in the wilderness and returns home to celebrate the one lost sheep that was found.⁵

The danger of filling gaps in an explanation of the story, however, leaves one open to the charge that he (or she) is writing another story, rather than reading and explaining the story as it is written. The more responsible approach would be to explain the story as written and raise the issue of the gap. In either case, once you recognize a gap, it is impossible not to let it affect how you read the story. For gaps also are part of the parable.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹See Hedrick, Many Things in Parables. Jesus and his Modern Critics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 47-50.

²New Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible.

³See Hedrick, “An Unfinished Story about a Fig Tree in a Vineyard (Luke 13:6-9)” pages 142-69 in Parabolic Fictions or Narrative Fictions. Seminal Essays on the Stories of Jesus (Cascade, 2016).

⁴Hedrick, Many Things in Parables, 48.

⁵Hedrick, Many Things in Parables, 49-50.

How to describe a first-century Church?

The earliest references to the ekklēsia, an expression usually translated as "church," are better thought of as "gatherings," as found in the letters of Paul. He never specifically defines the nature of the church, although he uses the word over 40 times throughout his undisputed letters. These predecessors to what we experience today in the modern church were small, largely independent, gatherings of people. These gatherings were likely viewed as simply another private club or association among the many others in the Graeco-Roman world.¹

            The descriptive expression Paul used most often to describe the nature of the gatherings was "the gathering (ekklesia) of God (tou theou)."² That is to say: "God's gathering." Judging from that expression, the "church" appears to be a gathering of people around a particular concept of God. The Pauline gatherings were not conceived as part of a universal gathering. They appear to be a local phenomenon. It was the gathering of God at Corinth (1 Cor 1:2), for example.³ Or, Paul groups the gatherings in a regional configuration: the gatherings of Galatia (Gal 1:2; 1 Cor 16:1), or Asia (1 Cor 16:19), or Judea (Gal 1:22); or Macedonia (2 Cor 8:1); or in an ethnic configuration: all gatherings of the Gentiles (Rom 16:4), or all gatherings of Christ (Rom 16:16). To these latter two configurations, one must add "of which I Paul am aware."

Paul also thinks of these local and regional groups in an aggregate sense: the brother famous in all the gatherings (2 Cor 8:18; 11:28); Paul's rule in all gatherings (1 Cor 7:17).⁴ Both individually (Phil 4:15-16) and collectively (2 Cor 11:8) these gatherings were organized enough to provide financial support to Paul and others (1 Cor 16:1-4; 2 Cor 9:1-15).

Their gatherings seem to have been rather spontaneous with no set order to what they did once assembled (1 Cor 14:26-33). Leaders of the gatherings were not democratically elected but emerged in the gathering at God's behest, as Paul describes them as those with "spiritual gifts" (1 Cor 12:4-11, 27-31). Outsiders and unbelievers (1 Cor 14:23-25) were allowed in the gatherings, and sometimes allowed to have leading roles, such as settling a disagreement between members of the gathering (1 Cor 6:2-6). Their "pot-lucks," which passed as a commemoration of the "Lord's Supper," scandalized Paul (1 Cor 11:17-22).

Alas, in the gathering at Corinth women were required to veil themselves when they prophesied or prayed (1 Cor 11:2-16) and only the male members of the gathering were allowed to speak (1 Cor 14:33-35). I doubt, however, such restrictions held true in the gathering of Cenchreae, where sister Phoebe was a deacon (Rom 16:1), or in the gathering at the home of Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:3-4; 1 Cor 16:19), since it was their house. Nor do I think that Junia, a lady "outstanding among the apostles" would be prohibited from speaking or required to veil herself in the gathering (Rom 16:7).

