Can you cite specific passages that some Christian scribes may have intentionally changed?

Answer 1

Sometimes we can establish that an interpolation has occurred because the text is missing from the earliest manuscripts available to us, or because some manuscripts use one version, while other manuscripts use a different version of the text. A well-known example is the ending of Mark's Gospel. In the earliest manuscripts known to us, the gospel ends at verse 16:8, when the women fled from the tomb and told no one what they had seen. However, there are two known interpolated endings to Mark, known as the "short ending" and the "long ending". The ending used in modern Bibles is the "long ending", but both Jerome and Eusebius stated that the verses were not in the oldest copies of the gospel that they were acquainted with.

Sometimes interpolations are reasonably clear, but often it is necessary to deduce that an interpolation may have occurred. An example of an implied interpolation occurs in 1 Cor 15:3-8. An analysis begins with Irenaeus, arguing with the followers of Marcion who said that "Paul alone knew the truth and to him alone the mystery [of the resurrection] was manifested by revelation". He said that Paul himself maintained that "the same God worked in himself and Peter" (Against the Heresies 3:13). His explanation would have been more compelling had he used the passage in 1 Cor 15:3-8, yet he did not. For this reason, Ellegard and others suggest the possibility that 1 Cor 15:3-8 may be an interpolation that did not exist in the version of 1 Corinthians that Irenaeus knew.

In fact, of the epistles nominally attributed to St Paul (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon) many liberal Christian scholars now accept only Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Galatians, Philippians and 1 Thessalonians as genuine. A.Q. Morton goes further, having carried out a computer analysis of the epistles attributed to Paul and found that only Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Philemon contain exactly the same writing style as Galatians. The remainder of these epistles are considered not just to have been intentionally changed, but entirely unknown to St Paul.

Another example is in 1 John 5:7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

This has has long been known not to be original. It was never in the Greek manuscripts, but appeared in the Latin translation of the fifth century, after the Trinity doctrine had been accepted.

Answer 2

Certain scholars believe that the story of the adulterous woman in John 7:53-8:11 was inserted later, not part of the original gospel. Additionally, the ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) is thought to have been added by later scribes as it differs in style and content from the rest of the Gospel.