Did Scribes Change Luke's Theology?

Visit https://www.bartehrman.com/courses/ to shop from Bart Ehrman’s online courses and get a special discount by using code: MJPODCAST on all courses.

Lots of informed readers know that scribes changed their texts of the New Testament -- but do the changes really matter for anything? In this episode we take the unusual approach of looking at textual changes in just one book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke, to see how slight (and not so slight) variations in the text can have an enormous impact on understanding the author's message -- involving such things as the virgin birth, the understanding of whether Jesus' death brought an atonement, whether he was fully human.

Megan asks Bart about:

-What is the textual evidence we have for the Gospel of Luke? When and where do scholars think the original was written, and do we have the original manuscript?

-Do we have other textual witnesses besides the Greek manuscripts?

-What is the extent of the differences between the manuscripts we have?

-How do we know that these variants are changes to the original text, rather than the original text that was later changed?

-The idea of atonement, that Jesus died for the sins of humanity, is another central conception to Christianity as we know it today, but this isn’t a central theme in Luke’s gospel - and might not have been originally there at all. Luke 22:19-20 contains the famous Last Supper speech in which Jesus says that his body will be broken for you, and blood shed for you. Can you talk about the two versions of the Last Supper scene that we have from the gospel of Luke, and why you think that this language may not have been there originally?

-Luke 22: 43-44 describes Jesus’ agony prior to his crucifixion, how he sweats blood, and how he must be comforted by an angel. What theological arguments can be made against it being original to the text? Are there literary features that suggest it’s a later insertion?

-Jesus’ physicality is emphasized in the end of Luke also, when he is “taken up” into heaven immediately after his resurrection…but in Acts, Luke reports that Jesus’ ascension didn’t take place until 40 days after. What’s going on here?