Preservation of the Originals

I’ve talked a little bit about the transmission of the New Testament Scriptures in previous posts, but now I’d like to turn briefly to how the Old Testament was transmitted. Unfortunately, so much of what we would like to know about how the Old Testament was past down is buried beneath the sands of time. However, this does not mean that we are uncertain concerning the words of Scripture. Rather, we have maximum security that God has fulfilled His promise to forever preserve His words.

Deuteronomy 31:9, 26 makes it very plain that Moses had the priests place the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, beside the Ark of the Covenant. So long as the Tabernacle and later the Temple were kept safe, the originals would have also remained safe. It is not unlikely that Joshua would have done the same with his book. These scrolls were discovered during a time of renovation of the Temple under King Josiah over 700 years later (2 Kings 22:8, 2 Chronicles 34:15). It was not unusual to hide such documents in foundation boxes or within walls, especially if there was fear of them being purposefully damaged or destroyed.

Samuel placed his writings, possibly including Judges and Ruth, “before the Lord” (1 Samuel 10:25), indicating that he originally followed the custom established by Moses and Joshua. The other books we classify as “history” seem to have been considered official state or religious documents (1 Chronicles 29:29, 2 Chronicles 16:11, 1 Kings 14:19) and therefore would have been stored either in the Temple library or the royal archive.

The poetic books of Psalms and Proverbs alone of the books of the Bible were compiled and arranged. This began in the time of Solomon (1 Kings 4:32) and continued beyond the time of Hezekiah. (Proverbs 25:1) Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon would have most likely remained in the royal archives since they were written by King Solomon.

As early as the time of Daniel (Daniel 9), we find that the writings of the Prophets are recognized as canon. Daniel refers to reading from Jeremiah when he prays and asks God to fulfill His promises mentioned in Jeremiah. The Prophets would have also been placed in libraries associated with the post-exilic Temple alongside the official records of Ezra and Nehemiah. While not considered canonical, 2 Maccabees 2:13 does record that Nehemiah founded a national archive of sorts in the Temple.

Witnesses to the Originals

The Masoretic Text is the traditional text of the modern Hebrew Bible and the vast majority of (if not all of) Christian translations. The Masoretes compiled, copied, and preserved copies of the Old Testament from AD 500 to 1100, and it is based on hundreds of manuscripts that are now lost to us or destroyed. The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Masoretic Text include Cairensis (AD 895), Aleppo (930), Leningradensis (1008), and the Damascus Pentateuch (late 9th century).

The Nash Papyrus was considered to be the oldest available example of the Old Testament until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars do not agree on a precise date for the copying of this papyrus, but the style of script dates it to the Hasmonean period (37 BC at the absolute latest). It is actually a liturgical or perhaps devotional book which consists of several passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of about 230 Old Testament manuscripts which include fragments or whole copies of every Old Testament book except for Esther. Some scholars have dated these manuscripts as being written around 225 BC. They are significant because, in the case of the Minor Prophets, they were copied only a few generations after the originals were penned. The Isaiah scroll (1QIsa-a), which was written 1000 years before the Aleppo Codex, agrees with the Masoretic Text in over 95% of the text. The remaining 5% of the text that did not agree with the Masoretic Text was due to slips of the pen and spelling errors.

While the Septuagint is an imperfect Greek translation of the original Hebrew Old Testament, it is important as a secondary witness to the Old Testament text. This is because it is proof of a coherent Hebrew text which existed before the time of the Masoretes or the Dead Sea Scrolls. As a translation, there are words that have been added for the sake of communicating the meaning of the original and there are variants based on translation philosophy and misinterpretation of the Hebrew language. The Chester Beatty Papyri (AD 200-400), Rylands Papyri (200-500), Vaticanus (400s), Sinaiticus (400-500), and Alexandrinus (500s) are all manuscripts of the Septuagint.

