Early Christian Scribes & Textual Criticism: A New Perspective - Essay Sample

Introduction

According to Ehrman, The primary objective of text-critical practice and theory should recuperate the intellectual and ideological contexts that inspired the early Christian scribes to establish such changes. Considering the customary goal of textual criticism to recuperate the novel text, Ehrman contends that the most essential recent developments include the widespread acknowledgment that the extreme concentration on autographs is mainly biased, since it overlooks the significance of variant types of the text for the historians whose interests are not on exegesis (Porter and Pitts 5). Ehrman suggests that the scribes created in their texts often reflect their socio-historical settings. Moreover, through evaluating these alterations, one may theologically, reconstruct the background in which they were established contexts that are then sparsely demonstrated among individual surviving sources. This socio-historical background has, therefore, become the primary objective of studies associated with textual criticism for several scholars (Porter and Pitts 5).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Therefore, the principal goal of textual criticism, as well as its traditional objective, should always involve the restoration of the New Testament (NT) documents based on the manuscript traditions, which are currently available. Whereas the study of the process of textual transmission, as well as its socio-historical settings, might provide essential windows into the advancement of historic Christianity, this process should often remain a secondary objective. The main reason for this outcome lies within the primary role that textual reproach plays within the studies of the NT text (Porter and Pitts 6). Most fundamentally, there should be a basic representative text for providing a foundation for evaluating the culturally and theologically driven scribal alterations.

Parson's Notes Concerning Acts 8:37

One of the four verses in the book of Acts that Parson illustrates as a reading that is omitted in the English translations includes Acts 8:37, which states that "And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." Moreover, he replied, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God" (Parsons 11). This addition attempts to clarify or expand upon the immediate context. Considering the mentioned verse, the early English tradition, which is the Western custom, was absorbed by the Majority or Byzantine Text, which was the foundation for the earliest translations in English with versification, including the King James Version (Parsons 12).

The connection with the Majority Text accounts for the addition of early English translations of the Bible's book of Acts. As soon as it was determined that the concerned variations did not merge the original text, the translators and editors of the English translations opted to omit the verse instead of renumbering the verse from that period forward (Parsons 12). Therefore, these variations are selected to demonstrate the alterations of the Western tradition of the book of Acts, not because they are controversial or essential, but because they represent the first places where the reader of the verse is highly likely to come across the subject of textual traditions.

Textual Feature Analysis

Outline of the Text Unit

The beginning, as well as the ending of the unit, includes two episodes:

First episode: Acts 8:4-40 involves two episodes. Firstly, Luke informs Philip's mission in Samaria (Acts 8:4-25). Secondly, he reports his meeting with an Ethiopian official (Acts 8:26-40).

Second episode: While John and Peter arrive in Jerusalem, Philip is directed by an Angel to head to a road, which leads south to the Gaza city. Luke might have deliberately included the second episode to illustrate that the direction of the gospel, which included the north direction changes to the South, where Philip meets an Ethiopian official.

Structural and literary outline: central theme, action, setting, character, speech

Main theme: a historical narrative.

Speech: Multiple small portions of direct speech including the sprint (29), the Ethiopian official (34, 36), the angel (26), and Philip (30).

Characters: The Ethiopian official (v. 27).

Action: Following the outline of the Ethiopian official, the account is driven by three key questions asked by Luke (31, 34, and 36).

Textual Features

Keywords

Relevant word phrases: "South," and "angle of the Lord." The phrase south is translated as kata mesembria. Additionally, it may illustrate a historical marker meaning which is "at noon." The phrase "angel of the Lord" is translated as Angelos kuriou. The intervention serves to validate that God inspired the mission presented to Philip.

The Setting: the episode involves a geographical location represented by the phrase "going south." Therefore, the context of the episode appears to illustrate that the expression "south" is a proper interpretation of the narrative's setting. The desert route that is mentioned is most probably the road which entered by way of Beth-govrin (Taxel 57). The phrase "Gaza" includes the main epicenter on the caravan path leading to Egypt.

Characters: the principal character within the episode includes the Ethiopian man (aner aithiops). The character is a eunuch. In addition to the meaning of castrated males, the phrase eunuch signifies an individual who abstains from any sexual actions (Burke 2). This character was also a court official, and as such, he attained high social status, and his role was acting as the Ethiopian court's chief finance officer, in addition to being the head of the whole treasury. The fact that the Ethiopian character visited Jerusalem to worship; he is viewed as a proselyte or a diaspora Jew.

The events: The event that occurs in this passage is supernatural and it revolves around the character referred to as Philip (Acts 8:39). Luke mentions that "the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away" (Acts 8:39). The phrase "carried Philip away" reflects a supernatural event based on the reference to the verb "carried away."

Synthesis: a summary statement of Acts 8:26-40:

Luke reports the mission assigned to Philip's in Samaria; he comes across the Ethiopian official, he convinces and baptizes the Ethiopian official, and the spirit of the lord carriers Philip away to evangelize in other towns, including Azotus and Caesarea.

Theology of Text

The fact that the impacts of the suffering of servants are not mentioned in the text, the theological context of the text agrees with Luke's trend in the book of Acts: instead of Luke emphasizing on the essence of the death of Jesus based on a vicarious sacrifice, he utilizes the Scripture to focus on the concept that Jesus is an agent of God. Moreover, Luke emphasizes that Jesus' suffering as well as his passing on, do not disprove the point that he was the people's promised messiah. Moreover, the baptism context of the text is undoubtedly seen as illustrating excitement and joy, which indicates an acceptance of the gospel in addition to the significance of one's submissiveness to God's word in the Scripture.

Application

The passage, as presented by Luke in Acts, illustrates how Luke has established his narrative concerning how the first Christian community followed his account of Jesus (Verheyden 964). Therefore, it is imperative to mention that the Lucan focus on this passage falls on the method by which the Word of God continues to spread to every individual across the globe. Most fundamentally, the passage emphasizes that God's word can spread beyond any individual irrespective of his or her influential background from any part of the world.

Conclusion

This paper has explained the principle goal of textual criticism as well as its traditional objective involving the restoration of the New Testament (NT) documents. The discussion also provides vital information concerning the alterations of the Western tradition of the book of Acts as well as the textual feature analysis if the passage. Most fundamentally, the paper has provided a theological context of the passage, which generally illustrates that Luke utilizes the Scripture to focus on the concept that Jesus is an agent of God as well as the people's promised messiah.

Works Cited

Burke, Sean D. Reading the Ethiopian eunuch as a eunuch: Queering the Book of Acts. Graduate Theological Union, 2009: 1-10

Parsons, Mikeal C. Acts. Baker Academic, 2008, pp. 11-15

Porter, Stanley E., and Andrew W. Pitts. Fundamentals of New Testament Textual Criticism. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2015.

Taxel, Itamar. "Rural Monasticism at the Foothills of Southern Samaria and Judaea in the Byzantine Period: Asceticism, Agriculture and Pilgrimage." Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 26 (2008): 57-73.

Verheyden, Jozef. "The Unity of Luke-Acts." HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 55.4 (1999): 964-979.