Development & History of the Bible
Lakeside Ministries (Internet) 17 Sept. 2009
INTRODUCTION
Original Manuscripts – Written by the Holy Spirit, using men of God (2 Peter 1:21). None of these manuscripts are in known existence.
What we do have, are many ancient Manuscript Copies,
The Greek Texts.
The Modern Translations.
Many times in reading commentaries of the Scriptures we run into the following words: ‘These verses are not found in some of the manuscripts’. What does that mean?
We must remember that when we speak of the Manuscripts, we are talking about hand copied documents. Copied by men with primitive writing utensils and quite often in poor light. The most common purpose was to create copies to share with other believers. If a certain scripture passage was only in 1,500 copies and not in 4, then you could say that it was not in some of the manuscripts.
It is only by the miracles intervention and will of God that His word was carried through the centuries by the frailty of man (and in spite of the onslaughts of Satan to destroy it), yet retained it’s purity.
The following information is taken from ‘The Ancestry of Our English Bible by Price, Publisher Harper & Row’
The books of the New Testament come down to us in Greek, most of them written in the first century. Most of the epistles of Paul, the earliest of the books, were written as letters to the churches which he had founded and fostered, and not one of them was intended by him to be preserved as a permanent part of a collection of sacred books. Indeed, Paul does not seem to have given any directions regarding his letters, except that occasionally he requested that they should be read before a church or interchanged with a letter sent to some other church (See Col. 4:16).
After the books of the New Testament were written they were carried all over the Roman Empire. The Christians everywhere took care of them, and copied and multiplied them in the century immediately following their production. Marcion, who was a devout teacher during the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161), makes appeal to a rule of faith which consisted of “the Gospel” and “the Apostolicon.” This latter is known to have contained ten epistles of Paul, which were recognized by Marcion as authoritative. Soon after this date other writers, especially of the church fathers, quote and refer to various books of the New Testament as if they constituted an authoritative collection of sacred documents.
But we do not possess one of the original manuscripts either of Paul’s letters or of any other of the books of the New Testament. Scholars such as Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome greatly stimulated Biblical learning, and caused the multiplication and preservation of its sacred documents. That sacred calling was later confined almost exclusively to monasteries, of which there were hundreds in the Orient.
In the period of the ninth to the fifteenth century cursive manuscripts were produced in great numbers in these monasteries, each of which had its scribe or scribes, whose chief business was the copying of the sacred Scriptures. The profession of scribe was so revered that a writer of the sacred books was exempted from working in the gardens of a monastery, lest the skill of his pen be marred by injury to his hands.
We must examine the earliest extant manuscripts of the Greek, the versions which were translated directly from the Greek, and the quotations in the writings of the church fathers and others. The earliest extant Greek manuscript dates from the second century (not more than a hundred years after the writing of the New Testament books) and copies become increasingly frequent down to the invention of printing in the fifteenth century. The use of the New Testament made by the church fathers in quoting either from the original Greek or from one of the versions is valuable evidence for the reading of that text at the given date, and at a given place.
Manuscripts as a rule were written with no space between the words or sentences and, in the oldest uncials, with few pausal marks and no accentuation of words. Certain words, the so-called nomina sacra, were usually abbreviated and marked by a superlinear stroke. The actual appearance of such manuscripts may be seen in the Plates. In English letters an early uncial would thus look somewhat like the following passage (John 1:1-4):
INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWASWITHGODANDTHEWORDGODTHE
SAMEWASINTHEBEGINNINGWITHGODALLTHINGSWEREMADETHROUGHHIMANDWITH
OUTHIMWASNOTANYTHINGMADETHATHATHBEENMADEINHIMWASLIFEANDTHELIFE
WASTHELIGHTOFMEN
There are nearly 4,500 known Greek manuscripts of the New testament.
These include over 200 uncial documents, counting all fragments, which range in date from the second to the ninth century, about 100 papyri and ostraca, mainly uncials, approximately 2,500 cursive documents dating from the ninth to the fifteenth century, and nearly 1,700 lectionaries, some of which were written in uncials as late as the twelfth century.
Unfortunately, comparatively few of these witnesses contain the complete New Testament, and many are very fragmentary, especially those among the early uncials and papyri. Nevertheless, so far as the quality and quantity of the evidence go, the New Testament may be said to be by far the best-preserved ancient document in the world.