The Samaritan Pentateuch is a “modernized and expanded” copy of the first five books of the Old Testament. It was written 200-500 years before the time of Christ. There are a number of differences in spelling, but there are also around 6000 variants from the Masoretic Text. Since it was used in Samaritan worship as opposed to Jewish worship, these changes were most likely purposefully made to alter facts in favor of the Samaritans. Once again, the value of the Samaritan Pentateuch is not in making “corrections” to the Old Testament text, but in that it proves that a coherent biblical text existed hundreds of years before the time of Christ.

The Aramaic Targum and the Syriac Peshitta are Aramaic texts which consist of biblical translation, paraphrase, and commentary mingled together. You might consider them somewhat akin to the study Bibles of our day. They are useful for the purpose of comparison and are also witnesses to the existence of a coherent Old Testament text that had made its way to Jews and converted Gentiles living outside of Israel.

It is impossible to discuss the history of ancient Israel without understanding that God has directed that history and is an intrinsic part of it. If we fail to do so, we lose the concept of an all-powerful God, the literal fulfillment of prophecy, and a Bible that can be trusted. Believers have no choice to affirm the verbal, plenary inspiration and preservation of the Bible by God, and the evidence from history and biblical texts alike support this belief. Believers can truly have maximum security.

This is my second post responding to my friend Nitwit’s article concerning supposed errors in the Christian perspective on Scripture. To get an idea of what has come before, you should probably go here to read the first article. Nitwit’s second point is, frankly, difficult to discern since there is a lot of terminology thrown around without being clearly defined. I can gather that Nitwit believes that the actual words written by God (which he technically doesn’t believe in) have been lost. Rather than directly respond to each thought of the article, I am going to positively state a Christian view of the Bible.

1. Inspired- “God breathed”- all Scripture originated from God, and humans wrote down what He said. (1 Peter 1:20-21)
2. Preserved- God has providentially ensured the accuracy of the transmission of both the Old and New Testaments (Matthew 24:35, 1 Peter 1:22-25)
3. Inerrant/Infallible- The Bible is without error. (Psalm 12:6, 19:7; Proverbs 30:5) Note: Some Christians distinguish these two terms, but my point is that you can’t have one without the other.

I’ve dealt with the translation issue and the transmission of the New Testament texts in four previous posts starting here, so I’ll not beat the horse to death (though some would argue that I already have…) Suffice it to say that, with 5,500 copies or partial copies of the New Testament in its original language, there is plenty of manuscript evidence concerning the New Testament. We are content with just having ten copies of the Greek classics in their original language.  Also, New Testament copies originate only 100 years after the original autographs were penned, as opposed to Greek classics, whose extant copies are often available only 700-1400 years after their original composition. John A. T. Robinson writes: “The wealth of manuscripts, and above all the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest extant copies, make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”

As for the Old Testament, I know of very few serious scholars that would question its accuracy. Of course, we don’t have the original manuscripts. It would be a rare find indeed to find the completed autograph from nearly 4,000 years ago! What we do have is a knowledge of how the Old Testament was transmitted. The scribes and priests in general were given this task, and they faithfully did it for countless generations. After the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., the scribes continued their work in Egypt and Babylon. When the Remnant returned seventy years later, a strict method of copying was resumed, as outlined in Wikipedia (of all places) but confirmed in a number of books.

1. Only clean manuscripts could be used.
2. Each column must contain between 48 and 60 lines. (This kept the writing from getting too small so that the copy could not be copied.)
3. Even the ink had a special recipe, and it had to be black.
4. The scribe had to speak each word as he wrote it.
5. They had to clean both pen and body before they wrote God’s name.
6. Each copy was reviewed within three days of completion. If more than three pages required correction, the entire copy had to be rewritten.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents had to be stored in sacred places.
9. When the document became worn out, it had to be buried in a genizah.

After Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome in A.D. 70, the Jews continued their work of faithful copying, which culminated in the work of the Masoretes. The Masoretes used the ancient scribal system and even expanded it. According to F. F. Bruce, the Masoretes wrote “with the greatest imaginable reverence, and devised a complicated system of safeguards against scribal slips. They counted, for example, the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurs in each book; they pointed out the middle letter of the Pentateuch and the middle letter of the whole Hebrew Bible, and made even more detailed calculations than these.”

The results of such careful transmission are clear. We have a Bible available today that we can have maximum security in, knowing and believing that God was faithful in preserving His Word.

If you’ve read my previous three articles on textual families, the KJV’s history, and the history of the non-Traditional texts, you know that we’ve gone through a lot of depth in a very short period of time. In this final article, I’ll be talking a bit about how the Bible is translated. At the end, I will also give a few examples to show that textual families, historical beliefs, and translation philosophies have led to some important differences between Bible versions.

The KJV

The translation techniques of the KJV translators are by far superior to modern translations. In his work on translation styles, The Word of God in English, Leland Ryken quotes Alister McGrath regarding KJV translation style: “The translators tried to ensure that every word in the original had an English equivalent, highlight all words added to the original for the sake of intelligibility, and follow the word order of the original where possible.” Accurate translation should be a window to the text, and the King James Version does just that.

Leland Ryken, himself a literary critic with extensive credentials, writes: “Its style combines simplicity and majesty as the original requires, though it inclines toward the exalted. Its rhythms are matchless.” In comparison to the language of the day, the KJV is unique. It blends together both the highest of English styles with the simplicity of the common English. The language itself, however, is wholly biblical. It is precisely what is written in the originals, nothing more, nothing less, save that which is included to aid in comprehension. It should again be noted that words added for comprehension’s sake are set apart from the text of the Bible by italics.

Some have complained that the style of the King James Version has added confusion, especially in the use of synonyms to translate the same word from the original language. This should be considered a blessing, not a curse. Synonyms further expound on the original word, so that those who do not know the original languages are not at a disadvantage. To balance the variety provided by the use of synonyms, unity is ensured by the proper translation of words in their context. Truly the vast richness of the English language in the seventeenth century has been utilized in this translation.

It should also be pointed out that the KJV is a translation, not an interpretation. This stands in stark contrast to the New International Version, The Living Bible, and a host of others. Such translations have received criticism from conservative and liberal scholars alike for misinterpreting Scripture.

Dynamic Equivalence and the Modern Translations

Eugene Nida’s philosophy of dynamic equivalence, which interprets the original text rather than translates, spread quickly to the publishers of Europe and America. Translations became increasingly more thought-for-thought oriented, rather than word-for-word. This poses a problem as it is God’s words, not His thoughts, that he promised to preserve.

Ryken lists several reasons for the acceptance of dynamic equivalence, none of which are theological or scholarly in nature: antitraditionalism, a preference for colloquialism, evangelistic zeal, and a consumer-oriented church. These translations, according to Ryken, who was on the board for a recent translation of the Bible, reduce the level of vocabulary to a seventh-grade vocabulary level, drop metaphors, and change words to what the translator believed what was intended. You wouldn’t do that to Shakespeare, Milton, or even A. A. Milne, so why would people do that to God? If you change structure, you’ve ruined the masterpiece. Part of the beauty of a poem is in how it is structured (and the Bible is filled with poetry). You can’t simply sum it up and expect it to have the same effect.

Results and Practical Pointers

The following verses have been omitted or relegated to a footnote in many modern translations. I typically go to the popular NIV when comparing:

• Matt. 6:13, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”
• Matt. 7:21. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
• Matt. 15:8, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth”
• Matt. 18:11. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
• Mark 15:28. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered
  with the transgressors.
• I John 4:3, “Christ is come in the flesh”
• I John 5:13, “and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God”
• Rev. 1:11, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last”

Notice which doctrines are effected in the above verses. Of course, there are also some significant changes between versions even when the verses are present:

I John 5:7 reads as follows:
NIV- For there are three that testify:
NASV- And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.
NWT- For there are three witness bearers,
KJV- For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father,
the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Messing with the doctrine of the Trinity sounds like dangerous ground to me!

