Transcript The Reliability of the Scriptures

The Reliability of the
Scriptures
Campus Commonwealth Academy
Apologetics-January 3-4, 2015
Mat Borger
Components of this topic
1. Transmission of the
Scriptures (today’s
emphasis)
2. Accuracy of its content
The Reliability of the Scriptures
The Bible is reliable and
trustworthy in three
essential ways.
• 1. It is accurate in its
content and
message…
• 2. Its preservation
through the millennia
is adequate…
• 3. It is practical.
Why Practical matters….
• “The character of Jesus has not only been the
highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest
incentive to its practice, and has exerted so deep
an influence, that it may be truly said, that the
simple record of three short years of active life has
done more to regenerate and to soften mankind,
than all the disquisitions of philosophers and than
all the exhortations of moralists.”
• W. E. H. Lecky “History of European
Morals”, 1869.
Key Terms Defined
• Autograph-the original inspired documents
• Manuscript-a copy in an original language or a
translation from an original language. Greek
“handwritten”
• Septuagint-Greek translation of the Old Testament
(Hebrew)
• Scroll-rolled up papyrus/paper/parchment
• Vellum- Parchment (sheep or goat), Vellum (calf or
antelope). Papyrus became scarce switched to Vellum.
• Codex-manuscripts in a book form
• Massoretic Text-text copied by the Massoretes (one
group of scribes)
Definitions (cont’d)
•
•
•
•
•
Uncial-manuscript written in capital letters
Minuscule-manuscript written in common letters
Cursive- Both capital and small letters.
Palimpsest-scraped-off manuscript that was re-used
Latin Vulgate-common Latin from “vulgata” i.e
common; “vulga”=crowd
• Apocrypha-non-canonical books of the bible (Greek
“those hidden away”) Jerome coined the term.
• Pseudepigrapha-text whose authorship is attributed to
someone else (Greek- “falsely attributed”)
The Bible’s Claims About Itself
• Proverbs 30:5-Every word of
God is flawless
• Psalm 119:142, 160-God’s
word is true
• John 17:17-God’s Word is
truth
• 2 Timothy 3:16-All Scripture is
God-breathed
• 1 Peter 1:25-God’s Word will
stand forever
• 2 Peter 1: 20-21-Men spoke
from God
• 1 Thess. 2:13-Word of God,
not word of men
What was available at the time?
Various materials were used for writing in ancient times:
1. Stone-Exodus 31:18, 34:1
2. Clay-Ezekiel 4:1/Jeremiah 32:14 (clay jars)
3. Wood and wax: Numbers 17:2-3 (wooden staffs)
Ezekiel 37:16-17 (wooden sticks)
4. Metal-Exodus 28:36 (golden plate)
5. Papyrus-Job 8:11
6. Leather and parchment-2 Timothy 4:13- “When you
come, bring the cloak…and my scrolls, especially
the parchments”
Enduring Words
Mk 13: 31 “…but my words
“Once we have come to grips
with the fact that God can
and in all probability does
communicate with mankind,
we are ready to consider
what sort of message God
would provide…The evidence
points to the Bible being the
Word of God, faithfully
preserved through the
millenia…”-Jacoby
…will never pass away”
The Text of the Old Testament
The Hebrew Manuscripts
•
•
•
•
•
•
The main manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible are:
1. The Aleppo Codex (900 AD)
2. The Leningrad Codex (900-1000 AD)
3. The Cairo Codex (895 AD)
4. The Leningrad Codex of the Prophets (916 AD)
5. The British Library Codex of the
Pentateuch(undated)
• It is the Leningrad Codex that mainly underlies most
editions of the modern Hebrew Bible.
• OT completed around 400BC (Chronicles) [Malachi was
about 435 BC]
Late copies of the Hebrew Bible?