            The Pauline home gatherings appear quite different from modern churches with their fine buildings, education and other programs, large budgets, choirs, business meetings, set order for worship, and professional requirements for the ordination of ministers. By comparison, the forerunners of the modern church were simply a home gathering taking place under the radar of state sanction. I am coming to think of the modern church as a clinic for seekers after truth and the world-weary. It is a formal organization that offers religious advice, treatment, and instruction, and an opportunity to shut out the world with all its raucous demands.⁵

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Charles Hedrick, "Pondering the Origins of the Church," Wise Guy Blog," Feb 16, 2017:  http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2017/02/pondering-origins-of-church.html

²I Cor 1:2, 10:32, 11:16, 11:22, 15:9; 1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:13; 2 Cor 1:1. Thrice he associates these gathering with Christ (Rom 16:16; 1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:22). Once he refers to it as churches of the holy ones (i.e., saints, I Cor 14:33).

³Other specific gathering locations are Thessalonica (1 Thess 1:1), the gathering in the house of Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:4), the gathering at Cenchrea (Rom 16:1); or the gathering in the house of Philemon (Philemon 2), or the gathering at Philippi (Phil 4:15).

⁴Rom 16:23 likely refers only to the gathering at Rome.

⁵Webster's New World College Dictionary (4^th ed., 2002), s.v. "clinic," 5^th definition.

Ancient Scribes and Modern Translators - and the Bible

What one reads in one’s New Testament (NT) is largely determined by these two groups, ancient scribes and modern translators. An ancient scribe is a literate person who makes a living by copying manuscripts. They, of course, were, at one time, living, breathing people with opinions and prone to errors. A modern translator is a person linguistically skilled in the ancient form of the Greek language called koine (the common dialect of the Hellenistic and Roman periods) and in the target language of the translation—in this case English. They too are living, breathing people with opinions and prone to errors. And both groups in their time contribute to what a NT text says.

            The original author of a text produces an “autograph,” which is an author’s original, first-copy of a text. When completed, the autograph determined what the text originally said. Alas, at that point the author loses control of the written text. Scribes will make copies of the autograph and in so doing will introduce errors and make other deliberate changes in the copies they produce. And still other scribes will make further copies of the text from the first copies and introduce further errors and changes.

At this point a third group becomes involved in a text’s transition from koine Greek into English: the textual critic. There are over 5000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Alas, the original autographs no longer survive and existing copies differ from one another.¹ Textual critics aim to restore the readings of the original autograph, and periodically publish a koine Greek edition of the NT, showing in an apparatus at the bottom of pages the numbers of significant differences existing among the manuscripts of the Greek NT. Text critics decide the most probable readings, which are published in the text above the apparatus. The 28^th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek NT is the current edition from which translators work.

The judgments of text critics as to the readings of the original author’s copy of a NT text are not always accepted by translators of the text, resulting in different readings between translations. In other words, each translated version of the NT differs in some degree. Here is one example. One finds in Mark 1:41 different readings between the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and The Revised English Bible (REB). The NRSV follows the text critical judgment that Mark’s autograph originally read in Mark 1:41 “moved with pity” (splagxnistheis), while the REB follows a lesser supported reading “moved to anger” (orgistheis). Text critics selected the reading “pity” as the original reading because they could easily understand why an ancient scribe would change anger to pity but could not so easy understand why a scribe would change pity to anger. In the end the committee was more impressed with the superior support of manuscripts that read pity rather than the less impressive manuscript support for anger.²

I noted fourteen other instances where scribal changes contributed to different readings in the translation of the Gospel of Mark between the NRSV and REB.³ While these changes are not particularly significant, they are enough to make the point that the NT read in the church today is as much a human book as a divine book. The autographs were written by imperfect human beings, prone to error, and, in any case, the autographs no longer exist. Virtually all the over five thousand manuscripts of the Greek NT come from the third century and later. Scribes have introduced innumerable new readings into their copies, both deliberate and accidental. And translators decide what readings they will translate. Hence, it is misleading to refer to the NT as the “Word of God.” If the texts were initially divinely inspired, their words, both Greek and English, were, and still are, decided by human beings.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3^rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University, 1992), v.

²Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2^nd ed., 3^rd printing; Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1998), 65. Note that one other reading in Mark attributes anger to Jesus but without a scribal change to pity: Mark 3:5.

³Here are the other fourteen instances in Mark: 3:14, 32; 6:22, 41, 47; 7:4, 35; 9:42; 10:2; 11:19; 12:23; 14:39, 68; 15:10.

