Table of Contents

Introduction
Early Writing
Major New Testament Documents
Problems in Textual Transmission
Implications for Inerrancy
References

Introduction

More than most religions the Judeo-Christian tradition dares "lock" God into history. While there is no doubt in Old or New Testament that God controls history, His direct interventions are few and far between. In fact, we have a word for such intrusions - miracles!

That God controls history is clear, for how else could He proclaim through Isaiah the accession of Cyrus to the Persian throne and his emancipation of the Jewish captives he inherited from the Babylonians? Yet Cyrus came to the throne by "standard" political machinations all to familiar to us humans.

Many religions have stories of incarnations, of gods coming to earth in human form for a day or two. The Advent of Jesus, though, is directly seated in the middle of history, as per Luke 3:1-2. As with the Son of God, so the Word of God.

The transmission of the Biblical texts to us from the now-missing originals is a matter of historical, linguistic, and archeological records. No golden tablets an spectacles here! Discoveries of spade, serendipity, and scholarship have made the Bible the most well-documented book of ancient history.

Here we're looking at the text of the New Testament, though the story of the Old Testament text is just as exciting. In fact, in many cases they are intertwined, for many Biblical manuscripts contain major sections from both Testaments.

Since you're reading this on line, or you printed it from your web browser, I'm going to give you lots of hyperlinks to resources. Click and look, for each link opens a second, smaller page opens on top of this one. None of the links are necessary to follow the narrative, so you can skip them and still come out with a good grade.

Return to top

So what was early writing like?

It's Greek to me - and it was Greek to them, too! The earliest New Testament texts looked like -

Click here to see more of this manuscript, Codex Bezea.

It was written in all capital letters with no spacing or punctuation. This "style" is called "Uncial." Yep, most of us would find English hard to read, but if we grew up with this we'd get along with few problems. An isolated sentence might give us problems - GODISNOWHERE - but the context would help us figure out if GOD IS NOW HERE or GOD IS NOWHERE.

If you were to touch the original document (Not the screen! That leaves smudges.) you'd realize it was leather. This specially tanned leather is referred to as "parchment" or "vellum."

Papyrus was another common material. This was a paper made from the pith of the papyrus plant. In its day it was as strong and flexible as the paper we use today. Here's what a papyrus fragment looks like today -

For links to pictures of more papyri fragments and major manuscripts, click here.

Scrolls or Books?

Well, both, actually! We think of scrolls because of the traditional form of the Jewish Torah today and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. In Paul's day, however, many writings were in book form. Ooops - "book" is far too pedestrian a work. A book is a "codex" in educated parlance. Never use a small word when a large word will do.

Check out 2 Timothy 4:13 -

When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.

He may have been asking for papyri codicies and parchments scrolls, perhaps New and Old Testament scriptures?

Return to top

Major New Testament Documents

Among the almost 5,000 manuscript copies of all or parts of the New Testament in Greek and other languages some are clearly more valuable than others.

Valuable - why? Well, they -

• Are old, even older than your parents!
• Contain most if not all of the New Testament and, in some cases, the entire Bible.
• Seem - note that weasel word - to be closer to the original text than others. More on this later!

Here's a list of some of the most important ones -

Chester Beatty Papyri

A collection of papyrus codices that contain large portions of the New Testament. They are dated around 250. F.F. Bruce reports that of the original 104 books 86 survive (The Books and Parchments, p. 182).

Codex Vaticanus

This is the most complete known manuscript of the Greek Bible (the Septuagint). It was added to the Vatican library by Pope Nicholas V in 1448. Understandably Roman Catholic scholars preferred the Latin Vulgate to the Greek, so they didn't make a big deal of it. You can also understand why they refused to allow Protestant scholars to look at it. In 1843 Constantin Tischendorf, more on him anon (love that word!), probably the most outstanding textual scholar of his day, got to look at it for six hours!

Since then things have loosed up a bit and it's available to scholars. It dates from around 325 which makes it the oldest (almost) complete Bible.

Click here to see a picture of one of its pages and a close-up of its text. Can you imagine the work necessarily to copy the entire Bible by hand in these neat letters?

Return to top

Codex Siniaticus

The firelight glinted on a pile of moulding pages that lay folded at odd, stiff angles. A robed monk silently fed them into the fire. Suddenly his eyes narrowed as he recognized what they were. Shooting to his feet and across the room he grabbed the sheets out of the surprised monk's hand. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "These are to be saved, not burned!" He held one of the pages to the light of the fire, lovingly smoothing it as he studied the faded writing on it. At last, at long last, his quest was over!

OK - a bit too dramatic? Not at all - this really happened! Constantin von Tischendorf, not yet 30, was on a government-sponsored quest to find ancient Biblical manuscripts. In Egypt he had heard rumors that an old, Orthodox monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai owned some old texts. During his first visit he found the monks lighting the fire in the cooking stove with moldy parchment pages - pages of manuscripts older than anyone had seen to that time!