Isaiah 14:12:

NIV- How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star …
KJV- How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

I thought Jesus was the morning star…

Acts 3:13:
NASV- The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Servant Jesus

KJV- The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers,hath glorified his Son Jesus;

Is Jesus God’s Servant or His Son?

I also like the KJV because it distinguishes between the sinular (thee, thou, thine) and the plural (you, your, yours) more directly. Technically, modern translations would need to distinguish between the two by using you/you all.

The results of all of this are far-reaching. First of all, there is no longer a Bible that everyone uses. It is up to the reader to determine which Bible is the best for them. Additionally, there is no longer a universal, Bible-centered Christian language, because the text of each Bible is different. Instead of confirming faith, the textual criticism and production of dozens of Bible translations has caused doubt in believers all over the world. According to Lewis, in seminaries, students are told that “the careful student of the Bible will not rely completely upon one version of the Bible, but he will seek to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the versions he uses.”

Either God preserved His Word or He did not. If God is incapable of protecting His Word, then we are all miserable creatures cut off from Him. We have lost our ability to trust the most direct line of communication between God and mankind. Fortunately, God did preserve His Word through the Masoretic Hebrew text and the Traditional Greek text.

I should be clear here that I don’t believe that the KJV is the only English translation that is or ever will acceptable. Languages change, and one day what we call English won’t look anything like English. Here’s an example of Luke 8:1-3 in Middle English:

And it is don, aftirward Jesus made iourne bi cites & castelis prechende & euangelisende þe rewme of god, & twelue wiþ hym & summe wymmen þat weren helid of wicke spiritis & sicnesses, marie þat is clepid maudeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten out & Jone þe wif off chusi procuratour of eroude, & susanne & manye oþere þat mynystreden to hym of her facultes.

Summary

It remains for the church, not denominations, publishers, educational institutions, or fellowships, to continue to print and translate the Word of God into languages for people who have not heard. The text of Scripture was given to God through His chosen people, Israel, and to His bride, the church. When publishers, educational institutions, and the rest get involved in matters of textual criticism, translation, and transmission, trouble follows swiftly.
The believer can be comforted with the reality of God’s faithfulness. He will preserve His Word today, as He has throughout time. Believers have only to come to the sweet waters of God’s Word, and find all they need as they traverse this wilderness with their backs, as always, to Egypt.

Tischendorf

Previously I’ve shared my reasons for preferring the KJV based on the family of text it comes from as well as some of its historical background. I want to move on to the history behind the other translations, for most of them come from a blending together of the textual families using textual criticism. Textual criticism comes from an age of unbelief. This is a fact that cannot be ignored as we see the raping of Biblical Christianity unfold.

Enlightenment

The modern age, ranging from 1800 until the present day, has become one of ancient heresy  reborn and endorsed as truth. Men placed themselves above God in determining what He has said. A shift occurred, like a tremor among a fault line, toward rationalism. Many men turned to pay homage to the god of Reason and produced their own translations and paraphrases. Edward Carpenter lists the following one-man translations: Mace’s 1729, Wesley’s 1755, Purver’s 1764, Dodderidge’s 1765, and Newcome’s 1796, to name a few. Each translator saw the KJV as a handicap because it was unscientific and not in line with modern, rational thinking. Their translations are wooden, difficult to read, and not faithful to the words of the original text. Perhaps this is why these translations were not widely used even though they were from the Traditional text.