Aphorisms of Jesus

Here are three examples of an aphorism:

But many that are first will be last and the last first (Mark 10:31).

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:25).

Let the dead bury their own dead (Matt 8:22).¹

An aphorism is spoken by Jesus before a group in the Roman Province of Judea and later is recalled (or not) by unnumbered minds. The saying is repeated (or not) by still fewer mouths and pens with both performance and interpretive variations. In an oral world generally “one speaks or writes an aphoristic saying, but one remembers an aphoristic core”² on the basis of its sense and structure. One does not necessarily remember exact words. The core of the saying is subject to compression or expansion and changes when repeated. For example, compare the aphorism on First and Last: Mark 10:31, Matt 20:16, Luke 13:30, Gos. Thom. 4b.

            Aphorisms in the Jesus tradition at their literary stage appear in writing alone, as single sayings, and are gathered in pairs that lead to interpretative interaction and verbal and thematic seepage between them. They are also gathered into clusters (more than two) with similar results. They can also be appended as conclusions to other linguistic forms, such as miracles, prayers, parables, dialogues, and stories. The individual aphoristic saying is later gathered into aphoristic dialogues (for example, Matt 16:1-3; Luke 12:54-56; Gos. Thom. Saying 91) and aphoristic stories (for example, Mark 6:1-6a; Luke 4:16-30).

            There is a curious exclusion from the list of numbered aphorisms that Crossan finds in Q and Mark, and their parallels in Matthew and Luke. The aphoristic saying, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60/Matt 8:22) is lacking an aphorism number, like other aphorisms discussed in the book. Its absence jumps-out at readers between numbered aphorisms 53 and 54 on pages 343 and 370 (In Fragments), and in his discussion of the aphoristic dialogues in Matt 8:19-22 and Luke 57-62.³ In these dialogues Matthew has two aphorisms (Foxes Have Holes and Let the Dead) and Luke has three (Foxes Have Holes, Let the Dead, and Looking Back). Crossan never notes why the saying Let the Dead (Luke 9:60/Matt 8:22) does not receive a number as an aphorism in the book. He regards Luke 9:59-60 as dialectical dialogue rather than aphoristic dialogue, and agrees with Rudolf Bultmann, whom it struck as “improbable” (nicht wahrscheinlich) that the saying ever circulated as a solitary saying.⁴ Nevertheless, both in form and content the individual saying in Luke 9:60/Matt 8:22 clearly fits the aphoristic criteria Crossan himself developed (see note 1). Granted, it is a Q tradition and only singularly attested, but that does not affect the aphoristic character of the saying Let the Dead, even if it is integrated into a dialectical dialogue.⁵

Crossan’s book, In Fragments. The Aphorisms of Jesus, is a landmark study of the transmission of the aphorisms of Jesus that establishes the aphorism, alongside the parable, as a classic oral form used by Jesus and later preserved at the earliest literary stage of the tradition.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Aphorisms are “concise, pointed, pithy sayings of never more than a few sentences.” “Thus, the aphoristic form conveys universal truths in a distinctive compressed format.” Both quotations are from the front cover. They are generally unclear on their surface, prompting an auditor to ponder because aphorisms frequently trade in overstatement and exaggeration, hyperbole, and paradox, and even understatement. J. D. Crossan, In Fragments. The Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 27.

²Crossan, In Fragments, 67.

³Crossan, In Fragments, 237-244.

⁴Crossan, In Fragments, 243; Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der Synoptischen Tradition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1957), 29. Nevertheless, Crossan includes Matt 8:21-22/Luke 9:59-60 with the dialogues (#330) in his Sayings Parallels. A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition (Foundations and Facets; Philadelphia: Fortress, Press, 1986).

⁵The Jesus Seminar voted the aphorism in Matt 8:22 pink (a saying to be included in the data base for Jesus’ sayings) at Toronto in 1989, but voted Luke 9:60 gray (I would not include the saying in the database but might make some use of its contents) at Sonoma in 1988. Nevertheless, both sayings were printed pink in Robert W. Funk and Roy W. Hoover, The Five Gospels. The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 160, 316. Foundation and Facets Forum 6.3/4 (September/December 1990), 260, 276.