Early manuscripts
Not as available
“One may wonder why copies of the
Hebrew Bible are late in
comparison with the NT materials,
especially when we recall that the
OT was completed several centuries
before the first NT book was
written…” (page 130)
Answer: “The Jewish scribes looked
upon their copies of the Scriptures
with an almost superstitious
respect. This lead them to give
ceremonial burial to any of their
texts that were damaged or
defective”-(page 130)
Who Wrote the OT? Early scribal activity
• Generally, scribal activity
involved a number of
people and passed from
one generation to the
next. Examples of scribal
activity included:
 (i) careful duplication
especially in cases where
letters appeared too large
or too small.
 (ii) placing a dot over a
questionable word.
Who were the Massoretes? The Real BibleBeaters!
• The Masorah (Hebrew word for “tradition”) had the task of
guarding the text. The scribes were called the Massoretes. Near
Tiberias, town on Sea of Galilee (AD 500-1000).
• These guys were fanatical: Pulled together all the variant readings
into one, then destroyed the variants.
• To preserve the integrity of the text they:
• Counted all the letters in the OT…identified the middle verse of the
Pentateuch (Lev 8:7)…the middle verse of the entire Hebrew Bible (Jer
6:7)…and the middle word, letter, and verse of each book…the number
of times each letter appeared in each book and number of verses that
contained all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet (22 all consonants)
• Hebrew was written from right to left. Hebrew alphabet had no
vowels – consonants only. Very little, if any, spacing between
letters.
• Over the years, scribes placed vowel sounds over words to help
with pronunciation.
• As a result of the precision of the Massoretes, our Hebrew text is
often referred to as “The Massoretic Text.”
Dating the Hebrew Text
• The earliest Hebrew manuscripts date no
further back than the 9th century, leaving
therefore a wide gap of centuries between
the original OT autographs and today’s
manuscripts.
• That gap is about 1300 years, yet compared
to other ancient works, this is just about the
average interval between the time of writing
and the earliest copy.
• How did other ancient works fare?
Author
Date
Oldest Copy
Interval
Copies
Aristophanes
400BC
AD900
1300 years
45
340BC
Other ancient
Demosthe-nes
300BC
literary works
Julius Caesar
50BC
AD1100
1440 years
5
AD1100
1400 years
200
AD900
950 years
10
Herodotus
435BC
AD900
1335 years
8
Homer
800BC
AD100
900 years
643
Plato
360BC
AD800
1160 years
15
Sophocles
415BC
AD1000
1415 years
7
Thucydides
410BC
AD600
1310 years
8
Aristotle
“The originals (Autographs) of nearly every work from ancient
history have been lost. But copies were made, for the most part
by careful copyists. Whenever there’s a difference between one
copy and another, historians do their best to reconstruct the
original version accurately” Jacoby
Ancient religious writings
Even among some of the other world religions,
the time gaps are similar for example:
• Buddhist works: The Buddha (Siddharta
Gautama) taught around 5th-6th century BC
[563-483 BC]. Buddhist Scriptures written down
during NT times. Earliest surviving copies are
around 800 AD.
• Hindu Vedas (dated 1500-1200BC): written
down around 500BC, earliest surviving
manuscript dated 1300AD
The Dead Sea
Scrolls
Bridging
the gap!
Archaeological find of the century
DSS: 40 years to translate
• DSS lay in Qumran caves
since 68 AD!
• Gap bridged from 1300
years to 200 years
• About 800 scrolls found
in total in 11 primary
caves
• Aridity of Qumran helped
to preserve the scrolls in
the jars.
Qumran: a monastic community,
south of Jericho known as the
Essenes.
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Bridging the Gap
There were 7 rolls/scrolls in the original find:
1. The Book of Isaiah
2. a Manual of Discipline
3. A commentary on the Book of Habakkuk
4. The “Genesis Apocryphon” (unknown contents)
5. A portion of the Book of Isaiah
6. A piece entitled “ The War of the Sons of Light
with the Sons of Darkness”
7. A collection of Thanksgiving Hymns
The DSS contents
Largest representations in the DSS:
• Psalms (36),
• Deuteronomy (29),
• Isaiah (21),
• Exodus (17),
• Genesis (15)
The Great Isaiah Scroll!