The entire New Testament is substantially contained in only two uncials (Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, most of Matthew being missing in the latter) and in about 50 cursives. Approximately 120 other manuscripts contain all but the Apocalypse (Revelation), and about 50 all but the Gospels. Let’s see the breakdown:
The Gospels Found in 1,500 documents.
The Acts and Catholic (General) Epistles and Revelation. Found in 250 documents.
The remainder constitutes material too fragmentary to classify.
For more information on this subject see ‘The Ancestry of Our English Bible by Price’
From this point on you get into Modern English Translations like Wycliffe-1380 AD, Tyndale-1525 AD, Coverdale-1535 AD, Matthews-1537 AD, Great-1539 AD, Geneva-1560AD, Bishops-1568, Douay-1610.
It has always clearly been God’s plan to communicate with man.
First, in his daily walks with Adam in the garden
Then in the Hebrew language to communicate with the people he chose through which to bring salvation to the world.
Next, by primarily speaking to the Palestinian people in their common tongue of Aramaic during his 3 1/2 year earthly ministry..
Finally by using the then universal language of Greek in the writing of the much of the New Testament.
The use of Greek was quite as necessary to reach the Jews themselves both in the land and among the dispersion, as well as the outreach to the Gentile masses. When he told the disciples to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel”, He provided them with all the necessary tools, including His Word in a language all could understand. It is no different today. It is God’s will that ALL should hear and understand His eternal Word.
The Greek found in the scriptures is that in common use in the first century. Many papyrus manuscripts have been discovered which show that it was the language of the common people. It is the language of the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures.
Our Lord laid down the law that the words of two or three witnesses are sufficient evidence to decide any matter. It surely is not a mere chance that, in the providence of God there are two great witnesses to the text of Holy Scriptures and a third to call upon when these do not agree. The three most ancient and valuable manuscripts of the Greek Scriptures are the Codex Sinaiticus, now in London, the Alexandrinus in the British Museum, and the Codex Vaticanus in Rome.
THE MASORETIC TEXT – THE MASORAH
Masorah
“Masorah” is the technical term given to a grammatico-critical commentary on the Old Testament, the design of which is to indicate the correct reading of the text with respect to words, vowels, accents, etc., so as to preserve it from all corruption, putting an end to the exercise of unbounded individual fancy.
According to Jewish tradition. the work began with Moses; from him it was committed to the wise men till Ezra and the great Synagogue, and was then transferred to the learned men at Tiberias, by whom it was transmitted to writing and called the Masorah.
Masoretes
The Masorah is the work of certain Jewish critics, who from their work have received the title of (Baali Hammasoreth), masters of the Masorah, or, as they are generally designated, Masoretes.
The Language
The language of the Masorah is Chaldee; and, besides the difficulty of this idiom, the obscure abbreviations, contractions, symbolical signs, etc., with which the work abounds, render its study exceedingly difficult. In all probability it was composed out of notes that had been made from time to time on separate leaves, or in books, as occasion demanded. Afterwards they were appended as marginal notes to the text, sometimes on the upper and lower margin, sometimes in a more brief form on the space between the text and the Chaldee version, where, from scarcity of room, many abbreviations and symbols were resorted to, and considerable omissions were made.
The Value
There can be no doubt that it preserves to us much valuable traditional information concerning the constitution and the meaning of the sacred text. It is the source whence materials for a critical revision of the O.-Test. text can now alone be derived. It is a pity that it is now impossible to discriminate the older from the more recent of its contents. We would earnestly reiterate the wish of Eichhorn, that some one would undertake the “bitter task” of making complete critical excerpts from the Masorah.
(the information on the Masoretic Text is from McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
OLD TESTAMENT
| Progressive Collection of the Canon | The Septuagint |
| Old Testament Manuscripts | The Midrash |
| The Talmud | The Traditional Hebrew Text – Tanakh |
PROGRESSIVE COLLECTION OF THE CANON
The standard critical theory enunciated by Herbert E. Ryle and others asserts that the books of the Hebrew Scriptures were canonized in three stages:
| According to their dates of composition, into the Law (c. 400 B.C.E.). |
| Prophets (c. 200 B.C.E.). |
| The Writings (c. AD 100). |
However, this view is untenable in light of the more recent developments and the arguments summarized by Sid Z. Leiman, Roger Beckwith, and others, which demonstrate that the canon was completed no later than the second century B.C.E. and possibly as early as the fourth century B.C.E.
In fact, a completed canon of the Hebrew Scriptures is evident from the testimony of the “Prologue of Ecclesiasticus” (c. 132 B.C.E.), Jesus, Philo, and Josephus well before AD 100.
