Some books are inspired by world-shattering events, like a world pandemic. Others by something as small as getting sufficiently old to want reading glasses.
New Testament scholar and creator Candida Moss’ recent book, “God’s Ghostwriters,” was inspired by each. The book, due out March 26, looks on the behind-the-scenes people — scribes, copyists, translators and others — who brought the New Testament to life and who’ve been forgotten — because they did their jobs too well, writes Moss.
Moss said getting glasses made her have a look at the Bible in a recent light. She began wondering how people in the traditional world, akin to the authors of the New Testament, read and wrote in the event that they could now not see properly. Then COVID-19 hit — and Moss, who’s a kidney transplant recipient — was stuck at home in New York and depending on deliveries from Amazon and other firms for all times’s essentials.
“I used to be capable of isolate because other people were being placed in harm’s way on my behalf,” she said. That experience led her to think concerning the unknown people all of us depend on — and again had her interested by the Bible. It also sent her looking into the history of literary work in ancient Rome, much of which was done by slaves and formerly enslaved people.
Along the way in which, she got here to see that much of the New Testament was likely produced by enslaved people and lower-status employees — something that had not crossed her mind before. She began to think that students and readers of the Bible have neglected something essential by missing the accomplishment of those behind-the-scenes contributors.
“If you begin interested by enslaved people as co-authors of those texts, the Bible reads so in another way,” she told Religion News Service in a recent interview
Much of New Testament scholarship and Bible interpretations focuses on finding the creator’s original intent and audience. That’s based on an incomplete model that assumes the books of the New Testament had a single creator — as a substitute of being collaborative efforts.
“What we’re missing is all of the individuals who did all of the work,” she said. “And the sort of genius that goes into that sort of literary work.”
Moss said our understanding of how books of the Bible were written has also been shaped by Renaissance art — which frequently depicted religious leaders akin to the Apostle Paul sitting at a desk, surrounded by books, with quill in hand, writing on parchment.
“Everything about that image is incorrect,” Moss said.
The Apostle Paul, she said, makes it clear in his letters that he was dictating the text to another person — and in not less than one case, made some extent of writing out a line or two in his hand to indicate the difference. Most of his letters were written in prison — and Roman prisons were dark places and never conducive for writing.
During the time those letters were written, just about all dictation was taken by individuals who were enslaved or was enslaved, said Moss. Those literary employees were in high demand because so few people knew the way to write or wanted to speculate the time and energy needed to write down by hand.
She points out that the one that likely took dictation for the Book of Romans — Paul’s longest and best-known work — was named “Tertius,” or “Third.”
That’s the sort of name given to a slave, said Moss.
Roman literary employees who took dictation didn’t use quill and parchment. Instead, Moss explains, they often used wax tablets on which they inscribed a sort of shorthand, then transcribed the shorthand right into a written letter. They likely acted as editors as well — taking rambling dictation and smoothing it into polished prose — and because the first translators of the New Testament — provided that the spoken language of Jesus and his followers was Aramaic, while the New Testament was written in Greek.
At times, Moss argues, scholars dismiss as mindless or mechanical the work of individuals like Tertius — referring to them as “secretaries” without realizing the skill required for such projects.
“This is mindful work,” she said.
Taking dictation and transcribing books — after which copying and preserving manuscripts — also requires a fantastic deal of skill and is usually neglected. Moss said scholars are likely to only consider copyists or other employees involved in preserving and passing on a text akin to the New Testament once they make a mistake or introduce a change to the text.
But those self same scholars fail to contemplate how much those copyists and other employees did right — in preserving the texts. And that erasure can create the illusion that the New Testament comes “straight from the Holy Spirit to your hand,” Moss said, downplaying the role human beings played in creating the text.
“A terrific scribe writes himself into nonexistence,” she said.
Instead of being praised for his or her skill, those that preserved the text get remembered only for his or her mistakes.
“That negative characterization fails to represent the quantity of labor and craftsmanship and indeed love that went into protecting manuscripts and transmitting texts,” Moss said. “Every time someone made a change in a manuscript, they didn’t genuinely think that they were improving it. They’re not all meeting around a table to plot and strategizing about ruining ancient literature. They’re doing their highest and we only see them once they mess up.”
In writing the book, Moss drew on the techniques of students and historians who study the Atlantic slave trade, reconstructing the stories of enslaved individuals who have been erased from history. That meant taking a look at the roles enslaved people played in Roman society through the time the New Testament was written — after which in search of places where the stories of enslaved people could have been neglected.
For example, Moss retells the well-known story of a paralyzed man from the Gospel of Luke. In that story, several people carry the person on a mat and lower him down through the roof of a house so Jesus can heal him. Readers of that story, said Moss, may assume the people carrying the person were friends. But the text gives few details concerning the people carrying the paralyzed man. And that sort of job would often have been done by slaves, she said, which might change the meaning of the story.
Recognizing the role scribes and slaves played in creating the books of the New Testament can democratize the way in which people read the Bible, said Moss — showing that many hands had a job to play — as a substitute of focusing only on key religious leaders.
In the book, Moss also looks at the way in which early Christianity spread — from the “lectors” who would have read the text out loud in congregations to the role that word of mouth played in passing the Christian message along.
She said critics of early Christians downplayed the religion because women, slaves and other people considered to have low status were counted among the many movement’s followers.
Gossip, it seems, played a job in spreading the excellent news.
“When you go have a look at non-Christian sources, they are saying that Christianity spread through slaves and ladies and gossip,” Moss said. “That’s an entire different way of interested by who was spreading the excellent news. There was this whole host of individuals beyond the 12 apostles and Paul who were answerable for the rise of Christianity.”
© Religion News Service
