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[1]
Arthur Ferch
Part
One-A Divine Hand Guiding
The history of modern language translations of the New Testament is fascinating
and yet sometimes poorly understood. What happened to the original New
Testament writings as they came from the hands of the apostles? What types
of witnesses to the New Testament are there? How did the variants (differences)
in the sacred text originate, and to what degree do these affect the teaching
of the New Testament? How well attested is the New Testament when compared
with other ancient writings? What changes did the printed text effect
when it replaced the handwritten copies? What is the nature of the textus
receptus (the received text)? Why did the "standard text" (which is the
basis of modern language translations of the New Testament) replace the
textus receptus? How did Ellen G. White and Adventists in the past
relate to various versions of the Bible? These are questions frequently
raised among our people.
Lack of clarity on these and
other issues has occasionally generated contesting points of view and
bewilderment, especially when one's position regarding a particular version
of the Bible has been made a criterion of orthodoxy.
The purpose of this series
is not so much to evaluate modern translations of the New Testament (this
has already been done),[2] but rather to trace the history
of the books that now comprise our New Testament from the time of their
original composition to the present day. Thus we hope to assist readers
in gaining an overall perspective by which to assess modern translations
in the light of the text of the New Testament existing at the birth of
Christianity.
We will begin with the autographs
(for example, the original writings as they came from the evangelists
or apostles) and note the process by which these documents were copied,
translated, and quoted by the writers of the church. Then, turning from
the era of handwritten copies, we will trace the history of the printed
New Testament text. Next we will survey the fortunes of the received text
until the appearance of what is known as the "standard text." The series
will close with a review of the stand the Seventh-day Adventist Church
has taken on versions in the past and how Ellen G. White related
to the English language Bible translations of her time.
The Earliest
Witnesses
Autographs and Copies. Our story begins with the writing, under
the supervision of the Holy Spirit, of the documents that now make up
our New Testament. It is these particular books and letters that the Christian
church came to believe originated, like their Old Testament counterparts,
with men who, impelled by the Holy Spirit, spoke the word of God (2 Peter
1:20, 21). Certainly Paul believed that he wrote under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 7:40; 1 Tim 4:1), and Peter recognized
this fact by claiming that the writings of Paul were on a level with the
other inspired scriptures (2 Pet 3:16).
Unfortunately, the original
documents did not survive long. Wear and tear, frequent use, and imperial
edicts demanding the destruction of the Christian sacred books account
for their early disappearance. However, the early believers did not wait
long before they made handwritten copies of the autographs and distributed
them among the communities of faith (cf. Col 4:16).
Some of these manuscripts (a
word derived from the Latin, meaning "written by hand") traveled hundreds
of miles shortly after they were written. This is well illustrated by
a papyrus fragment that is considered to be the oldest copy of any portion
of the New Testament in existence today. This fragment (called Papyrus
#52) was found in Egypt and contains only a few verses of the Gospel of
John in Greek. On the basis of the style of script used in the fragment,
it has been dated to A.D. 125.
Since the composition of the
Fourth Gospel is generally assumed to have occurred in the last decade
of the first century A.D. in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor, this scrap
of papyrus proves the existence and use of a copy of the Gospel of John
in a provincial town of Egypt, about 600 miles distant from its traditional
site of composition, only about a generation after the Gospel was written.
As congregations began to incorporate
the reading and exposition of the Christian writings into their worship
services, the need for copies of the New Testament documents became apparent.
Newly established churches probably received copies of the New Testament
from their founders or through transcribing their founders' manuscripts
or borrowed copies. It would appear that in the earliest period there
were no professional copying centers (or scriptoria, as they were called).
Hence manuscripts would have been copied privately by hand. But the practice
of copying by hand opened the possibility for divergences or differences
in readings (called variants) to creep into the text of the manuscripts.
Versions.
Christianity entered a world in which Greek was the world language. Greek
was spoken and understood in the Western Roman Empire as well as the Eastern,
and today few would doubt that all the parts of the New Testament were
originally written in Greek. The New Testament writers employed the Greek
of daily conversation (for example, the Koine or "common" Greek), though
its quality varied from the rather polished language of the book of Hebrews
to the "Jewish Greek" of the last book of the Bible.
By the end of the second century
A.D., however, radical changes had begun to take place in the empire.
The Greek language was confined largely to the eastern portion, the area
with the greatest concentration of Christian believers up to the middle
of the fourth century. It was among these Greek-speaking Christians that
copies of the Greek New Testament continued to be transcribed.
As the Greek language became
increasingly confined to the Eastern Roman Empire, however, regional languages
began to assert themselves. And since Christianity spread principally
among the common people who no longer understood Greek, the need to express
the gospel in the local languages of the various geographic regions became
compulsory.
