How We Got Our Bible: Preservation And Transmission

Section 3: Origin and Translations of the Bible

Bible texts

For the text of the Bible, we will present two different accounts, one for the Old Testament (OT) and one for the New Testament (NT). The OT has something like a dozen primary sources,1 whereas the NT has more than five thousand. Variations abound in the NT sources; but these variations are all minor and confident reconstruction of an accurate “original” is still possible in all but a few cases. In contrast, there are very few variations in the OT sources; most variations have been eliminated because almost all old and defective manuscripts were destroyed to avoid flaws being promulgated in the sacred texts.

The study of these issues is called textual criticism. For the most part, we depend heavily on others in this area of Bible study; one brother put it this way, “We need to be contextual scholars, not textual scholars.” That said, it is useful to know a little bit about the subject.

Old Testament

Two definitive works on textual criticism of the OT are:

  • Ernst Würthwein (1988, 2nd edition), The Text of the Old Testament, translated by Erroll F. Rhodes, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids.
  • Emmanuel Tov (1992), Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Fortress Press: Minneapolis.

The primary OT sources include the Masoretic Text (MT, Hebrew), the Samaritan Pentateuch (written in the Samaritan alphabet), the Septuagint (LXX, Greek), the Targums (Aramaic, including explanatory glosses), the Peshitta (Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic), the Vulgate (Latin), and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Masoretes (“Transmitters” or “Tradition Keepers”) were a group of Jewish scribes-scholars based in Tiberias, Jerusalem, and Babylon between the sixth and tenth centuries AD. The ben Asher family from Tiberia was largely responsible for producing and preserving the MT. The MT is widely viewed to be the most accurate text of the OT. The ben Asher Masoretes not only determined the proper Hebrew consonants of the OT text, they also added vowel pointing for vocalization, para-textual elements (e.g., division of the text into sections), and apparatus documenting their decisions and alternatives. The most famous in this family was Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, who was a scribe living during the first half of the tenth century. He made it his life’s work to understand and preserve God’s Word, a true “modern” Ezra (cf. Ezra 7; Neh 8). Once the Masoretes had created their definitive text, efforts were made to destroy all other OT manuscripts because they were deemed to be inferior.

Two of the existing manuscripts of the MT are the Aleppo Codex (A, 925 AD) and the Codex Leningrad (L, 1009 AD). Printed editions of the Hebrew Bible include:

  • Biblia Hebraica (BH or BHK) (1951), edited by R. Kittel and P. Kahle, in Hebrew, based on L.
  • Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) (1969, 1977), edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolf, in Hebrew, based on L.
  • The Hebrew University Bible (HUB), The Book of Isaiah, Vols I-II (1975, 1971), Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, in Hebrew, based on A.

In addition to the text itself, these Hebrew Bibles include marginal apparatus showing textual variations, etc. These resources are for serious students who know Biblical Hebrew. They are the starting point for most all English translations of the OT.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 981 texts that were found in 11 caves at Qumran between 1946 and 1956. Most of them are in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic, and a few in Greek. There are 225 Biblical texts, including at least some portion of 38 of the 39 OT books (the exception being Esther). Psalms, the Torah, and Isaiah are heavily represented. These scrolls come from much earlier than the MT manuscripts; their discovery pushed the date of our earliest manuscripts back more than 1,000 years. The truly amazing thing about the Dead Sea Scrolls is how much they confirmed the MT, which significantly increased scholarly confidence in the text of the OT.

New Testament

There are many useful books on the textual criticism of the NT, including:

  • Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland (1995, English translation, paperback), The Text of the New Testament, translated by Erroll F. Rhodes, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids.
  • Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Bruce M. Metzger, et al. (1998, 8th edition), Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament, German Bible Society: Stuttgart.
  • Bruce M. Metzger (1994, 2nd edition), A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, German Bible Society: Stuttgart.
  • Philip W. Comfort (2008), New Testament Text and Translation Commentary, Tyndall House: Carol Stream, IL.

The primary NT sources fall into three categories: 128 papyri, 323 uncials (upper case letters), and 2,882 minuscules (lower case cursive letters). In addition, there are over 2,400 lectionaries (collections of passages read in worship services). The papyri are dated from 250 AD and on. Three of the earliest and more important uncials are Sinaiticus (Aleph, 4th c.), Alexandrinus (A, 5th c.), and Vaticanus (B, 4th c.). The minuscules are from the 10th c. and on. A couple of the lectionaries go back as far as the 4th c.

Though there are hundreds of thousands of variations, they are almost all minor. By comparing all the witnesses, it is usually possible to determine accurately what the “original” text must have been.

Scholars who specialize in textual criticism have identified a common set of scribal errors that lead to variations. Understanding these makes it possible to determine when they have occurred, hence how to reconstruct the “original”. To illustrate, here are some examples:

  • Repeated words or phrases can cause the intervening text to be deleted. For example, some manuscripts leave out Luke 12:9 because it ends with the same phrase as Luke 12:8; i.e., they both end with “before the angels of God.” A similar thing happens in some Coptic manuscripts of John 17 which omit verses 15-16 because verses 14 and 16 both end with “even as I am not of the world.”
  • Homonyms can cause the correct word to be replaced by another word that sounds the same. Analogous examples in English are common: e.g., “there”, “their”, and “they’re” are often confused and so are “to”, “too”, and “two”. (It is believed this occurred because the monks who produced the copies did so by listening to one reading the text).
  • Phrases from parallel accounts are sometimes inserted into a text. This kind of error occurs occasionally in the Gospels.
  • Intentional corruption of the text to support traditional doctrinal positions. The most famous example of this is reflected in the KJV of 1John 5:6-8. A single Greek manuscript was created in which a forged verse 7 was inserted to provide explicit support for the doctrine of the Trinity.
  • Another kind of problem can happen as a result of lectionary usage. Citing Dean Burgon, Harry Whittaker suggests that this is the reason some manuscripts leave out Mark 12:9-20 and John 8:1-11. (see Studies in the Gospels: A New Extended Edition, pp. 846-847).
  1. Treating the collection of Quram texts as one source.