It should be mentioned that even in this darkening age of human history, the Traditional and Masoretic texts of the Bible continued to be printed, read, and studied almost exclusively. This is particularly true prior to the twentieth century. The majority of Christians believed the Bible was the Word of God and that the Bible was inerrant and infallible. Then, like a flood, lower criticism from apostates in Germany came rushing into seminaries and universities. “Scientific investigations” of the words and manuscripts of Scripture began. Man truly began to wonder what exactly it was that God had inspired men to write long ago. Questions arose regarding the purity of Scripture, and, ever so slowly, faith disappeared from the scene.

Textual critics sought to “fashion” texts according to research and investigation, determining which texts were “legitimate: and grouping them into families. Patristic citations which disproved theories of the Traditional text being a late text were determined to be illegitimate; only those that referred to a non-traditional text were accepted.

From Bengel to Tischendorf

The important men behind this movement were both proud and blind to what was going on around them, endorsing the rationalism of the day. Bengel published a text which classed different variant readings, but it was still based on the Traditional text. This was intended to weaken the faith of those who held to the Traditional text. Griesbach came on the scene in the early nineteenth century, and included in Bengel’s text apparatus for textual criticism. His theories were accepted completely by many scholars of the day, including Lachmann, perhaps one of the most infamous of the old-line scholars. He rejected the Traditional text used by the church for the better part of 1800 years in favor of the heretical texts, creating his own independent version. Lachmann purposefully ignored fifteen centuries of copied Traditional manuscripts in favor of the texts which, to him, carried more weight. It was upon his work that Constantine Tischendorf, in turn, would build his studies.

Tischendorf believed that textual criticism was exercised by Stephanus and Beza when they printed their editions of the Greek manuscripts, and that they were one and the same with Bengel and Griesbach. His goal was “to clear up in this way the history of the sacred text, and to recover if possible the genuine apostolic text which is the foundation of our faith.” Notice the complete lack of faith in God’s ability to preserve His Word.

Westcott and Hort

It was Tichendorf’s discovery (actually a theft) of Sinaiticus (in a garbage room) that bolstered the resolve of rationalistic theologians’ to reconstruct a true critical Greek text. From the work of these men came two men which every student of textual criticism knows well: Westcott and Hort.

Hort was by no means an evangelical believer. He scoffed at the idea of “a fictitious substituted righteousness” or a “fictitious substituted penalty.” He wrote the following to Westcott on April 12, 1861: ” I have sort of a craving our text should be cast upon the world before we deal with matters likely to brand us with suspicion. I mean a text issued by men already known for what will undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresy, will have great difficulties in finding its way to regions which it might otherwise reach.”

Westcott is no better than Hort. He disdained the concept of infallibility, sided with Darwin’s evolutionary theory, and viewed heaven as a state and not a place. It was from men such as these that a critical text emerged which was a blending of heretical texts from the school of Origen and others like him. Interestingly enough, Westcott and Hort used mainly the patristic citations as proof of the legitimacy of their heretical texts. For this, they had to ignore the patristic citations referencing the Traditional text based on the idea that they had to have been tampered with at some point.

Their Critical Text came largely from two manuscripts known as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. An inspection of these texts reveals some interesting facts. Vaticanus omits, according to Burgon, 2,877 words and adds 536. This does not include substitutions. Sinaiticus omits 3,455 words and adds 839, not counting substitutions. Burgon reminds us these alterations are not the same in both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. From this, it can be ascertained that a major flaw in logic, to speak nothing of theology, must have occurred to even allow the two texts to be combined into one text.

It is from this work that the Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society’s texts come. These texts are used in every major English translation. The Nestle-Aland and United Bible Society texts have been revised twenty-seven and four times, respectively, and great changes are made regularly. The most recent revision of the UBS text included 500 changes. It must be remembered: these are changes to the actual text of Scripture, not a translation thereof. Each of these changes is a change from what God actually said. Still men continue to attempt to do what Tischendorf said: “To set aside this textus receptus all together, and to construct a fresh text, derived immediately from the most ancient and authoritative sources.”