Furthermore, there is evidence that inspired books were added to the cannon immediately as they were written. Hence, the Old Testament canon was actually completed when the last book was written and added to it by the fourth century B.C.E. (B.C.E. Before the Common Area)
The original manuscripts (autographs) of the Old Testament are not available, but the Hebrew text is amply represented by both pre-and post- Christian manuscripts. (Much of the following discussion is updated from Norman L. Geisler, “Bible Manuscripts.” In Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, 1:248-52.). As a result, the reliability of the Hebrew text can be evaluated from available manuscript evidence.
The Number of Hebrew Old Testament Manuscripts
The first collection of Hebrew manuscripts, made by Benjamin Kennicott (AD 1776-1780) and published by Oxford, listed 615 manuscripts of the Old Testament. Later Giovanni de Rossi (1784-1788) published a list of 731 manuscripts. The main manuscript discoveries in modern times are those of the Cairo Geniza (c. 1890ff.) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947ff.). In the Cairo synagogue attic storeroom alone were discovered some 200,000 manuscripts and fragments, some 10,000 of which are biblical. According to J.T. Milik, fragments of about 600 manuscripts are known from the Dead Sea Scrolls, not all biblical. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein estimates that the total number of Old Testament Hebrew manuscript fragments throughout the world runs into the tens of thousands.
Major Collections of Old Testament Manuscripts
Of the 200,000 Cairo Geniza manuscript fragments, some 100,000 are housed at Cambridge. The largest organized collection of Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts in the world is the Second Firkowitch Collection in Leningrad. It contains 1,582 items of the Bible and Mosara on parchment (725 on paper), plus 1,200 additional Hebrew manuscript fragments. (The Antonin collection. Wurthwein. P. 23). The British Museum catalog lists 146 Old Testament manuscripts. At Oxford, the Bodleian Library catalog lists 146 Old Testament manuscripts, each one containing a large number of fragments. (Kahle, p. 5). Goshen-Gottstein estimates that in the United States alone there are tens of thousands of Semitic manuscript fragments, about 5 percent of which are biblica-more than 500 manuscripts (Goshen-Gottstein. p. 30).
Description of Major Old Testament Hebrew Manuscripts
The most significant Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts date from between the third century B.C.E. and the fourteenth century AD.
Nash PapyrusBesides those unusual finds, which are about a thousand years older than most of the earliest Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts, there is extant one damaged copy of the Shema (from Deut. 6:4-9) and two fragments of the Decalogue (Ex. 20:2ff.’ Deut. 5:6ff.). It is dated between the second century B.C.E. (William F. Albright, “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabean Age: The Nash Papyrus.” Pp. 145-76) ands the first century AD. Orientales 4445 Codex Cairensis Aleppo Codex of the Whole Old Testament Codex Leningradensis(B19A) According to a colophon, or note at the end, this was copied in Old Cairo by Samuel ben Jacob in AD 1008 from a manuscript (now lost) written by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher c. AD 1000 (Kahle. P. 110), whereas Ginsburg held it was copied from the Aleppo Codex (Ginsburg. P. 243f.). It represents one of the oldest manuscripts of the complete Hebrew Bible that is known (Kahle, p. 132). Kittel adopted it as the basis for the third edition of his Biblia Hebraica (BHK), and it continues to be used as such in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), where is represented under the symbol L. Babylonian Codex of the Latter Prophets(MS Heb. B3) Reuchlin Codex of the Prophets Cairo Geniza Manuscripts Erfurt Codices (E 1,2,3) Some Lost Codices DEAD SEA SCROLLS (DSS)
Cave 1 was officially excavated Feb. 15 and March 9, 1949. It yielded fragments of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Psalms also Enoch and sayings of Moses (previously unknown), Book of Jubilee, Book of Noah, Testament of Levi, Tobit, and the Wisdom of Solomon. An interesting fragment of Daniel, containing 2:4 (where the language changes from Hebrew to Aramaic), also comes from this cave. Fragmentary commentaries on Psalms, Micah, and Zephaniah were also found in Cave I. Samaritan Pentateuch A form of the Samaritan Pentateuch text seems to have been known to such early church Fathers as Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome. It did not become available to scholars in the West, however, until 1616, when Pietro della Valle discovered a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in Damascus. A great wave of excitement arose among biblical scholars. The text was published in an early portion of the Paris Polyglot (1632) and later in the text of the London Polyglot (1657). It was quickly regarded as being superior to the Masoretic Text (MT); but it became relegated to relative obscurity after Wilhelm Gesenius in 1815 adjudged it to be practically worthless for textual criticism. In more recent times the value of the Samaritan Pentateuch has been reasserted