How we got the Bible (Transmission)

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How we got the Bible – Part 3

Transmission of the Biblical Texts 
  1. Introduction:
    1. No autographa (original manuscripts) exists of any part of the Bible.
    2. The word “manuscript” is Latin in origin and means “that which is written by hand”.
    3. Important questions to consider about the transmission of the text: How do we know the Bible we have is an accurate reflection of what was written? Who copied these texts throughout the centuries and by what method?
 
  1. Why are there no autographa?
    1. Age and Decay: Most originals were written on papyrus or leather. These would naturally decay or be worn through constant usage and resulting deterioration.
    2. Calamities:

·         The Biblical lands were characterized by many wars and times of destructions. For example: Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C. and also 70 A.D.

·         Israelites were deported during the Assyrian exile (722 B.C.) as well as during the Babylonian exile (586 B.C.)·         This would have also impeded the preservation of the original manuscripts.

 

  1. Reverence for the texts: When manuscripts showed signs of wear and tear they were copied and reverently disposed of because they bore the sacred name of God.
  2. Deliberate destruction: The writings of the prophets were not always accepted and some were deliberately destroyed. (Jeremiah 36) Sometimes manuscripts were hidden from invading armies and eventually lost e.g. the Dead Sea Scrolls.
 
  1. Hebrew manuscripts throughout history
    1. The Old Testament Canon era (1450-400 B. C.) Old Testament books were copied by hand for generations on highly perishable papyrus and animal skins. The survival of the Old Testament Scriptures in spite of persecutions and exiles shows the determination of the Jewish scribes to preserve the Old Testament books
    2. The Talmudic era (c. 400 B. C. —A. D. 500) produced a flood of manuscripts that were used in the synagogues and for private use. The copies for synagogue use were made with extreme caution and were considered “sacred.” By the time of the Maccabean revolt (168 B. C.) the Syrians had destroyed most of the OT manuscripts.
    3. The Masoretic period (c. A. D. 500-1000). During this period, various Jewish scholars arose in dedication to the preservation of the Old Testament text. This group became known as the Massoretes because of their acknowledged dependence on the authoritative traditions (Massorah) of the text. Centered in Tiberias, this school began around A. D. 500 and continued on for five centuries.
 
  1. Surviving Hebrew manuscripts
    1. The Cairo Codex (A. D. 895) includes the Former and Latter prophets.
    2. The Leningrad Codex of the Prophets (A. D. 916)
    3. British Museum Codex of the Pentateuch (10th — 11th century)
    4. Leningrad Codex (A. D. 1008) is the oldest known manuscript of the entire Old Testament. Before 1947, Old Testament versions were based on these three partial and one complete manuscript from around A. D. 1000.
    5. Aleppo Codex (c. A. D. 950) was originally a complete OT. Most of it has survived.
    6. Many other manuscripts exist but the above mentioned were the main witnesses to the original Old Testament text.
    7. Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovered in 1948, these are extremely important in that they include Hebrew manuscripts of the OT written around 200 -100 B.C. —more than a thousand years earlier than the previously earliest manuscripts! The Dead Sea Scrolls include one complete book (Isaiah) and thousands of fragments which, together, represent every Old Testament books except Esther.
 
  1. Other Old Testament Manuscripts
    1. Samaritan Pentateuch (c. 400 B. C.) This manuscript covers the five books of Moses.
    2. Septuagint (c. 250 B. C.) This Greek translation of the Old Testament spans the entire Old Testament. It was quoted often by the apostles and New Testament writers.
    3. Aramaic Targums Aramaic translations came in existence after the exile.
    4. Syriac Peshitta Begun in the middle of the first century A. D. the Peshitta is in close agreement with the Massoretic text.
    5. Latin Vulgate (A. D. 390-405) Unlike the Old Latin version (A. D. 150) that based its translation on the Greek Septuagint, the Vulgate, composed by Jerome, was translated directly from the Hebrew.
    6. Biblical quotations from the Talmud (A. D. 200-500)
    7. Origen’s Hexapla (3rd century A. D.).
 
  1. Why do we believe the OT to be reliable?
    1. Meticulous care of Jewish Scribes - rigid regulations were laid down for making copies of Old Testament texts:

·         The copyist was required to sit in full Jewish dress after a complete bathing.