Thus by the middle of the third
century the Christian church in the western part of the empire (for example,
in Italy, Africa, Gaul, and other provinces) became a Latin-speaking church.
The medium of communication in correspondence between the churches of
Rome and Carthage in North Africa had become Latin by about A.D. 250.
In pockets of Syriac-speaking areas, especially in the region around Edessa
(now known as Urfa), Christians came to use the Syriac language. Similarly,
various Coptic dialects were adopted by monastic orders of Christians
in Egypt from the beginning of the third century on.
As the tide turned away from
Greek as a world language, translations (also known as versions) of the
New Testament writings in Latin, Syriac, and Coptic began to make their
appearance. From the end of the second and the beginning of the third
century on, we have New Testament manuscripts in the three languages mentioned,
with further translations into Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, Slavonic, Ethiopic,
and other languages appearing in succeeding centuries. Since these translations
of the Greek New Testament originated in distinct geographical areas,
they are most useful to the student of the New Testament text in identifying
peculiarities characteristic to the manuscripts in the region in which
the translations were made.
Lectionaries.
Following the Jewish custom of reading passages from the Old Testament
during the synagogue services, the Christian church instituted readings
from the New Testament for Saturday and Sunday services, as well as other
occasions. For this purpose the biblical text comprising the Gospels and
Epistles was divided into a system of lessons. These reading installments
were called lectionaries. Though scholars are still uncertain as to their
date of origin, it is generally accepted that they preserve a reading
of the New Testament text that is often much older than the actual date
of the lectionary itself.
Citations
by the Church Fathers. Apart from the handwritten copies of the
original Greek New Testament compositions or their translations into regional
languages, there is also a considerable body of citations from, as well
as comments on, the Christian Scriptures by the Church Fathers,the spiritual
leaders of the Christian communities. These patristic (the word comes
from the Latin pater, meaning "father") citations begin with
the second century A.D. The significance of these citations is that they
witness to the particular type of New Testament texts popular in the geographical
regions in which a certain Father lived or traveled.
Writing Materials
and Style
Writing Materials. The earliest known New Testament scriptures
were all written on papyrus, made from the papyrus plant. Today we know
of 41 papyruses belonging to the period up to the third/fourth century A.D.
They have been preserved in the hot, dry sands of Egypt. Papyrus was the
cheapest and most commonly used writing material at the time. In later centuries
parchment-a much more expensive writing material made from the
hides of young goats, sheep, calves, or antelope-came into use
and gradually replaced papyrus.
The earliest parchment manuscript
of the New Testament dates from the second/third century. But the best preserved
and most famous parchments of the Christian Scriptures are the fourth-century
Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.
Parchment as a writing material
for the New Testament documents remained in use until the sixteenth century,
when it gave place to paper, which the Chinese had introduced to the Western
world centuries before.
Style of Writing.
Scholars classify the handwritten copies of the New Testament according
to writing material and style. During the early church period scribes used
one particular type of script for nonliterary and commonplace Greek documents
and another for literary works. The literary compositions utilized a script
called "uncial," which is an abbreviated form meaning "inch-sized." The
early copies of the New Testament were written in this more formal book-hand
style characterized by Greek capitals in which each letter was separate
from the other.
However, this book hand began
to deteriorate, and by the beginning of the ninth century a script of small
letters in a running hand was introduced for the production of books. This
cursive style, called minuscule (meaning "rather small"), coexisted with
the uncial type of script for about two centuries, after which the cursive
replaced the uncial lettering.
Thus the various scripts assist
us in dating the New Testament manuscripts in that copies of the New
Testament up to the eighth century are exclusively uncials, those from the
ninth to the eleventh are partly uncials and partly minuscules, and those
from the eleventh century on are wholly minuscules. In fact, the number
of later minuscules outnumbers the older uncial manuscripts by more than
10 to 1.
So far, then, we have noted that
no autographs of the New Testament writings exist today. The earliest reproductions
of the New Testament consist generally of fragmentary Greek manuscripts,
of versions, lectionaries, and patristic citations in various languages.
All of these were written by hand either on the cheaper papyrus or the more
expensive parchment. The earliest manuscripts were written in the formal
uncial script; whereas the later minuscules are characterized by a cursive
form of handwriting.
With the thousands of handwritten
documents, the New Testament is the best-attested body of writings of antiquity.
Yet in spite of the multitude of copies from many locations, there are no
two manuscripts that are the same word for word. How can this be explained?
We will discuss this issue in our next segment.
Part Two-"Copying
the New Testament"
The original 27 handwritten autographs comprising our present New Testament
are represented by more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts. However, most of
these are fragmentary and preserve only a few verses or books of the New
Testament. Of this number, more than 3,000, made up of uncials and minuscules,[3]
contain an uninterrupted text. Another roughly 2,200 are lectionary manuscripts
in which the New Testament books are divided into separate paragraphs,
arranged according to lesson sequences designed for church worship through
the year. In addition to these witnesses, there are an additional 8,000
or so manuscripts of versions supplemented by a multitude of patristic
citations (quotations from the early leaders of the church).
