Why should one collection of manuscripts of the

Why should one collection of manuscripts of the Bible be used for transliteration in preference to others? In particular the New Testament CLAIRE WHALEY WORLD HISTORY HONORS SECOND PERIOD THIRD SIX WEEKS HISTORICAL RESEARCH PROJECT MAY 26, 2015

Citation Emilio, , Valorie and Ken. "Bible Translations. " Bible Translations. Web. 28 May 2015 http: //remnantreport. com/cgibin/imcart/read. cgi? article_id=7 Given, Mark D. "A Discussion of Bible Translations and Biblical Scholarship. " A Discussion of Bible Translations. Missouri State University. Web. 28 May 2015. http: //courses. missouristate. edu/markgiven/rel 102/bt. htm http: //www. godandscience. org/apologetics/bibleorigi n. html http: //www. jesus-issavior. com/Bible/which_bible_can_we_trust. htm http: //faithbibleonline. net/Misc. Doctrine/Textual. Critici sm. Of. The. Bible. htm http: //www. equip. org/article/is-your-moderntranslation-corrupt/#Christian-books-3 "History of the Bible: How The Bible Came To Us by Wesley Ringer. " History of the Bible: How The Bible Came To Us. 18 Sept. 2007. Web. 28 May 2015. Lister, Roy. "Which Bible Can We Trust? " Which Bible Can We Trust? Bible Trust Society. Web. 28 May 2015. "TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE. " TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE. Web. 28 May 2015. White, James R. “ Is Your Modern Translation Corrupt? - Christian Research Institute. " Christian Research Institute Is Your Modern Translation Corrupt Comments. Christian Research Institute, 9 July 2009. Web. 28 May 2015.

Autographs: the original texts were written either by the author's own hand or by a scribe under their personal supervision. 45 - 95 A. D. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Pauline epistles, the gospel of mark, the gospel of Luke, and the book of Acts are all dated from 45 -63 A. D. The gospel of John and the Revelation may have been written as late as 95 A. D. Manuscripts: until Gutenberg first printed the Latin bible in 1456, all bibles were hand copied onto papyrus, parchment, and paper. Translations: when the bible is translated into a different language it is usually translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. However some translations in the past were derived from an earlier translation. For example the first English translation by John Wycliffe in 1380 was prepared from the Latin vulgate. Many of the New Testament autographs were written between the years of forty-five and ninety-five A. D. Over 5, 664 Greek manuscripts some dating at 125 A. D. Including a whole New Testament(350 A. D. ) Upwards of 9, 000 Latin vulgate manuscripts, and 8, 000 in various languages

Textual Families “When textual critics look at all 5, 600 Greek New Testament manuscripts they find that they can group these manuscripts into texttypes or families with other similar manuscripts. ” Wesley Ringer Byzantine -The first collection evolved from writings which found their way into the eastern churches. These were called Byzantine texts. Byzantium, in modern day turkey, became a major center for Christianity early on. This is where the eastern Orthodox church flourished. -found in the vast majority of later Greek manuscripts. Over 90 percent of all 5, 600 Greek New Testament manuscripts are of the Byzantine text-type. The Byzantine texttype is "fuller" or "longer" than other texttypes, and this is taken as evidence of a later origin. The reason that we have so many manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type is because the Byzantine empire remained Greek speaking and orthodox Christian until Islamic Turks overran its capital, Constantinople, in 1453. Constantinople is now called Istanbul and is turkey's largest city, although no longer its capital. Caesarean/ Western Alexandrian Western manuscripts come from the western Mediterranean and make up about 5% of manuscripts, plus some versions and fathers. Also not uniform, they tend to add. There are found both in Greek manuscripts and in translations into other languages, especially Latin. -the second collection of texts evolved from early Christian writings centered in Alexandria, Egypt, called the Alexandrian texts. Alexandria was a center of Gnosticism, (like Ashland, Oregon is a center of new age beliefs). -Alexandrian manuscripts and readings mainly come from Egypt. These readings tend to subtract (or conversely, say some, the Byzantine tends to add to the Alexandrian). 510% of the manuscripts are in this family. Even though they tend to be older, they do not agree with themselves as much as the Byzantine manuscripts do. Caesarean manuscripts contain mixed readings from other families. Some scholars deny that this is even a family as such. These supposedly came from Casarea. They number less than 5% of the total - found in most papyri and in codex sinaiticus and codex vaticanus all of which date prior to 350 A. D.

