Predictable Christmas fare: Newsweek’s Tirade against the Bible

Newsweek on the Bible: An Article So Slanted it’s Dizzying

Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, on his blog, critiques a current Newsweek article, written by Kurt Eichenwald, in which the author, among other things (such as making sweeping generalizations), makes misleading claims about text critical issues in the New Testament. Eichenwald’s comments regarding John 7:53-8:11 – the woman caught in adultery – is one blatant example of the shoddy journalism permeating the piece:

…Unfortunately, John didn’t write it. Scribes made it up sometime in the Middle Ages. It does not appear in any of the three other Gospels or in any of the early Greek versions of John. Even if the Gospel of John is an infallible telling of the history of Jesus’s ministry, the event simply never happened…

My current position is with most current Christian scholarship that this is not Johannine (penned by John). According to Metzger (A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament), and other sources, this pericope is inserted in various places in Greek manuscripts (mss), such as appended at the end of John’s Gospel, placed after John 7:36, after John 7:44, though predominately located after John 7:52; however, it IS extant in some Greek mss situated in Luke’s Gospel, just before chapter 22.

To comment briefly on the bolded portions of the above quote from the Newsweek article:

Scribes made it up and the event simply never happened: Unless Eichenwald is claiming omniscience, he simply cannot know for certain that the event did not ever happen. To claim that scribes simply “made it up” is to pass judgment (and note the author’s closing “Don’t judge”). This by itself calls into question the author’s objectivity and motive. Most scholars identifying as Christian are of the opinion that this pericope was part of an oral tradition, which was later inserted into Scripture at various places. However, there are a few bona fide NT scholars and/or textual critics (Zane Hodges, W. Pickering, Maurice Robinson, David Alan Black) who argue for this pericope’s originality in John’s Gospel, situating it just after 7:52.

It does not appear in any of the three other Gospels and scribes made it up sometime in the Middle Ages: As to the former, I could be generous and assume the author meant there are no parallel passages in Matthew, Mark, or Luke; but, I’ll take his statement on its face. While I’m not aware of any translation locating this pericope anywhere other than after John 7:52, there are extant Greek mss with this account in Luke’s Gospel, just before Luke 22 (after Luke 21:38), as noted above. But, more important is his misleading claim that there are no “early Greek versions of John” containing this pericope before the Middle Ages. While there are no extant Greek mss containing this account before the Middle Ages, there are Old Latin mss with this variant, two of which are from the 5th century. In addition, Jerome “knew many Greek as well as Latin mss” (C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. {Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978} p 589) evidencing this pericope, as testified in part by Jerome’s Adversus Pelagianos II, 17, (Against the Pelagians), thus providing further proof that this account was known as early as the 5th century, possibly even late 4th. Moreover, some extant 2nd and 3rd century Greek mss leave a space between John 7:52 and 8:12, though the spacing does not allow for the full text – one can speculate from there.

Daniel B. Wallace

Every year, at Christmas and Easter, several major magazines, television programs, news agencies, and publishing houses love to rattle the faith of Christians by proclaiming loudly and obnoxiously that there are contradictions in the Bible, that Jesus was not conceived by a virgin, that he did not rise from the dead, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The day before Christmas eve (23 December 2014), Newsweek published a lengthy article by Kurt Eichenwald entitled, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin.” Although the author claims that he is not promoting any particular theology, this wears thin. Eichenwald makes so many outrageous claims, based on a rather slender list of named scholars (three, to be exact), that one has to wonder how this ever passed any editorial review.

My PDF of this article runs 34 pages (!) before the hundreds of comments that are appended. Consequently, I don’t have…

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Thomas Nelson Amends “Jesus’” Words with Nary a Sound

For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough (2 Corinthians 11:4, NIV).

Apparently, quite a few noticed a number of unbiblical issues with the hugely popular Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, published by Thomas Nelson (recently acquired by secular publishing house HarperCollins).  Perhaps the most vocal critic has been Warren Smith, who wrote an expose on Young’s book in his Another Jesus Calling.  Smith, a former New Ager, was quick to note that Young’s professed inspiration for Jesus Calling, the similarly titled God Calling (credited in the introduction to Young’s book), was an overtly New Age book channeled through the authors a la the Alice Bailey works, though Young took pains to explain that she deemed her work was/is Biblically-based. It isn’t.

Young claims that through contemplative prayer she received “messages” directly from Jesus Himself, writing these words in a journal, resulting in her Jesus Calling. However, some of these “messages” contradicted Scripture. Young’s “Jesus” claimed that Abraham was guilty of idolatry in his “son-worship” of Isaac.  This “Jesus” also explicitly contradicted Acts 1:7-9 by stating: ‘I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS.’ These were the last words I spoke before ascending into heaven.

Obviously becoming aware of these problems, Thomas Nelson, employing literary sleight of hand, simply made ‘corrections’ to the 10^th anniversary edition of the book, including these purported direct quotes from Jesus Himself, with no explanation whatsoever – as if that fixes the problems.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this ongoing ordeal is the fact that the secular media is also taking Thomas Nelson to task for deleting the reference to God Calling as the book’s inspiration, as well as the other emendations noted above, with no reason provided for doing so within the pages of Young’s book. Ruth Graham in The Daily Beast writes, “A skeptical reader, comparing the two introductions, would see an effort by a publisher to bring an increasingly controversial but lucrative best-seller into line with mainstream evangelical orthodoxy” (see footnote 8 at link referenced just below).

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