·         Only a certain kind of ink could be used·         Rules governed the spacing of words·         No word or letter could be written from memory·         Lines and letters were methodically counted·         If a manuscript was found to have even one error it was destroyed to prevent inaccurate copies from distribution.
  1.  
    1. The work of the Massoretes (A. D. 500-1000) – they took meticulous precautions to avoid copying mistakes and detect scribal errors.
    2. The Dead Sea Scrolls – It proved the Jewish scribes copied and recopied with the utmost fidelity.
  2. The New Testament manuscripts
    1. No original autographs: Soon after the NT books were written in the latter half of the first century, the original autographs perished.
    2. Old Testament vs. New Testament manuscript evidence: While the OT reliability is based on the meticulous transcription practice of the scribes, the reliability of the NT rests on the vast multitude of existing manuscripts.
    3. Number of manuscripts: The number of NT manuscripts written in Greek between the second and fifteenth centuries that we currently possess is 5,366. Because of this large number, the NT is considered the best-attested book from the ancient world.
    4. Grouping of manuscripts: Most manuscripts do not contain the entire NT because a hand-produced copy of the whole New Testament was too bulky for practical use. Four categories were generally followed when making copies of the New Testament

·        the four Gospels,

·        Acts and the General epistles, ·        Pauline epistles and ·        Revelation.

 

  1. Types of manuscripts: New Testament manuscripts are made up of three major types.

·        Papyrus Many of the earliest witnesses to the New Testament were written on papyrus material.

·        Uncials The manuscripts of this group are the earliest and most important. Uncial manuscripts were written with all capital letters and no spaces between letters. 362 uncial manuscripts are in existence today·        Minuscule (cursives) The minuscule script was a development of the cursive hand and differs from uncials by its use of smaller forms of letters. They did not make their debut until the ninth century and thus “are of less value because of their dates” (Lightfoot, pp. 36, 49). 
  1. Important New Testament manuscripts
    1. Uncial manuscripts on Papyrus (2nd—3rd centuries) There are eighty-eight papyri manuscripts of portions of the New Testament. These very early and important witnesses of the New Testament include most of the New Testament. The following are some of the more significant papyri witnesses.

·        P52 (c. A. D. 110-125) is the closest copy to an autographa. Dating around 110-125, it contains a few verses of John 18 (31-34, 37-38). This fragment, only twenty to thirty years removed from the autograph, was part of one of the earliest copies of John’s Gospel.” Note that P52 confirms the traditional belief that the Gospel of John was written before the end of the first century A. D.

·        P87 (c. 125) contains a few verses of Philemon. ·        P77 (c. 150) contains a few verses of Matthew 23. ·        P32 (c. 175) has portions of Titus 1 and 2.

·        P45 (late second century) Contains portions of all four Gospels and Acts.

·        P46 (c. 200) has almost all of Paul’s epistles and Hebrews;·        P47 (third century) contains Revelation 9-17. ·        P66 (c. 175) one of the earliest witnesses to the New Testament is this almost complete copy of the Gospel of John. ·        P72 (c. third century) earliest copy including Jude and 1 and 2 Peter. ·        P75 (c. 175-225) contains large portions of Luke 3 through John 15. 

 

  1. Uncial manuscripts on vellum and parchment (4th — 9th centuries) These manuscripts are the most important witnesses from the fourth and following centuries.

·        Codex Vaticanus (B) (c. 325-350) This manuscript is rare in that it contains, in Greek, practically all of the Old and New Testaments. It does not include the Pastoral epistles and Hebrews 9:15—Revelation. In spite of its gaps it is considered to be the most exact copy of the New Testament known. Printed texts of the Greek New Testament today rely heavily on Codex Vaticanus.

·        Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) (c. 340) Codex Sinaiticus is also an important witness to the New Testament text because of its age, accuracy and completeness. It contains over half of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament except for Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11.  

NOTE: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus rank as the two most important manuscript witnesses to the New Testament.

·        Codex Alexandrinus (A) (c. 450) This Alexandrian manuscript is a near complete copy of the Bible with very little missing except for portions from Matthew, John and 2 Corinthians. Alexandrinus was not known of early enough to be of help to the translators of the 1611 King James Version. ·        Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) (c. 345) This document is a palimpset—a manuscript in which the original writing has been erased and written over. Through chemicals and hard work, the original writing underneath can be read. It has material from every book of the New Testament except 2 Thessalonians and 2 John. Its age makes it a very valuable witness. It was not until 1845 that a full edition of this manuscript was published. ·        Codex Bezae (D) (c. 450 or 550) This is the earliest known biblical copy in two languages, Greek and Latin. It contains the Gospels and Acts with a small section of 3 John in Latin.         NOTE: Of these five very important manuscripts only one, Codex Bezae was available to the translators of the 1611 King James Version. Revised versions, today, are based on these earlier and better manuscripts.   
  1. Minuscule Manuscripts (9th — 15th centuries) Because of their late dates, minuscule manuscripts do not possess the high quality of the earlier uncials. There are 2,795 manuscripts and 1,964 lectionaries in minuscule script (Compare with 362 manuscripts and 245 lectionaries in uncial script.).
 
