About:

I've created this site mainly for me in order to keep track of what I'm learning but I figured if any family member or friend could also find some use in this on-going study of truth I might as well make it a live hyperlink. I'm not a Pastor nor a Teacher but just a seeker of truth; this site explains what I'm still learning today and what I now believe regarding God's Word, i.e., the Old and New Testament (Bible) and how I think it pertains to today's world.  As of 2009, after 30 yrs. of studying God's Word I'm still not identifying myself to any Christian religion nor any Political Party.  This site is open for all who respectfully (adv. showing or marked by proper respect; to feel or show admiration and deference toward somebody or something) want to discuss both the pros and cons of what I have posted; I can post your comments along with your name and email address on a separate page. My hope for this website is to keep steering me away from a "form of godliness" - 2 Tim 3 :1-5. The reason I say this is for about the last 28 of my 30 years calling myself a Christian I've mostly only professed a "form of godliness" and didn't "walk the talk." I was "always learning but never able to acknowledge (or walk in) the Truth - 2 Tim 3:7; now finally after all of these years, I've come to really understand what the Christian walk is all about and can be summarized in the following verse: Rev .14:12 "Here is the patience of Saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus". What I'd like to prove in this website is Satan from the beginning, until today, is behind the New World Order (NWO.) I try to prove this with scripture, history and current events, I will also have "statements of beliefs" pertaining to secular things such as 911 which I will hopefully tie into my Biblical prospective; but first I want to give you a macro outline of what I believe regarding the Bible.

 The Word of God is the authority for resolving any doctrinal differences (see Matt. 22:29; 2 Tim. 3:16). Doctrinal differences are not decided democratically (majority rules) but only by the weight of evidence found in scripture. Since it is "impossible for God to lie", all of His Word is truth (Heb. 6:18; see Titus 1:2; Psalm 119:142; John 17:17); this means that true doctrines will be in harmony with "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" and "all that the prophets have spoken" (Matt. 4:4; Luke 24:25). Nevertheless, it is dangerous to base any doctrine on only one text (see Isa. 28:9-13). Actually, since God "cannot lie", one text would be sufficient if and only if it was interpreted correctly; but fallen humans are susceptible to misinterpretation, so before accepting any doctrine there should be at least "two or three witnesses" from inspiration in support of it (Deut. 17:6; 19:15; see 1 John 5:6,8; John 15:26; 14:26; 16:13; 2 Peter 1:20, 21). On the other hand, no doctrine should be taught or believed as long as there are two or three texts for which no answers (which will stand up to close examination) can be given—regardless of how many texts seem to support it (see 1 Peter 3:15; Matt. 22:12,34; Rom. 3:19; Titus 1:11). My foundation for both the New and Old Testament is based upon the 1611 King James Bible. With this said, only the Holy Sprit can help really interpret the Bible with the "meaning" of the 1st century writers, e.g., Luke, Paul, etc...  I.e., all the knowledge in the world will not give one the final answer on a particular verse or chapter as there are many variables with the different versions of ancient copies.  Here are two examples:

  1. Math 16:

    15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

    16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

    17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

    In this first example we read where Peter (who was a uneducated fisherman) was taught via the Holy Sprit that Jesus was in fact the Christ, he did not learn this by reading volumes of books or with a higher education.
     

  2. My 2nd example takes us back to the time when King James hired his scholars from around the world to interpret the ancient Greek and Hebrew texts into English. We need to remember that several years before, Wycliff and Tyndale had been burned at the stake for attempting the same. Needless to say these scholars were mindful not to upset the King when they interpreted Romans Chapter 13 from the Greek. Romans 13 is actually a statement by Paul in support of individual liberty, rather than a command to submit to the commands of authoritarian rulers:

Let's first read 1 Cor 8:

9 But take heed lest by any means this liberty (Exousia) of your's become a stumbling block to them that are weak.
 

Now read Romans 13:

  1. 1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers (Exousia) For there is no power (Exousia) but of God: the powers (Exousia) that be are ordained of God.
  2. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, (Exousia) resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
  3. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? (Exousia) do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
  4. 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
  5. 5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
  6. 6 For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
  7. 7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

Paul wrote both of these books and in both Paul used the Greek word "Exousia" or Liberty. Not to upset the Kings "authority", his scholars changed the 1st century meaning of liberty to power.  Now go back and re-read Romans 13 and replace the word power with liberty.... this chapter now takes on a completely different meaning, instead of the first century Christians being required to submit to the powers of Rome, Paul who was always on the run from the Roman authorities was telling his young flock not to resist the "liberty" or "freedom of choice" God has given to all Christians; i.e. the choice to do evil or good.  Paul (like Jesus) taught to "be separate" from the authorities of this earth but not to separate from each other, i.e., Christians. Moreover, Peter and the [other] apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men; Acts 5:29. Unfortunately Romans 13 was Hitler's favorite verses and unfortunately it will be used again by our government-paid pastors when martial law is enforced, and they begin to openly tell their flock to turn-in their guns and go to Wal-Mart for food and their "flu" shot....(more on this later.)  For a deeper study on the true meaning of Rom 13 click here....   

Most of my work will be based upon past and current authors and scholars and I will try my best to always give them credit for their work; however just because I use some of their work does not mean I indorse them or their ministry. I'm constantly seeking the truth and I'm open to all Christian teachings. I've made many mistakes in the past in my thinking and understanding of God's Word, and I'm sure I'll be making them in the future; however I'm humble enough to apologize when I've gone off course and I will correct my mistakes in writing on this site. 

 Again this site is open for correction and rebuff; however it might take me some time to get back to you with my answer.  One more thing, I'm not a writer nor an editor and my grammar and spelling is not the greatest; therefore, for those of you that take exception to poor writers, feel free to correct me at will.

Our foundation the Holy Bible and it's history:

 

I personally use the KJV and the NIV "parallel" Bible for my daily reading; however I also use the Hebrew Bible for my OT studies along with the Greek Bible for my NT studies in addition to the Geneva Bible.  I understand that the KJV along with the NIV do not get it right all of the time. With this said, I'm not endorsing any Bible version; it is our duty as Christians to study all available material and to always ask the Holy Spirit to give us the answer/interpretation .

History of the Bible: How The Bible Came To Us
by Wesley Ringer

Introduction

Why should we have some understanding of how the Bible came to us? Young children often think that milk comes in cartons from the grocery store. As they grow up they learn that milk comes from cows on the farm. Likewise many Christians have become so used to having Bibles that they have bought at a book store that they have almost no knowledge of where the present English translations of the Bible came from.

  1. Understanding how the Bible came to us gives us a confident foundation for our faith in the reliability the Bible. Evidence presented in a criminal case must be shown to have been protected by a proper chain of custody from being tampered with.
  2. We will be able to answer to critics when they claim that the New Testament contains 200,000 errors.
  3. We will have some understanding of why the newer translations such as the NIV and NASV  differ from the King James Versions at various points.

Important terms to remember:

Skeptics often claim that the Bible has been changed. However, it is important to define the terms that apply to the source of our English Bible.

  • Autographs: The original texts were written either by the author's own hand or by a scribe under their personal supervision.
  • Manuscripts: Until Gutenberg first printed the Latin Bible in 1456, all Bibles were hand copied onto papyrus, parchment, and paper.
  • Translations: When the Bible is translated into a different language it is usually translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. However some translations in the past were derived from an earlier translation. For example the first English translation by John Wycliffe in 1380 was prepared from the Latin Vulgate.

Old Testament

The Bible comes from two main sources - Old and New Testaments - written in different languages. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, with some books written in Aramaic. The following are brief snap shots of the beginning and ending of the Old Testament and the reasons for the first two translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Aramaic and Greek

  • 1875 B.C. Abraham was called by God to the land of Canaan.
  • 1450 B.C. The exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

Autographs

There are no known autographs of any books of the Old Testament. Below is a list of the languages in which the Old Testament books were written.

  • 1450-1400 B.C. The traditional date for Moses' writing of Genesis-Deuteronomy written in Hebrew.
  • 586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews were taken into captivity to Babylon. They remained in Babylon under the Medo-Persian Empire and there began to speak Aramaic.
  • 555-545 B.C. The Book of Daniel Chapters. 2:4 to 7:28 were written in Aramaic.
  • 425 B.C. Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew.
  • 400 B.C. Ezra Chapters. 4:8 to 6:18; and 7:12-26 were written in Aramaic.

Manuscripts

The following is a list of the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament that are still in existence.

  • The Dead Sea Scrolls: date from 200 B.C. - 70 A.D. and contain the entire book of Isaiah and portions of every other Old Testament book but Esther.
  • Geniza Fragments: portions the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, discovered in 1947 in an old synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, which date from about 400 A.D.
  • Ben Asher Manuscripts: five or six generations of this family made copies of the Old Testament using the Masoretic Hebrew text, from 700-950 A.D. The following are examples of the Hebrew Masoretic text-type.
    • Aleppo Codex: contains the complete Old Testament and is dated around 950 A.D. Unfortunately over one quarter of this Codex was destroyed in anti-Jewish riots in 1947.
    • Codex Leningradensis: The complete Old Testament in Hebrew copied by the last member of the Ben Asher family in A.D. 1008.

Translations

The Old Testament was translated very early into Aramaic and Greek.