Historical considerations regarding New Testament manuscripts “Many ancient manuscripts were destroyed by roman persecution. Others were intentionally buried or destroyed once a copy was made, lest the first one fall into sacrilegious disrepair. Younger manuscripts were obviously copied from older manuscripts, most of which no longer exist. Not all scribes knew Greek well, especially after 500 ad. Some manuscripts were copied one by one, others in tandem as a scribe dictated from one manuscript to several scribes at once. Later scribes often corrected a manuscript. Some variations are due to alteration by known heretics to suit their nefarious purposes. Over 200, 000 variants are known to exist. A massive and exhaustive effort is being made to collate and catalog them all. Most variants are minor: misspellings, word order, duplication, etc. More significant ones add, subtract, substitute or rephrase. Even so, only about 2 -5% of the entire text is seriously debated. The largest sections in debate are Mark 16: 9 -20 and John 7: 59 -8: 11. Only a few manuscripts contain the whole N. T. Many contain mere scraps or individual books (the gospels are most represented). Acts contains the most variants, while revelation has fewest manuscripts but proportionately the most variants in number and kind. Copying by hand virtually ceased after the invention of printing in the 15 th century. The largest collections of manuscripts are in the Vatican, the british museum and the Greek orthodox monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece. ”

The Advent of Printing 1456 A. D. Gutenberg produced the first printed bible in Latin. Printing revolutionized the way books were made. From now on books could be published in great numbers and at a lower cost. 1514 A. D. The Greek New Testament was printed for the first time by Erasmus. He based his Greek New Testament from only five Greek manuscripts, the oldest of which dated only as far back as the twelfth century. With minor revisions, Erasmus' Greek New Testament came to be known as the Textus Receptus or the "received texts. " 1522 A. D. Polyglot bible was published. The old testament was in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin and the New Testament in Latin and Greek. Erasmus used the polyglot to revise later editions of his New Testament. Tyndale made use of the polyglot in his translation on the old testament into English which he did not complete because he was martyred in 1534. 1611 A. D. The king James version into English from the original Hebrew and Greek. The king James translators of the New Testament used the Textus Receptus as the basis for their translations. 1968 A. D. The united bible societies 4 th edition of the Greek New Testament. This Greek New Testament made use of the oldest Greek manuscripts which date from 175 A. D. This was the Greek New Testament text from which the NASV and the NIV were translated. 1971 A. D. The new American standard version (NASV) was published. It makes use of the wealth of much older Hebrew and Greek manuscripts now available that weren't available at the time of the translation of the KJV. Its wording and sentence structure closely follow the Greek in more of a word for word style. 1983 A. D. The new international version (NIV) was published. It also made use of the oldest manuscript evidence. It is more of a "thought-for-thought" translation and reads more easily than the NASV.

Timeline New Testament manuscripts: There are over 5, 600 early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that are still in existence. The oldest manuscripts were written on papyrus and the later manuscripts were written on leather called parchment. 125 A. D. The New Testament manuscript which dates most closely to the original autograph was copied around 125 A. D, within 35 years of the original. It is designated and contains a small portion of John 18. 200 A. D. Bodmer p 66 a papyrus manuscript which contains a large part of the gospel of john. 200 A. D. Chester Beatty biblical papyrus p 46 contains the Pauline epistles and Hebrews. 225 A. D. Bodmer papyrus p 75 contains the gospels of Luke and john. 250 -300 A. D. Chester Beatty biblical papyrus p 45 contains portions of the four gospels and acts. 350 A. D. Codex sinaiticus contains the entire New Testament and almost the entire old testament in Greek. It was discovered by a German scholar Tisendorf in 1856 at an orthodox monastery at Mt. Sinai. 350 A. D. Codex vaticanus: {B} is an almost complete New Testament. It was cataloged as being in the Vatican library since 1475.