• Symbol used: 1QIsa
• Date: 100 BC (possibly earlier)
• This scroll is a complete copy
of the Book of Isaiah save a
few minor breaks in the text
• It reads virtually the same as
the standard Massoretic Text
printed in present-day Hebrew
Bibles
• The divergent readings that
exist involve issues like
spelling, grammar and
vocabulary modification
• The awesome part of this
amazing discovery is that
the scrolls are about 1000
years earlier than the oldest
Hebrew manuscripts
• DSS can be viewed at “The
Shrine of the Book” in
Jerusalem (Israel Museum)
“The Bible is full of errors and
inaccuracies!!!”
1QIsa-Isaiah Manuscript
• Isaiah 6:3- “they were
calling”
• Isaiah 6:3- “holy, holy”
• Isaiah 6:7- “sins”
In all, out of 37 variant
readings in Chapter 6, most
of which involve spelling
differences, only the above
3 are significant enough to
be highlighted in an English
translation
Modern Hebrew Text
• Isaiah 6:3- “one called
to another”
• Isaiah 6:3- “holy, holy,
holy”
• Isaiah 6:7- “sin”
Biblical Errors Explained
11 Classes of Textual Error
• Haplography: writing once what should have been written twice (holy vs
holy, holy)
• Dittography: writing twice what should have been written once
• Metathesis: improper order of letters or words
• Fusion: combining the last letter of the first word with the first letter of
the following word (IRANTOTHESTORE – IRA NT OTH ESTORE)
• Fission: Improper separation of one word into two (heretofore vs here
to for)
• Homophony: words with different meanings but sound the same are
confused (beat vs beet or well: a well with water vs I am doing “well”)
Biblical Errors Explained
11 Classes of Textual Error continued
• Misreading similar-appearing letters: Letter shape and formation
change over time in all languages. Other letters are easily confused ( “d”
and “b”. Example: “Lorb” instead of “Lord”
• Homoeteleuton: Greek for “having the same ending”. When copyists
eyes “jump” a portion of text because the words are similar.
• Homoeoarkton: Greek for “that which has a similar beginning”. Same as
above but for beginning of a sentence.
• Accidental omission of words: 1 Samuel 13:1 in the MT “Saul was…years
old when he began to reign.”
• Variants based on vowel points: Vowels were not added to OT texts until
7th or 8th century AD. Oral tradition passed down annunciation.
(Virtually all documents printed in Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic today are
consonants only)
HOW DOES THE BIBLE FAIR AGAINST
MODERN DAY PUBLICATIONS?
You read the news? An honest look at
modern reporting.
• In 1936, journalism professor and former magazine editor Mitchell
Charnley published the first accuracy audit of American newspapers.
“Preliminary Notes on a Study of Newspaper Accuracy”
Surveys: 50% error rate!!
• “The largest accuracy study of U.S. papers was published in 2007
and found one of the highest error rates on record — just over 59
percent of articles contained some type of error, according to
sources.” www.poyntner.org
• “The results provide evidence that newspaper inaccuracy — and its
corrosive effect on media credibility — transcends national borders
and journalism cultures.”
The Verdict…
“It should therefore be stated explicitly that, when we
survey the Hebrew Bible as a whole, the incidence of
copyists’ errors is statistically very few indeed. Even
allowing for the intrusion of occasional errors in the
received Hebrew text, it is remarkable how faithfully
it was transmitted”[J. Weingreen,1982]
Let’s have a break!!
Any takers?
The New Testament
• The New Testament books
were written between 45
AD (James)-95 AD
(John/Revelation)
• NT books written on
papyrus and most
autographs would have
perished by the early 2nd
century.
• Fortunately, many copies
were made (high likelihood
of preservation. Not
ceremonially destroyed like
OT docs)
• The age of undated
manuscripts could be
discerned by looking at
handwriting.