  • 400 B.C. The Old Testament began to be translated into Aramaic. This translation is called the Aramaic Targums. This translation helped the Jewish people, who began to speak Aramaic from the time of their captivity in Babylon, to understand the Old Testament in the language that they commonly spoke. In the first century Palestine of Jesus' day, Aramaic was still the commonly spoken language. For example maranatha: "Our Lord has come," 1 Corinthians 16:22 is an example of an Aramaic word that is used in the New Testament.
  • 250 B.C. The Old Testament was translated into Greek. This translation is known as the Septuagint. It is sometimes designated "LXX" (which is Roman numeral for "70") because it was believed that 70 to 72 translators worked to translate the Hebrew Old Testament in Greek. The Septuagint was often used by New Testament writers when they quoted from the Old Testament. The LXX was translation of the Old Testament that was used by the early Church.

    1. The following is a list of the oldest Greek LXX translations of the Old Testament that are still in existence.
    • Chester Beatty Papyri: Contains nine Old Testament Books in the Greek Septuagint and dates between 100-400 A.D.
    • Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus each contain almost the entire Old Testament of the Greek Septuagint and they both date around 350 A.D.

 

The New Testament

Autographs

45- 95 A.D. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Pauline Epistles, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, and the book of Acts are all dated from 45-63 A.D. The Gospel of John and the Revelation may have been written as late as 95 A.D.

Manuscripts

There are over 5,600 early Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament that are still in existence. The oldest manuscripts were written on papyrus and the later manuscripts were written on leather called parchment.

  • 125 A.D. The New Testament manuscript which dates most closely to the original autograph was copied around 125 A.D, within 35 years of the original. It is designated "p 52" and contains a small portion of John 18. (The "p" stands for papyrus.)
  • 200 A.D. Bodmer p 66 a papyrus manuscript which contains a large part of the Gospel of John.
  • 200 A.D. Chester Beatty Biblical papyrus p 46 contains the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews.
  • 225 A.D. Bodmer Papyrus p 75 contains the Gospels of Luke and John.
  • 250-300 A.D. Chester Beatty Biblical papyrus p 45 contains portions of the four Gospels and Acts.
  • 350 A.D. Codex Sinaiticus contains the entire New Testament and almost the entire Old Testament in Greek. It was discovered by a German scholar Tisendorf in 1856 at an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Sinai.
  • 350 A.D. Codex Vaticanus: {B} is an almost complete New Testament. It was cataloged as being in the Vatican Library since 1475.

Translations

Early translations of the New Testament can give important insight into the underlying Greek manuscripts from which they were translated from.

  • 180 A.D. Early translations of the New Testament from Greek into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions began about 180 A.D.
  • 195 A.D. The name of the first translation of the Old and New Testaments into Latin was termed Old Latin, both Testaments having been translated from the Greek. Parts of the Old Latin were found in quotes by the church father Tertullian, who lived around 160-220 A.D. in north Africa and wrote treatises on theology.
  • 300 A.D. The Old Syriac was a translation of the New Testament from the Greek into Syriac.
  • 300 A.D. The Coptic Versions: Coptic was spoken in four dialects in Egypt. The Bible was translated into each of these four dialects.
  • 380 A.D. The Latin Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome. He translated into Latin the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. The Latin Vulgate became the Bible of the Western Church until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's. It continues to be the authoritative translation of the Roman Catholic Church to this day. The Protestant Reformation saw an increase in translations of the Bible into the common languages of the people.
  • Other early translations of the Bible were in Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic, Slavic, and Gothic.
  • 1380 A.D. The first English translation of the Bible was by John Wycliffe. He translated the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate. This was a translation from a translation and not a translation from the original Hebrew and Greek. Wycliffe was forced to translate from the Latin Vulgate because he did not know Hebrew or Greek.

The Advent of Printing

Printing greatly aided the transmission of the biblical texts.

  • 1456 A.D. Gutenberg produced the first printed Bible in Latin. Printing revolutionized the way books were made. From now on books could be published in great numbers and at a lower cost.
  • 1514 A.D. The Greek New Testament was printed for the first time by Erasmus. He based his Greek New Testament from only five Greek manuscripts, the oldest of which dated only as far back as the twelfth century. With minor revisions, Erasmus' Greek New Testament came to be known as the Textus Receptus or the "received texts."
  • 1522 A. D. Polyglot Bible was published. The Old Testament was in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin and the New Testament in Latin and Greek. Erasmus used the Polyglot to revise later editions of his New Testament. Tyndale made use of the Polyglot in his translation on the Old Testament into English which he did not complete because he was martyred in 1534.
  • 1611 A.D. The King James Version into English from the original Hebrew and Greek. The King James translators of the New Testament used the Textus Receptus as the basis for their translations.
  • 1968 A.D. The United Bible Societies 4th Edition of the Greek New Testament. This Greek New Testament made use of the oldest Greek manuscripts which date from 175 A.D. This was the Greek New Testament text from which the NASV and the NIV were translated.
  • 1971 A.D. The New American Standard Version (NASV) was published. It makes use of the wealth of much older Hebrew and Greek manuscripts now available that weren't available at the time of the translation of the KJV. Its wording and sentence structure closely follow the Greek in more of a word for word style.
  • 1983 A.D. The New International Version (NIV) was published. It also made use of the oldest manuscript evidence. It is more of a "thought-for-thought" translation and reads more easily than the NASV.
    • As an example of the contrast between word-for-word and thought-for-thought translations, notice below the translation of the Greek word "hagios-holy" 
      NASV Hebrews 9:25. "...the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own."
      NIV Hebrews 9:25. "...the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own."
    • The NIV supplies "understood" information about the Day of Atonement, namely that the high priest's duties took place in the compartment of the temple known specifically as the Most Holy Place. Note that the NASV simply says "holy place" reflecting the more literal translation of "hagios."

The Integrity of the Manuscript Evidence

As with any ancient book transmitted through a number of handwritten manuscripts, the question naturally arises as to how confident can we be that we have anything resembling the autograph. Let us now look at what evidences we have for the integrity of the New Testament manuscripts. Let us look at the number of manuscripts and how close they date to the autographs of the Bible as compared with other ancient writings of similar age.

  1. Tacitus, the Roman historian, wrote his Annals of Imperial Rome in about A.D. 116. Only one manuscript of his work remains. It was copied about 850 A.D.
  2. Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote The Jewish War shortly after 70 A.D. There are nine manuscripts in Greek which date from 1000-1200 A.D. and one Latin translation from around 400 A.D.
  3. Homer's Iliad was written around 800 B.C. It was as important to ancient Greeks as the Bible was to the Hebrews. There are over 650 manuscripts remaining but they date from 200 to 300 A.D. which is over a thousand years after the Iliad was written.
  4. The Old Testament autographs were written 1450 - 400 B. C.
    1. The Dead Sea Scrolls date between 200 B.C. to 70 A. D and date within 300 years from when the last book of the Old Testament was written.
    2. Two almost complete Greek LXX translations of the Old Testament date about 350 A. D.
    3. The oldest complete Hebrew Old Testament dates about 950 A. D.
    4. Genesis-Deuteronomy were written over 1200 years before the Dead Sea Scrolls.

      Codex Vaticanus is an almost complete Greek translation of the Old Testament dating around 350 A.D. The Aleppo Codex is the oldest complete Old Testament manuscript in Hebrew and was copied around 950 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls date from within 200-300 years from the last book of the Old Testament. However since the five books of Moses were written about 1450- 1400 B.C. the Dead Sea Scrolls still come almost 1200 years after the first books of the Old Testament were written.

  5. The New Testament autographs were written between 45-95 A. D.
    1. There are 5,664 Greek manuscripts some dating as early as 125 A. D. and an complete New Testament that dates from 350 A. D.
    2. 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts.
    3. 8,000 manuscripts in Ethiopic, Coptic, Slavic, Syriac, and Armenian.
    4. In addition, the complete New Testament could be reproduced from the quotes that were made from it by the early church fathers in their letters and sermons.

Authorship and dating of the New Testament books

Skeptics and liberal Christian scholars both seek to date the New Testament books as late first century or early second century writings. They contend that these books were not written by eyewitnesses but rather by second or third hand sources. This allowed for the development of what they view as myths concerning Jesus. For example, they would deny that Jesus actually foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. Rather they would contend that later Christian writers "put these words into his mouth."

  1. Many of the New Testament books claim to be written by eyewitnesses.
    1. The Gospel of John claims to be written by the disciple of the Lord. Recent archeological research has confirmed both the existence of the Pool of Bethesda and that it had five porticoes as described in John 5:2. This correct reference to an incidental detail lends credibility to the claim that the Gospel of John was written by John who as an eyewitness knew Jerusalem before it was destroyed in 70 A. D.
    2. Paul signed his epistles with his own hand. He was writing to churches who knew him. These churches were able to authenticate that these epistles had come from his hands (Galatians 6:11). Clement an associate of Paul's wrote to the Corinthian Church in 97 A. D. urging them to heed the epistle that Paul had sent them.
  2. The following facts strongly suggest that both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were written prior to 65 A.D. This lends credibility to the author's (Luke) claim to be an eyewitness to Paul's missionary journeys. This would date Mark prior to 65 A.D. and the Pauline epistles between 49-63 A.D.
    1. Acts records the beginning history of the church with persecutions and martyrdoms being mentioned repeatedly. Three men; Peter, Paul, and James the brother of Jesus all play leading roles throughout the book. They were all martyred by 67 A.D., but their martyrdoms are not recorded in Acts.
    2. The church in Jerusalem played a central role in the Book of Acts, but the destruction of the city in 70 A.D. was not mentioned. The Jewish historian Josephus cited the siege and destruction of Jerusalem as befalling the Jews because of their unjust killing of James the brother of Jesus.
    3. The Book of Acts ends with Paul in Rome under house arrest in 62 A.D. In 64 A.D., Nero blamed and persecuted the Christians for the fire that burned down the city of Rome. Paul himself was martyred by 65 A.D. in Rome. Again, neither the terrible persecution of the Christians in Rome nor Paul's martyrdom are mentioned.