by such scholars as A.Geiger, Paul E. Kahle, and Frederic G. Kenyon. So far as is known, no manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch is older than the eleventh century AD. The oldest codex of the Samaritan Pentateuch bears a note about its sale in AD 1149-50, but the manuscript itself is much older. One manuscript was copied in 1204, another dated 1211-1212 is now in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, and still another dated c. 1232, is in the New York Public Library. The Aramaic Targums The necessity for such helps arose because Hebrew was becoming less and less familiar to the ordinary people as a spoken language. By the close of the last centuries B.C.E., this gradual process had continued until almost every book in the Old Testament had its oral paraphrase or interpretation (Targum). During the early centuries AD., these Targums were committed to writing, and an official text came to the fore, since the Hebrew canon, text, and interpretation had become well solidified before the rabbinical scholars of Jamnia (c. AD 90), and the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine in AD 135. The earliest Targums were apparently written in Palestinian Aramaic during the second century AD.; however, there is evidence of Aramaic Targums from the pre-Christian period (Harris. Pp. 154-59). These early official Targums contained the Law and the Prophets, but the Writings were included in unofficial Targums in later times. It is interesting to note that a pre-Christian Targum of Job was written in Palestinian Aramaic and discovered in Cave 11 at Qumran. Cave 4 contained a Targum of the Pentateuch. These unofficial Aramaic Targums were superseded by official text in the second century AD.
The Septuagint (LXX) It was during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (after the death of Alexander the Great) that full political and religious rights were granted to the Jews. It was in that period (c. 250-c. 150 BCE), that the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek-the first time it had ever been extensively translated. The leaders of Alexandrian Jewry had a standard Greek version produced, known as the LXX (It should be noted that the term Septuagint applies to the Pentateuch, which was probably the only portion of the Old Testament translated during the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.), the Greek word for “seventy.” It was undoubtedly translated during the third and/or second centuries B.C.E. and was purported to have been written as early as the time of Ptolemy II in a Letter of Aristeas to Philocartes (c. 130-100 B.C.E.). Let us take a text from Genesis and see how it reads from these different books.
The Talmud
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| The Midrash The Midrash (textual study, textual interpretation) was actually a formal doctrinal and homiletical exposition of the Hebrew Scriptures written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Midrashim (plural) were collected into a body of material between 100 B.C.E. and AD 300. Within the Midrash were two major parts: the Halakah (procedure), a further expansion of the Torah only, and the Haggada (declaration, explanation), being commentaries on the entire Old Testament. These Midrashim differed from the Targums in that the former were actually commentaries, whereas the latter were paraphrases. The Midrashim contain some of the earliest extant synagogue homilies on the Old Testament, including such things as proverbs and parables. |
For more information on these subject, please read A General Introduction To The Bible by Norman L. Geisler and Willian E. Nix Moody Press Chicago
The Traditional Hebrew Text – Tanakh
The forerunners and leaders of the Renaissance and the Reformation (14th century), and especially Martin Luther and William Tyndale (16th century), made use of Latin translations of the classic Jewish commentators Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Kimhi (11th – 13th century’s), whose works were imbued with the direct knowledge of the Targums.
Luther was greatly indebted to Nicholas of Lyre (1270-1349 A.D.), who had adopted Rashi’s exegesis for his Latin Bible commentary. Rashi’s influence on all authorized and most unofficial English translations of the Hebrew Bible becomes evident when Tyndale’s dependence on Luther is considered.
Tyndale is central to many subsequent English translations:
| the King James Version of 1611, |
| the (British) Revised Version of 1881-1885, |
| the American Standard Version of 1901, |
| and especially the Revised Standard Version of 1952. |
Alongside the close, literal method of Bible translation, the earliest Jewish translators were also influenced by the widely held view that, along with the Written Law (torah she-biktav), God had given Moses on Mount Sinai an Oral Law (torah she-be’al peh) as well; so that to comprehend God’s Torah fully and correctly, it was essential to make use of both.
With the growth of Christianity in the first century, the Church adopted the Septuagint (LXX) as its Bible, and the Septuagint was translated into the languages of the various Christian communities. As Greek began to give way to Latin in the Roman Empire, it was only a matter of time before a Latin translation of Scripture became the recognize