Dan Wallace reported last year on the ancient New Testament manuscripts discovered by Western scholars after they had been preserved for years, largely unnoticed, in Albanian archives. Today I had a chance to examine some of them.
I'm here for a week's teaching for the Campus Crusade for Christ staff, which itself is an amazing newsworthy story. In this little country of not quite four million people, Campus Crusade has one hundred university staff. With no known Evangelical Christians still alive in this most closed of all the Communist countries until the fall of the Iron Curtain, there are now about 40,000, almost all of whom are in their thirties or younger.
So today during a break, I was able to go to the State Archives and spend an hour or so with a sixth-century manuscript of most of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. I didn't make any new discoveries. Dan did a detailed and thorough job and I was a glorified textual tourist. But it was interesting to see what my friends wanted to look at.
One key text was Mark 1:1. Textual critics have debated whether "Son of God" was original in the title, "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Some of the oldest manuscripts have it; some don't. The Albanian codex I was looking at is not one of the oldest, though it is still older than the vast majority of existing manuscripts. It adds no new significant weight to argue for the originality of the expression than was already present.
But it is huge for the Albanian Christian community. Islamic apologists routinely argue that the New Testament text was significantly corrupted even before the birth of Islam. One of the most objectionable claims for them in all of Christian theology is that Jesus is the Son of God, so this is a prime example of a passae they are convinced has been tampered with. To have, in Albania, a pre-Islamic manuscript that gives the lie to this claim is greatly encouraging to the local Christians as they try to proclaim truth.
A very interesting post. I thank God for Campus Crusade for Christ . Doylene Brents
Hello Craig, am just now getting acquainted with your blog. Regarding corruption of the NT text even before Islam, youll recall that document I'm still studying, the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), which indicates that the corruption commenced during the process of the formation of the very first Gospel. This was in early 2nd century rather than in A.D. 60-90.
This comment is to let you know that the authenticity of this TJ document still stands intact, with ever more internal evidence (TJ versus Matthew) attesting to its genuineness.
But wouldn't you say that, through redaction criticism, the corruption of the Gospels occurred (further) as each Gospel writer made alterations in the previous Gospel(s) he edited?
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