      Conclusion: These books, Luke-Acts, were written while Luke was an eyewitness to many of the events, and had opportunity to research portions that he was not an eyewitness to.

The church fathers bear witness to even earlier New Testament manuscripts

The earliest manuscripts we have of major portions of the New Testament are p 45, p 46, p66, and p 75, and they date from 175-250 A. D. The early church fathers (97-180 A.D.) bear witness to even earlier New Testament manuscripts by quoting from all but one of the New Testament books. They are also in the position to authenticate those books, written by the apostles or their close associates, from later books such as the gospel of Thomas that claimed to have been written by the apostles, but were not.

  1. Clement (30-100 A.D.) wrote an epistle to the Corinthian Church around 97 A.D. He reminded them to heed the epistle that Paul had written to them years before. Recall that Clement had labored with Paul (Philippians 4:3). He quoted from the following New Testament books: Luke, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, 1 and 2 Peter, Hebrews, and James.
  2. The apostolic fathers Ignatius (30-107 A.D.), Polycarp (65-155 A.D.), and Papias (70-155 A.D.) cite verses from every New Testament book except 2 and 3 John. They thereby authenticated nearly the entire New Testament. Both Ignatius and Polycarp were disciples of the apostle John.
  3. Justin Martyr, (110-165 A.D.), cited verses from the following 13 books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and Revelation.
  4. Irenaeus, (120-202 A.D.), wrote a five volume work Against Heresies in which,
    1. He quoted from every book of the New Testament but 3 John.
    2. He quoted from the New Testament books over 1,200 times.

How was the New Testament canon determined?

The Early church had three criteria for determining what books were to be included or excluded from the Canon of the New Testament.

  1. First, the books must have apostolic authority-- that is, they must have been written either by the apostles themselves, who were eyewitnesses to what they wrote about, or by associates of the apostles.
  2. Second, there was the criterion of conformity to what was called the "rule of faith." In other words, was the document congruent with the basic Christian tradition that the church recognized as normative.
  3. Third, there was the criterion of whether a document had enjoyed continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large.
  4. The gospel of Thomas is not included in the Canon of the New Testament for the following reasons.
    1. The gospel of Thomas fails the test of Apostolic authority. None of the early church fathers from Clement to Irenaeus ever quoted from the gospel of Thomas. This indicates that they either did not know of it or that they rejected it as spurious. In either case, the early church fathers fail to support the gospel of Thomas' claim to have been written by the apostle. It was believed to by written around 140 A.D. There is no evidence to support its purported claim to be written by the Apostle Thomas himself.
    2. The gospel of Thomas fails to conform to the rule of faith. It purports to contain 114 "secret sayings" of Jesus. Some of these are very similar to the sayings of Jesus recorded in the Four Gospels. For example the gospel of Thomas quotes Jesus as saying, "A city built on a high hill cannot be hidden." This reads the same as Matthew's Gospel except that high is added. But Thomas claims that Jesus said, "Split wood; I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there." That concept is pantheistic. Thomas ends with the following saying that denies women salvation unless they are some how changed into being a man. "Let Mary go away from us, because women are not worthy of life." Jesus is quoted as saying, "Lo, I shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven."
    3. The gospel of Thomas fails the test of continuous usage and acceptance. The lack of manuscript evidence plus the failure of the early church fathers to quote from it or recognize it shows that it was not used or accepted in the early Church. Only two manuscripts are known of this "gospel." Until 1945 only a single fifth-century copy translation in Coptic had been found. Then in 1945 a Greek manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas was found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This compares very poorly to the thousands of manuscripts that authenticate the Four Gospels.

Textual Criticism: What Is It And Why It Is Necessary

Important terms:

Textual criticism is the method used to examine the vast number of manuscripts to determine the probably composition of the original autographs.

  • "Lower" Textual Criticism: the practice of studying the manuscripts of the Bible with the goal of reproducing the original text of the Bible from this vast wealth of manuscripts. This is a necessary task because there exists minor variations among the biblical manuscripts. So, unless one manuscript is arbitrarily chosen as a standard by which to judge all others, then one must employ textual criticism to compare all manuscripts to derive the reading which would most closely reflect the autographs.
  • "Higher" criticism: "The Jesus Seminar" is a group of liberal Christian higher critics who vote on which of the sayings of Christ they believe to have actually been spoken by Him. This is an example of "higher" criticism. It is highly subjective and is colored by the view points of various "higher" critics.
  • Textual Variants: Since all Greek manuscripts of the New Testament prior to Erasmus' first printed Greek New Testament were copied by hand scribal errors or variants could have crept into the texts.. When these Greek New Testament manuscripts are compared with each other we find evidence of scribal errors and places where the different manuscripts differ with one another.

Textual variants and the integrity of the New Testament text

Many scholars have spent a lifetime of study of the textual variants. The following is the conclusion of the importance of these variants as they relate to the integrity of the New Testament text.

  1. There are over 200,000 variants in the New Testament alone. How do these variants effect our confidence that the New Testament has been faithfully handed down to us?
  2. These 200,000 variants are not as large as they seem. Remember that every misspelled word or an omission of a single word in any of the 5,600 manuscript would count as a variant.
  3. Johann Bengel 1687-1752 was very disturbed by the 30,000 variants that had recently been noted in Mill's edition of the Greek Testament. After extended study he came to the conclusion that the variant readings were fewer in number than might have been expected and that they did not shake any article of Christian doctrine.
  4. Westcott and Hort, in the 1870's, state that the New Testament text remains over 98.3 percent pure no matter whether one uses the Textus Receptus or their own Greek text which was largely based on Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.
  5. James White, on p. 40 of his book The King James Only Controversy states: "The reality is that the amount of variation between the two most extremely different manuscripts of the New Testament would not fundamentally altar the message of the Scriptures! I make this statement (1) fully aware of the wide range of textual variants in the New Testament, and (2) painfully aware of the strong attacks upon those who have made similar statements in the past."
  6. Scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix conclude, "The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts that any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book-a form that is 99.5 percent pure."
  7. When textual critics look at all 5,600 Greek New Testament manuscripts they find that they can group these manuscripts into text-types or families with other similar manuscripts. There are four text-types.
     
     
    1. The Alexandrian text-type, found in most papyri and in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus all of which date prior to 350 A.D.
    2. The Western text-type, found both in Greek manuscripts and in translations into other languages, especially Latin.
    3. The Byzantine text-type, found in the vast majority of later Greek manuscripts. Over 90 percent of all 5,600 Greek New Testament manuscripts are of the Byzantine text-type. The Byzantine text-type is "fuller" or "longer" than other text-types, and this is taken as evidence of a later origin. The reason that we have so many manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type is because the Byzantine Empire remained Greek speaking and Orthodox Christian until Islamic Turks overran its capital, Constantinople, in 1453. Constantinople is now called Istanbul and is Turkey's largest city, although no longer its capital.
    4. The Caesaarean text-type, disputed by some, found in p 45 and a few other manuscripts.

    Why does the KJV differ from the NIV?

    The reason the King James version differ from the NASV and the NIV in a number of readings is because it is translated from a different text-type than they are.

    1. The King James Version was translated from Erasmus' printed Greek New Testament which made use of only five Greek manuscripts the oldest of which dated to the 1,100 A.D. These manuscripts were examples of the Byzantine text-type.
    2. The NASV and the NIV make use of the United Bible Societies 4th Edition 1968 of the New Testament. This edition of the Greek New Testament relies more heavily on the Alexandrian text-type while making use of all 5,664 Greek manuscripts. The reasons that the NASV and NIV find the Alexandrian text-type more reliable are the following:
      1. This text-type uses manuscripts date from 175-350 A.D. which includes most of the papyri, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.
      2. The church fathers from 97-350 A.D. used this text-type when they quoted the New Testament.
      3. The early translations of the New Testament used the Alexandrian text-type.

    Examples that show why the KJV differs from the NIV and NASV in certain verses

    In the following examples the King James Version differs from the NIV, and NASV. because it bases it's translation on the Byzantine text-type and the NIV and NASV base theirs on the Alexandrian text-type.

