How Did We Get Our Bibles?
Can We Cound On The Bible?
The Transmission and Reliability of the Text
We are in the midst of a study dealing with the integrity of the text of our Bibles. This is an important study as we live in a society that continually and more frequently is assaulting the validity of the Bible as the word of God. Therefore, we are attempting to show proofs, both internally and externally, to instill confidence that what we do have (the 66 books that comprise the Old and New Testaments) IS indeed God’s intended message for mankind for all ages. It is THE text for which we need to reverently respect its boundaries (1 Cor. 4:6). We have “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3) and “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)
Thus far, we have examined inspiration and we have established the canon of both the Old and New Testaments. The canon is reference to the compilation of books which are considered authoritatively the word of God. In our study we have noted both the books that were accepted and why AND those books which have been rejected by THE MAJORITY (known as the apocrypha) and why. With confidence we can know what books belong in the canon.
BUT HOW DO WE KNOW THAT WHAT WE POSSESS IS THE COMPLETE AND INERRANT WORD OF GOD? In 1989, Shirley MacClaine was being interviewed by Larry King about her New Age beliefs. When a caller challenged her views by appealing to the New Testament, her comment was that the Bible has been translated and changed so many times in 2000 years that we cannot have confidence in its accuracy. Larry King agreed saying, “everybody knows that.” Sadly, her view is not all that uncommon. In fact, if you speak to the average critic of scripture he will say In our lesson tonight we shall see that what we possess is NOT the autographs of these letters, but copies and translations. One might argue that since what we have is not the originals, that in the process of translation, the teachings of scripture have been corrupted and we cannot rely upon the message today as being inerrant.
I. Thoughts about the Reliability of the Text
a. IT begins with faith –
Heb. 11:6, 3. The truth of serving God is that it starts with one’s faith.
And after all is said and done, we accept what we believe by faith. We must
have faith that God has revealed to us what He intends for us to have. That
is not a blind faith that accepts anything, but it is a confident trust in Him.
NEVERTHELESS, it is not unreasonable to “trust but verify”. After
all, your eternal destiny is the concern. In Judges 6:36-40 we read about Gideon,
one of Israel’s judges (deliverers). On the occasion recorded, the angel
of the Lord appeared to him to deliver Israel. Gideon asked for a sign, TWICE,
to verify that the Lord would deliver Israel at His hand. God gave Him the signs
he requested. The POINT I am making here is that while God expects us to follow
Him by faith, He does not expect us to BLINDLY follow Him. He has given us evidence
to weigh when it comes to His word.
Just as we have shown proof that the books we have in the canon are what belongs,
we need to examine the evidence for the accuracy of the text we possess.
b. What happened to the originals? The truth is we don’t know.
But understand that the materials upon which they were written were perishable
AND widely circulated. Therefore, wear and the elements would take their toll.
Even the oldest of documents that we now possess demonstrate this wear. It is
interesting that some of the documents we have now are missing the beginning
or the end of pages – which is natural.
Also, perhaps God did not want us to have the originals. Considering the tendency
of our religious world to make holy relics out of things (i.e. the bronze serpent
– 2 Kings 18:4; the many relics of Catholicism such as the crucifix, statues,
and whatever they have of antiquity). What would they do with the originals
of the text of the Bible? Could it be that what is important to God is the message
NOT the vessel that delivers the message (cf. Acts 17:24,25). Deut. 13:14 noted
that Israel was reminded that the word of God was very near them, in their mouth
and in their heart (Also Rom. 10:8).
c. Textual criticism – is the process of examining text by a given set
of criteria used to determine the character (dating, accuracy, etc.) and authenticity
of any ancient work. It includes examining multiple copies of a work or portion
thereof, especially when we do not have the original, and working to restore
the original as accurately as possible.