• 2 main types of NT
manuscripts: Uncials (in
CAPITAL LETTERS) and
minuscules (in smaller
letters/cursive style)
No spaces between the letters!
The sources…
There primary sources of
evidence in support of the
attestation of the NT:
1. The Papyrus collections
2. The Uncials esp. the
Vatican, Sinaitic and
Alexandrian Codices
3. The Miniscules
4. The Lectionaries
5. The Versions
6. The quotations by early
Fathers/Apologists
“For in assessing the
trustworthiness of
ancient historical
writings, one of the
most important
questions is: How soon
after the events took
place were they
recorded?”
F.F.Bruce
NT Papyri
• Many NT manuscripts written on papyrus
• Nearly 100 surviving NT papyri
• p52-oldest surviving NT document (closest to an
original); contains part of John 18; can be seen in
John Rylands Library at the University of
Manchester; dated approximately 125 AD; perfect
match with modern Greek NT of John
• About 5500 Greek manuscripts exist and over
20,000 more in other languages ( Latin, Syriac,
Slavonic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic etc.)
NT attestation-The Uncials
• Most of the almost 5500 NT manuscripts do not
contain the entire NT
• Key Uncials were:
1. The Vatican Manuscript (Codex Vaticanus)-dated to
350AD. Contains most of the NT and most of the OT
2. The Sinaitic Manuscript (Codex Sinaiticus)-earliest
complete copy of NT known to survive
3. The Alexandrian Manuscript (Codex Alexandrinus)written in the 5-6th century; contains Gospels and Acts
both in Latin and Greek.
Codex Vaticanus (written on
vellum)
• A 4th century work, this Codex is considered to be one
of the most significant witnesses to the NT text
• Located in the Vatican Library in Rome (since 1481)
• It contains almost all of the Old and New Testaments in
Greek
• The printed texts of today’s Greek NT are heavily
dependent on the Vatican Codex
• Also considered to be the most exact copy of the NT
known
• It does not include Mark 16:9-20 (scribe left more than
a column of blank space here!)
Codex Sinaiticus
• Dated about 325AD.
• Discovered in 1844 by textual critic and NT scholar
Constantin von Tischendorf at St. Catherine’s
monastery on Mt. Sinai. Further discoveries made by
Tischendorf in 1859.
• It was eventually published in 1933 and bought by the
British Museum (Bought by the British Government
from the Soviet Government on Christmas Day, 1933)
• It can be seen on display today at the British Library in
London
• It is the earliest complete copy of the NT known to
survive
Codex
Alexandrinus
The first of the “Big
3” to come to light,
Codex Alexandrinus
lay in Alexandria for
several centuries. It
contains both OT and
NT, mostly complete
Other NT Manuscripts
• The Codex of Ephraem
(5th century)-a palimpsest
manuscript. A lot of the
OT is missing, but most of
NT is there.
• The Codex Bezae-the
earliest example of a
bilingual manuscript
(Greek on the left, Latin
on the right)’ Order of
the Gospels here:
Matt/Jn/Lk/Mk
The Minuscules
Dated from 9th century
• Over 2800 exist
• Examples include:
• Minuscule 1&2 (12th century)Gospels
• Minuscule 13 (12-13th
century)- “adulterous woman”
story found after Luke 21:38!
• Minuscule 33 (9th centurycalled “the Queen of the
Cursives”
• Minuscule 1739 (10th
century)-Acts & Epistles
List is still growing
The Lectionaries
(manuscripts for
worship)
“Lection”-a selected
passage of Scripture
read in public
worship; over 2200
lectionaries have
been counted
Other sources: quotations
The Apostolic Fathers-they
wrote between 90 and 160 AD.