The New Testament is better
attested by far than any other volume of antiquity, yet despite the large
number of witnesses, no two manuscripts are identical in every detail.
How can this be? The answer lies in the intricate process of copying and
transmission.
With the invention of printing
from movable type in the mid-fifteenth century, it suddenly became possible
to reproduce an unlimited number of identical copies of a text. Prior
to this time, however, scribes had to transmit every document by hand.
And all who have ever tried to copy a lengthy piece of written material
by hand know only too well how easy it is to introduce discrepancies-technically
referred to as "corruptions" or "errors"-into the copy.
As one examines the ancient
manuscripts of the New Testament, one notices a variety of variations-both
unintentional and intentional. Fortunately, however, these do not detract
from the Word of God or from its teachings. In the main, such variants
are well-meaning attempts by copyists to improve the spelling, grammar,
and logical flow of the copies before them.
Accidental
or Unintentional Errors. Most of the variants in the text arose
from purely accidental causes. This is understandable when one
remembers the circumstances under which the manuscripts were reproduced.
A scribe could easily make an error because of faulty eyesight or hearing,
or because he was tired or distracted. Thus the same passage in two manuscripts
may differ because the scribe mistook a letter or an abbreviation, or
even one word for another that looked like it. Such errors could also
result from the illegible handwriting of an earlier copyist.
Easy to Skip
It was easy for the eye of the scribe to pass inadvertently from one word
or group of letters to another similar or identical word or grouping of
letters, particularly if they stood near each other. In the process, the
copyist would accidentally skip over the intervening portion of text between
the two groupings of words, thus dropping a portion of the copy.
This may explain the strange
reading of John 17:15 in Codex, Vaticanus, which omits the words in brackets
from the verse "I do not pray that thou shouldst take them from the [world,
but that thou shouldst keep them from the] evil one." The writer's eye
seems to have skipped from the first set of three Greek words preceding
"world" to the second identical set before "evil one," thus creating a
discrepancy in the text. Numerous variations of this kind of mistake have
occurred.
The reverse problem occurred
when the writer's eye went back from the second to the first group of
words, causing him to accidentally copy the intervening words twice instead
of once only.
Similar Words
Confusion also occurred over different words with the same or similar pronunciation.
For example, the pronunciation of ou and u is virtually
the same in Greek and may account for the different renderings of Revelation
1:5. Thus manuscripts as early as the third/fourth century carry the verb
lusanti ("to free"), whereas much later Greek uncials and most
minuscules-as well as several earlier versions-carry the
verb lousanti ("to wash").
The translators of the King James
Version followed the Greek text based on the latter reading and thus rendered
Revelation 1:5, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our
sins in his own blood. . . ." Other translations (for example,
the Revised Standard Version and the New International Version) render the
text, "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his
blood. . . ."
Deliberate
Changes. Other divergences in wording arose out of a conscious
attempt by scribes to eliminate what they believed were obscurities or problems
in the text they copied. As a result, they smoothed out grammatically or
stylistically harsh constructions by adding or substituting what seemed
more appropriate forms. Other changes were effected in order to clear up
historical and geographical difficulties, or because of doctrinal considerations.
Frequently copyists would endeavor
to iron out differences between similar or parallel passages. In this process,
technically known as "harmonization," the wording of one passage was assimilated
to the differing wording in a parallel passage.
Harmonizations are particularly
frequent in the first three Gospels. Thus the reading of the (chronologically)
earlier manuscripts of Matthew 19:17 ("Why do you ask me about what is good?
One there is who is good.") was enlarged in later manuscripts to agree with
the words of Jesus reported in Mark 10:18 and Luke 18:19. As a result, the
later copies read, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."
The same process is evident in
the Epistles, particularly the letter to the Colossians and the letter to
the Ephesians. Scribes repeatedly introduced into verses of one Epistle
words and phrases that originally belonged to parallel passages in the other.
An example is Colossians 1:14, which in earlier manuscripts reads, "In whom
we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." A few later manuscripts expanded
this passage by adding the words "through his blood," reminiscent of Ephesians
1:7, and thus rendered the verse as it now appears in the King James Version,
"In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."
The better a scribe knew his
Bible, the greater must have been the temptation to harmonize passages of
Scripture in reliance on other similar or parallel passages. Without a doubt,
such changes were all done in good faith.
As copies of the New Testament
documents increased, scribes sometimes faced the difficulty of having before
them two or more manuscripts that rendered the same scriptural passage differently.