Tyndale

For 1500 years, the Byzantine text was used almost exclusively for Bible study among the educated and in translations for the laity. For 1500 years, the Greek New Testament existed as papyri fragments, uncials, and minuscules. That all changed with the invention of the printing press.

Greek Printings

In the early sixteenth century, God began a mighty work in Europe to bring about a printed Greek Text. It was at this time that Desiderius Erasmus came on the scene. He set out to print, for the first time ever, the Greek text of the New Testament. He gathered together and studied, but did not accept as valid, every available manuscript. Erasmus was given access to nearly every library in Europe because of his scholarship and friendship with the Pope. Far from being unaware of heretical manuscripts, Erasmus divided all manuscripts based on whether or not they agreed with either the Traditional text or Vaticanus. He chose to reject Vaticanus as a pure text in 1533.

It is true that Erasmus’ first printing of the Traditional text was done hastily and contained errors, but the last four were not so. He added 1 John 5:7 and corrected his errors in the last four revisions. It was from the third through fifth revisions that most translations came. He also studied some of the more critical readings of the texts, and was aware of the passages removed from the Alexandrian versions, such as the last twelve verses of Mark and the Pericope de Adultera. The Pericope is the omission of the story of the woman caught in adultery. This was occasionally omitted because of cultural and religious biases.

From this printing of the Greek text, many translations arose. Luther’s German, Tyndale’s English, Lefevre’s French, Biestkens’ Dutch, Laurentius’ Swedish, de Reyna’s Spanish, as well as the Danish, Czech, Italian, and Welsh translations all came from Erasmus’ printing of the Traditional text. In fact, almost all translations came from this text until the nineteenth century! Other printings of Greek manuscripts, such as those done by Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevir brothers were simply reprintings of Erasmus’ Traditional text. It was at the time of the Elzevir brothers that the Traditional text in printed form came to be called the Textus Receptus because of an advertisement regarding their printing.

English Translations in an Age of Faith

Tyndale is a name that English-speaking Christians know well. What few realize is that Tyndale studied under Erasmus for four years at Cambridge. Tyndale was an excellent linguist who was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French. The stir Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament caused was incredible. He was denounced by church and government alike. It was, however a great translation of the Traditional text. Even Westcott is forced to give Tyndale’s translation its due: “It is impossible to read through a single chapter without gaining the assurance that Tindale [sic] rendered the Greek text directly . . . .”

After Tyndale was martyred, the Coverdale and Matthew Bibles were published in 1535 and 1537, respectively. Both Bibles were revisions of Tyndale’s New Testament. The Matthew Bible also included Tyndale’s unpublished notes and translation of Joshua through Second Chronicles.

In 1539, the Great Bible was published, followed by the 1560 Geneva Bible. This last Bible was the first complete English Bible from the original languages. In 1568, the Bishop’s Bible was produced by order of Queen Elizabeth. This was nothing more than a revision of the Great Bible. The translators of all of these Bibles relied on the Textus Receptus and the Masoretic text for the basis of their translations. They also relied on previous English translations and translations in other languages for a guide.

The King James Version

In 1604, King James I ordered that a new translation of the Bible be produced, and in 1607, the work began. In their book, The Bible in English Translation, Steven M. Sheeley and Robert N. Nash describe the organization of the translation committees: “Work on the new translation was divided among fifty-four renowned translators from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster. These translators were divided into six teams, each responsible for translating a section of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. The work of each team was carefully reviewed by other teams, and the final translation was edited by two representatives from each team.” The translation committees were organized and had a system of checks and balances. The translators relied on the Masoretic text and the traditional text, most significantly Stephanus’ third and Beza’s fifth editions.

Unlike the translators of today, these men were not paid. They were therefore not wooed by the love of money, something which cannot be said for translators and publishing companies today. These men were not in any way under King James’ jurisdiction due to financial assistance or official governmental authorization.