Over the next several years he wheedled, cajoled, and negotiated the "release" of several manuscripts, including one of the few almost-complete copies of the entire Bible and several other ancient texts. Tischendorf called this "Siniaticus" and it rates as one of the most valuable textual discoveries of all time.

Click here for a copy of his account of its discovery.

Click here to see a page of this manuscript.

Return to top

Codex Ephraemi - a Palimpsest Manuscript

A what?

Parchment was prepared for writing by scraping it. If a scribe took an old parchment book and scraped its pages again he could reuse it. Combine the Greek words for "scrape" and "again" and you get - palimpsest!

In this case a 12th century scribe scraped off most of an old Biblical manuscript and copied the sermons of St. Ephraim on top of it. Today the original is far more valuable, but incredibly hard to read. Take a look -

Somehow in 1843-45 our buddy Tischendorf deciphered the underlying text as his first but not his last contribution to textual studies.

Summary

I won't bore you with the details of each manuscript, but note how many of the oldest documents were discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries. The last two centuries have witnessed a virtual explosion in the number of Biblical manuscripts available for study.

This has been a large factor in the production of many English translations in the last 50 or so years.

Return to top

Problems in Textual Transmission

Thousands of manuscripts and none of them agree - now what?

First of all, this is exactly what we would expect! Think of it - if a group of people took a newspaper article and made hand-written copies of it, some from the original, some from manuscript copies, would you expect them to be identical? Not at all, and that's just what we find with the Biblical texts.

Common Errors

Miscopying letters that look alike = Permutation

What's your first guess? Miscopying letters that look alike? That's my first guess, too. Consider 1 Timothy 3:16 - Is it "He" appeared or "God" appeared? In Greek the "He" is os and "God" is frequently abbreviated as os with a line across the top of the letters. Miss the line and miss the abbreviation!

2 Peter 2:13 - "dissipation" and "love feasts" are just two easily confused letters apart...in Greek, that is!

Switching Letters (No big word for this mistake!)

Switch letters and you can easily switch words, "Testifying" and "sinning" are a few switched letters apart. In John 5:39, according to Codex Bezae, the Scriptures are the ones "sinning concerning me."

Repeating Words - Dittography

In Vaticanus the people cry "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians" twice (Acts 19:34) instead of once as in most texts.

Correcting the Text

Mark 1:2 attributes the Old Testament citation to Isaiah, but it actually comes from Malachi. Some texts change "Isaiah the prophet" to "the prophets."

OK - we can continue with this, but it's clear that the Greek scribes made every mistake our group of newspaper scribes would make today. Now the question is - how do we figure out what the original actually said.

Return to top

Standard Principles

So how do those "in the know" make sense out of these differences? Here's a list of principles put forth by several who spent their lifetimes studying this -

Lobegott Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874)

1. The text is to be sought from the most ancient evidence, meaning especially the oldest Greek manuscripts;

2. A reading peculiar to a single document is to be considered suspect;

3. An obvious scribal error is to be rejected even though well supported in the manuscripts;

4. In parallel passages the tendency of copyists would be to make the readings agree, and therefore, in such passages, testimonies are to be preferred which are not in precise accordance

5. That reading is to be preferred which could have given occasion to the others, or which appears to comprise the elements of the others; and

6. That reading is to be preferred which accords with NT Greek or with the style of the individual writer.

(Summarized by Finegan, Encountering NT Manuscripts, p. 63)

Return to top

Bruce M. Metzger’s Criteria

External Evidence, involving considerations bearing upon:

1. The date of the witness or, rather, of the type of text.

2. The geographical distribution of the witnesses that agree in supporting a variant.

3. The genealogical relationship of texts and families of witnesses: Witnesses are weighed rather than counted.

Internal Evidence, involving two kinds of probabilities:

A. - Transcriptional Probabilities depend upon considerations of paleographical details and the habits of scribes. Thus:

1. In general the more difficult reading is to be preferred.

2. In general the shorter reading is to be preferred.

3. That reading is to be preferred which stands in verbal dissidence with the other.

B. - Intrinsic Probabilities depend upon considerations of what the author was more likely to have written, taking into account:

1. The style and vocabulary of the author throughout the book,

2. The immediate context,

3. Harmony with the usage of the author elsewhere, and, in the Gospels,

4. The Aramaic background of the teaching of Jesus,

5. The priority of the Gospel according to Mark, and

6. The influence of the Christian community upon the formulation and transmission of the passage in question.

Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 209-210.