What were they to do? Rather than opting for one reading and discarding
the other, thus running the risk of missing the original wording, scribes
tended to combine the various alternatives in the documents that they were
producing. The process of amalgamating originally separate readings is called
"conflation."
Luke 24:53 will serve as an illustration.
Some early witnesses to this passage read that the disciples were "continually
in the temple blessing God," while others note that the disciples
were "continually in the temple praising God." Instead of deciding
for one or the other variant, later scribes just put the two readings together
and thereby constructed a text that reads, as reflected in the King James
Version, "And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing
God."
This tendency to conflate readings,
while already present in the earliest period of text transmission, became
particularly prominent in later centuries. Copyists most probably reasoned
that by copying the various readings the right reading would be preserved.
These additions or changes characteristic of harmonization and
conflation, particularly when the expansion assumes a variety of
forms, are a strong argument for the secondary form of a particular text.
Doctrinal
Divergences. Though the early Church Fathers accused the "heretics"
and even other Christians of altering the Scriptures to support their individual
views, such charges are extremely difficult to assess. While there is some
evidence that scribes sought to alter doctrinally inconvenient or unacceptable
sayings, or to introduce into the manuscripts proofs for theological tenets,
such changes are very rare and generally obvious. They have not compromised
Christian teaching.
For example, one scribe in a
Latin and Gothic translation of the prologue to Luke imitates Acts 15:28
and seeks to argue that when Luke composed the Third Gospel he also had
divine approval. Consequently he expanded the statement in Luke 1:3 ("It
seemed good to me . . . to write an orderly account") by adding
after the word "me" the phrase "and to the Holy Spirit."
We also know Marcion, a "heretic"
of the mid-second century, systematically removed all references to the
Jewish background of Jesus from the Third Gospel. However, no one today
accepts the Marcionite tampering with the biblical text.
Examination of the scribal changes
reveals that the copyists moved toward a more orthodox, conservative position
rather than to theological liberalism. No scribal changes, whether omissions
or additions, have been shown to change any doctrine of Scripture in any
way.
Variants
Caused by Translation. Still other variants arose when the New
Testament writings were translated from the original Greek into various
regional languages. The quality of translation depended on the translator's
knowledge of both Greek and the language into which he was translating-as
well as on the care that he devoted to the task before him. Often further
variants were introduced, compounded by the particular form of the Greek
copy the translator used and the divergences generated by earlier transcriptions.
Development
of Local Text Types
Though the history of the development of the text during the early centuries
of the Christian Era is somewhat hazy and still debated, it appears that
by the fourth century a new era began that saw the various texts of the
New Testament channeled into discrete text types, with distinctive and
recognizable traits.
At least four such text types
have been identified, named for the geographical area from which they
arose and in which they were more prevalent:
1. Alexandrian (associated with Alexandria
in Egypt). Scholars believe that manuscripts that belong to this
group are generally characterized by brevity and austerity. In contrast
to the Byzantine text type, there is little evidence of grammatical and
stylistic polishing. Given the most recently discovered papyruses of this
type, the Alexandrian texts would go back to the early second century
A.D.
2. Byzantine. This text type
is characterized by completeness and lucidity. The scribes who contributed
to this text type endeavored to smooth out any harshness of language.
They also tended to combine two or more separate readings into expansions
of the text (hence conflations). Since the copyists also sought
to eliminate any differences in parallel passages, they produced harmonizations.
Of all the so-called text types
of the New Testament, the Byzantine as a whole is the latest chronologically.
This type of text was largely preserved in the Byzantine Empire, which
continued to use the Greek language after other nations had either limited
or abandoned Greek as a world language.
3.
Western. Though the chronological and geographical origins of
the so-called Western text are disputed, it is generally believed that
it reaches back to the second century and was in evidence from Egypt west
through North Africa to Italy and Gaul (ancient France). The chief characteristic
of this text is described as paraphrase. The freedom with which it makes
additions, omissions, and substitutions is still puzzling to the experts.
4.
Caesarean. The debated "Caesarean" text type is believed to date
from the early part of the third century. It is considered to have affinities
with both the Alexandrian and Western type, and therefore stands somewhat
between the two. Though it is called "Caesarean," it may have originated
in Egypt, from which it was brought to Caesarea by Origen.
While none of these text types
should be seen as monolithic masses or as totally unaffected by other
types, they may be recognized, at least broadly, by certain unique family
likenesses. As already noted, all of them require a great deal more study,
especially the Byzantine, whose text type became popularly accepted and
regarded as the authoritative form of the New Testament.
However, a new, revolutionary
era in the history of the New Testament would begin with the invention
of printing from movable type (ca. A.D. 1450). To this we shall turn
in our next segment.