Stand out works:
1. The Epistle of Barnabas (AD
100)
2. The Didache (a.k.a “The
Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles”)
3. The letter from Clement,
bishop of Rome (AD 96) to the
Corinthian church
4. Letters from Ignatius, bishop
of Antioch (AD 115)
• The first 3 documents quote from
the Synoptics, Acts, Romans,1
Cor., Eph., Titus, Heb.,1 Peter;
• The Ignatius letters quote from
Mtt., John, Romans, 1&2 Cor.,
Gal., Eph., Philipp., 1&2 Tim,
Titus
• Polycarp (younger contemporary
of Ignatius) in a letter to the
Philippians (120 AD) quoted from
the Synoptics , Acts, Romans,
1&2 Corin, Gal, Eph, Philipp, 2
Thess, 1&2 Timothy, Hebrews, 1
Pt, 1 Jn.
NT: Most copied book from
ancient world
“…even if all the surviving papyri
and codices were collected and
burned, most of the Scriptures could
be reconstructed through
quotations from early Christian
writings, the majority of which were
written in the 200s and 300s”-Jacoby
Copyists errors
There were 2
main ways in
which errors
arose:
1. Unintentional
errors
(dittography and
haplography)
2. Intentional
errors
Intentional errors? What!!!
Unintentional errors
• Romans 5:1- “let us have
peace with God” vs. “we
have peace with God”[Greek: echōmen or
echomen]
• 1 Thess. 2: 7- “we were
babes among you” vs. “we
were gentle among you”[Greek nepioi or epioi]
• Revelation 1:5- “washed us
from our sins” or “freed us
from our sins”-[Greek
lousanti or lusanti]
Intentional errors
• John 7:39- literal reading
was “for not yet was the
Spirit”;Later manuscripts
added “given” so the new
reading was “the Spirit was
not yet given” [Other
manuscripts added “holy”]
• Matthew 11:19/Luke 7:35“works/deeds/actions” vs.
“children”-Compare KJV
with modern translations
The textual critic “seeks by comparison and study of the
available evidence to recover the exact words of the
author’s original composition. The New Testament critic
seeks, in short, to weed out the chaff of bad readings
from the genuine Greek text” [Lightfoot at page 88.]
“Through the science of textual criticism, we have near
unanimous agreement on the original text of the New
Testament” [Jacoby]-
7 Canons (Rules) of Textual
Criticism
• 1. The older reading is to be preferred.
• 2. The more difficult reading is preferred. (Edits
trend towards ease…harder = older)
• 3. Shorter reading is preferred: trend towards
insertions/amplifications.
• 4. Best explanation of variants is likely original.
• 5. Widest geographical support preferred.
• 6. Closest conformity to style, diction, or viewpoint
of the author is preferred.
• 7. Absence of obvious doctrinal bias is preferred.
2 uncertain passages
• Mark 16:9-20:[Footnote
says: The earliest
manuscripts and some
other ancient witnesses
do not have verses 9–
20.]
• This is the first passage
in which there is
uncertainty about its
presence in the original
NT text
• John 7:53-8:11[Footnote says: The
earliest manuscripts and
many other ancient
witnesses do not have
John 7:53—8:11. ]
• A few manuscripts
include these verses,
wholly or in part, after
John 7:36, John 21:25,
Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53.
Conclusions-Part 1
Jacoby gives a succinct analysis:
“ 1. The biblical manuscripts, though not copied
perfectly, were copied adequately. Their truth content
is unaffected by scribal error.
2. The transmission of the texts compares extremely
favourably with the transmission of other ancient
documents.
3. Early Christians therefore could not have fabricated
prophecies of Christ by doctoring the texts of the
Hebrew Bible
4. Skepticism is understandable but unwarranted
5. The preservation of the biblical texts is
remarkable”
Conclusions-Part 2
“The interval between the
date of original composition
and the earliest extant
evidence become so small to
be in fact negligible, and the
last foundation for any doubt
that the Scripture have come
down to us substantially as
they were written has now
been removed. Both the
authenticity and the general
integrity of the books of the
New Testament may be
regarded as finally
established.” –Sir Frederic
Kenyon.