Not too many blogs on this topic! I was at a conference and heard Dr. Richard Dresselhaus speak on this topic. Here are some notes. They may or may not make sense!
Textual criticism is the study of copies of copies of copies trying to get back to the originals. Homer wrote the Ilyiad in 850 BC. It was the Bible of the ancient Greeks. There are 650 copies, but the earliest copies are dated roughly 250 BC. That is a 1,000 gap. The NT has less than a twenty-five year gap. There are only six copies of Josephus and they are close to a thousand years ex post facto. The span between the original writing and copies are centuries upon centuries and only a few copies. We hardly ever question them because they don’t make ultimate truth claims. So it’s fair for Scripture to have a higher standard. Norman Geisler says, “The NT is 99.5% accurate according to the original authographs.” When you read 100 verses there is only half of one where there is a problem. And even then it’s usually a slight variation in word choice. That ought to give us tremendous confidence. Text Steams
Thre are two streams of texts. The first is the byzantine or Antiochian or Greek or Traditional text. They use manuscripts dating back to 400 AD. Erasmus was comissioned by Pope Leo X, an enemy of Martin Luther, to produce the first version in 1516. Stephanus did the 3rd edition in 1550. Prior to this there were no chapters and versions. Stephanus did that in this 4th edition. It is this text that was the basis for the KJV. The KJV was done in 1611. It predates the textus receptus in 1633. The Geneva Bible, the writings of Zwingli and Luther, use this steam of texts.The other steam is Alexandria and it uses the papyri text as a basis. So it uses older manuscripts. The modern translations use these manuscripts–ASV, RV, NEB, NIV, NASV. The modern translations use older manuscripts as its basis. Debatable TextsThe Lord’s prayer in the NIV ends “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” The KJV doesn’t include it. Should it be in there or not? Why or why not? Mark 16:8 says in the NIV that “some of the most ancient manuscripts don’t include verses 9-20). Should it be in there or not? What about John 8? It says, “Two of the most ancient manuscripts don’t include the following verses.” Should the story about the woman caught in the act of adultery be in there or not? A manuscript is a script produced manually. We stopped using manuscripts in 1453 because of Gutenberg who printed a Bible in latin. There were 100 printed and 10 are still in existence. They are worth millions. The first Greek New Testament was printed in 1516. Prior to that time every text was done manually. Scribes would invest a lifetime making one copy of the Scripture. If you make copies, no matter how diligent you are, there will be mistakes. Period. Prior to the printing press there are no two manuscripts that are exactly the same! There is human error in the translation process. Imagine three exhibits–Greek manuscripts is exhibit A. There are 5,500. And those 5,500 are divided into four groups. The first group are papyri. There are 99 of these oldest manuscripts–centuries two through six. They are exhibit B. They all have a name and are identity by P for papyri. P45, for example, contains most of the synoptics and carries a date of 250 AD. P75 comes from 270 AD and has most of John’s gospels. They are exhibit B. The second pile are called unchils and there are 306 of them. They are identified by letters and arabic numerals. They are from 350 AD. They are all capital letters written together with no periods or punctuation. They are identified by the alphabet. The third piles are manuscules. They are written longhand. They are late. They are from the ninth and tenth century. There are 2856 of them according to Bruce Metzger. They are identified with arabic numbers. The fourth pile are the lectionaries. There are 2406 of them. They go back to the fifth and sixth century. They are identified by an L and a number. These four exhibits total more than 5,500. How can you date these writings? Penmenship reveals date in time. Look at your grandmother’s, mother’s, and your handwriting. They reveal differences. The second pile or exhibit are the versions or translations. Already by the end of the second century the NT has been translated into Coptic, Syrian, and Latin. From the second century on there translations in Arabic, Ethiopic. And a whole bunch of other “pics.” The Latin versions, there are 8,000 of them. There are close to 20,000 of these langauge translations. The third table or exhibit are the testimony of the Church Fathers–Athanasius, Augustine. These Fathers refer to Scripture and validate it. For example, does Origen quote from Mark 16:10? Do they include the end of the Lord’s prayer? All these manuscripts have to uncovered and indexed. Hidden inside of all of this–more than 20,000 manuscripts–are the autographs. But if you are diligent you’ll come close to the originals.
That’s enough rambling for one day! Here’s the long and short of it. The process of copying Scripture is amazing! And it ought to give us tremendous confidence. I think more Christians need to know more about the process of how we got the Bible!
I often think about the fact that ancients scribes would spend a lifetime making one copy of the Bible! And I’ve got more copies than I know what to do with.