Part Three-"A
New Era for the Bible"
With
the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg, the era of handwritten
books came to an end. Now an unlimited number of copies of a document
could be reproduced at a rapid rate. The inevitable copying errors, so
characteristic of previous centuries when documents were all transcribed
by hand, could be virtually eliminated. Identical copies of text now came
off the presses. With increased production and resultant reductions in
prices, more and more people could afford to avail themselves of at least
portions of the Scriptures.
The (Latin)
Vulgate a First
In the Western world of the fifteenth century, Latin rather than Greek
was the language of the church. The official Bible was a Latin translation
known as the Vulgate, which for the most part was a product of the fourth-century
biblical scholar Jerome. Since the Vulgate enjoyed such unparalleled prestige,
it comes as no surprise that it became the first Bible to be printed.
Published between A.D. 1450 and 1456, it came to be known as the
Gutenberg Bible.
The Greek
Text of Erasmus
Sixty years went by before the first printing of the New Testament in
the original Greek language. The first to go on the market was that prepared
by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus-in 1516.
Regrettably, several features
marred the remarkable achievement of Erasmus, not the least of which was
the hundreds of typographical errors resulting from the haste of production.
In addition, Erasmus confined himself to only those Greek manuscripts
available to him in Basel-a half-dozen minuscules, all representative
of the Byzantine imperial text, known for its lateness and expansions.
None of the copies Erasmus used dated earlier than the tenth century A.D.
The early papyri and uncials available to us today were, therefore, not
featured in his work.
Moreover, Erasmus relied repeatedly
on the Latin Vulgate. Since the twelfth-century manuscript of Revelation
that he was using lacked the last leaf containing the final six verses
of Revelation 22, he simply translated Revelation 22:16-21 back from the
Latin Vulgate into Greek.
As a result of this heavy dependence
upon the Vulgate, there are words and passages in the Greek text of Erasmus
that are not found in any known Greek manuscript. Based exclusively upon
the Vulgate, these borrowed expressions have been perpetuated in texts
that relied on Erasmus-particularly the form that came to be
known as the textus receptus (received text).
Because of the great demand
for it, however, the first edition of the Erasmus Bible was soon exhausted,
and another edition was called for. This second became the basis of Martin
Luther's German Bible of 1522 and of William Tyndale's 1525 translation
into English.
During the decades following
Erasmus a number of Greek New Testaments were issued. By and large these
texts reproduced the New Testament reflected in the previous editions
of Erasmus, thus perpetuating a text based on a handful of late manuscripts
of the Byzantine imperial tradition. This means that the text of the New
Testament that came to be accepted in the church as standard was that
based not on the earliest available manuscripts, but on later (more recent)
ones.
During the sixteenth century
the greatest influence on the text of the New Testament since Erasmus
was exercised by Robert Estienne (better known by the Latin form of his
name, Stephanus). His third edition of the New Testament, published in
Paris in 1550, was the first Greek New Testament with an apparatus (for
example, a collection of variant readings). Another New Testament published
by Stephanus in Geneva was the first to divide a portion of the Bible
into chapters and verses. However, the text of both the third and fourth
editions of Stephanus was still substantially that of Erasmus.
The King James Version, translated
in A.D. 1611, relied on the editions of Stephanus and on that of
John Calvin's friend and successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza-a
version that also relied heavily on that by Erasmus. This should make
clear that the King James Version of the Bible, based as it is on these
faulty ancestors, should not be made a criterion of orthodoxy.
The Textus
Receptus
Most significant in the seventeenth century among publishers of the Greek
New Testament were Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir. The text they reproduced
was essentially continuous with that of Stephanus and Erasmus. A statement
equivalent to a modern advertising blurb, printed in 1633 in the preface
of their second edition, gave rise to the expression textus receptus.
The statement read, "Therefore,
you now have the text [textum] received [receptum] by
all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted." The textus receptus
did not, therefore, signify that the text printed by the Elzevirs had
in some way been received from God, but rather that it represented a text
that was virtually identical to the other approximately 160 Greek New
Testament editions printed since Erasmus.
The textus receptus became
the dominant text form of the New Testament for another two and a half
centuries, even though it rested on only a few late minuscules, haphazardly
selected, and even though it contained readings unsupported by any known
Greek witnesses. And having achieved such prestige and dominance, it became
the basis for the major translations of the Greek New Testament into our
modern languages, including those in English, down to the nineteenth century.
Toward a More
Accurate Text
For many years any attempt to improve the textus receptus was regarded
as tampering with the Word of God. Slowly, however, change began to come.
And though Greek New Testaments still retained the received text, divergences
in readings were included in lists, technically called an apparatus.
A passion to uncover the most
ancient witnesses in order to reconstruct the purest form of the New Testament
text consumed scholars such as Lobegott Friedrich Konstantin von Tischendorf
(1815-1874). His eighth edition of the New Testament (dated 1869-1872)
contained an apparatus that listed all the manuscript evidence known in
his time from Greek manuscripts, earlier versions, and patristic citations.
