How We Got the BibleHow We Got the Bible

Lesson 7:

Restoring the New Testament Text

& Manuscripts from the Sand

a study of

Neil R. Lightfoot

How We Got the

Bible, 3rd ed.

2

How We Got the BibleHow We Got the Bible

Lessons1. The Making of Ancient Books2. The Birth of the Bible3. Manuscripts of the New Testament4. Important New Testament Manuscripts5. Ancient Versions of the New Testament6. The Text of the New Testament7. Restoring the New Testament Text

How We Got the BibleHow We Got the Bible

2 Timothy 4:13“Bring the cloak that I left with Carpusat Troas when you come--and the books, especially the parchments.”

Scrolls Animal Skin - Sheep or GoatScripture written on them

Restoring the New Testament Text

• The New Testament is the best-documented book in all the world

Choices for restoring the text

• Select one manuscript to become the standard text, or...

• Compare manuscripts and authorities to reconstruct the text

Authorities for restoring the text

• Manuscripts — primary source

• Versions

• Early Christian writers

Greek New Testament in print

• Erasmus of Rotterdam

• Robert Estienne

• Theodore Beza

• The Textus Receptus

Hobien’s “Erasmus”http://vergil.classics.upenn.edu/~jod/avatars/index.html

Erasmus of Rotterdam

1516 Erasmus Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament: First Edition An influential and very early work. We are not aware of any other copies for sale in the world. This edition was used by Tyndale to translate the New Testament into the English language for the first time. It was also used by Luther to translate the New Testament into the German language for the first time. Most scholars consider the 1516 Erasmus Parallel New Testament, in either the 1516 or the 1519 printing, to be one of the top ten most important books ever printed.

•Offered at $69,500

http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bibles-books/gold.html

Erasmus’ parallel Greek-Latin N.T.

An influential and very early work. We are not aware of any other copies for sale in the world. This edition was used by Tyndale to translate the New Testament into the English language for the first time. It was also used by Luther to translate the New Testament into the German language for the first time. Most scholars consider the 1516 Erasmus Parallel New Testament, in either the 1516 or the 1519 printing, to be one of the top ten most important books ever printed. Offered at $69,500http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bibles-books/gold.html

Erasmus’ parallel Greek-Latin N.T.

Summary of Erasmus

• The first to publish the N.T. in Greek

• Edited text based on a few late Greek mss.

• Mistakes of hasty publication:— corrected in later editions— repeated by later editors

• Reformation in the air:— Valued Greek manuscripts over Latin— Wrote strongly against the wrongs of the Catholic church

Also known as Robert Stephanushttp://virtual.park.uga.edu/nhilton/std/stephan.html

Robert Estienne

The Royal Edition

– Virtually the complete text of Erasmus

– Became the “Received Text”

http://www.christianhospitality.org/greektr.htm

Stephanus Greek N.T., 3rd ed.

One of the ten most important books ever printed; this is the first printing of the scriptures to have the text separated into numbered verses… a feature appearing in the English language for the first time a few years later in the 1560 Geneva Bible. Produced by Robert Stephanus (a.k.a. Robert Etienne), this is also the primary Greek text used to translate the King James Version of 1611. It is the first edition to use the “critical apparatus”, a series of marginal notes referencing which of the dozen ancient Greek texts were favored at each passage where differences occur. This edition has fetched as much as $40,000 for a copy in fine condition. This is the only one for sale in the world.

Offered at $22,000

http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bibles-books/gold.html

1550 Stephanus Greek N.T.

Produced by Robert Stephanus (a.k.a. Robert Etienne), this is also the primary Greek text used to translate the King James Version of 1611. It is the first edition to use the “critical apparatus”, a series of marginal notes referencing which of the dozen ancient Greek texts were favored at each passage where differences occur. This edition has fetched as much as $40,000 for a copy in fine condition. This is the only one for sale in the world.

Offered at $22,000http://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bibles-books/gold.html

1550 Stephanus Greek N.T.

Protestant French reformer

Published several editions of the Greek text (1565-1604)

Greek text was essentially the text of Stephanushttp://www.history.pcusa.org/exhibits/reform/beza.html

Theodore Beza

The Textus Receptus

• The Greek text of the New Testament had been standardized

• The Elzevirs, a Dutch printing family, in their 1633 ed. Greek N.T., “You have the text now received by all” (textus receptus)

• The “Textus Receptus” was not a divine designation but used to sell books!