They included few marginal notes. The notes included were meant to reinforce the text and clarify the translation rather than be a hindrance. This stands in stark contrast to modern translations. Marginal notes in these new translations are intended to cause doubt with vague references to “variants” and “the best manuscripts,” without defining terminology.

“The King James Version was born in an age of faith,” writes Paisley, “Its inception and reception are characterized by faith.” Nash and Sheeley agree: “The influence of the King James Version, or Authorized Version as it came to be called cannot be exaggerated. . . . It stands as one of the outstanding masterpieces of the English Language.” No other translation of the Bible in English has had the impact of the King James Version. It has been used for 400 years in churches across the world. It has been used to translate daughter editions of the Bible when Christians were not familiar enough with the original languages to translate directly. It set the standard for all translations to come in every area.

In spite of the 400 years that have passed, it has changed little since its first printing. From 1611 to 1917, D. A. Waite discovered only 136 changes of significance in the text of the KJV. These changes are mostly only changes which do not sound the same when spoken aloud. While 136 changes may sound like a lot, it is really a very small amount compared to the number of words in the rest of the King James Version. It should also be recognized that changes within a translation is not the same as changes within the original text of Scripture, so long as the translation changes are accurate to the original. There are, after all, many different ways in which a word may be translated. Additionally, the italicized words for which there is no Greek or Hebrew equivalent may have been dropped because it was determined that they were not needed.

I sometimes get asked why I bother using the King James Version of the Bible. After all, there are plenty of translations that use modern language out there. However, I would like to suggest that readability isn’t the only issue when choosing a Bible version. We should be confident in the underlying text. We should also be comfortable with the translation philosophy and the purpose behind the translation. In this article, I’d like to trace the transmission of the Greek New Testament texts through history.

Texts are typically divided into families of transmission. There are three primary families that most students of the Bible will talk about: Western, Alexandrian, and Byzantine (also known as the Traditional text or Majority text).

Western Texts

The Western Greek manuscripts are known for paraphrasing the words of Scripture. Now, I’m not opposed to paraphrasing when it comes to summarizing a passage of Scripture, when performing a play or skit produced from Scripture, or when teaching Bible. I am opposed to changing the original words of Scripture. If we cannot say with absolution and authority that God said something, then we shouldn’t even bother. If Jesus said “My words shall not pass away”, then He meant it. A quick read through Psalm 119 makes it very clear that God’s Word is eternal. The Western texts are a paraphrase of Scripture, not Scripture itself.

The Western texts also tend to add to Scripture from other books. This is most serious, since adding and taking away from God’s Word is a sin in the highest degree. I personally think that it is strange that anyone even considers these this group of texts to even be considered a family of text. The original words of Scripture have been paraphrased, taken away, and added to. It is no wonder that there are very few ancient papyri, uncials (Greek manuscripts written in all capital letters), or miniscules (Greek manuscripts written in all lower-case letters) available.

Alexandrian Texts

The Alexandrian texts originated in Alexandria, Egypt. Codex Vaticanus (found in the Vatican library) and Codex Sinaiticus (found in the trash-room of a monastery on Mt. Sinai) are usually placed in this family. There is some debate over exactly how many papyri and uncials are in the Alexandrian text family. The reason for this is that the majority of old manuscripts are really only fragments of manuscripts. However, for the sake of fairness, I am willing to go along with the assertion that the oldest manuscripts (uncials) and papyri are of this family. Those of modern scholarship (though I cringe to call it that) favor the Alexandrian text for the following reasons:

1. They believe the more difficult the original is to interpret, the closer it is to actual Scripture.
2. They believe the shorter the original is, the closer it is to actual Scripture.
3. They believe that older manuscripts are better manuscripts.

I have problems with all three assertions. First of all, there doesn’t seem to be any basis for believing that difficult is better. That assumption seems to be entirely arbitrary. This is believing that difficult is better than simple. This is a baseless claim.