However, though Tischendorf's
citations are considered to be total and accurate, he was aware of only
64 uncials, one papyrus, and only a few minuscules. By contrast, we have
today cataloged 257 uncials, 93 papyri, and 2,795 minuscules. This is
evidence of the more accurate knowledge we can now have of the original
documents of the New Testament.
But with the research and publications
of Tischendorf and his immediate predecessors, and with the flood of new
materials that became available in the nineteenth century, a change in
the form of the New Testament text became inevitable. A new era was about
to commence.
A New Era
Dawns
Two Cambridge scholars, Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and Fenton John
Anthony Hort (1828-1892), collaborated in producing the epoch-making work
on the New Testament in the nineteenth century. Building on the analytical
work of scholars before them, and making full use of the material Tischendorf
had provided, these two Englishmen published a monumental Greek text of
the New Testament in 1881, consummating 28 years of research.
They examined each variant
in the New Testament text in an effort to discover the most probable
reading. They examined the relationship of manuscripts to one another,
concluding that the genealogy of the manuscripts is more important
than their number. Thus they encouraged the grouping together of manuscripts
by genealogy or family likeness, proposing several methods by which to
trace such genealogy.
In a related effort to arrive
at the original text, Westcott and Hort suggested that witnesses that
were considered to be trustworthy in clear-cut cases deserve to be given
greater weight even where the evidence was ambiguous. Again, numerical
strength was not as important as genealogy, and these two scholars endorsed
the principle that witnesses to the New Testament text should be weighed
rather than counted.
These principles led them to
make the boldest break with the past yet. Though some previous Greek editions
of the New Testament had somewhat timidly sought to break loose from the
received text, the work of Westcott and Hort ended the long reign of the
textus receptus. Their edition of the Greek New Testament rested on an
application of textual analysis in the evaluation of variant readings,
rather than on a few late miniscules chosen somewhat randomly.
Reaction
Given the centuries-long popular acceptance of the textus receptus, it
was no surprise that churchmen became alarmed that these scholars should
totally reject the claim that the textus receptus was the original text
of the New Testament. Opponents labeled their efforts both bad theology
and bad textual analysis, and called for a Greek text based on the wording
of the majority of the more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts, regardless of
their age or textual quality.
Opposition also came when the
translation committee of the English Revised Version of 1881-1885 adopted
as their underlying Greek text a form that agreed substantially with that
prepared by Westcott and Hort. Similarly, the producers of the American
Revised Version of 1901 relied largely on a text similar to that of the
two British scholars.
Expanding
Knowledge
Further study, research, and discoveries of manuscripts since 1881 have
challenged several of the conclusions of Westcott and Hort. New manuscripts
of the New Testament, especially papyri older than some of the documents
previously available, have surfaced, throwing new light on the New Testament
text.
Nowadays, some scholars believe
the genealogical method has its limitations, and several modern versions
of the New Testament (for example the Revised Standard Version and New
International Version) are more eclectic or selective in their choice
of readings. Consequently, editors pay less attention to questions of
date or families of witnesses and no longer follow one text type slavishly.
Instead they concentrate on individual readings and assess them on their
own individual merits.
A hundred years after Westcott
and Hort, and several editions of New Testament texts later, the major
editions of the Greek New Testament have cut themselves totally loose
from the textus receptus. The reader of a Greek New Testament today faces
what the scholarly and popular press designates the "standard text." This
text is published by the United Bible Societies (which include American,
Scottish, German, Dutch, and British Bible Societies).
By and large, the standard
text is identical to the Greek text associated with the names E. Nestle
and K. Aland, which has dominated the scene for 80 of the past 100
years. But the text of Nestle and Aland was designed primarily for the
textual technician. Thus the standard text came into existence, at least
in part, in response to a more general need felt since the mid-1950s for
a Greek New Testament that would meet the requirements of several hundred
Bible translation committees around the world. It rests on an extensive
and ongoing review of all Greek manuscripts as early as the second century,
of versions, and of the citations of New Testament citations of the Church
Fathers.
Readers of the Greek standard
text will notice that there are omissions of complete verses(4)
or shorter units(5) with which they had been familiar in the
past. These longer or shorter units had been included in virtually every
edition and translation since Erasmus.
Modern language translations
are increasingly adopting the practice of the United Bible Society's text
or that by Nestle and Aland Greek, eliminating verses, phrases, or words
that were inserted into the biblical text under the influence of the Byzantine
textual tradition. This practice has proved troublesome for many who have
come to accept these additions as an integral part of the Word of God,
even though they were introduced into the biblical text simply by well-meaning
copyists. Their removal is considered blasphemy.