    1. KJV 1 John 5:7-8 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one."
      NIV 1 John 5:7 "For there are three that testify: v. 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood: and the three are in agreement."
      1. When Erasmus first printed the Greek New Testament in 1514 it did not contain the words "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth," because they were not found in any of the Greek manuscripts that Erasmus looked at.
      2. These words were not quoted by any of the Greek church fathers. They most certainly would have been used by the church fathers in their 3rd and 4th century letters if found in the Greek manuscripts available to them.
      3. These words are not found in any ancient versions of the New Testament. These include Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic, nor in the Old Latin in its early form.
      4. These words begin to appear in marginal notes in the Latin New Testament beginning in the fifth century. From the sixth century onward these words are found more and more frequently.
      5. Erasmus finally agreed to put these words into new editions of his Greek New Testament if his critic's could find one Greek manuscript that contained these words. It appears that his critics manufactured manuscripts to include these words.
      6. These additional words are found in only eight manuscripts as a variant reading written in the margin. Seven of these manuscripts date from the sixteenth century and one is a tenth century manuscript.
      7. Erasmus' New Testament became the basis for the Greek New Testament, "Textus Receptus", which the King James translators used as the basis for their translation of the New Testament into English.
    2. Mark 16 verses 9-20 are found in the King James Version. However, both the NASV and the NIV note that these verses are not found in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark (see The Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20).
      1. Neither Codex Sinaiticus nor Codex Vaticanus have Mark 16:9-20.
      2. Mark 16:9-20 is also absent from some Old Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian manuscripts.
      3. Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses.
      4. 4. The earliest church father to note the longer ending of Mark 16:9-20 was Irenaeus, around 180 A. D.
    3. Luke 2:14 reads:

      KJV: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men."
      NIV: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

      The Greek text from which these two versions are translated differ by only one letter. The NIV is translated from manuscripts that have an "s" on the end of the Greek word for good will. This reading is supported by the oldest Alexandrine text-types.

 

An Introduction to the Geneva Bible - Michael H. Brown - 1988

 

For the last three centuries Protestants have fancied themselves the heirs of the Reformation, the Puritans, the Calvinists, and the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. This assumption is one of history's greatest ironies. Today's Protestants laboring under that assumption use the King James Bible. Most of the newer Bibles such as the Revised Standard Version are simply updates of the King James.

The irony is that none of the groups named in the preceding paragraph used a King James Bible nor would they have used it if it had been given to them free. The Bible in use by those groups until it went out of print in 1644, was the Geneva Bible. The first Geneva Bible, both Old and New Testaments, was first published in English in 1560 in what is now Geneva, Switzerland,* William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, John Milton, the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and other luminaries of that era used the Geneva Bible exclusively.

Until he had his own version named after him, so did King James I of England. James I later tried to disclaim any knowledge of the Geneva Bible, though he quotes the Geneva Bible in his own writing, As a Professor Eadie reported it:

". . . his virtual disclaimer of all knowledge up to a late period of the Genevan notes and version was simply a bold, unblushing falsehood, a clumsy attempt to sever himself and his earlier Scottish beliefs and usages that he might win favor with his English churchmen." 1

The irony goes further. King James did not encourage a translation of the Bible in order to enlighten the common people. His sole intent was to deny them the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible. The marginal notes of the Geneva version were what made it so popular with the common people.

The King James Bible was, and is for all practical purposes, a government publication. There were several reasons for the King James Bible being a government publication.

First, King James I of England was a devout believer in the "divine right of kings," a philosophy ingrained in him by his mother, Mary Stuart. 2 Mary Stuart may have been having an affair with her Italian secretary, David Rizzio, at the time she conceived James. There is a better than even chance that James was the product of adultery* (G.P.V. Alerigg Jacobean Pageant p.6.). Apparently, enough evidence of such conduct on the part of Mary Stuart and David Rizzio existed to cause various Scot nobles, including Mary's own husband, King Henry, to drag David Rizzio from Mary's supper table and execute him. The Scot nobles hacked and slashed at the screaming Rizzio with knives and swords, and then threw him off a balcony to the courtyard below where he landed with a sickening smack. In the phrase of that day, he had been scotched. 3

Mary did have affairs with other men, such as the Earl of Bothwell. She later tried to execute her husband in a gunpowder explosion that shook all of Edinburg. King Henry survived the explosion, only to be suffocated later that same night. The murderers were never discovered. Mary was eventually beheaded at the order of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. 4

To such individuals as James and his mother, Mary, the "divine right of kings" meant that since a king's power came from God, the king then had to answer to no one but God. This lack of responsibility extended to evil kings. The reasoning was that if a king was evil, that was a punishment sent from God. The citizens should then suffer in silence. If a king was good, that was a blessing sent from God.

This is why the Geneva Bible annoyed King James I. The Geneva Bible had marginal notes that simply didn't conform to that point of view. Those marginal notes had been, to a great extent placed in the Geneva Bible by the leaders of the Reformation including John Knox and John Calvin. Knox and Calvin could not and cannot be dismissed lightly or their opinions passed off to the public as the mere dithering of dissidents.

First, notes such as, "When tyrants cannot prevail by craft, they burst forth into open rage," (Note i, Exodus 1:22) really bothered King James

Second, religion in James' time was not what it is today. In that era, religion was controlled by the government. If someone lived in Spain at the time, he had three religious "choices":

1. Roman Catholicism
2. Silence.
3. The Inquisition.

The third "option" was reserved for "heretics," or people who didn't think the way the government wanted them to. To governments of that era heresy and treason were synonymous.

England wasn't much different. From the time of Henry VIII on, an Englishman had three choices:

1. The Anglican Church.
2. Silence.
3. The rack, burning at the stake, being drawn and quartered, or some other form of persuasion.

The hapless individuals who fell into the hands of the government for holding religious opinions of their own were simply punished according to the royal whim.

Henry VIII, once he had appointed himself head of all the English churches, kept the Roman Catholic system of bishops, deacons and the like for a very good reason. That system allowed him a "chain of command" necessary for any bureaucracy to function. This system passed intact to his heirs.

This system became a little confusing for English citizens when Bloody Mary * ascended to the throne. Mary wanted everyone to switch back to Roman Catholicism. Those who proved intransigent and wanted to remain Protestant she burned at the stake - about 300 people in all. She intended to bum a lot more, but the rest of her intended victims escaped by leaving the country.

A tremendous number of those intended victims settled in Geneva. Religious refugees from other countries in Western Europe, including the French theologian Jean Chauvin, better known as John Calvin, also settled there.

Mary died and was succeeded to the throne by her Protestant cousin, Elizabeth. The Anglican bureaucracy returned, less a few notables such as Archbishop Cranmer and Hugh Latimer (both having been burned at the stake by Bloody Mary). In Scotland, John Knox led the Reformation.

The Reformation prospered in Geneva. Many of those who had fled Bloody Mary started a congregation there. Their greatest effort and contribution to the Reformation was the first Geneva Bible.

More marginal notes were added to later editions.

* Daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She became queen in 1553 after her brother, Edward VI, died.

By the end of the 16th Century, the Geneva Bible had about all the marginal notes there was space available to put them in.

Geneva was an anomaly in 16th Century Europe. In the days of absolute despotism and constant warfare, Geneva achieved her independence primarily by constant negotiation, playing off one stronger power against another. While other governments allowed lawyers to drag out cases and took months and years to get rid of corrupt officials, the City of Geneva dispatched most civil and criminal cases within a month and threw corrupt officials into jail the day after they were found out. The academy that John Calvin founded there in 1559 later became the University of Geneva.

Religious wars wracked Europe. The Spanish fought to restore Roman Catholicism to Western Europe. The Dutch fought for the Reformation and religious freedom. England, a small country with only 4 � million people, managed to stay aloof because of the natural advantage of the English Channel.

The Dutch declared religious freedom for everybody. Amsterdam became an open city*. English Puritans arrived by the boatload. The 1599 Edition of the Geneva Bible was printed in Amsterdam and London in large quantities until well into the 17th Century.

*At the time Geneva, was a city-state. Geneva did not become part of Switzerland until 1815.

King James, before he became James I of England, made it plain that he had no use for the "Dutch" rebel who had rebelled against their Spanish King.

Another of the ironies left us from the 16th Century is that freedom of religion and freedom of the press did not originate in England, as many people commonly assume today. Those freedoms were first given to Protestants by the Dutch, as the records of that era plainly show. England today does not have freedom of the press the way we understand it (There are things in England such as the Official Secrets Act that often land journalists in jail.)

England was relatively peaceful in the time of Elizabeth I. There was the problem of the Spanish Armada, but that was brief Elizabeth later became known as "Good Queen Bess," not because she was so good, but because her successor was so bad.

Elizabeth died in 1603 and her cousin, James Stuart, son of Mary Stuart, who up until that time had been King James VI of Scotland, ascended the throne and became known as King James I of England.

James ascended the throne of England with the "divine right of kings" firmly embedded in his mind. Unfortunately, that wasn't his only mental problem.

* In those days an "open city' was one in which the inhabitants were allowed to believe in or print what they preferred

King James I, among his many other faults, preferred young boys to adult women. He was a flaming homosexual. His activities in that regard have been recorded in numerous books and public records; so much so, that there is no room for debate on the subject.

The King was queer. The very people who use the King James Bible today would be the first ones to throw such a deviant out of their congregations.

The depravity of King James I didn't end with sodomy. James enjoyed killing animals. He called it "hunting." Once he killed an animal, he would literally roll about in its blood. Some believe that he practiced bestiality while the animal lay dying.

James was a sadist as well as a sodomite: he enjoyed torturing people. While King of Scotland in 1591, he personally supervised the torture of poor wretches caught up in the witchcraft trials of Scotland. James would even suggest new tortures to the examiners.

One "witch" Barbara Napier, was acquitted. That event so angered James that he wrote personally to the court on May 10, 1591, ordering a sentence of death, and had the jury called into custody. To make sure they understood their particular offense, the King himself presided at a new hearing (which could hardly be called a trial) and was gracious enough to release them without punishment when they reversed their verdict.

History has it that James was also a great coward. On January 7, 1591, the King was in Edinburgh and emerged from the toll booth. A retinue followed that included the Duke of Lennox and Lord Hume. They fell into an argument with the laird of Logie and pulled their swords. James looked behind, saw the steel flashing, and fled into the nearest refuge which turned out to be a skinner's booth. There, to his shame, he "fouled his breeches in fear." 5

In short, King James I was the kind of despicable creature honorable men loathed, Christians would not associate with, and the Bible itself orders to be put to death. 6

Knowing what King James was we can easily discern his motives.

