If you have a question you can’t find an answer for elsewhere on this Web site, you are invited to submit it in the box to the right.  Return to this page frequently to view answers.  As the volume of questions and answers increases, we will list them alphabetically by topic. 

Q. How reliable is the text the New Testament that we have today? Does it reflect what was originally written? Didn’t copyists introduce many variations either deliberately or by mistake?

It is true that we don’t have the original manuscripts written in the hands of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, etc. But then neither do we have original manuscripts of Homer for the Iliad and the Odyssey, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides for their plays, Plato for his dialogues,

Julius Caesar for the Gallic War, Virgil for the Aeneid, Horace for his odes, and so on.  Yet no one seems to doubt that what has survived represents what those classical authors wrote.

What is more, even the best attested of the works of classical authors can’t compare with the books of the New Testament in the number of surviving early texts or partial texts.  And these surviving New Testament manuscripts are a lot closer in time to their originals  than are the surviving texts of the classical authors mentioned above.

In addition, in trying to establish the best original New Testament texts, the surviving ones can be compared to the many quotes from them that can be found in early Christian authors and in the books used by the Church for its liturgy.

In other words, no texts from the ancient world are better attested to than the New Testament books.

As for copyists making mistakes or even introducing phrases into the text,  that certainly did happen. Scholars who spend their lives studying and comparing New Testament texts are usually able to identify what text is most likely to reflect the original and give evidence for their conclusions.

What is remarkable is that nothing essential to the belief of Christians relies on a disputed text.  That is not to say that what these copyists did cannot have important results.  Protestants conclude the Lord’s Prayer as follows: “And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” Catholics end with “deliver us from evil.” The difference stems from different manuscripts of the New Testament and has for generations distinguished Catholic from Protestant in how they pray this oldest prayer of Christianity. If the longer ending was composed by a copyist for whatever reason, he made quite a difference in Christian practice, even without making any doctrinal difference.

Q. Is there a woman in Leonardo’s Last Supper?

A. Let’s do the math. Jesus and twelve apostles (all men) = 13 people. That’s how many people are in the picture. If Leonardo wanted Mary Magdalene in there, he would have to paint 14 people.

Let’s do the history. The Last Supper was painted to decorate a dining room of a group of Dominican friars. Anyone of them was surely capable – especially when the painting was fresh and new – of noticing and asking why a woman was in the painting. But there is no record of anyone thinking that the figure to Jesus’ right was anyone but St. John because St. John was usually portrayed as a beardless, “pretty” rather than handsome youth. This “prettiness” was the artist’s way of highlighting his youth.

Log on to www.wga.hu, click on Enter Here, click on “B” under “Artist Index,” scroll down and click on Bassano, Jacopo, scroll down his paintings and click on his Last Supper to get an enlarged view and see another young and “pretty” St. John.

Or just think of Jeffrey Hunter playing Jesus in the “King of Kings” for a modern counterpart.

Q. Wasn’t Jesus a rabbi and didn’t rabbis have to be married?

The term, "rabbi" comes from the Hebrew "rav," meaning great. It was used to mean "master," as opposed to a slave, and gradually became a form of address to those Jews who were learned in the law. In Jesus' time it was in the process of becoming a title for sages or learned men, such as scribes.  Jesus criticizes the use of the titles "rabbi" and "father," which he would have considered recent innovations (Matt 23:7).  It was not until the second century at the earliest that the title became identified with graduates of rabbinical schools who were "ordained" as masters of the law, or rabbis in the sense we understand the term today.  There was no specific requirement to be married, though it was presumed the normal course.  

Q.  Is belief in the divinity of Christ found
in the New Testament?

A. Yes. Jesus revealed, through his words and actions, that he is truly the divine Son of God. He forgave sins, referred to God as “my Father,” and spoke of himself as “the Son.” He taught with an authority that only God could possess. He worked miracles.

Among the passages that highlight Jesus’ divinity is the Prologue to St. John’sGospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh . . .” (Jn 1:1, 14). Also in St. John’s gospel, after Thomas encounters the Risen Lord, he addresses him as “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

Q. Did Jesus remain unmarried?

A. The constant and unbroken Tradition of the Church holds that Jesus did not marry. The New Testament does not answer this question directly, but it also does not offer any support for speculation about Jesus’ being married or having a child.

In the gospels, Jesus’ family is referred to several times, but no spouse is mentioned. The gospels tell us that women accompanied Jesus on his ministry and were present at Calvary and at his tomb on the morning of his Resurrection. But none of them is ever described as a spouse.

Questions or Comments?