Textual criticism: What is it and why it is necessary? Textual criticism is the method used to examine the vast number of manuscripts to determine the probably composition of the original autographs. Lower Textual Criticism “practice of studying the manuscripts of the bible with the goal of reproducing the original text of the bible from this vast wealth of manuscripts. This is a necessary task because there exists minor variations among the biblical manuscripts. So, unless one manuscript is arbitrarily chosen as a standard by which to judge all others, then one must employ textual criticism to compare all manuscripts to derive the reading which would most closely reflect the autographs. ” Higher Criticism Textual Variants "the Jesus seminar" is a group of liberal Christian higher critics who vote on which of the sayings of Christ they believe to have actually been spoken by him. This is an example of "higher" criticism. It is highly subjective and is colored by the view points of various "higher" critics. “Since all Greek manuscripts of the New Testament prior In most bibles red print indicates that Jesus Christ spoke them. to Erasmus' first printed Greek New Testament were copied by hand scribal errors or variants could have crept into the texts. . When these Greek New Testament manuscripts are compared with each other we find evidence of scribal errors and places where the different manuscripts differ with one another. ” “These 200, 000 variants are not as large as they seem. Remember that every misspelled word or an omission of a single word in any of the 5, 600 manuscript would count as a variant. ” As Johann Bengel has pointed out, over 30, 000 variants throughout Greek Testament (Mill). Bengel was surprised at how little they were and later goes on to say that none of the textual variants have changed Christion Doctrine.

Principles of the various schools of translation. “As with the O. T. , Complete collations are being made, but a definite pattern has emerged. All variations, versions and fathers must be considered. Readings must be judged by age, locality spread, number, and how they explain the other variants. Conjectural emendation is questionable, but accepted by many even when manuscript evidence is non-existent. The majority witness school says that the Byzantine family basically contains the true text. This text is the one underlying the KJV and NKJV. Only a minority of scholars accept this view; most who do are usually fundamentalists or Greek orthodox. This view says the other families are defective; older manuscripts survived because they were defective and therefore not used or copied. This text has basically been printed in most Greek editions before 1830 (Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, Elzivir, etc) and recently in the Greek New Testament according to the majority text. The neutral text school basically upheld the superiority and virtual infallibility of the Alexandrian family. It was popularized by Westcott and hort. When the papyri and majuscules agree, that is the authentic text. The eclectic school is the predominant view today. It says that no one family should predominate, though the Alexandrian is the best. But a reading accepted by 2 or 3 of the other families against the Alexandrian would outweigh it. This school sometimes accepts conjectural emendations. This view also stresses the genealogical method: the authentic text was grandfather to the 4 families, each of which contain distinctive traits of the original. This view usually says the Alexandrian or the western is the oldest, the Byzantine the youngest and least reliable. This text is that which underlies the NASB, NIV, ASV, RSV, etc. Finally, providential preservation (Matt. 24: 15) applies to the N. T. Let us neither add nor subtract from the bible (Rev. 22: 18 -19). True textual criticism must be scholarly and reverent. As difficult as it is to scholars, and bewildering to nonscholars, it is an important field of research being conducted around the world. ”

http: //courses. missouristate. edu/markgiven/rel 102/bt. htm A Discussion of Bible Translations and Biblical Scholarship Mark D. Given Missouri State University “Most biblical scholars consider the NRSV (new revised standard version) to be the all around best translation. Although there a few other decent translations on the market these days, this one is fairly "literal" while maintaining a natural English style, and is the most accurate over all. "Literal" basically means translated "word for word" as much as possible. The guiding principle of a "literal" translation is "as literal as possible, as free as necessary. " The current and more correct scholarly terminology is "formal equivalency. " The other major philosophy of translating used to be known as "dynamic" but is now called "functional equivalency. " While every translation is an interpretation, "dynamic" or "functional equivalence" translations more freely paraphrase the Hebrew and Greek, proceeding "thought for thought" rather than "word for word, " often turning a few words in the source language into many in the target language. Sometimes this is necessary due to the unique idioms found in different languages, but it increases the risk that a translator will intentionally or unintentionally introduce his or her biases into the translation. In practice it has also reduced the range of possible meanings found in the original. More literal translations, technically known as "formal equivalence" translations, are preferred by most biblical scholars. ”

