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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Prof. Bart D. Ehrman
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Later scribes changed the text to make Jesus all-knowing and privy to the knowledge of the end-time’s occurrence.
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return to the main-page article on "Bible"
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Editor's prefatory comment:
Dr. Ehrman explains that the 5700 early copies of the New Testament – copies of copies of copies – contain hundreds of thousands of discrepancies.
Many of these are inconsequential but a significant number alter the meaning of the text in important ways. Most of these constituted mere human error in copying but some of them, it appears, were purposefully injected into the text by editorial judgment of scribes.
This entire area of scholarship is far more complex than most realize, leading the objective reviewer to understand that, in many cases, we have no knowledge of the original text of the New Testament.
In addition to Dr. Ehrman’s books, his lectures are available on youtube; for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE&t=12s
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In Mathew 24 we find Jesus putting forward the concept of the end time and concomitant troubles. He further asserts that no one will know the day or the hour of this event, “not even the Son” but the Father only will have this information.
However, in some of the later manuscripts, we find that copying scribes deleted the words “not even the Son” so as to invest Jesus with omniscience. This seems to be a clear effort to make Jesus all-knowing.
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Editor's last word:
Matt. 24 is famous for its end-time predictions. However, none of this is true. Well, on one level, many of us feel that an end-time is about to engulf us. With rising totalitarianism, the destruction of the ecosystem, the degradation of education and our youth, on and on, no one needs to be a prophet to see that this will not end well.
In any case, concerning these so-called end-time prophecies, we should be looking at Thomas, not Matthew. The Jesus of Mathew got it wrong about his listeners living until his coming. Further, there is no Second Coming of Jesus in bodily form, but only the advent of the Spirit of Truth.
And regarding Thomas, a document older than Mathew, see the full discussion in that article. Therein, we find a different Jesus playing down and discouraging a seeking for an end-time. That Jesus wants us to seek God within, the “light within,” as this is what always matters, irrespective of the century one might be inhabiting. See the Thomas article.
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