James ascended the English throne in 1603. He wasted no time in ordering a new edition of the Bible in order to deny the common people the marginal notes they so valued in the Geneva Bible. That James I wasn't going to have any marginal notes to annoy him and lead English citizens away from what he wanted them to think is a matter of public record. In an account corrected with his own hand dated February 10, 1604, he ordained:

That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and this to be set out and printed without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service.

James then set up rules that made it impossible for anyone involved in the project to make an honest translation, some of which follow:

1. The ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishop's Bible to be followed and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit.

Or, since the common people preferred the Geneva Bible to the existing government publication, let's see if we can slip a superseding government publication onto their bookshelves, altered as little as possible.

2. The old Ecclesiastical words to be kept, viz. the word "church" not to be translated "congregation," etc.

That is, if a word should be translated a certain way, let's deliberately mistranslate it to make the people think God still belongs to the Anglican Church - exclusively.

3. No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.

James didn't want those pesky marginal notes cropping up, not even once. That was fine for the common herd, but not for James' own bishops. Many of their writings and sermons alluded to the Geneva Bible and its marginal notes decades after the King James Bible was published.

The bishops had good reason to be confused. They needed those marginal notes. James had just obliterated a procedure that kings and governments had used for thousands of years. Because words and phrases quite often had several meanings all important state or royal decrees, treaties, and agreements contained marginal explanations or commentaries in order to remove all doubt from the mind of the reader. In the 16th century those marginal notes were called "glosses." Today the members of the legal profession use almost the same system in the form of footnotes and case cites.

The King James Bible was finally printed in 1611. It was not technically a translation. What the flunkies employed by King James did was revise and compare other translations of which they simply plagiarized about 20% of the Geneva Bible. *

* Translations from one language to another almost never come out word-for word identically.

In their New Testament translation, the King James "translators" didn't even revise and compare. What they did was simply copy – almost word for word - William Tyndales' 1525 New Testament. At the time of his translation Tyndales' New Testament had been labeled as "seditious material" by Henry VIII and copies discovered on ships reaching English ports were confiscated and destroyed. William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, even went so far as to buy all the copies he could get in Europe in order to destroy them.

Tyndale was hounded from London to Cologne to Worms. He settled in Marburg under the protection of Philip, landgrave of Hesse. Nobody messed with Big Phil.

Philip didn't care what anyone thought. If he felt like telling the emperor to "stuff it," he did. If neighboring royalty wanted to rumble, Philip showed up with troops. If Philip decided one wife wasn't enough for him, he just took another one. In March of 1540, after Martin Luther and other prominent Protestant theologians had expressly approved polygamy according to the Scriptures, Philip became Europe's best- known bigamist.

Unfortunately, even Philip couldn't cope with treachery. Tyndale was betrayed by his personal Judas, Henry Phillips. He was tried for heresy, condemned, strangled at the stake, and his body afterwards burnt.

It is interesting to note that the Geneva Reformers- men such as John Calvin - expressed opinions in the marginal notes that would be simply unacceptable to the "scholars" of today. For example, the passage in Genesis 12:2-3, that reads:

"And I will make of thee a great nation, and will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. I will also bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

Our ministers today tell us this refers to Jews. That isn't the way the Geneva translators understood it:

The world shall recover by thy seed, which is Christ, the blessings that were lost in Adam. 7

Twentieth century scholarly works, such as the Scofield Reference Bible, published by Oxford University Press, hold that the 38th Chapter of Ezekiel refers to an invasion of Jerusalem by Russian armies leading the Northern European powers. John Calvin and his cohorts, who annotated the Geneva Bible, understood it a little differently:

Signifying all the people of the world should assemble themselves against the Church and Christ their head. 8

The Reverend Scofield and his fellow "scholars" hold up Satan as some sort of boogey-man. The Geneva translators, as in Psalm 109:6, simply translated the word, "adversary." In Mark 8:33, Christ said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan." The Geneva translators understood exactly what the word meant and apparently didn't figure anyone else would be dumb enough to equate Peter with the Evil One. On that, the Geneva and King James translate the word the same.

James did not stop at censoring the Bible. He carried his "divine right of kings" to the point that he dissolved Parliament. That institution was to James simply a convenience he needed to raise money for his endless pursuit of pleasure and depravity. When Parliament balked at his requests for money James dissolved it Magna Carta and the liberties of Englishmen were mere frivolities in the mind of James. As an illustration of the loathing and contempt Christians of that era held for the government of James I, it is interesting to note that after the first bitter weather in New England, when half their number were dead, not one of the Pilgrim survivors wanted to be taken back to the England of James I aboard the Mayflower.

James' oldest son died and his second son, Charles, ascended to the throne after the death of James I, Charles also believed in the "divine right of kings." By 1642, English patience was at an end and civil war erupted. By 1649, the English Parliament had had enough of Charles, who apparently believed that one of his "divine rights" was to sign agreements and then break them any time he felt the urge. Charles was beheaded. Oliver Cromwell took over the government.

Oliver Cromwell, of Celtic and Welsh ancestry, made the same basic mistake that James I and his son, Charles, made. Cromwell believed, as James had professed to, that governments were for the common wealth (good) and not the common will. He tried to legislate moral codes that very few could handle. The prisons overflowed with his critics. During his invasion of Ireland, he slaughtered enough women and children to fill entire graveyard& Cromwell died in 1658. The English had had quite enough of his form of government and acquired another king, Charles II.

The last run of Geneva Bibles was printed in 1644. That was the year John Milton was invited to instruct the English Parliament on the actual teachings of the Bible regarding divorce (it was allowed). What Milton understood that none of our modern "experts" seem to understand that "He who divorces his wife and marries another," was not a prohibition of divorce, it was a prohibition against throw-away people. As John Milton in his One Christian Doctrine and Martin Luther in his essay on Deuteronomy 21:15 pointed out, having more than one wife was Scriptural. You just weren't supposed to throw them away when you got bored with them.

Four years after the last Geneva Bible was printed, the Thirty Years War (the last of the great religious wars of Europe) ground to a halt. Millions had died. Germany was so depopulated it took her two centuries to recover. The Reformation had survived. It didn't survive for long.

After several generations of English speakers grew up without the stabilizing influence of the Geneva marginal notes, the "interpret it any way you want" school of thought came into fashion. The "charismatic" movement was in full swing by 1730.

A few men here and there tried to show people what the religion of their ancestors actually was. A man named Ferrar Fenton published his own translation of the Bible in 1906, complete with a history lesson at the beginning of each set of books in the Bible. Another man named George Lamsa wrote "Idioms of the Bible Explained," and tried to show the errors of the modem scholars. They were drowned by the works of others.

Of course, there were those that went the other way. A backwoods preacher, Noah Fredericks, wrote a book titled, Pilgrim Ships, in which he claimed the people of the Old Testament came from outer space, Moses' rod was an electronic control used to open a fortress (mistranslated, "rock"), Elijah introduced a path for current to flow from the ionosphere to the ground in order to fry two platoons of Ahab's infantry, and other theological positions that will probably never be taken seriously by anybody (unfortunately).

During the 16th Century and the one preceding it, the Spanish Empire, a colossus larger than the Roman Empire, had been unable to stamp out the Reformation with the world's finest and most well equipped armies. The Spaniards needn't have bothered. What the armies of Catholic Spain were unable to make a dent in, one sadistic sodomite, James I, did with a pair of censoring scissors.

The Reformation, and the blood of millions who fought for it, apparently went for nothing. Protestant churches of today hardly resemble the churches of the Reformation.

Today's preachers study the Scofield Reference Edition of the King James, a volume that contains marginal notes that would seem no more accurate to John Calvin and John Knox than Mother Goose. The blind are once more leading the blind. This reprinted edition of the 1599.

Geneva Bible is probably the last sputtering flame of the Reformation. The works of John Milton, John Calvin, John Knox, George Buchanan, William Tyndale, and the rest can still be found on the shelves in the public libraries. Such works are checked out by uninterested college students on an average of about one volume every ten years, no one in today's churches reads them.

Michael H. Brown - 1988

Footnotes:

1 Luther A, Weigle, The English New Testament, P.24. [back]
2 Otto J. Scott, James I, Passim [back]
3 lbid [back]
4 Ibid, p. 212 [back]
5 Ibid, p. 211 [back]
6 Leviticus, 20:13 [back]
7 Genesis 12:2 note c 1599 Geneva Bible [back]
8 Ezekiel 38:7. note e 1599 Geneva Bible [back]

 

http://www.reformedreader.org/gbn/igb.htm

 

Textus Receptus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Received Text)

Textus Receptus (Latin: "received text") is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, for the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western and Central Europe. The series originated with the first printed Greek New Testament to be published; a work undertaken in Basel by the Dutch Catholic scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus in 1516, on the basis of some six manuscripts, containing between them not quite the whole of the New Testament. Although based mainly on late manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type, Erasmus's edition differed markedly from the classic form of that text.