Early “Christian” Prophets in Pauline Gatherings

There is no end of people today willing to tell you God's opinion on whatever issue is on the table. Few, if any, of them would claim to be officially recognized as prophets by a religious organization. In the ancient world, however, there were many who were called prophets and believed to speak God's words. This was also true among the early followers of Jesus.

The early Christian prophet was an immediately-inspired spokesperson for God, the risen Jesus, or the spirit who received intelligible oracles that he or she felt impelled to deliver to the Christian community or, representing the community, to the general public.¹

The earliest reference in Christian literature to early Christian prophets in the assemblies of the Jesus-gatherings is found in 1 Thess 5:19-20. Here Paul speaks approvingly of the utterances of such figures—meaning that he apparently regarded them as divinely inspired by God's spirit; there were many such figures in the religions of the ancient world.² Paul, however, had reservations about such figures even in his own tradition:

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good. (NRSV)

In other words, listen carefully, for not everything the prophet says may be helpful. So, discriminate in and among the prophetic utterances and hold onto what is profitable. I detect a healthy skepticism in Paul's statement about the utterances of early Christian prophets.

Prophets, who were believed to be channels for the words of a God, were endemic to his social and religious worlds (Israelite, and Greco-Roman traditions). The matrix and stimulus for such prophets and prophetic utterances in Jesus-gatherings likely came from both reading the Bible and pagan traditions. Prophetism was in the Greco-Roman air, as it were. In such a social environment, it was simply the way Gods were reckoned verbally to communicate.³

In the gathering at Corinth Paul acknowledged that God had given the gift of prophecy to certain people in the fellowship (1 Cor 12:10; Rom 12:3-8) and appointed them prophets (1 Cor 12:28-29). What the prophets were believed to bring was a direct revelation from God (1 Cor 14:29-32) for the encouragement, consolation, and benefit of the community (1 Cor 14:1-6). He did, however, continue to have reservations.

            The prophets in the community apparently could not control themselves and, like Jeremiah (20:9), the Word of the Lord was a "burning fire shut up in their bones," and they could not restrain it. So, they all prophesied at the same time (1 Cor 14:26-31), creating general confusion. Paul insisted that "the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Cor 14:32). So, they should all prophecy but only one at a time (1 Cor 14:30-31).

            Nevertheless, he still had reservations about the utterances of the prophets (1 Cor 14:29). Whatever they said must be carefully evaluated or judged (diakrinetōsan). Why is that? Because different spirits inspire prophets (1 Cor 12:3). And that is the reason why some in the assembly had the spiritual gift of discerning between spirits (1 Cor 12:10).

            It is interesting that in the Deutero-Pauline epistles (Colossians, Ephesians) and the Pastorals epistles (1, 2 Timothy, Titus) prophets are no longer a vital force in the Jesus-gatherings.⁴ Itinerant prophets are, however, found to be a problem in the Didache (11:3-12).⁵ Among other things, the writer says "do not test or examine any prophet who is speaking in a spirit" (11:7), but recognizes that not everyone speaking in a spirit is a "true" prophet. The true prophet can be distinguished from the false prophet by his behavior (11:8-12). So, the writer of the Didache also had reservations about the prophets.

            When someone claims to know the mind of God and assumes to tell you what God requires of you—prophet or not, exercise a healthy dose of Pauline skepticism. Be an adult in your thinking (1 Cor 14:20). Evaluate and judge carefully what you are told, for who really knows the mind of God (Rom 11:33)?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹M. Eugene Boring, "Prophecy (Early Christian)" in D. N. Freedman, et al., The Anchor Bible Dictionary New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5. 495-502; the quotation is on 496.

²See Boring, "Prophecy."

³David S. Potter, "Prophecies," and Robert C. T. Parker, "Prophētēs" in Hornblower and Spawforth, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3^rd ed.), 1259.

⁴Boring, "Prophecy," 500.