We need to remember, however,
that such omissions (or additions) are never vital to Scripture. And if
they were not found in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament,
which themselves were extensively distributed, it is most likely that
these portions were not part of the original New Testament as it came
from the apostles' text. Therefore, their omission now cannot negatively
affect the New Testament text. Moreover, there are often parallel passages
elsewhere in the New Testament, and within the same textual tradition,
that already include the wording omitted in a particular passage. In other
words, the teachings of Scripture have not suffered because of these omissions
or expansions.
Two Important
Questions
First, to what extent do the divergences in the text divide and therefore
diminish the authority of the New Testament? Second, to what degree do
fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith rest on disputed readings?
In response to the first question,
we need to keep in perspective the total picture regarding variants. Significant
variations occur very rarely. Most variants are the result of chance or
normal scribal tendencies. The fact is that the amount of agreement between
editions of the Greek text (particularly those published during the past
century) is far greater than has been suspected. These attempts to approximate
the original wording of the New Testament writings assure us that the
variants in no way jeopardize the overall witness of the New Testament.
As regards the second question,
the variants do not endanger doctrine. Sir Frederic Kenyon, a
former director and librarian of the British Museum, after discussing
variations of the New Testament text, says:
"It is true (and it cannot be too emphatically stated) that none of
the fundamental truths of Christianity rests on passages of which
the genuineness is doubtful. . . . No fundamental doctrine
of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. . . .
It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the
Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament."[6]
The number and variety of witnesses to the New Testament make the New
Testament scriptures the best attested documents of antiquity. Despite
the number of variants, most of which are trivial and devoid of any theological
significance, God's message to humanity is constant and trustworthy. The
substance of the New Testament is certain, and none of the fundamental
truths of Christianity rests on a disputed reading.
Part Four-"The
Proliferation of Bible Versions"
Did Ellen G. White make use of any version of the Bible other than the King
James? Has the Seventh-day Adventist Church ever taken a position on the
question of modern translations?
The first major revision of the
Bible, following the organization of the Adventist Church, was the English
Revised Version, published between 1881 and 1885.
It is significant that during
the 1880s as that version was being introduced to the public, the Review
and Herald issued several articles designed to acquaint its readers
with the progress, reception, and value of the English Revised Version,
as well as its relationship to the King James Version. Generally the articles
were reprints from other journals. However, they also contained favorable
reactions by prominent Adventist writers to this new revision of the Bible.
Adventists, one would assume, were generally comfortable with this version,
the underlying Greek text of which was substantially that prepared by Westcott
and Hort.
After the American Revised Version
was published in 1901, however, lively debate arose over the benefits or
otherwise of this new revision. Finally, on March 20, 1930, the General
Conference Committee took an action relative to the merits of both the King
James Version of 1611 and the American Revised Version of 1901. The decision
of 1930 was confirmed by another General Conference Committee action of
June 1, 1931. It implored the constituency to avoid controversy over the
use of versions. The committee action included the following advice:
The reasonableness and soundness of the General Conference
Committee's action (of March 20, 1930) to the effect that these two
versions (the 1611 King James and the 1901 American Revised) shall
serve us without discrimination are amply seen in the situation which
has developed from this controversy within our ranks. . . .
We further record our conviction that all our workers, ministers, teachers,
authors, editors, and leaders should rigidly refrain from further participation
in this controversy, leaving all free to use the version of their choice.
We also appeal for the sincere
cooperation of all our workers in endeavoring to preserve the unity of
our people.
New Concerns
Spark Deeper Study[7]
Following the publication of the Revised Standard Version from 1946 to
1952, concerns were expressed in the Adventist Church particularly about
the rendition of certain passages that, it was feared, could potentially
affect Adventist doctrine and Adventist prophetic interpretation. In response,
the General Conference appointed a committee, known as the Committee on
Problems in Bible Translation, to study the scriptural passages concerned.
This group submitted its report
to the General Conference Committee in January 1954 and received authority
to publish its findings. Subsequently, another decision was made to expand
the report to include additional material dealing with subjects such as
the biblical manuscripts, versions, problems of translation, and the principles
and problems of biblical interpretation. Finally, Problems in Bible
Translation was issued by the Review and Herald Publishing Association
in 1954.
Problems in Bible
Translation recognizes that Bible translations stand in need of revisions
for a variety of reasons. These include recent discoveries that impact
on our understanding of the biblical world as well as the need to speak
the ever-changing language of the people.
For example, findings in archaeology
after 1870 enriched our understanding of Bible lands and times beyond
anything known previously. The discovery of numerous portions of Scripture
as well as of official papers and letters of ordinary people dating from
Bible times significantly improved our knowledge of the biblical languages.
To this should be added the fact that since the nineteenth century, scholars
were given access to previously unknown ancient and almost complete manuscripts
of the Bible.