• Cf. the “Authorized Version”

The Textus Receptus

The Elzevir text was the text of Beza

which was the text of Stephanus

which was the text of Erasmus

based on a few late Greek manuscripts

The work of John Mill

• In 1707 reprinted the Stephanus 1550

• Included variant readings gathered from numerous manuscripts, versions and early Christian writers (30 years of work)

The work of John Mill

• Daniel Whitby charged that printing nearly 30,000 variants made the text uncertain

• Unfortunately, used by Anthony Collins in Discourse of Free-Thinking (1713) to deny the authority of Scripture

The work of Richard Bentley

• Defended Mill in his work Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-Thinking, published under the pseudonym, Phileleutherus (“lover of truth”)

• “…No truth, no matter of fact fairly laid open, can ever subvert true religion”

The work of Richard Bentley

• “’Tis competently exact even in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you can, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings”

• The Greek text is the basis for all our N.T. translations

• 2 extraordinary events of the 19th cent.

http://www.cob-net.org/compare_greektext.htm

The Westcott-Hort text

Brooke Foss Westcott

Fenton J.A. Hort

• — Constantin Tischendorf’s discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript

•— Tischendorf’s successful collation and publication of the Vatican Manuscript

http://www.cob-net.org/compare_greektext.htm

The Westcott-Hort text

Brooke Foss Westcott

Fenton J.A. Hort

Westcott-Hort Greek N.T.

• Originally published in 1881

• Second volume:— Introduction [and]— Appendix

Values reflected in W-H text

• Thorough consideration of all evidence

• The wholesale rejection of the mass of authorities: they are the farthest removed from the 1st cent.

• The acknowledged dependence on the Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts as the oldest complete N.T.’s in Greek

Impact of Westcott-Hort text• Modern editions of the Greek N.T. reflect the

tremendous contributions of Westcott and Hort• The English Revised Version (1881) utilized

the scholarship of Westcott and Hort - in America it was the ASV of 1901

• The Westcott-Hort text and English Revised Version deposed the “Received Text” used to translate the N.T. of the KJV

Manuscripts from the sand• The modern quest for texts began with the

discovery of 2,000 papyrus rolls and fragments from the “Villa of the Papyri” in Herculaneum on the slope of Mount Vesuvius

• Few papyri manuscripts were found early in the 19th cent.; however, a flood of manuscripts were discovered late in the century, mostly from dry Egypt

From the sands of Egypt

Yohanan Aharoni and Michael Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas (3rd ed., New York: Macmillan, 1993), pl. 182

B.P. Grenfell & A.S. Hunt

Discoveries from Oxyrhynchus

• In 1896-97 chosen because it was a leading Christian town in the 3rd and 4th cent.

• First few weeks unproductive until they turned their attention to the town garbage dumps

• Quickly found basketsful of papyri, including a “sayings” document; they published it as the Logia Iesu: The Sayings of Our Lord

• Other quests began based on Grenfell and Hunt’s labors

• Published The Oxyrhynchus Papyri containing:— Tax receipts, leases, deeds, bills of sale, personal letters, etc.— 27 manuscripts of portions of the N.T., dating from 2nd - early 4th cent.

Discoveries from Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

• Earliest text of most of the letters of Paul; early 3rd cent.

• 86 of an original 104 leaves• Order of Paul’s letters: Rom., Heb., 1 & 2 Cor.,

Eph., Gal., Phil., Col., 1 & 2 Thess.• Portions of Rom. and 1 Thess. missing; 2 Thess.

not present• Significance of 1 & 2 Tim., Tit. and Philem.

missing; Heb. With Paul’s letters

http://www.craigbaugh.us/p46.jpg

Chester Beatty papyrus (P46)

• Discovered in 1952 in an area to the north of the ancient city of Thebes

• Most of the texts bought by Mr. Martin Bodmer of Geneva, Switzerland

• Largely Greek and Coptic papyri

• Contain most of John’s Gospel, 1 and 2 Peter and large portions of Luke and John

http://www.testimonio.com/aleman/Colecciones/Scriptorium/Epistolas.htm

Bodmer papyrus (P8)

P52 showing John 18:31-33; A.D. 125;

John Rylands University Library, Manchester, EnglandPhilip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), p. 356

John Rylands papyrus (P52)

P64 showing Matt. 26:22-23, 31-33; 2nd cent.; from the same codex as P4 and P67; Magdalen College, Oxford University, Oxford, England

Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), p. 34

Magdalen papyrus (P64)

Conclusion

• The Greek papyri in general have had a far-reaching effect on our knowledge of the Greek (Koine) in which the New Testament was written

• The New Testament papyri in particular have thrown much light on the text of the New Testament

• Even fragments of papyri are important

Conclusion

• Recent discoveries of papyri, taken as a whole, confirm the Westcott-Hort type of text and stand opposed to the other type of text (Received Text)

• The text of the New Testament, therefore, rests on solid foundations

Solid foundations of N.T. text

• From B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort

• From Sir Frederic Kenyon

B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort

“…the amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text. Since there is reason to suspect that an exaggerated impression prevails as to the extent of possible textual corruption in the New Testament ... we desire to make it clearly understood beforehand how much of the New Testament stands in no need of a textual critics labours.”

Sir Frederic Kenyon

“The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.”

Questions for review (1)

• What three main sources are available in restoring the New Testament text?

• Where did the “Textus Receptus” come from?

• What did Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort do?

Questions for review (2)

• What is the oldest known fragment of a New Testament text?

• How recent would a translation have to be to benefit from the work of Westcott and Hort and from the discoveries of this century?

Next weekNext week

Lesson 8:

The Text of the Old Testament &

Ancient Versions: The Old

Testament