Misquoting Jesus (21 page)

I argued in chapter 5 that verses 43–44 disrupt the structure of this passage in Luke, which is otherwise a chiasmus that focuses attention on Jesus's prayer for God's will to be done. I also suggested that the verses contain a theology completely unlike that otherwise found in
Luke's Passion narrative. Everywhere else, Jesus is calm and in control of his situation. Luke, in fact, has gone out of his way to
remove
any indication of Jesus's agony from the account. These verses, then, not only are missing from important and early witnesses, they also run counter to the portrayal of Jesus facing his death otherwise found in Luke's Gospel.

Why, though, did scribes add them to the account? We are now in a position to answer that question. It is notable that these verses are alluded to three times by proto-orthodox authors of the mid to late second century (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Gaul, and Hippolytus of Rome); and what is more intriguing still, each time they are mentioned it is in order to counter the view that Jesus was not a real human being. That is, the deep anguish that Jesus experiences according to these verses was taken to show that he really was a human being, that he really could suffer like the rest of us. Thus, for example, the early Christian apologist Justin, after observing that “his sweat fell down like drops of blood while he was praying,” claims that this showed “that the Father wished his Son really to undergo such sufferings for our sakes,” so that we “may not say that he, being the Son of God, did not feel what was happening to him and inflicted on him.”
⁸

In other words, Justin and his proto-orthodox colleagues understood that the verses showed in graphic form that Jesus did not merely “appear” to be human: he really was human, in every way. It seems likely, then, that since, as we have seen, these verses were not originally part of the Gospel of Luke, they were added for an antidocetic purpose, because they portrayed so well the real humanity of Jesus.

 

For proto-orthodox Christians, it was important to emphasize that Christ was a real man of flesh and blood because it was precisely the sacrifice of his flesh and the shedding of his blood that brought salvation—not in appearance but in reality. Another textual variant in Luke's account of Jesus's final hours emphasizes this reality. It occurs in the account of Jesus's last supper with his disciples. In one of our oldest Greek manuscripts, as well as in several Latin witnesses, we are told:

In most of our manuscripts, however, there is an addition to the text, an addition that will sound familiar to many readers of the English Bible, since it has made its way into most modern translations. Here, after Jesus says “This is my body,” he continues with the words “‘which has been given for you; do this in remembrance of me'; And the cup likewise after supper, saying ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you.'”

These are the familiar words of the “institution” of the Lord's Supper, known in a very similar form also from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:23–25). Despite the fact that they are familiar, there are good reasons for thinking that these verses were not originally in Luke's Gospel but were added to stress that it was Jesus's broken body and shed blood that brought salvation “for you.” For one thing, it is hard to explain why a scribe would have
omitted
the verses if they were original to Luke (there is no homoeoteleuton, for example, that would explain an omission), especially since they make such clear and smooth sense when they are added. In fact, when the verses are taken away, most people find that the text sounds a bit truncated. The unfamiliarity of the truncated version (without the verses) may have been what led scribes to add the verses.

Moreover, it should be noted that the verses, as familiar as they are, do not represent Luke's own understanding of the death of Jesus. For it is a striking feature of Luke's portrayal of Jesus's death—this may sound strange at first—that he
never,
anywhere else, indicates that the death itself is what brings salvation from sin. Nowhere in Luke's entire two-volume work (Luke and Acts), is Jesus's death said to be “for you.” In fact, on the two occasions in which Luke's source (Mark) indicates that it was by Jesus's death that salvation came (Mark
10:45; 15:39), Luke
changed
the wording of the text (or eliminated it). Luke, in other words, has a different understanding of the way in which Jesus's death leads to salvation than does Mark (and Paul, and other early Christian writers).

It is easy to see Luke's own distinctive view by considering what he has to say in the book of Acts, where the apostles give a number of speeches in order to convert others to the faith. In none of these speeches, though, do the apostles indicate that Jesus's death brings atonement for sins (e.g., in chapters 3, 4, 13). It is not that Jesus's death is unimportant. It is
extremely
important for Luke—but not as an atonement. Instead, Jesus's death is what makes people realize their guilt before God (since he died even though he was innocent). Once people recognize their guilt, they turn to God in repentance, and then he forgives their sins.

Jesus's death for Luke, in other words, drives people to repentance, and it is this repentance that brings salvation. But not according to these disputed verses that are missing from some of our early witnesses: here Jesus's death is portrayed as an atonement “for you.”

Originally the verses appear not to have been part of Luke's Gospel. Why, then, were they added? In a later dispute with Marcion, Tertullian emphasized:

It appears that the verses were added to stress Jesus's real body and flesh, which he really sacrificed for the sake of others. This may not have been Luke's own emphasis, but it certainly was the emphasis of the proto-orthodox scribes who altered their text of Luke in order to counter docetic Christologies such as that of Marcion.
⁹

 

Another verse that appears to have been added to Luke's Gospel by proto-orthodox scribes is Luke 24:12, which occurs just after Jesus has been raised from the dead. Some of Jesus's women followers go to the tomb, find that he is not there, and are told that he has been raised. They go back to tell the disciples, who refuse to believe them because it strikes them as a “silly tale.” Then, in many manuscripts, occurs the account of 24:12: “But Peter, rising up, ran to the tomb, and stooping down he saw the linen cloths alone, and he returned home marveling at what had happened.”