⁵Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols.; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, 1965), 325-27. The date of the Didache is not settled, but a consensus seems to be gravitating toward the end of the first century or beginning of the second. See Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache. A Commentary (Hermeneia; trans. L. M. Malony; ed., H.W. Attridge; Minneapolis, MN, 1998), 52-53.

Why is the New Testament a Postscript in the Christian Bible?

My beginning question is: why are the Christian Holy Writings attached footnote-like to the end of the Jewish Bible? I suppose one could reasonably argue that the two collections are gathered into the Bible in the historical sequence of their dates of authorship. That is a reasonable thought, for the dates of the Hebrew Bible texts predate those of the New Testament (NT). But why doesn’t the same rationale apply for the order of the books within each collection? For example, the NT texts are not printed in historical order. If that were so, First Thessalonians would be the first text in the NT, followed by the rest of the undisputed Pauline letters, and the next few would be in this order: Mark, Matthew, Luke, Hebrews,¹ John…and second Peter would be the last text in the NT.

A more basic question now occurs to me: why do Christians use Jewish Holy Scriptures as Word of God and put the Jewish Scriptures first in the Bible? The answer seems to be they were “grandfathered” in, as they were the first canon of Christian Holy Writings. Here is the reason: The earliest followers of Jesus were Israelites, people of the Covenant God (Gen 12:1-3; Gen 17:1-14), whose holy writings were Israelite religious texts.² When the Jesus movement later moved out into the Gentile world, capturing the imagination of Greeks and Romans, these later Gentile followers of Jesus continued to use the Bible of the Israelites (in its Greek translation), because the Israelites and these later followers of Jesus believed it to be “God breathed or inspired” (2 Tim 2:15-16).³

Those who wrote the NT searched their religious texts and found therein “prophecies” that supported their belief that Jesus was the Anointed One, who would come (Micah 5:2, for example), and applied the prophecies to Jesus. These prophecies, and the fact that they believed the Israelite writings to be Word of God, locked-in the Israelite writings as Holy Scriptures for Orthodox Christianity and secured their first-place position in the Christian Bible.

One notable exception to this “mixed” collection of Israelite and Christian texts was the biblical canon of Marcion that appeared around the middle of the second century. Nothing is preserved of his writings except refutations written by his Orthodox opponents. Marcion rejected The Israelite writings and published an abbreviated NT containing a shortened gospel (Luke) and ten letters of Paul (minus the Pastoral Letters and Hebrews). Marcion rejected the Israelite writings and their God, whom he regarded as a God of Justice (“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”). The God of Jesus, on the other hand, was the God of Mercy. Marcion’s NT was the first attempt to form a distinctive collection of “Christian” writings.

The biblical canon of the Christian communities of the first 400 years in the evolution of Christianity retained the old covenant books (which they came to know as the Old Testament [OT]) and added to them the new covenant/testament books (now known as the NT).⁴ Both collections are named for covenants God is believed to have made with humankind. The covenants are briefly alluded-to in Heb 8:6-12, where the author of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah (31:31-34; Heb 8:8-12), who anticipated a “new covenant” with God. The author of Hebrews adds the following statement to the end of Jeremiah’s quotation:

In speaking of a new covenant, he [Jeremiah] treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away (Heb 8:13).

This “prediction” (toward the end of the first century), making the old covenant obsolete or useless, never happened. Christians are still using Israelite writings, and these old “obsolete” writings continue to hold first position in the Christian canon. The connection with the old covenant, although “obsolete,” will likely never “disappear.” For example, when the two different collections are discussed in dictionaries of the Bible under the entry “Canon,” the editors reverse their usual alphabetical listing of entries by listing Old Testament before New Testament. Their alphabetical order would have been NT before OT.

            The tradition of individual churches decided the order of the contents in papyrus NT manuscripts, which was largely determined on the basis of interest and what could be gotten into a papyrus codex (i.e., book). The surviving papyrus fragments of NT texts do not include OT books. In the papyrus manuscripts of the second through fourth centuries, which are mostly fragmentary, there are few differences with the order of today’s NT, which is also traditional.