Return to top

Twelve Basic Rules of Kurt and Barbara Aland

1. Only one reading can be original, however many variant readings there may be.

2. Only the readings which best satisfies the requirements of both external and internal criteria can be original.

3. Criticism of the text must always begin from the evidence of the manuscript tradition and only afterward turn to a consideration of internal criteria.

4. Internal criteria (the context of the passage, its style and vocabulary, the theological environment of the author, etc.) can never be the sole basis for a critical decision, especially when they stand in opposition to the external evidence.

5. The primary authority for a critical textual decision lies with the Greek manuscript tradition, with the version and Fathers serving no more than a supplementary and corroborative function, particularly in passages where their underlying Greek text cannot be reconstructed with absolute certainty.

6. Furthermore, manuscripts should be weighed, not counted, and the peculiar traits of each manuscript should be duly considered. However important the early papyri, or a particular uncial, or a minuscule may be, there is no single manuscript or group or manuscripts that can be followed mechanically, even though certain combinations of witnesses may deserve a greater degree of confidence than others. Rather, decisions in textual criticism must be worked out afresh, passage by passage (the local principle).

7. The principle that the original reading may be found in any single manuscript or version when it stands alone or nearly alone is only a theoretical possibility. Any form of eclecticism which accepts this principle will hardly succeed in establishing the original text of the New Testament; it will only confirm the view of the text which it presupposes.

8. The reconstruction of a stemma of readings for each variant (the genealogical principle) is an extremely important device, because the reading which can most easily explain the derivation of the other forms is itself most likely the original.

9. Variants must never be treated in isolation, but always considered in the context of the tradition. Otherwise there is too great a danger of reconstructing a "test tube text" which never existed at any time or place.

10. There is truth in the maxim: lectio difficilior lectio potior ("the more difficult reading is the more probable reading"). But this principle must not be taken too mechanically, with the most difficult reading (lectio difficilima) adopted as original simply because of its degree of difficulty.

11. The venerable maxim lectio brevior lectio potior ("the shorter reading is the more probable reading") is certainly right in many instances. But here again the principle cannot be applied mechanically.

12. A constantly maintained familiarity with New Testament manuscripts themselves is the best training for textual criticism. In textual criticism the pure theoretician has often done more harm than good.

Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 275-276.

Return to top

Summary

OK - what's the conclusion of all this? By comparing the thousands of manuscripts and applying the principles listed above scholars have concluded that we know the text of the New Testament to a remarkably degree of certainty. Yes, areas of uncertainty exist, but no major doctrine rests on a disputed passage.

We may not understand everything that they wrote and we may not agree who actually wrote the words. We do, however, agree on most of the words. And that is a wonderful certainty!

So Are There Errors in the Bible?

no . . . No . . . NO . . . NO! Whew - did I shout loud enough? Good!

There are those who point to the places where good people disagree about the wording and say, "Ah ha! There are errors in the Bible. You can't trust it!" I suspect that at some level this challenge makes sense. After all, we, well, I at least, subscribe to the inerrancy of Scripture. I also accept the concept of "verbal" inspiration. How do these questions of the text relate to these?

There are Errors . . .

How do you identify an error? Easy - you compare it to what's right! If the Book of Acts, for example, describes Ephesus as one of Greece's major sea ports, we have an error. Ephesus has always been on the coast of Asia Minor, never Greece. I know this error because I know the geographical truth.

To affirm an error I must also affirm the truth, the way things really are.

. . . And there's Ignorance!

Two thousand years of history stand between me and the original New Testament documents and their milieu. The vicissitudes of this history have left me ignorant of the original text in a few places, the meaning of some statements, and many of the personal references. These "dark places" are places of my ignorance, not errors in Scripture.

Does this mean we have no dependable understanding of Scripture? Not at all! Consider the text - I know as fully as I can what most of the original words were and I am ignorant of some of them. The same is true of the teachings of the Bible. I am confident that I understand much of what Scripture teaches. I fully admit that there are things about which I have no idea!

In light of this ignorance, do I give up and turn my back on the Bible? Nope - I accept my limited knowledge and understanding and do my best to push back my ignorance. As I do this I live in light of what I know.

"There is enough clarity in the Word of God to lighten the simplest, and enough mystery to humble the wisest." - Man, I wish I knew who first said that, I know it wasn't me!

Return to top

References

Want to see and read more? Here are a few resources for you -

Online Resources

Timothy Seid of Earlham College has an excellent web site devoted to textual criticism. It's at http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/index.html.

A great place to see images of many of these manuscripts is http://faculty.ltss.edu/BPeterson/Greek/MssImages.htm

Books

Bruce, F. F. The Books and the Parchments. Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming M. Revell Company, 1963.

Deissman, Adolf. Light from the Ancient Near East. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1965.

Metzger, Bruce M. The Test of the New Testament – It’s Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Price, Ira Maurice. The Ancestry of our English Bible. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956.

Return to top