Christian Living

The Red Letter Words In The Bible Are Not The Words Of Jesus

by Rajkumar Richard
11/28/21
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For quite some time I believed that the red letter words are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. But when I came to understand that these words may not be the exact words of Jesus, I was disappointed.

            Two questions are in order: (1) Is it certain that the red letter words are not the words of Jesus?  (2) If so, how does it impact our faith in the Lord Jesus?

            First, how do we know for certain that the red letter words may not be the words of the Lord Jesus?

            New Testament scholar, Daniel B. Wallace claims that the red letter words may not be the words of the Lord Jesus, “Scholars are not sure of the exact words of Jesus. Ancient historians were concerned to get the gist of what someone said, but not necessarily the exact wording. A comparison of parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels reveals that the evangelists didn’t always record Jesus’ words exactly the same way. The terms ipsissima verba and ipsissima vox are used to distinguish the kinds of dominical sayings we have in the Gospels. The former means ‘the very words,’ and the latter means ‘the very voice.’ That is, the exact words or the essential thought. There have been attempts to harmonize these accounts, but they are highly motivated by a theological agenda which clouds one’s judgment and skews the facts. In truth, though red-letter editions of the Bible may give comfort to believers that they have the very words of Jesus in every instance, this is a false comfort.” ¹

            Dr. William Lane Craig believes that every serious student of the Gospels should avoid the use of the red letter editions of the Gospels. He writes:²

The Gospels were written in Greek, but Jesus taught in Aramaic. So even a red letter edition of the Greek New Testament would not give us the actual words of Jesus.

Granted, Jesus probably spoke Greek, at least enough to get by in his trade as a carpenter, since Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire, as a result of the pre-Roman conquests by Alexander the Great. Even though the Romans spoke Latin, in their dealings with Palestinians, they probably conversed in Greek—hence, the arresting centurion’s question to Paul: “Do you know Greek?” (Acts 21.37).

But in teaching his fellow Jews Jesus would naturally have spoken Aramaic. So what we have in the Gospels are Greek translations of what Jesus claimed and taught. Only rarely do we get glimpses of the original Aramaic words spoken by Jesus, as for example, Jesus’ words from the cross given in Mark: “At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’” (Mark 15.34).

Moreover, we need to keep in mind that in a culture that lacked even the device of quotation marks, the distinction between direct and indirect discourse can be blurred. Read the account of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John’s Gospel 3.10-21, ignoring the quotation marks introduced by the English translators, and ask yourself where John’s direct quotation of Jesus ends and John’s commentary begins. Or read Galatians 2.11-21 about Paul’s public dispute with Peter and ask yourself where Paul stops recording what he said at the time and begins his present reflections upon what happened. It’s not clear. So in a culture where the distinction between direct and indirect discourse is not always clear, giving a paraphrase or the gist of what a person said rather than his very words is perfectly acceptable.

The Gospel writers employed common techniques of their day in giving the teachings of Jesus, such as paraphrase, summary, omission, clarification, contextualization, and so on.

So it’s very misleading to print Jesus’ words in red, as though we have the original words of Jesus recorded there.

What we want to show is that the Gospel writers gave an accurate representation of what Jesus of Nazareth said and taught. This is where New Testament historical-critical scholarship can be helpful. Scholars will sometimes say that in a particular teaching attributed to Jesus, we hear the very voice of Jesus (ipsissima vox); that is to say, something that renders very closely (in Greek) what Jesus said. His teaching on the Kingdom of God would be a good example. Everyone recognizes that the proclamation of the coming of God’s Kingdom or reign lay at the heart of the teaching of Jesus. On other occasions, scholars think that we have the very words (ipsissima verba) of Jesus, that is, a Greek expression that translates almost verbatim what Jesus said. His use of the expression “the Son of Man” as a term of self-reference would be a good example. Instances of this sort would have the best claim to be printed in red; but then we artificially mar the Gospels by such a device...

The use of red letter editions of the Gospels ought to be shunned by serious students of the Gospels, since the device is fundamentally misleading as to the nature of the Gospel accounts.

            It is now clear that the red letter words need not necessarily be the very words of the Lord Jesus.

            Second, how does this impact my faith?

            Although I was disappointed that the red letter words may not be the very words of our Lord Jesus, I am thankful to the New Testament scholars for their integrity and honesty in reporting the truth.

            We may not possess the original writings of the Biblical authors (the autographs). But we possess an embarrassment of riches of the New Testament manuscripts. The field of Textual Criticism offers us a way to retrieve the writings of the autographs from the available manuscripts. Thereby, we understand that the Bible we have is the same as that of the autographs (99.5% pure and without any doctrinal distortion). Thus we are confident of the reliability of the New Testament.

            The fact that the Bible is reliable and that it records the very thoughts or the very voice of Jesus offers me the greatest confidence and comfort. The icing on the cake would have been the authenticity of the red letter words. But it does not matter!

Endnotes:

¹https://danielbwallace.com/2012/10/08/fifteen-myths-about-bible-translation/

²https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/red-letter-gospels

Websites last accessed on 13^th November 2021.