2. Introduction We pick up and look at our bibles today and we never really think what went on for this book to get to me. Is the bible accurate? How do I know some yahoo didn’t change the gospels 800 years ago? 1800 years ago? I often hear people say that the bible is simply a copy of a copy and a translation of a translation. There is no way of knowing what Jesus actually said, therefore we can not believe in it. When so much of our lives hinges on this one book, we need to know the facts and be sure about what we believe.

3. Key words Textual Criticism: The process in which scholars work to find the true original text of the Bible Manuscript: An ancient hand copy of the bible. Either a whole copy or some books of the bible or even only 1 book. Autograph: The original hand written manuscript Deuterocanonical: Otherwise known as the Apocrypha, these books fill in the gap between the NT and the OT Masoritic: A 7 th Century AD Hebrew OT Septuagint: The 300 BC Greek translation of the OT Dead Sea Scrolls: The 100 BC manuscript of the OT Alexandrian: The North African manuscripts of the NT (about 10% of total NT manuscripts) Byzantine: The eastern manuscripts of the NT (about 85% of the total NT manuscripts) Western: The western manuscripts of the NT (about 5% of the total NT manuscripts) Variant Reading: a difference in the written text of a verse. The mountain is beautiful The fountain is beautiful

4. Textual Criticism Simply put, textual criticism is the method we use to figure out what the original manuscript of the bible said. Since all the originals are either hidden, lost of destroyed we can’t simply refer to them. There are in fact 5735 Greek manuscripts and about 1000 Hebrew ones which contain variant readings, therefore, which is the real one?

5. Methodology There are two things that scholars look at when trying to figure out the autograph; the external evidence and the internal evidence. Then compiling these 2 they come up with what they believe is the true accurate autograph.

6. External evidence This looks at the different manuscripts and where they came from along with their dates. Then they are given a ranking as to which ones are better, and therefore are more likely to have preserved the original reading.

7. Internal evidence This looks at the actual text to try and figure out the best reading. There are 3 main ideas here: The harder reading is the better one, because it is more likely that a scribe smoothed out the difficulties than added them. The shorter reading is often the right one since scribes are more likely to add words than to erase God’s word. Then they look at what makes sense, if a reading says “Dog walking man” clearly it is wrong and probably is “Man walking dog”

8. How does this apply specifically to the NT Deuterocanonical OT?

9. Old Testament The Masoritic scholars were very meticulous about preserving the text of the bible. They worked very hard to make sure not even one letter was altered. They didn’t copy the text like we copy things today, they were trained in this job and it was all they did for a living. They knew the number of letter in each line of the entire bible, and they also knew the number of letters in each book. So for example, Genesis has 78064 letters in Hebrew. They also knew the middle letter of the book and how many of each letter there was. When they were done with it, they would count all the letters and if it was off by even 1, they would burn it and start over. Just to get an idea, when they found the Dead Sea scrolls, which are 1000 years older than the oldest surviving manuscript at the time; they found that the text was virtually identical.

10. So how accurate is the OT? There are about 1000 manuscripts in Hebrew and about 950 of them agree. The other 50 are internally inconsistent and are mostly disregarded. The oldest surviving piece of the OT in existence today is a portion of the book of Numbers, which dates to 700 BC, which matches with today’s bible. That is during the time when the book of Kings was taking place. Therefore one can be assured that the OT is absolutely verbatim what Moses and others wrote.

11. Deuterocanonical Though these are Jewish books (like the OT), they have more in common with the NT than the OT, both in how they were preserved and transmitted. These books are first seen in the Septuagint and later, parts were found in Qumran (The Dead Sea Scrolls). These are thought to have been widely used by the early church and have been formally recognized by the church in 393 AD at the Synod of Hippo.

12. So how accurate is the Apocrypha? The three best, oldest and most complete manuscripts that we use today to translate the bible into any language are copies of the Septuagint. The Septuagint contains these books. Therefore one can safely say that if any part of the bible can be trusted, then the Deuterocanonical books can also be trusted.

13. New Testament The NT was not copied with the same care as the OT and therefore is more prone to errors. They would simply copy the text, or sometimes people would read the text and one or more people would write it down. There are three locations that manuscripts are found, these are the Alexandrian ones, which are by far the most accurate, followed by the Byzantine and Western manuscripts, which are later and contain more problems. Within these divisions, there are 3 main eras that are characterized by different writing methods. These are Papyrus which is the oldest and best, followed by Uncial which is in the middle and Miniscule, the least reliable.

14. So how accurate is the NT? There are about 5700 manuscripts of the NT in Greek along with another 10000 Latin manuscripts and another 9000 Non-Greek manuscripts in languages such as Syriac, Coptic and Armenian. This leads to a ton of information that can be used to figure out what Jesus really said. The oldest surviving manuscript is from the book of John Chapter 18 and was found in Egypt and dates to 117 AD. Therefore the accuracy of the NT is placed at about 99.5%, with the.5% making no doctrinal difference.