When it comes to ancient works, NO work has been copied or documented more and
has anywhere close to the number of documents we have associated with the Bible,
especially the New Testament.
d. Types of materials
i. Scrolls & Codex – codex is a fancy name for a book form. Pages
that are bound together. During the 1st century AD, such began to develop. The
majority of what we have concerning the New Testament is codices as opposed
to scrolls.
ii. Surfaces - vellum, parchments, papyrus, etc.
e. Why the written text? Because oral transmissions can more easily be misrepresented
or perverted. I was told while growing up, “Be careful what you write”.
What you say can be retracted more easily than what you write. Writing is a
more permanent record (though now, we record lessons).
II. The Manuscript evidence
a. Textual evidence is NOT the result
of “linear” transmission (i.e. a straight line; a copy of a copy
of a copy of a copy…).
i. The flaw of the “telephone game” analogy is two fold: 1) It relies
on linear transmission – one person speaks to one person who speaks to
another person, etc. If ONE person doesn’t hear the expression properly,
all the following receptors now have a flawed interpretation. 2) The message
is transmitted orally. Oral transmission is much more likely to be flawed than
that which is written for many reasons – you may not think when you speak,
it is what comes to mind as a first response and, sometimes when it is repeated
it is not exactly the same (i.e. paraphrased), and many other reasons.
ii. To construct manuscripts from which Bible translations are developed, scholars
have at their disposal more than 5300 Greek manuscripts of different types.
iii. In addition to this, they also have early translations into other languages
– Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, etc.
iv. And there are quotes from other works that appeal to scripture. We will
speak more about these as this lesson progresses.
b. The Old Testament –
i. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1948, the
earliest complete manuscripts of the Old Testament dated around 1000 AD. They
included:
1. The Leningrad Codex around 1008 AD, which is the oldest COMPLETE Old Testament.
2. The Cairo Codex which dated around 895 AD, included most of the written prophets
(except Daniel) and what is described as “the former prophets” which
included the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings.
3. The Leningrad Codex of the Prophets, dating AD 916 which contained the altter
prophets.
4. British Museum Codex of the Pentateuch, around 10th or 11th century.
5. These documents were the basis of all manuscripts upon which the Old Testament
was translated.
ii. With such a length of time between the originals (between 2500 and 1900
years) and relatively few manuscripts, how can we know the Old Testament documents
are accurate?
1. First, consider the Jewish scribal trade – the Jews took translating
scriptures very seriously. We know that because it survived the wars and trauma
of OT history.
2. Because the Jews considered copies of the text to be sacred they took extreme
care as they made copies. This included:[1]
a. Scribes would sit in full Jewish dress after bathing (reverence for the task)
b. They used a certain type of ink
c. The spacing of words and letters was strictly regulated
d. Lines and letters were meticulously counted
e. IF a manuscript was found to have even one error it was destroyed.
3. The Massoretes were instrumental in preserving the text from about 500 AD
to 1000 AD. It is their works that we have mentioned above. They were meticulous
in avoiding copying mistakes and scribal errors. In addition to respecting the
rules mentioned above, they developed a system of numbering verses, words and
letters that helped verify a manuscript was completely accurate. They were also
instrumental in developing vowel points which help us accurately say Hebrew
words.
4. The reason we have so few manuscripts and so late manuscripts for the Hebrew
Old Testament is their reverence for their work. As noted, they would destroy
copies with errors. BUT, they would also ceremonially bury texts that were old
or had become worn out.
5. The Dead Sea Scrolls – discovered in 1940s by a boy throwing rocks
into caves in Qumran when he heard something break. It was a clay picture containing
a leather scrolls. When they were found they contained substantial portions
of the Old Testament including complete copies of Isaiah and Gen-Deut., Psalms,
etc. and fragments which come from every book of the Old Testament except Esther.
other works (including some apocryphal books and commentaries, and numerous
other works). These manuscripts dated around 100 BC by the Essenes. What is
remarkable is that when a comparison was done with one of the Isaiah scrolls
found there and the earlier manuscripts mentioned above and others. As an example,
Isaiah 53 was examined which has 166 words in it. In that chapter there were
discovered 17 differences of which 10 were matters of spelling, 4 were stylistic
changes and 3 were letters that comprised a word in vs. 11 (“light”)
which was added to what it was compared with.[2] In essence, the errors were
overwhelmingly what we would call today, “typos”. IT verified the
accuracy of the text of the Old Testament and the methods used to preserve it.