These and other factors necessitated
revisions of certain points in Bible translations. The resulting revisions
contributed to more accurate renderings in English and elimination of
words, phrases, or verses that had once been taken for granted as Scripture
but not found in the ancient manuscripts that had recently become available.
Moreover, since living languages
change, later revisions cannot merely repeat the familiar, but sometimes
archaic, words or phrases of earlier translations. Revisions are obliged
to speak the idiom of the day if they are to be relevant to a changing
society. With this in mind, the committee concluded that we should not
expect a final or last-word revision that might exclude other translations.
In the light of the position
taken by the church previously, the Committee on Problems in Bible Translation
saw no need to comment on the merits or demerits of the Revised Standard
Version. The committee recognized it as another version, having as much
value as other Bible translations.
Ellen G. White's
Position
This position on the use of Bible translations by the Adventist Church
comes as no surprise when one reads the writings of Ellen G. White.
She was acquainted with the process of text transmission, and did not
hesitate to use modern language translations. She knew that changes in
wording had been introduced by copyists and translators over the centuries.
To those among her readers who were overly concerned about possible mistakes
in the copies or translations of the Scriptures she responded:
"This is all probable, and the mind that is so narrow that it will
hesitate and stumble over this possibility or probability would be
just as ready to stumble over the mysteries of the Inspired Word,
because their feeble minds cannot see through the purpose of God."[8]
Her own practice was, "I take the Bible just as it is, as the Inspired
Word. I believe its utterances in an entire Bible."[9]
It is significant that Ellen G. White quoted from the English Revised
Version soon after its publication and later also from the American Revised
Version when it became available. She cited from both the text and marginal
readings of the versions and, according to her son, W. C. White,
instructed her literary assistants to quote from these translations whenever
their renderings were preferable.
Apart from the English Revised
Version and the American Revised Version she also used the wording of
several other less known translations. In the publication of The Ministry
of Healing in 1905, Mrs. White employed 10 texts from the English
Revised Version, more than 50 from the American Revised Version, two from
Leeser, four from Noyes, and more than 10 marginal renderings.
By comparison to her use of
the King James Version, her quotations from the other versions were sparing.
Concerned for the older members who were unaccustomed to any but the King
James Version and therefore might be perplexed to hear a different wording,
she advised her son, W. C. White, that it would be better not to
use the Revised Version from the pulpit. She feared that such a practice
might introduce questions into the minds of the hearers as to why the
revisers had changed the biblical text and why these alterations were
being used by the speaker.
It is evident, then, that Ellen G.
White did not hesitate to use versions other than the King James Version.
At the same time she revealed a pastoral concern for those who all their
lives had heard or read only the King James Version and knew nothing about
the transmission of the New Testament. She did not condemn the revisions,
nor did she make the use of the King James Version a criterion of orthodoxy.
Acquainted with the history
of the New Testament text and following the example of Ellen White, the
historic position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been to recognize
value in the various translations and to leave its members free to use
the version of their choice.
While we may be grateful for
these translations designed to meet a variety of needs, the profusion
of versions has also caused some bewilderment. In years gone by, the use
of one version aided memorization and reading of Scripture by the whole
church, whereas the present multiplicity of translations has limited such
practices. One solution to this problem might be for individual churches
to agree on a particular version to employ for public use. Copies of the
designated version could be made available by the churches for their communal
use without inhibiting the use of other translations.
As long as our understanding
of the biblical world changes, and as long as language continues to be
dynamic, we cannot expect a final or exclusive translation of the Scriptures.
The King James Version is one among many translations of God's Word through
which the Lord unfolds His love and purpose for a lost world. The English
versions stand alongside hundreds of translations of the Bible into other
languages through which God shares His message with humanity. Ultimately,
the desire to hear God speak to us is far more important than debates
about which particular English version of the Bible we should use.
______________
[1].
Reprinted from the Adventist Review, September 6, 13, 20, 27, 1990.
[2]. See S. Kubo and W. F. Specht, So Many Versions?
Twentiethth Century English Versions of the Bible, rev. and enl. (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1983).
[3]. Uncial and minuscule are terms
that describe the type of script in which documents of the New Testament
were copied. Uncial describes an early script used in the early
copies of the New Testament, while minuscule represents a much
later script, prevalent from the early ninth century A.D.
[4]. E.g., Matt 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44,
46; 11:26; 15:28; Luke 17:36; 23:17; John 5:3b-4; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:6b-8a;
28:29; Rom 16:24; 1 John 5:7-8a.
[5]. E.g., Matt 5:44; 6:13; Luke 4:4, etc.
[6]. Frederic Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient
Manuscripts, rev. by A. W. Adams (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode,
1958), 49-55.
[7]. For this section I am indebted to the publication
of the Committee on Problems in Bible Translations, Problems in Bible
Translation (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1954).
[8]. Selected Messages, bk. 1, 16.
[9]. Ibid., 17.
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