There are excellent reasons for thinking that this verse was not originally part of Luke's Gospel. It contains a large number of stylistic features found nowhere else in Luke, including most of the key words of the text, for example, “stooping down” and “linen cloths” (a different word was used for Jesus's burial cloths earlier in the account). Moreover, it is hard to see why someone would want to remove this verse, if it actually formed part of the Gospel (again, there is no homoeoteleuton, etc., to account for an accidental omission). As many readers have noted, the verse sounds very much like a summary of an account in the Gospel of John (20:3–10), where Peter and the “beloved disciple” race to the tomb and find it empty. Could it be that someone has added a similar account, in summary fashion, to Luke's Gospel?

If so, it is a striking addition, because it supports so well the proto-orthodox position that Jesus was not simply some kind of phantasm but had a real, physical body. Moreover, this was recognized by the chief apostle, Peter, himself. Thus, rather than letting the story of the empty tomb remain a “silly tale” of some untrustworthy women, the text now shows that the story was not just believable but true: as verified by none other than Peter (a trustworthy
man,
one might suppose). Even more important, the verse stresses the physical nature of the resurrection, because the only thing left in the tomb is the physical proof of the resurrection: the linen cloths that had covered Jesus's body. This was a fleshly resurrection of a real person. The importance of this point is made, once again, by Tertullian:

Christ must have had a real fleshly body, which was really raised, physically, from the dead.

 

Not only did Jesus physically suffer and die, and physically come to be raised: for the proto-orthodox he was also physically exalted to heaven. A final textual variant to consider comes at the end of Luke's Gospel, after the resurrection has occurred (but on the same day). Jesus has spoken to his followers for the last time, and then departs from them:

It is interesting to note, however, that in some of our earliest witnesses—including the Alexandrian manuscript Codex Sinaiticus—there is an addition to the text.
¹⁰
After it indicates that “he was removed from them,” in these manuscripts it states “and he was taken up into heaven.” This is a significant addition because it stresses the physicality of Jesus's departure at his ascension (rather than the bland “he was removed”). In part, this is an intriguing variant because the same author, Luke, in his second volume, the book of Acts,
again
narrates Jesus's ascension into heaven, but explicitly states that it took place “forty days” after the resurrection (Acts 1:1–11).

This makes it difficult to believe that Luke wrote the phrase in question in Luke 24:51—since surely he would not think Jesus ascended to heaven on the day of his resurrection if he indicates at the beginning of his second volume that he ascended forty days later. It is
noteworthy, too, that the key word in question (“was taken up”) never occurs anywhere else in either the Gospel of Luke or the book of Acts.

Why might someone have added these words? We know that proto-orthodox Christians wanted to stress the real, physical nature of Jesus's departure from earth: Jesus physically left, and will physically return, bringing with him physical salvation. This they argued against docetists, who maintained that it was all only an appearance. It may be that a scribe involved in these controversies modified his text in order to stress the point.

A
NTISEPARATIONIST
A
LTERATIONS OF THE
T
EXT

Early Christian Separationists

A third area of concern to proto-orthodox Christians of the second and third centuries involved Christian groups who understood Christ not as only human (like the adoptionists) and not as only divine (like the docetists) but as two beings, one completely human and one completely divine.
¹¹
We might call this a “separationist” Christology because it divided Jesus Christ into two: the man Jesus (who was completely human) and the divine Christ (who was completely divine). According to most proponents of this view, the man Jesus was temporarily indwelt by the divine being, Christ, enabling him to perform his miracles and deliver his teachings; but before Jesus's death, the Christ abandoned him, forcing him to face his crucifixion alone.

This separationist Christology was most commonly advocated by groups of Christians that scholars have called Gnostic.
¹²
The term Gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge,
gnosis.
It is applied to a wide range of groups of early Christians who stressed the importance of secret knowledge for salvation. According to most of these groups, the material world we live in was not the creation of the one true God. It came about as a result of a disaster in the divine realm, in which one of the (many) divine beings was for some mysterious reason excluded from the heavenly places; as a result of her fall
from divinity the material world came to be created by a lesser deity, who captured her and imprisoned her in human bodies here on earth. Some human beings thus have a spark of the divine within them, and they need to learn the truth of who they are, where they came from, how they got here, and how they can return. Learning this truth will lead to their salvation.

This truth consists of secret teachings, mysterious “knowledge” (
gnosis
), which can only be imparted by a divine being from the heavenly realm. For Christian Gnostics, Christ is this divine revealer of the truths of salvation; in many Gnostic systems, the Christ came into the man Jesus at his baptism, empowered him for his ministry, and then at the end left him to die on the cross. That is why Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” For these Gnostics, the Christ literally
had
forsaken Jesus (or “left him behind”). After Jesus's death, though, he raised him from the dead as a reward for his faithfulness, and continued through him to teach his disciples the secret truths that can lead to salvation.