6. The Latin Vulgate, was a Latin translation of the entire Bible composed by
Jerome around 400 AD. He used the Hebrew text to translate the Old Testament.
There are other similar documents available to us. We do not have the “autograph”
but we do have copies dating to the 8th century. Again, variations are minimal.
7. ALSO, do NOT forget the substantial references to the Old Testament quoted
in the New Testament. They help to verify the accuracy of the text as well as
the Canon.
8. With this we can have GREAT confidence in the text of the Old Testament.
c. The New Testament – is much more remarkable and determined by a different
set of criteria.
1st – the time between the originals and available documents is much less;
2nd – the overwhelming amount of early documents we have at our disposal.
i. We have as of 1980 at least 5366 2nd – 15th century Greek manuscripts.
Most manuscripts we have are in codex form (an early word for a book). Because
of the size of all the books of the NT, most early manuscripts were not complete,
but many were grouped into 1)The four gospels; 2)General epistles & Acts;
3)Paul’s letters including Hebrews & 4) Revelation.
In addition to these Greek manuscripts, there are also more than 19000 other
manuscripts in Syriac, Coptic, Latin and Aramaic.
ii. Types of manuscripts include:
1. Papyrus – the material the New Testament was actually written on, either
scrolls or in book form. Papyrus was invented by the Egyptians using reeds.
It formed a quality paper. Some of the earliest fragments of the New Testament
are in this form. Included is a fragment named P52 which contains a portion
of John 18:31-34 & 37-38 which is dated around 110-125 AD. We also have
several other such manuscripts.
2. Uncials – manuscripts with all capital Greek letters which were written
either on papyrus (the paper mentioned above), parchments or vellum (types of
animal skins converted into writing surfaces). These dated from the 3rd to the
8th centuries AD. (NOTE: The type of lettering in a manuscript helps us to date
it). We have about 300 uncial manuscripts including the complete Codex Sinaticus
(about 340 AD) and the almost complete Codex Alexandrinus (about 450 AD). This
provides our earliest complete documents that would be given greater weight
because of its closeness to the actual dates of origin.
3. Miniscules – were manuscripts generally developed from the 9th century
and beyond. They are the largest portion of manuscripts we have. There are about
2795 manuscripts and another 1964 lectionaries (books written that contained
specific scriptures to be read by the church).
4. All of these documents are considered (or those available) when generating
a manuscript that will be used at the foundation of a Bible.
iii. Other “witnesses” included lectionaries which contained considerable
portions of scripture, versions of the Bible as it was translated into various
languages, etc. In these we find plenty of passages of scripture that can be
compared to others.
iv. The early “church fathers” – They frequently quoted from
the New Testament as they wrote their letters. In face, it has been said that
virtually all of the New Testament is quoted in these works. In fact, one author
noted that even if we did not have manuscripts we could compile scripture just
by the writings of early theologians and other writers. We have more than 36,000
NT quotes from these writings. [3]
v. In summary, the text of the New Testament was compiled from documents so
extensive that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to perpetrate a fraudulent document and
have it believable. There is too much other evidence for such to be possible.
In our next lesson we will continue to examine the reliability of the text by
noting textual variations (differences).
[1] http://www.biblebb.com/files/howbible.htm
[2] McDowell, Josh, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, © 1979, p. 58
[3] http://www.neverthirsty.org/pp/other-bible-studies/how-accurate-is-the-bible/variants-in-the-new-testament.html
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