            The large parchment uncial Bible manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), surviving from the fourth century CE, however, contain both OT and NT with NT texts tagged on at the end of the OT texts. Why is that do you suppose? Two reasons occur to me: The OT was considered Word of God long before Christians began writing what eventually became NT texts, and it took around 200 years, or so, for these “postscripts” to achieve Word of God status. Hence, the OT/NT order is simply traditional.

            Isn’t it time that some enterprising ecclesiastical scholar reconsidered that arrangement and recommended putting the NT books first? It just seems rather odd to begin the Christian Bible with the Jewish Scriptures!

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Kummel, Introduction to the New Testament, 246. John was written in the last decade of the first century (90-99). Hebrews is earlier “probably written between 80-90” (p. 403).

²There was not at the time of the public career of Jesus (around 30 CE) a collection of religious texts that all members of the Israelite religious community agreed upon. The Hebrew Bible, as we know it today, is thought to have been formed by the surviving group, the Pharisees, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans.

³The comment in Second Timothy does not refer to the Christian Bible but rather it refers to what are today the Jewish Holy Scriptures.

⁴Covenant in Greek is diatheke; in Latin it is testamentum. The words mean the same thing.

⁵See note one above. The critical date for the writing of Hebrews is earlier than the writing of John.

Euphemisms in the Bible?

Sometimes the biblical writers do not speak plainly and are less than “honest or frank in what they write.”¹ Instead they will use a euphemism for certain body parts, acts, or ideas. A euphemism is: “The use of a word or phrase that is less expressive or direct, but considered less distasteful, less offensive than another.”² The biblical writers, in some cases, tend to avoid the use of disagreeable, or what were considered offensive or “impolite” words or expressions.³ I have been aware of such being the case for the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament since my seminary days, when it was pointed out that the expression “to cover one’s feet” (KJV, 1 Sam 24:3, Judg 3:24) was an euphemism for “relieving one’s self” (as it is translated in the RSV). Candidly, the expression means to urinate or defecate.

It turns out, however, that there are many expressions found to be euphemisms in the both Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament that are used to avoid speaking plainly. “Most of the euphemisms found in the HB/OT relate to three areas of common human experience: (1) death; (2) sexual activity and the organs associated with it; and (3) certain bodily functions,”⁴ whereas most “euphemisms in the NT have to do with sexual organs, sexual relations, or death.”⁵

The King James Version (KJV) generally translates the biblical euphemisms literally (what the text says). The New Revised Standard Version (RSV) generally translates biblical euphemisms by expressing the offensive idea concealed in the euphemism, but nevertheless translates them into an English euphemism. Here are examples of euphemisms in the NT for each of the categories: “see a man’s shame” (KJV) is an euphemism for “male genitalia” (NRSV, Rev 16:15), which itself is an English euphemism for penis and testicles; “the fruit of his loins” (KJV) is an euphemism for “put a descendent upon his throne” (NRSV, Acts 2:30), which itself is an English euphemism for seminal ejaculation and impregnation; “I do not know a man” is an euphemism for “I am a virgin” (NRSV, Luke 1:34), which itself is an English euphemism for not having had sexual intercourse; “give a wife due benevolence” (KJV) is an euphemism for “give a wife her conjugal rights” (NRSV, 1 Cor 7:3), which itself is an English euphemism for satisfy a wife sexually; “put off my tabernacle”(KJV) is an euphemism for “death” (NRSV, 2 Pet 1:14); “let your servant depart in peace” (KJV) is an euphemism for “dismiss your servant” (NRSV, Luke 2:29), which is an English euphemism for die (see Luke 2:26).

Euphemisms in the Bible are not exactly lies or untruths but they are clearly a softening of the truth in order to disguise what is considered distasteful, impolite, or offensive. They are not straight-forward, candid, or frank statements, which makes them something less than the “unvarnished” or complete truth. Their use by the writers of the Bible makes the Bible seem a more human product and little less a collection of texts divinely inspired. It hardly seems possible that the Almighty could be involved in a shading of the truth, as John (16:13; 17:17) and the psalmist (119:160) seemed to think—although the authors of First Kings (22:22-23) and Second Chronicles (18:21-22) appear to think differently. Go figure!