History of the Textus Receptus

Main article: Novum Instrumentum omne

The Dutch humanist Erasmus had been working for years on two projects: a collation of Greek texts and a fresh Latin New Testament. In 1512, he began his work on a fresh Latin New Testament. He collected all the Vulgate manuscripts he could find to create a critical edition. Then he polished the Latin. He declared, "It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin."[1] In the earlier phases of the project, he never mentioned a Greek text: "My mind is so excited at the thought of emending Jerome’s text, with notes, that I seem to myself inspired by some god. I have already almost finished emending him by collating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this I am doing at enormous personal expense."[2]

While his intentions for publishing a fresh Latin translation are clear, it is less clear why he included the Greek text. Though some speculate that he intended on producing a critical Greek text or that he wanted to beat the Complutensian Polyglot into print, there is no evidence to support this. Rather his motivations seems to be simpler: he included the Greek text to prove the superiority of his Latin version. He wrote, "There remains the New Testament translated by me, with the Greek facing, and notes on it by me."[3] He further demonstrated the reason for the inclusion of the Greek text when defending his work: "But one thing the facts cry out, and it can be clear, as they say, even to a blind man, that often through the translator’s clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading has been corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happen every day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught and half-asleep."[4] Erasmus's new work was published by Froben of Basel in 1516 and thence became the first published Greek New Testament, the Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum. He used manuscripts: 1, 1rK, 2e, 2ap, 4ap, 7, 817.[5] The second edition used the more familiar term Testamentum instead of Instrumentum, and eventually became a major source for Luther's German translation. In second edition (1519) Erasmus used also Minuscule 3.

Typographical errors (attributed to the rush to complete the work) abounded in the published text. Erasmus also lacked a complete copy of the book of Revelation and was forced to translate the last six verses back into Greek from the Latin Vulgate in order to finish his edition. Erasmus adjusted the text in many places to correspond with readings found in the Vulgate, or as quoted in the Church Fathers; and consequently, although the Textus Receptus is classified by scholars as a late Byzantine text, it differs in nearly two thousand readings from standard form of that text-type; as represented by the "Majority Text" of Hodges and Farstad (Wallace 1989). The edition was a sell-out commercial success; and was reprinted in 1519, with most—though not all—the typographical errors corrected.[6]

Erasmus had been studying Greek New Testament manuscripts for many years, in the Netherlands, France, England and Switzerland, noting their many variants; but he only had six Greek manuscripts immediately accessible to him in Basel.[7] They all dated from the 12th Century or later, and only one came from outside the mainstream Byzantine tradition. Consequently, most modern scholars consider his text to be of dubious quality.[8]

With the third edition of Erasmus' Greek text (1522) the Comma Johanneum was included, because a single 16th-century Greek manuscript (Codex Montfortianus) had subsequently been found to contain it, though Erasmus had expressed doubt as to the authenticity of the passage in his Annotations. Popular demand for Greek New Testaments led to a flurry of further authorized and unauthorized editions in the early sixteenth century; almost all of which were based on Erasmus's work and incorporated his particular readings, although typically also making a number of minor changes of their own.

The overwhelming success of Erasmus' Greek New Testament completely overshadowed the Latin text upon which he had focused. Many other publishers produced their own versions of the Greek New Testament over the next several centuries. Rather than doing their own critical work, most just relied on the well-known Erasmian text.

Main article: Editio Regia

Robert Estienne, known as Stefanus (1503-1559), a printer from Paris, edited four times the Greek New Testament, 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551, the last in Geneva. The first two are among the neatest Greek texts known, and are called O mirificam; the third edition is a splendid masterpiece of typographical skill. It has critical apparatus in which quoted manuscripts referred to the text. Manuscripts were marked by symbols (from α to ις). He used Polyglotta Complutensis (symbolized by α) and 15 Greek manuscripts. In this number manuscripts: Codex Bezae, Codex Regius, minuscules 4, 5, 6, 2817, 8, 9. The first step towards to modern Textual Criticism was made. The third edition is known as the Editio Regia; the edition of 1551 contains the Latin translation of Erasmus and the Vulgate, is not nearly as fine as the other three, and is exceedingly rare. It was in this edition that the division of the New Testament into verses was for the first time introduced.

The third edition of Estienne was used by Theodore Beza (1519-1605), who edited it nine times between 1565 and 1604. In the critical apparatus of the second edition he used the Codex Claromontanus and the Syriac New Testament published by Emmanuel Tremellius in 1569. Codex Bezae was twice referenced (as Codex Bezae and β' of Estienne).

The origin of the term "Textus Receptus" comes from the publisher's preface to the 1633 edition produced by Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir, two brothers and printers at Leiden: textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immulatum aut corruptum damus, translated "so you hold the text, now received by all, in which nothing corrupt." The two words, textum and receptum, were modified from the accusative to the nominative case to render textus receptus. Over time, this term has been retroactively applied to Erasmus' editions, as his work served as the basis of the others.[9]

[edit] Textual criticism and the Textus Receptus

John Mill (1645-1707), collated textual variants from 82 Greek manuscripts. In his Novum Testamentum Graecum, cum lectionibus variantibus MSS (Oxford 1707) he reprinted the unchanged text of the Editio Regia, but in the index he enumerated 30,000 textual variants.[10]

Shortly after Mill published his edition, Daniel Whitby (1638-1725), attacked his work. He claimed that the autographs of the New Testament were identical to the Textus Receptus, and that the text had never been corrupted. He believed the text of the Holy Scripture was endangered by the 30,000 variants in Mill's edition. Whitby claimed that every part of the New Testament should be defended against these variants.[11]

Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687-1752), in 1725 edited Prodromus Novi Testamenti Graeci Rectθ Cautθque Adornandi, in 1734 edited Novum Testamentum Graecum. Bengel divided manuscripts into families and subfamilies. He favoured (lectio difficilior potior).

Johann Jakob Wettstein. His Apparatus was fuller than of any previous editor. He introduced the practice of indicating the ancient manuscripts by capital Roman letters and the later manuscripts by Arabic numerals. He published in Basel Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci (1731).

J. J. Griesbach (1745-1812) combined the principles of Bengel and Wettstein. He enlarged the Apparatus by a more citations from the Fathers, and various versions, such as the Gothic, the Armenian, and the Philoxenian. Griesbach distinguished a Western, an Alexandrian, and a Byzantine Recension.[12] Christian Frederick Matthaei (1744-1811) was a Griesbach opponent.

Karl Lachmann (1793-1851), was the first who broke with the Textus Receptus. His object was to restore the text to the form in which it had been read in the ancient Church about A.D. 380. He used the oldest known Greek and Latin manuscripts.

Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881).

The majority of textual critical scholars since the late 19th Century, have adopted an eclectic approach to the Greek New Testament; with the most weight given to the earliest extant manuscripts which tend mainly to be Alexandrian in character; the resulting eclectic Greek text departing from the Textus Receptus in around 6,000 readings. A significant minority of textual scholars, however, maintain the priority of the Byzantine text-type; and consequently prefer the "Majority Text". No school of textual scholarship now continues to defend the priority of the Textus Receptus; although this position does still find adherents amongst the King-James-Only Movement, and other Protestant groups hostile to the whole discipline of text criticism—as applied to scripture; and suspicious of any departure from Reformation traditions.

[edit] Defense of the Textus Receptus

Frederick von Nolan, a 19th century historian and Greek and Latin scholar, spent 28 years attempting to trace the Textus Receptus to apostolic origins. He was an ardent advocate of the supremacy of the Textus Receptus over all other editions of the Greek New Testament, and argued that the first editors of the printed Greek New Testament intentionally selected the texts they did because of their superiority and disregarded other texts which represented other text-types because of their inferiority.

It is not to be conceived that the original editors of the [Greek] New Testament were wholly destitute of plan in selecting those manuscripts, out of which they were to form the text of their printed editions. In the sequel it will appear, that they were not altogether ignorant of two classes of manuscripts; one of which contains the text which we have adopted from them; and the other that text which has been adopted by M. Griesbach.[13]

Regarding Erasmus, Nolan stated:

Nor let it be conceived in disparagement of the great undertaking of Erasmus, that he was merely fortuitously right. Had he barely undertaken to perpetuate the tradition on which he received the sacred text he would have done as much as could be required of him, and more than sufficient to put to shame the puny efforts of those who have vainly labored to improve upon his design. [...] With respect to Manuscripts, it is indisputable that he was acquainted with every variety which is known to us, having distributed them into two principal classes, one of which corresponds with the Complutensian edition, the other with the Vatican manuscript. And he has specified the positive grounds on which he received the one and rejected the other.[14]

Textus Receptus was defended by Burgon in his The Revision Revised (1881), by Edward Miller in A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. According to Burgon Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Ephraemi are older than Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus. Peshitta originated from the 2nd century. Arguments of Miller were of the same kind, but two of the agreed that Textus Receptus needs correction. Hills took different point of view. Hills rejected text of majority (Byzantine text) and according to him Textus Receptus was the closest text to the autographs. He concluded that Erasmus was divinely guided when he introduced Latin Vulgate readings into his Greek text.[15] He even argued for the authenticity of the Comma Johanneum.[16]

 

[edit] Relationship to the Byzantine text

Textus Receptus was established on a basis of the Byzantine text-type, called also 'Majority text', and usually is identified with him by his followers. But Textus Receptus has some additions and variants which did not exist in the Byzantine text before the 16th century. The Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7 is well known example, but there are also other texts like: Matt 10:8; 27:35; Luke 17:36; John 3:25; Acts 8:37; 9:5; 15:34; and some readings ("book of life" instead of "tree of life" in Revelation 22:19) which the Byzantine text did not have. In these cases the majority of manuscripts agree with the Alexandrian text-type against the Textus Receptus.