To the second assertion, we must ask why shorter is better. This claim is once again arbitrary. Those who hold to this view maintain that Mark 16 should have ended with the disciples running scared from the empty tomb of Jesus. They believe that Mark never wrote of the women at the tomb or of Jesus’ ascension into Heaven. These people do not even believe that we can know the actual words of Scripture in the first place.

Finally, we come to the assertion that “older is better.” While this might be true of wine or cheese, it isn’t always true elsewhere. We must ask ourselves why these copies survived and others didn’t. First of all, the climate of Egypt is much  more suited to preserving parchment and papyri. It has very low humidity, less rainfall, and a narrow degree of temperature change. It would make sense for these texts to survive for longer periods of time. Secondly, Kirsopp Lake believed that the copiers of the Byzantine text type (having originated primarily in Antioch) would have emphasized a respectful disposal of worn-out manuscripts. A third explanation is that the Church (here capitalized to mean the body of true believers) did not heavily use the Alexandrian manuscripts since they were not in line with actual Scripture. In contrast, the Byzantine manuscripts were heavily used and therefore wore out much more quickly.

I also struggle with the acceptance of Alexandrian manuscripts because of the Gnostic apostasy that was heavily taught in Alexandria. I have few reasons to trust people who believed in such error. I would also point out that the two famous (infamous?) Alexandrian manuscripts were found in suspicious locations. Vaticanus was found in the Vatican library. This already makes it suspicious to some people’s minds, since many Christians are not Catholic because of doctrinal reasons. Sinaiticus, on the other hand, was found in a trash room, waiting to be burned. That the monks didn’t even consider Sinaiticus worth saving makes us suspect that they knew the errors it contained. Finally, we must consider that the Byzantine text is has, in recent years, been given a position of higher authority by some scholars. In fact, the American Bible Society’s Greek manuscript of 1966 has changed from the Alexandrian reading back to the Byzantine reading in thirteen different passages. (Zane C. Hodges, A Defense of the Majority-Text, pg 14.)

Byzantine Texts

The vast majority of New Testament manuscripts are of this family of texts. Zane C. Hodges writes that there are 81 papyri, 267 uncials, and 2,764 miniscules. Of these manuscripts, eighty to ninety percent are in agreement with the Traditional text. Some scholars, such as Riplinger, would put the percentage much higher, even as high as ninety-nine percent. Harry A. Sturz notes in The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism that the preservation of this vast body of manuscripts is God’s stamp of approval on this text. Indeed, it would make sense that the text most used by the early church would be the text preserved by God, and the vast numbers of manuscripts recovered throughout the centuries would be a great testament to God’s marvelous work of preservation. This was, in fact, the position of the New Testament church with regard to inspiration.
Many of these manuscripts appear to originate in Antioch. Textual critics argue that the Traditional text must be an edited version of the Alexandrian texts. This argument makes little sense historically for two reasons. First, a church which sent out missionaries across the known world was most likely a distributor and not a receiver of manuscripts. From the books of Acts and Galatians, we know that Barnabas, Paul, and Peter all ministered there. Secondly, Jews fleeing Jerusalem would have understood the importance of careful copying of Scripture and would have impressed this concept on all who were at the Antiochan church.
Another proof of the early church’s possession and use of the Traditional text is that the early church fathers quoted and paraphrased it frequently. Sturz lists eighteen examples of this as proof, citing Clement, Tertullian, Marcion, and Origen as examples. In fact, from the time of Chrysostom on, the Traditional text is the predominant text in patristic citations.While certain
The Traditional text is not only the most numerous family of texts, but is also used universally. These texts have been recovered from all over the Greco-Roman world. By contrast, the corrupt texts appear to originate in only Alexandria. The implication is obvious: the Traditional text is an accurate sampling of the text used throughout the known world in early times, while the Alexandrian texts come solely from Alexandria and the surrounding locales.

My point in all of this is that most modern translations come from the Alexandrian text family while most- if not all- older translations come from the Byzantine text family. That’s another story, though…