  1. Other New Testament witnesses
    1. Lectionaries: A lectionary is a manuscript arranged in sections for the purpose of being read in a public worship service. Most lectionaries are of the Gospels but some include Acts and the Epistles. 2,200 lectionaries have been discovered.
    2. Versions: Translations into other languages.

·        The Old Syriac This translation of the NT was in circulation in Syria (400AD)

·        The Old Latin Translated around 150 AD, it served as the Bible of the Western church. The Old Latin is the most important of the Latin versions since it reaches back very close to the time when the last books of the NT were written.·        The Peshitta This Syriac translation has been in use since the fifth century. ·        The Latin Vulgate This work, begun by Jerome in A. D. 384, became the standard Bible for more than a thousand years and was made the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
  1.  
    1. Early Christian writers: Many volumes of literature exist from the era of the early church fathers and are filled with quotations from the New Testament. These men possessed copies of the New Testament which are older than our manuscripts today.
“So extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone in reconstructing practically the entire New Testament” (Bruce Metzger) 
  1. Textual Criticism
    1. “Textual criticism (which in the past was sometimes referred to as lower criticism) is the attempt to determine the original text of the biblical books” (Millard Erickson)
    2. In textual criticism manuscripts are examined to “evaluate” the text. The textual critic seeks to weed out the bad readings from the original text.
    3. Textual criticism is also called lower criticism. It should not be confused with higher criticism which involves judgments on the genuineness of the biblical texts.
    4. Where manuscripts differ in there rendering it is referred to as a variation. Textual variations are the focus of textual criticism. When all the variants of all the manuscripts are accounted for, the number of variants to the New Testament text is 200,000. However, the vast majority of variants are very minor and affect, in only a very few cases, the meaning of a text. None of the variants have an impact on any major doctrine of Scripture.
    5. Variations are generally due to two kinds of errors made in the copying process:

(a)   Unintentional errors

·        Example: A scribe may write the word “Jesus” twice or accidentally skip a line when copying.  A scribe may make a mistake due to dim lighting or trying to write from memory.·        The textual critic, by comparison of many manuscripts, can detect and explain these kinds of errors without hesitation. (b)  Intentional errors·        A more serious problem happens when a well-meaning scribe tries to correct what he perceives to be an error.·        Here are some examples of intentional errors: -(i)            Luke 11:2-4 the account of the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11:2-4 was made to agree with the more popular version in Matthew 6:9-13. (ii)           John 19:14 The change from “sixth hour” to “third hour” in some manuscripts was an attempt to correct what some considered to be an inaccuracy. (iii)         1 John 5:7 This clear statement on the Trinity in the Authorized Version (King James) was clearly added to bolster the biblical view of the Trinity. (iv)        Mark 16:9-20 Early manuscript evidence and internal evidence within the Book of Mark strongly indicate that Mark 16:9-20 was not a part of Mark’s original Gospel and that the Gospel really ends at verse 8. Because this ending at verse 8 seems so abrupt, early scribes probably felt the necessity to add material about the resurrection to the end of Mark’s Gospel. (v)          John 7:53-8:11 It is best to take this story as a true account that happened in the life of Jesus but one that was not originally a part of John’s original Gospel. “The evidence against the originality of this pericope is extensive and wide-ranging, including both external and internal elements” (James R. White, The King James Only Controversy).
  1.  
    1. How accurate is the text we have today?

·         Westcott and Hort believed that only one-sixtieth of the variants in the New Testament rise above the level of “trivialities,” or could be called “substantial variations.” Even before the recent manuscript findings this would amount to a text that is 98.33 % pure.

·         Ezra Abbott estimates the text is 99.75 percent pure. ·         A. T. Robertson believed that only a “thousandth part of the entire text” was of any real concern. That would make the NT 99. 9 percent free from real concern.·         Sir Frederic Kenyon “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.”  Application Questions to Consider?
  1. Do you have doubts about the accuracy of the biblical texts? Why?
  2. Jehovah’s Witnesses (and other cults) have claimed that there are errors in the biblical texts. What arguments can you present to indicate the falsity of this position?
  3. Since God is able to accurately preserve His word what can we conclude about his ability to preserve and keep us?