http: //www. equip. org/article/is-your-modern-translation-corrupt/#Christian-books-3 Is Your Modern Translation Corrupt? Article ID: DK 115 | By: James R. White Published by CRI Christian Research Institute Modern Greek texts, such as the Nestle-Aland 27 th edition and the united bible societies 4 th edition, which underlie modern English translations and are used most often in college and seminary-level Greek classes, are based not upon just a few texts, but upon all Greek manuscripts. Unlike the TR, which was derived from only one stream of the large Byzantine family of texts, the modern texts draw from the entire range of Greek texts.

Experiment Google Translate English; Mr. Leary wants you to grill steaks! Latin; Mr. Hacketstown faciemus ut craticulam steaks ! Greek; Κύριος. Hacketstown συνεχίσει να μπριζόλες σχάρα ! English; Lord. Hacketstown continue to grill steaks ! This may seem surprising, but similar things have happened that were perhaps even more unfortunate than Lord Hacketstown. For example there is a video clip of a girl translating “Let it Go” in to many different languages and then singing it, the results were give up, you can not do it back, so much for inspiring young children everywhere.

Roy Lister “The King James Version is the only English Bible in use today which is taken from the Textus Receptus. Therefore, this must be the only Bible used by pastors, Bible students, churches, missionary groups, educational institutions or Christian laymen…. Every bornagain, Bible-believing Christian should endeavor to enlighten others about the dangers of the modern counterfeit Bibles. This must be done if we are to heed the admonition to "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3 b). God wants you to join with us in sounding the alarm against those who would rob this generation of the only Bible. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever" (Isaiah 40: 8). ” In this Lister is very bias toward the King James Version, he says that “It must be the only Bible used. ” It is also absurd to say that only one Bible translation can be correct, this is not to say that completely incorrect translations do not exist, but that two separate translations can have equal meaning. For example in math 6 x 4 and 4(6), both equal 24, do they not? So in understanding this how can one say that KJV is correct but ESV (English Standard Version) is not?

Scholars Conclusions Regarding Discrepancies between Texts Johann Bengel 1687 -1752 was very disturbed by the 30, 000 variants that had recently been noted in Mill's edition of the Greek testament. After extended study he came to the conclusion that the variant readings were fewer in number than might have been expected and that they did not shake any article of Christian doctrine. Westcott and Ort, in the 1870's, state that the New Testament text remains over 98. 3 percent pure no matter whether one uses the Textus Receptus or their own Greek text which was largely based on codex sinaiticus and codex vaticanus. James white, on p. 40 of his book the King James only controversy states: "the reality is that the amount of variation between the two most extremely different manuscripts of the New Testament would not fundamentally altar the message of the scriptures! I make this statement (1) fully aware of the wide range of textual variants in the New Testament, and (2) painfully aware of the strong attacks upon those who have made similar statements in the past. " Scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix conclude, "the New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts that any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book-a form that is 99. 5 percent pure. "

Conclusion -Disagreement is not strongly present in about how, or from what manuscripts, the Old Testament of the bible should be transliterated. Therefore, I have chosen to focus on only the transliteration debate surrounding the New Testament. -The ever present ongoing conflict/debate between people who believe the KJV (which is based on the Textus Receptus or majority text) is the only true English translation and those who accept any English translation other than the KJV. After reading many articles I have come to the conclusion that this conflict should not exist, and is the result of ignorance, or belief in erroneous facts. -As indicated by quotes in Wesley Ringer’s article, there is no substantial difference between the doctrinal content of the various mainstream versions of the New Testament. -Since the various translations are faithful to the common substance of the available manuscripts, yet having numerous variations with respect to details, it is good to read several different translation, particularly one from each of the families of translations, if you want to have a balanced view of the content of the bible. -The important consideration in establishing the veracity and style of a bible transliteration is the methodology and philosophy employed by the translator(s) as they developed the translation.