15. Class Outline Attendance Prayer Finish Powerpoint Dei Verbum Peace Out

16. Evaluation Unit Test About 20 Multiple Choice About 3-4 Short Answer 1 Essay Question No Other Major Assignment

17. How Do Errors Occur?

18. Unintentional Errors Addition of letters by repetition (dittography). 1 Thes. 2:7 εγενηθημεν ηπιοι ("we were gentle") and εγενηθημεν νηπιοι ("we were babies") η, ι, υ, ει, οι, υι all confused with one another, because they are all pronounced "ee" in later Greek (itacism). I John 1:4 ημων ("our") and υμων ("your")

19. Unintentional Errors Skipping lines (parablepsis). Gen 1:1 ………………………….καὶ τὴν γῆν οὐρανὸν ………………………….καὶ τὴν γῆν ἐποίησεν Transposition of letters. Mark 14:65 ελαβον ("receive") and εβαλον ("strike") Transposition of words to a more usual order. Rom. 1:1 "of Jesus Christ" for "of Christ Jesus"; Mat. 15:1 "scribes and Pharisees" for "Pharisees and scribes."

20. Intentional Errors Additions, omissions, and substitutions designed to simplify or correct the grammar. Mark 7:2 "they found fault" added to complete the sentence. 2 Cor. 12:7 "therefore" omitted from before "lest I should be exalted." Additions or subtractions to complement the text. Luke 5:32 “for I came not the call the righteous, but sinners” feels like it is missing something so “unto repentance” was added. To remove difficult explanations. Mark 1:2 "in Isaiah the prophet" changed to "in the prophets." To keep the theology safe. Luke 2:33 "Joseph" substituted for "his father." To promote private agendas. Mark 9:29 "and fasting" added after "prayer" (similarly in Acts 10:30, 1 Cor. 7:5)

21. Textual Criticism Puzzle Number Complete Line of Text (The Lord said unto Israel) Partial Line (…Lord said…rael) Missing Line (…) Letter Key Number: The lower the number, the closer to the original (0 is the original, 5 is a late copy) Letter: The family the manuscript comes from (A is copied from A, B from B. Also, A is normally better than B, but not always) … Indicates a missing letter, word, or words

22. A Little Healthy Competition The NT written in 40-70AD has 5735 Manuscripts the oldest being 117 AD. Josephus written in about 100AD has 9 manuscripts the oldest being 500 AD. Annals of Rome written in about 100AD has 2 manuscripts the oldest being 1400AD, and it is missing volumes 7-10 out of 16 Plato written in about 400BC has 7 manuscripts the oldest being about 1000AD Almost all we know about the ancient world comes from these books. None of these books are in dispute by scholars or the general populous. Why is the bible? The vast majority of all variations in the bible are single letter spelling mistakes or other very easily seen and minor errors.

23. Actual Text Critical Issues John 7:39 οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα (For the spirit was not yet given) p 75 3A, Sinaticus 4A, N 6W, T 5A οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα ἄγιον (For the Holy Spirit was not yet given) p 66 2A, L 8A, W 5A, X 10A οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα ἄγιον ἐπ αὐτοῖς (For the Holy Spirit was not yet given to them) D 5W, f 11W Which is the best reading? The first one is the one that the church uses.

24. Mark 16:9-20 There are 3 possible endings to the book of mark. The short ending simply cuts it off at the end of verse 8. The long ending goes all the way to verse 20. The intermediate ending adds this to the end of verse 8 “But they reported briefly to Peter and hose with him all hey had been told. And after Jesus Himself sent out my means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation”.

25. So which ending should we have at the end of Mark? The short ending is supported by Sinaticus 4A and Vaticanus 4A which are the 2 oldest and best Uncials, along with the ancient Armenian manuscripts. But it finishes with the word “for” in Greek, which no Greek sentence can finish with, therefore there must have been more. The intermediate ending is supported by L 8A,  8A, 099 7B, 112 6B. But the wording is so clean and elegant that Mark could never have written it. The long ending is supported by A 5A, C 5A, D 5W, W 5A,  W. This has a very bad and abrupt transition from verse 8. Mary is the subject of verse 8 but Jesus is the subject of verse 9 yet in Greek Jesus is never mentioned, He is simply added in our English bibles to smooth out the transition. Mary is identified again in verse 9 but she was already introduced in this chapter makes it sound like it was added.

26. Picture of an Actual manuscript This is a picture of 1 page from Papyrus 46 which is from about 200AD and is Alexandrian. This page has 1 Corinthians 11:33-12:9