F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-1891) remarked that Matt. 22:28, 23:25, 27:52, 28:3, 4, 19, 20; Mark 7:18, 19, 26, 10:1, 12:22, 15:46; Luke 1:16, 61, 2:43, 9:1, 15, 11:49; John 1:28, 10:8, 13:20 are under the influence of Minuscule 1 (Caesarean text-type).[17] Scrivener showed that some texts were incorporated from the Vulgate (for example, Acts 9:6; Rev 17:4.8). Daniel Wallace enumerated that in 1,838 places (1005 are translatable) Textus Receptus differs from the Byzantine text-type.[18]

Dean Burgon, one of the main supporter of the Textus Receptus declares that the Textus Receptus needs correction.[19] He suggested 150 corrections in the Textus Receptus Gospel of Matthew alone.[20]

Matthew 10:8 it has Alexandrian reading νεκρους εγειρετε (raise the dead) omitted by the Byzantine text.[21]
Acts 20:28 it has Alexandrian reading του Θεου (of the God) instead of Byzantine του κυριου και του Θεου (of the Lord and God).

[edit] See also

Other text-types
Other articles

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Epistle 695" in Collected Works of Erasmus Vol. 5: Letters 594 to 841, 1517-1518 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson; annotated by James K. McConica; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 172.
  2. ^ "Epistle 273" in Collected Works of Erasmus Vol. 2: Letters 142 to 297, 1501-1514 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson; annotated Wallace K. Ferguson; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 253.
  3. ^ "Epistle 305" in Collected Works of Erasmus. Vol. 3: Letters 298 to 445, 1514-1516 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson; annotated by James K. McConica; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 32.
  4. ^ "Epistle 337" in Collected Works of Erasmus Vol. 3, 134.
  5. ^ W.W. Combs, Erasmus and the textus receptus, DBSJ 1 (Spring 1996), 45.
  6. ^ Bruce M. Metzger, B. D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 145.
  7. ^ W.W. Combs, Erasmus and the textus receptus, DBSJ 1 (Spring 1996), 45.
  8. ^ Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 99.
  9. ^ Bruce M. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman, "The Text Of The New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration", Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 152.
  10. ^ T. Robertson, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Nashville: Broadman, 1925, pp. 107-108.
  11. ^ D. Whitby, Examen variantium Lectionum Johannis Milli, London 1709.
  12. ^ J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graece, (London 1809)
  13. ^ An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament; in which the Greek Manuscripts are newly classed; the Integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated; and the Various Readings traced to their Origin (London, 1815), ch. 1. The sequel mentioned in the text is Nolan's Supplement to an Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament; containing the Vindication of the Principles employed in its Defence (London, 1830).
  14. ^ ibid., ch. 5
  15. ^ Edward F. Hills, King James Version Defended!, pp. 199-200.
  16. ^ Edward F. Hills, King James Version Defended!, pp. 209-213.
  17. ^ F. H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, London 1894, vol. 2, pp. 183-184.
  18. ^ Daniel Wallace, "Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text", Bibliotheca Sacra, July-September, 1989, p. 276.
  19. ^ Burgon, The Revised Revision, p. 548.
  20. ^ Burgon, Revised Revision, p. 242.
  21. ^ NA26, p. 24. Burgon, The Revised Revision, p. 108; Edward Miller, Textual Commentary Upon the Holy Gospels, p. 75.

[edit] Further reading

  • S. P. Tregelles, The Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, London 1854.
  • Bruce M. Metzger, B. D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Oxford University Press, 2005.
  • W. W. Combs, Erasmus and the textus receptus, DBSJ 1 (Spring 1996).
  • Daniel B. Wallace, Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text. Bibliotheca Sacra 146 (1989): 270-290.
  • Dr James White. King James Only Controversy, Can You Trust the Modern Translations? Bethany House, 1995.

[edit] External links

Modern Textual Criticism
Defense of Textus Receptus

 

Alexandrian text-type

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Alexandrian text-type (also called Neutral or Egyptian) is one of several text-types used in New Testament textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of biblical manuscripts. The Alexandrian text-type is the form of the Greek New Testament that predominates in the earliest surviving documents, as well as the text type used in Egyptian Coptic manuscripts. In later manuscripts (from the 9th century onwards), the Byzantine text-type became far more common and remains as the standard text in the Greek Orthodox church and also underlies most Protestant translations of the Reformation era. Most modern New Testament translations, however, now use an Eclectic Greek text that is closest to the Alexandrian text-type.

[edit] Manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type

Up until the 9th century, Greek texts were written entirely in upper case letters, referred to as Uncials. During the 9th and 10th centuries, the new lower-case writing hand of Minuscules came gradually to replace the older style. Most Greek Uncial manusripts were recopied in this period and their parchment leaves typically scraped clean for re-use. Consequently, surviving Greek New Testament manuscripts from before the 9th century are relatively rare; but nine — over half of the total that survive — witness a more or less pure Alexandrian text. These include the oldest near-complete manuscripts of the New Testament Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 and Codex Sinaiticus (believed to date from the early 4th century CE).

A number of substantial papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament survive from earlier still, and those that can be ascribed a text-type — such as \mathfrak{P}66 and \mathfrak{P}75 from the early 3rd century — also tend to witness to the Alexandrian text.

The earliest translation of the New Testament into Egyptian Coptic version — the Sahidic of the late 2nd Century — uses the Alexandrian text as a Greek base; although other 2nd and 3rd century translations — into Old Latin and Syriac tend rather to conform to the Western text-type. Although the overwhelming majority of later minuscule manuscripts conform to the Byzantine text-type; detailed study has, from time to time, identified individual minuscules that transmit the alternative Alexandrian text. Around 17 such manuscripts have been discovered so far — consequently the Alexandrian text-type is witnessed by around 30 surviving manuscripts — by no means all of which are associated with Egypt, although that area is where Alexandrian witnesses are most prevalent.

List of notable manuscripts represented Alexandrian text-type:

Sign Name Date Content
\mathfrak{P}46 Chester Beatty II c. 200 Pauline Epistles
\mathfrak{P}66 Bodmer II c. 200 Gospels
\mathfrak{P}72 Bodmer VII/VIII 3rd/4th 1-2 Peter; Jude
\mathfrak{P}75 Bodmer XIV-XV 3rd fragments of Luke — John
ﬡ Codex Sinaiticus 330-360 NT
B Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 325-350 Matt. — Hbr 9, 14
A Codex Alexandrinus c. 400 (except Gospels)
C Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus 5th (except Gospels)
Q Codex Guelferbytanus B 5th fragments Luke — John
T Codex Borgianus 5th fragments Luke — John
I Codex Freerianus 5th Pauline epistles
Z Codex Dublinensis 6th fragments of Matt.
L Codex Regius 8th Gospels
W Codex Washingtonianus 5th Luke 1:1–8:12; J 5:12–21:25
057 Uncial 057 4/5th Acts 3:5–6,10-12
0220 Uncial 0220 6th NT (except Rev.)
33 Minuscule 33 9th Romans
81 Minuscule 81 1044 Acts, Paul
892 Minuscule 892 9th Gospels


 

Other manuscripts

Papyri: \mathfrak{P}1, \mathfrak{P}4, \mathfrak{P}5, \mathfrak{P}6, \mathfrak{P}8, \mathfrak{P}9, \mathfrak{P}10, \mathfrak{P}11, \mathfrak{P}12, \mathfrak{P}13, \mathfrak{P}14, \mathfrak{P}15, \mathfrak{P}16, \mathfrak{P}17, \mathfrak{P}18, \mathfrak{P}19, \mathfrak{P}20, \mathfrak{P}22, \mathfrak{P}23, \mathfrak{P}24, \mathfrak{P}26, \mathfrak{P}27, \mathfrak{P}28, \mathfrak{P}29, \mathfrak{P}30, \mathfrak{P}31, \mathfrak{P}32, \mathfrak{P}33, \mathfrak{P}34, \mathfrak{P}35, \mathfrak{P}37, \mathfrak{P}39, \mathfrak{P}40, \mathfrak{P}43, \mathfrak{P}44, \mathfrak{P}45, \mathfrak{P}47, \mathfrak{P}49, \mathfrak{P}51, \mathfrak{P}53, \mathfrak{P}55, \mathfrak{P}56, \mathfrak{P}57, \mathfrak{P}61, \mathfrak{P}62, \mathfrak{P}64, \mathfrak{P}65, \mathfrak{P}70, \mathfrak{P}71, \mathfrak{P}72, \mathfrak{P}74, \mathfrak{P}77, \mathfrak{P}78, \mathfrak{P}79, \mathfrak{P}80 (?), \mathfrak{P}81, \mathfrak{P}82, \mathfrak{P}85 (?), \mathfrak{P}86, \mathfrak{P}87, \mathfrak{P}90, \mathfrak{P}91, \mathfrak{P}92, \mathfrak{P}95, \mathfrak{P}100, \mathfrak{P}104, \mathfrak{P}106, \mathfrak{P}107, \mathfrak{P}108, \mathfrak{P}110, \mathfrak{P}111, \mathfrak{P}115, \mathfrak{P}122.

Uncials: Codex Coislinianus, Porphyrianus (except Acts, Rev), Dublinensis, Sangallensis (only in Mark), Zacynthius, Athous Lavrensis (in Mark and Cath. epistles), Vaticanus 2061, 059, 068, 071, 073, 076, 077, 081, 083, 085, 087, 088, 089, 091, 093 (except Acts), 094, 096, 098, 0101, 0102, 0108, 0111, 0114, 0129, 0142, 0155, 0156, 0162, 0167, 0172, 0173, 0175, 0181, 0183, 0184, 0185, 0201, 0204, 0205, 0207, 0223, 0225, 0232, 0234, 0240, 0243, 0244, 0245, 0247, 0254, 0270, 0271, 0274.

