Bart D. Ehrman
Presidential Lecture, Society of Biblical Literature, SE Region
March 1997
.....I've chosen for my illustration one of the most intriguing textual problems of the Gospel of Luke, namely the variant accounts of the Last Supper preserved in MSS of Luke 22:19-20. The NT MSS present the passage in two major forms; one is conveniently labeled the "shorter text," because it lacks vv. 19b- 20, so that the passage reads as follows (17-19a, 21):
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 19 Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "This is my body. 21 But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table."
The longer text includes the familiar material (italicized) between the final two sentences (vv. 19b-20):
Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 20 And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 21 But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table."
This longer form of the text is the one familiar to most readers of the Bible, since it is the one found in virtually all modern English translations and is very similar to the words of institution recorded by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. It is also the one found in most of our Greek manuscripts of Luke. There are nonetheless solid reasons for thinking that the shorter text was the one originally written by the author, and that the passage italicized above was added by a scribe of the second century, some sixty or seventy years after the Gospel was first placed in circulation.
To analyze the competing merits of the two readings, the first step is obviously to consider the manuscripts supporting each one.
Whereas hundreds of mss attest the longer reading of the text, the shorter form is supported only by one early Greek and a handful of Old Latin manuscripts. That in itself is not a compelling reason for rejecting it, however, precisely because of the nature of the particular manuscripts in question. For technical reasons, whenever these particular manuscripts agree on a reading, scholars generally concede that it goes back at the least to the second century; but the odd thing is that when they do agree, it is almost always in expanded forms of the text, rather than contracted forms. In this instance, the mss that generally preserve longer texts attest the shorter one. This has given scholars pause; in this passage these manuscripts attest a reading that cuts against their known proclivities.
There are strong internal grounds for thinking they do so here because the shorter text is, in fact, the oldest surviving reading. It's worth noting, for example, that the longer passage preserves an inordinately high number of literary features completely uncharacteristic of Luke-Acts, and that precisely these non-Lukan features are the key elements of the text: the phrase "for you" occurs twice in this passage, but nowhere else in all of Luke-Acts, the word for "remembrance," occurs only here in Luke- Acts, and never elsewhere does Luke speak of the "new covenant," let alone the new covenant "in my blood."
But far more important than the absence of this vocabulary from the rest of Luke-Acts is the matter of its ideational content. For it is surely significant that the understanding of Jesus' death expressed by these words and phrases is otherwise absent from Luke's entire two-volume work. When Jesus says in Luke 22:19b-20 that his body is given "for you" and that his blood is shed "for you," he is stating what Luke says nowhere else: in neither his Gospel nor Acts does he portray Jesus' death as an atonement for sins.
Although most readers probably haven't noticed, never in his two volumes does Luke say that Jesus died "for your sins" or "for you." Significantly when he summarizes the features of the "Christ event" in the speeches of Acts, with remarkable consistency he portrays the death of Jesus not as an atoning sacrifice, but as a miscarriage of justice that God reversed by vindicating Jesus at the resurrection (e.g., Acts 2, 3, and 4). In none of these speeches is Jesus said to die "for" anyone. Instead, the scandal of his death as God's righteous one drives people to their knees in repentance, and it's this repentance that brings forgiveness of sins. In one passage in particular one might expect some reference, however distant, to Jesus' atoning death. In Acts 8 the apostle Philip encounters an Ethiopian eunuch reading the text of Scripture used most widely by early Christians to explain Jesus' death as a vicarious atonement: Isaiah 53. But somewhat remarkably, when Luke cites the passage as read by the Ethiopian, he includes not a word about the Servant of the Lord being "wounded for our transgressions" (Isa. 53:5), being "bruised for our iniquities" (53:5), or making himself "an offering for sin" (53:10). Luke has instead crafted his quotation to affirm his own view of Jesus' passion: he died as an innocent victim who was then vindicated (Acts 8:32-33).
It is particularly important to stress that Luke has not simply overlooked or avoided making references to Jesus' death as an atonement; he has in fact gone out of his way to eliminate notions of atonement from the one source we are virtually certain he had before him, the Gospel of Mark. Mark makes two poignant references to the salvific significance of Jesus' death and Luke changed them both. The first and most obvious comes in the famous words of Jesus in Mark 10:45: "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." If Luke found this theology acceptable, it is hard to explain what he did with the verse. He omitted it altogether.
The other reference is more subtle, but nonetheless forms a kind of linchpin for Mark's theology of the cross. In Mark's account, Jesus' death is immediately followed by two signs that suggest its meaning: the temple curtain is ripped in half and the Roman centurion confesses him to be "the Son of God" (15:38-39). Mark evidently uses the ripping of the curtain of the Holy of Holies to indicate that in the death of Jesus God has made himself available to human beings, destroying the barrier of access to him. And the confession of the centurion represents the first (and only) instance of a person in Mark's Gospel who fully recognizes who Jesus is: he is the Son of God who had to die, whose death was not inimical to his divine sonship but was instead constitutive of it. In short, the ripping of the curtain and the confession of the centurion reveal Mark's understanding of Jesus' death as an atoning sacrifice that effects salvation.
Luke's account of Jesus' death, which is dependent on Mark's, also records a tearing of the temple curtain and a confession of the centurion. But the events are modified so that their significance is transformed. The tearing of the curtain in the Temple no longer results from Jesus' death, because in Luke it occurs before Jesus dies (23:45). What the event might mean to Luke has been debated, but since it is now combined with the eerie darkness that has come over the land, it appears to represent a cosmic sign that accompanies the hour of darkness, symbolizing God's judgment upon his own people who have rejected his gift of "light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death" (1:79), a judgment that falls in particular on the religious institution which his people have perverted to their own ends (Luke 19:45-46).
So too Luke has changed the confession of the centurion. No longer does it indicate a profession of faith in the Son of God who has died ("Truly this man was the Son of God," Mark 15:39); now it coincides with Luke's own understanding of Jesus' death, for here the centurion proclaims, "Truly this man was innocent" (Luke 23:47). The death of Jesus in Luke-Acts is not a death that effects an atoning sacrifice. It is the death of a righteous martyr who has suffered from miscarried justice, whose death is vindicated by God at the resurrection. Let me emphasize: Luke was able to shift the focus away from the atoning significance of Jesus' death only by modifying the one account of that death which we are certain he had received. What though has this to do with our textual problem?
In fact only one of the two readings conforms with the theology of Luke otherwise, and specifically with his demonstrable handling of his Marcan source. The verses of the longer text of the institution of the Lord's Supper stress the atoning significance of Jesus' death for his disciples. That is, they emphasize precisely what Luke has gone out of his way to eliminate from his entire two-volume narrative. It's hard to see these verses as coming from Luke's own pen.
LUKE 22:14 So when the hour came, he reclined at the table along with the apostles. And he said to them: “I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16 for I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” 17 And accepting a cup, he gave thanks and said: “Take this and pass it from one to the other among yourselves, 18 for I tell you, from now on, I will not drink again from the product of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.”