><>...The evidence and reliability of the New Testament...><>
The books of the New Testament were written in Koine Greek, the most widely spoken language in the first century. As with the Old Testament, we do not possess the originals, or autographs, because of age. That makes us dependent on copies—copies of copies—to construct the text. How good are the copies? Can we be sure the text has not been tampered with?
The discipline that deals with reconstructing texts is known as textual criticism. The reason for using textual criticism in New Testament study is twofold:
(1) We do not possess the original manuscripts, and
(2) the copies we possess differ in some areas.
The textual critics, therefore, piece together the evidence to reconstruct the original text. In the case of the New Testament, three lines of evidence are available to reconstruct the original: the Greek manuscripts, early non-Greek versions, and the Church Fathers.
THE GREEK MANUSCRIPTS
How well have the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament been transmitted?
The problem with almost all ancient writings is the lack of extant (existing) manuscripts to reconstruct the text. Most ancient writings have the most paltry manuscript evidence by which experts attempt to establish the original.
In the case of the New Testament, however, we are not lacking manuscripts to reconstruct the text. On the contrary, we have an abundance of manuscripts.
In the history of the transmission of the Greek text we have found different lines of evidence: papyri, uncial manuscripts, minuscule manuscripts, and lectionaries.
The first line of evidence of the Greek manuscripts is the papyri. Papyrus is the material that the original copies of the New Testament were composed of. It is an extremely perishable material, surviving only in warm, dry climates. The papyrus fragments that have survived, however, contain some of the earliest witnesses to the New Testament text. Of the ninety-six surviving New Testament papyri, about half date earlier than the fourth century. The most significant papyri are the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (about twenty-five manuscripts of New Testament portions), the Chester Beatty Papyri (three early manuscripts—one with the four Gospels and Acts, another with the Pauline Epistles, and one with Revelation), and the Bodmer Papyri (three early manuscripts—one with John, another with 1 and 2 Peter and Jude, and one with Luke and John). The papyri were written with the uncial script.
Uncial writing, which consisted of uppercase letters (all capitals) that were deliberately and carefully written, is the type of writing used at the time of the composition of the New Testament. The uncial manuscripts were written between the fourth and tenth centuries. Among the most important and reliable uncial manuscripts are Codex Vaticanus (fourth century), Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century), Codex Alexandrinus (fifth century), and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (fifth century). In the ninth century, uncial writing began to be replaced with minuscule writing.
Minuscule writing was a script of smaller letters not as carefully executed as uncials; books could be turned out much faster by the employment of minuscule writing. Minuscule writing was in vogue from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries.
Lectionaries were the result of the Christian church following the custom of synagogue. Every Sabbath different portions of the Law and Prophets were read. The church developed a similar practice, reading a different portion of the Gospels and Epistles according to a fixed order of Sundays and holy days. These readings are known as lectionaries. The earliest fragments of lectionaries come from the sixth century a.d. Complete manuscripts are found as early as the eighth century.
We catalogue the surviving Greek manuscripts along the following lines: papyri, uncial manuscripts, minuscule manuscripts, and lectionaries.
Type of Manuscript
Number Surviving
Papyri
96 or 97
Uncial
267
Minuscule
2,764
Lectionaries
2,143
Recent finds not catalogued
47
Total
5,317 or 5,318
The total number of surviving Greek manuscripts upon which the original New Testament text can be reconstructed dwarfs all other ancient works. Yet Greek manuscripts are not the only line of evidence available for this reconstruction.
VERSIONS
Another line of evidence by which the New Testament text can be established comes from the versions.
Versions are translations of the different New Testament books into other languages. Although ancient literature was rarely translated into another language, the New Testament was an exception. From the second century, Christian missionaries, in an attempt to propagate their faith, translated the New Testament into the various languages of the people they encountered. Some of those translations, made as early as the middle of the second century, give us an important witness to the text of that early time.
When the copies of the manuscripts of the versions are catalogued, we are again faced with an overwhelming number. (It should be noted that when we speak of manuscripts or copies we are referring to any part of a manuscript or copy that has survived. Thus the copies could be anything from a single fragment to a complete text.) The following breakdown illustrates this:
Versions
Number of Manuscripts
Latin Vulgate
10,000+ (may be as high as 25,000)
Ethiopic
2,000+
Slavic
4,101+
Armenian
2,587
Syriac Peshitta
350+
Bohairic
100
Total
19,000+
Since the versions are translations from the Greek, they are not as valuable as the Greek manuscripts in reconstructing the original text. They are, however, an important witness to the text's basic reliability.
THE CHURCH FATHERS
A third line of evidence can be consulted in establishing the New Testament text, quotations from the writings of men known as the Church Fathers.
In their writings the Church Fathers would often quote from the New Testament text. Every time we find a biblical quotation in their writings, we have another witness to the New Testament text.
For example, Ignatius (a.d. 70–110) wrote seven letters in which he quoted from eighteen different books of the New Testament. Every time he quotes a text, we can observe what Greek text he was using by his quotation. Thus, the early Church Fathers provide us with an excellent early witness to the text.
The number of quotations of the Fathers is overwhelming, so much so that, if every other source for the New Testament (Greek manuscripts, versions) were destroyed, the text could be reconstructed merely on the writings of the Fathers.
Consequently, when the evidence from the Greek manuscripts, the versions, and the Church Fathers is considered, any impartial person cannot help but be impressed.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Although we do not possess the original manuscripts of any of the books of the New Testament, the evidence that it has been transcribed accurately through history is overwhelming. We conclude that the New Testament has been transcribed accurately throughout history. Any contrary conclusion is based either on ignorance of the evidence or on a willful desire not to accept the facts. The late Sir Frederic Kenyon, director of the British Museum, was a respected authority on ancient manuscripts. After a lifetime of studying ancient documents he came to the following conclusions:
The text of the Bible is certain; especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book.
Josh McDowell.
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Shalom...><> |