Minuscules: 20, 89, 94, 104 (Epistles), 157, 164, 215, 241, 254, 322, 323, 326, 376, 383, 442, 579 (except Matthew), 614, 718, 850, 1006, 1175, 1241 (except Acts), 1243, 1292 (Cath.), 1342 (Mark), 1506 (Paul), 1611, 1739, 1841, 1852, 1908, 2040, 2053, 2062, 2298, 2344 (CE, Rev), 2351, 2427, 2464.[1]

According to the present critics codices \mathfrak{P}75 and B are the best Alexandrian witnesses, which present the pure Alexandrian text. All other witnesses are classified according to whether they preserve the excelent \mathfrak{P}75-B line of text. To the primary Alexandrian witnesses would include \mathfrak{P}66 and citations of Origen. To the secendary witnesses are included manuscripts C, L. 33, and the writings of Didymus the Blind.[2]

[edit] Characteristics of the Alexandrian text-type

All extant manuscripts of all text-types are at least 85% identical and most of the variations are not translatable into English, such as word order or spelling. When compared to witnesses of the Western text-type, Alexandrian readings tend to be shorter; and are commonly regarded as having a lower tendency to expand or paraphrase. Some of the manuscripts representing the Alexandrian text-type have the Byzantine corrections made by later hands (Papyrus 66, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Ephraemi, Codex Regius, and Codex Sangallensis).[3] When compared to witnesses of the Byzantine text type, Alexandrian manuscripts tend:

  • Omitted verses: Matt 12:47; 17:21; 18:11; Mark 9:44.46; 11:26; 15:28; Luke 17:36; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29.[4]
  • In Matthew 15:6 omitted η την μητερα (αυτου) (or (his) mother) — א B D copsa;[5]
  • In Mark 10:7 omitted phrase και προσκολληθησεται προς την γυναικα αυτου (and be joined to his wife), in codices Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Athous Lavrensis, 892, ℓ 48, syrs, goth.[6]
  • Mark 10:37 αριστερων (left) instead of ευωνυμων (left), in phrase εξ αριστερων (B Δ 892v.l.) or σου εξ αριστερων (L Ψ 892*);[7]
  • In Luke 11:4 phrase αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου (but deliver us from evil) omitted. Omission is supported by the manuscripts: Sinaiticus, B, L, f1, 700, vg, syrs, copsa, bo, arm, geo.[8]
  • In Luke 9:55-56 it has only στραφεις δε επετιμησεν αυτοις (but He turned and rebuked them) — p45 p75 א B C L W X Δ Ξ Ψ 28 33 565 892 1009 1010 1071 Byzpt Lect
  • to display more variations between parallel synoptic passages — as in the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:2), which in the Alexandrian text opens "Father.. ", whereas the Byzantine text reads (as in the parallel Matthew 6:9) "Our Father in heaven.. ";
  • to have a higher proportion of "difficult" readings — as in Matthew 24:36 which reads in the Alexandrian text "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only"; whereas the Byzantine text omits the phrase "nor the Son", thereby avoiding the implication that Jesus lacked full divine foreknowledge. Another difficult readings: Luke 4:44.

It must be noted that the above comparisons are tendencies, rather than consistent differences. Hence there are a number of passages in the Gospel of Luke where the Western text-type witnesses a shorter text — the Western non-interpolations. Also there are a number of readings where the Byzantine text displays variation between synoptic passages, that is not found in either the Western or Alexandrian texts — as in the rendering into Greek of the Aramaic last words of Jesus, which are reported in the Byzantine text as "Eloi, Eloi.." in Mark 15:34, but as "Eli, Eli.." in Matthew 27:46.

[edit] Peculiar readings

In Gospel of Matthew 27:49 was added this text: "The other took a spear and pierced His side, and immediately water and blood came out" (see: John 19:34). We can find this textual variant in codices: Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Regius, and several other witnesses of Alexandrian text-type. Probably this text was added in a result of fighting with Docetism.

Mark 5:9

λεγιων ονομα μοι — א B C L Δ
απεκριτη — D
απεκριθη λεγων — E 565 700
λεγεων — A W Θ f1 f13 Byz

Mark 6:22

  • θυγατρος αυτου Ηρωδιαδος — א B D L Δ 565
  • θυγατρος αυτης της Ηρωδιαδος — A C K Θ Π
  • θυγατρος αυτης Ηρωδιαδος — W f13 28 33 700 892 1009 1010 1071 1079 1195 1216 1230 1241 1242 Byz it vg
  • θυγατρος της Ηρωδιαδος — f1 itaur, b, c, f syr cop goth arm eth geo

Luke 9:35

  • εκλελεγμενος — א B Ξ 892 1241
  • εκλεκτος — Θ f1 1365
  • αγαπητος — A C K P W X Δ Π f13 28 33 565 700 Byz
  • αγαπητος εν ο ευδοκησα — C3 D Ψ ℓ 19 ℓ 31 ℓ 47 ℓ 48 ℓ 49

[edit] Editions of the Alexandrian text-type

Starting with Karl Lachmann (1850), manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type have been the most influential in modern, critical editions of the Greek New Testament, achieving widespread acceptance in the text of Westcott & Hort (1881), and culminating in the United Bible Society 4th edition and Nestle-Aland 27th edition of the New Testament.

[edit] Evaluations of text-types

Most textual critics of the New Testament favor the Alexandrian text-type as the closest representative of the autographs for many reasons. One reason is that Alexandrian manuscripts are the oldest we have found, and some of the earliest church fathers used readings found in the Alexandrian text. Another is that the Alexandrian readings are adjudged more often to be the ones that can best explain the origin of all the variant readings found in other text-types.

Nevertheless, there are some dissenting voices to this general consensus. A few textual critics, especially those in France, argue that the Western text-type, an old text from which the Old Latin versions of the New Testament are derived, is closer to the originals.

In the United States, some critics have a dissenting view that prefers the Byzantine text-type. They assert that Egypt, almost alone, offers optimal climatic conditions favoring preservation of ancient manuscripts. Thus, the papyri used in the east (Asia Minor and Greece) would not have survived due to the unfavorable climatic conditions. The argument is that the much greater number of Byzantine manuscripts indicate a superior claim to being close to the autograph. The Byzantine text is also found in modern Greek Orthodox editions, as the Byzantine textual tradition has continued in the Eastern Orthodox Church into the present time.

Some of those arguing in favor of Byzantine priority further assert that the Alexandrian church was dominated by the gnostics who generally had either docetic views of Jesus, or considered his life to just be an allegory that was not based on facts. Alexandrian proponents counter that the Byzantine church was dominated by Arianism around the time that we first see evidence of the Byzantine text emerging. However, most scholars generally agree that there is no evidence of systematic theological alteration in any of the text types.

The evidence of the papyri suggests that — in Egypt at least — very different manuscript readings co-existed in the same area in the early Christian period. So, whereas the early 3rd century papyrus P75 witnesses a text in Luke and John that is very close to that found a century later in the Codex Vaticanus, the nearly contemporary P66 has a much freer text of John; with many unique variants; and others that are now considered distinctive to the Western and Byzantine text-types, albeit that the bulk of readings are Alexandrian. Most modern text critics therefore do not regard any one text-type as deriving in direct succession from autograph manuscripts, but rather, as the fruit of local exercises to compile the best New Testament text from a manuscript tradition that already displayed wide variations.

[edit] History of research

Griesbach produced a list of nine manuscripts which represent the Alexandrian text: C, L, K, 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, and 118.[9] Codex Vaticanus was not on this list. In 1796 in second edition of his Greek New Testament Griesbach added Codex Vaticanus as witness to the Alexandrian text in Mark, Luke, and John. He still thought that the first half of Matthew represents the Western text-type.[10]

Johann Leonhard Hug (1765-1846) suggested that the Alexandrian recension was to be dated about the middle of the third century, and it was the purification of a wild text, which was simillar to the text of Codex Bezae. In result of this recension interpolations were removed and some grammar refinements were made. The result was the text of the codices B, C, L, and the text of Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria.[11][12]

Until to the publication of the Introduction of Westcott and Hort in 1881 remained opinion that the Alexandrian text is represented by codices B, C, L.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ David Alan Black, New Testament Textual Criticism, Baker Books, 2006, p. 64.
  2. ^ Bruce M. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 278.
  3. ^ E. A. Button, An Atlas of Textual Criticism, Cambridge, 1911, p. 13.
  4. ^ Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart 2001), pp. 315, 388, 434, 444.
  5. ^ NA26, p. 41.
  6. ^ UBS3, p. 164.
  7. ^ NA26, p. 124.
  8. ^ UBS3, p. 256.
  9. ^ J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graecum, vol. I (Halle, 1777), prolegomena.
  10. ^ J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graecum, 2 editio (Halae, 1796), prolegomena, p. LXXXI. See Edition from 1809 (London)
  11. ^ J. L. Hug, Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Stuttgart 1808), 2nd edition from Stuttgart-Tόbingen 1847, p. 168 ff.
  12. ^ John Leonard Hug, Writings of the New Testament, translated by Daniel Guildford Wait (London 1827), p. 198 ff.
 

[edit] Further reading

 

 

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