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4^th ed., s. v., “candid.”

²Ibid., s. v., “euphemism.”

³Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s. v., dysphemism: using “a disagreeable, offensive, or disparaging word or expression.”

⁴Here is a list of expressions considered to be euphemisms by a jointly authored essay: https://www.degruyter.com/database/EBR/entry/key_20138155-819d-446f-959d-d4e432296e9b/html?lang=en

⁵Ibid.

The Challenge of the Proverb

Proverbs are traditional pithy sayings that briefly and memorably express some general truth about life in the world. Proverbs are distillations of community wisdom whose ideas have been hammered out of common human experience. One might think of it as a bit of homely wisdom that originates around some nameless person’s kitchen table and becomes part of community lore by oral transmission. It is a universal form emerging through the ages in various cultural contexts and languages. The Book of Proverbs in Hebrew Bible is an anthology of many such sayings.

            Here are a few American proverbs that I have learned somewhere along the way: “A stitch in time saves nine”; “The early bird gets the worm”; “Actions speak louder than words”; “Birds of a feather flock together”; “Better late than never.” One I quote to myself all the time is “Haste makes waste.” I am certain that the reader recognizes most, if not all, of these, and can easily add more to my short list.

The New Testament also has a few proverbs, but they are not necessarily traditional oral sayings that emerge out of the life of a people. In some cases, identifiable writers compose proverbs, such as George Bernard Shaw, Robert Frost, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Herman Melville, and others.¹ Here are a few of the proverbs in the New Testament: Luke 4:23, Acts 17:28, Acts 26:14, 1 Cor 15:33, Titus 1:12. To these I would add Mark 2:21-22, Gal 6:7 (compare Prov 22:8). One must argue, however, for the position that these proverbs are traditional rather than having a known origin in a given author. Some of them come from ancient Greek poets. Other proverbs in the New Testament come from Hebrew Bible: Prov 11:31=I Pet 4:18; Prov 3:11-12=Heb 12:5-6; Prov 22:8 (Septuagint)=2 Cor 9:7; Prov 25:21=Rom 12:20.

Here are two traditional proverbs preserved in Luke 12:54-55. Luke has narrated them in a prose form: “He said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It’s going to rain’: and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’: and so it happens.”

Notice that both proverbs are not attributed to Jesus, but in the text of Luke’s gospel they are attributed to Luke’s character, Jesus, who in turn attributes the sayings to the crowds. In their present form they are neither pithy nor memorable, however. In a proverbial form they would have been orally repeated, I suppose, as something like: “Clouds in the west, rain comes on apace.” “South winds gust, heat scorches us.” So far as I know, however, these proverbs are not preserved in the literature in memorable forms. They are only preserved in these prose forms.

Matt 16:2-3 is similar to Luke 12:54-55:

[Jesus] answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.”²

Again, in the context Matthew’s Jesus takes it to be a traditional proverb by attributing it to the Pharisees and Sadducees as a group (Matt 16:1).

These verses are, however, a suspected interpolation into the text of Matthew.³ At least three modern translations of the Bible treat the saying as an interpolation and accordingly follow the lead of those ancient manuscripts that do not have the saying in the Gospel of Matthew (The Complete Bible. An American Translation; the translation of James Moffatt; and The Revised English Bible).

If there are traditional proverbs in the Bible (and there appear to be), it poses a problem for those who place such a high value on the biblical text by referring to it as “the Word of God.” Such an idea completely overlooks the human inspiration for proverbs and raises the question: Why should the traditional words of a given people, hammered out of their common sense and human experience, be regarded as divine words? The people that I know who use the expression, “the Bible is the Word of God,” do not regard that expression as metaphorical, rather they seem to regard it as literal.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proverb.

²Compare the modern proverb thought to be derived from Matt 16:2-3: “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailors delight.”

³See Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels (Macmillan, 1993), 205, 344. For the reason see Bruce Metzgar, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2^nd ed; United Bible Society, 2000), 33.