This article looks at the origins of the Bible, the nature of Jewish and Christian literature outside the Bible, and the history of how certain books were included in scripture. In this article, I can only scratch the surface, but hope to leave you with an overview of the origin and nature of the English Bibles that we often take for granted today.

Such a study can potentially be difficult. My aim is not to challenge your faith, but rather to strengthen your faith in scripture and in the God who is revealed there. I want to be factual and honest about how scripture has been preserved and handed down to us. We should not be afraid to honestly study this information, because an honest faith is strengthened by truth and by struggle. I hope this article helps you better to read and understand the footnotes and marginal notes of your Bibles. This in turn will help you to better understand the passages you are studying.

Languages of the Bible

Languages are not unchanging, but rather change over the years. Just as the English used by Shakespeare is no longer used today, the Greek and Hebrew used in scripture are very different from contemporary forms of those languages. The language of the Bible even differs somewhat from book to book depending on the writer and the time it was written.

Hebrew is the language of most of the Old Testament. It is an ancient language that probably developed out of the language of Abraham’s original home area in Mesopotamia. Hebrew had no vowels, but only consonants, until scribes after the time of Christ added a system of vowels to the language.

Greek, specifically Koine (common) Greek, is the language of the New Testament. It is simpler in many ways from the Classical Greek used by poets and philosophers. It was the language of diplomacy and commerce throughout the Roman world, much as English is today. Almost everyone in the empire knew a little Greek in the first century, and all educated people spoke it fluently.

Aramaic is related to Hebrew and developed while the people of Judah were in Babylonian captivity. The Jews in Palestine spoke Aramaic (sometimes alongside Hebrew) after 500 b.c. Six chapters of Daniel and several other scattered sentences in the Old Testament are in Aramaic, and several of Jesus’ sayings in Aramaic are preserved in the New Testament (such as Matthew 27:46).

The Making of Ancient Books

The art of writing is much older than the books of the Bible. Writing on stone tablets has been discovered from as early as 3500 b.c. Other early writing surfaces included clay, wood, and leather. Our biblical manuscripts have been preserved on two types of surface: papyrus and parchment.

Papyrus was a reedy plant that grew naturally in the Nile delta in Egypt. Strips of the plant were laid together in two layers to form a surface similar to modern paper. These sheets were used individually for short letters or receipts, or were glued together into a long sheet to make a scroll—up to 30 feet long and 9-12 inches high. Later, Christians realized that scrolls were difficult to transport and use, so they developed the codex, in which they bound individual sheets of papyrus in a stack, similar to the way books are bound today.

Parchment or vellum was a great improvement on the older leather writing surfaces. In contrast to these, parchment was not tanned. Rather, it was stretched, stripped of hair and flesh, and rubbed smooth with stone. This technique was perfected by king Eumenes II of Pergamum in modern Turkey (197-158 b.c.), who wanted to build a world class library but had poor relations with Egypt and thus could not get papyrus.

Most of the ancient biblical manuscripts that we have today are on parchment, which has proven to be a much more durable material than papyrus. Many complete and nearly complete copies of the New and Old Testaments are written on this material, some dating as early as the late second century. We also have many papyrus manuscripts, but they are much more fragmentary, since they were found in a much more deteriorated condition.

Today we take books for granted, since they are quickly and easily produced by the thousands using computers and printing presses. But in ancient times, before the invention of the printing press, every copy of every book had to be painstakingly copied word by word from an earlier copy. An entire profession—the scribes—was devoted to the production of manuscripts. Yet this very human process unavoidably yielded mistakes and variations in the manuscripts.

Textual Criticism

We do not have the original copies of any of the biblical books. We do have thousands of manuscripts, all of which are copies of copies of copies. No two of these manuscripts are completely identical. Most of these variations are very small, but a few are larger. We will discuss some of these texts later in the article.

It should be said at the outset that the Bible is by far the best preserved of any ancient book. There are fewer variations in biblical manuscripts than in manuscripts of any other ancient author, from Homer to Bede. Jewish and Christian scribes respected their scriptures and went to a lot of effort to preserve them accurately. Certainly, we can receive the message of God and the means of salvation from any one of the ancient manuscripts. My faith tells me that God’s Spirit had a hand in the unusually good preservation of the text.

How can we determine which manuscript gives the best reading of a given passage? That is the question that scholars try to answer using the science of textual criticism. (The word ‘criticism’ does not indicate condemnation, but rather analysis.)

Textual critics use a number of criteria to evaluate each manuscript’s wording of a given passage. The age of a manuscript is one of the first things they consider. The oldest manuscripts usually provide the best insight into the original wording of a biblical text, since they are closer in time to the original copies. These manuscripts have been discovered in the past 150 years, and have helped bring more precision to more recent translations of the Bible.

Another thing they consider is whether a particular reading can be explained as coming from another reading. For example, if a manuscript variation can be explained by a scribe’s accidentally skipping a line from another reading, then the longer reading is preferred. It should be noted that when a scribe would make a small mistake while copying a manuscript, that mistake would likely be copied into all the later manuscripts that used this manuscript (or one of its descendants) as its master copy. Each succeeding manuscript would contain a few new errors as well as the errors from all the manuscripts it followed.

For this reason, the number of manuscripts that contain a particular reading often has nothing to do with which reading is closest to the original. In fact, with the New Testament, the majority of manuscripts are late manuscripts that have preserved many years worth of copying mistakes.

In addition to copying mistakes, scribes also occasionally made additions, subtractions, and ‘corrections’ to the texts they were copying from. They no doubt had a variety of reasons for doing this, but one of the main motivations for this seems to be improved clarity. Thus textual critics also look for evidence that changes might have been made along these lines.

How do scholars go about finding the best reading of a passage among the many manuscripts at their disposal? The most basic rule of textual criticism, according to Bruce Metzger, is to “choose the reading which best explains the origin of the others.”

Metzger illustrates this principle with an example from relatively recent literature. John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress has a few variations from edition to edition, even though it was written after the invention of the printing press. During the description of the escape from Doubting Castle, “one edition reads ‘The lock went desperately hard’, while another edition reads ‘The lock went damnable hard.’”

Here it is very likely that ‘damnable’ is the original reading. This is because it would be much easier to explain why someone would change a word that at certain times has been considered obscene than to explain why someone would add such a word. The word was not considered obscene in Bunyan’s day, but became so in the 1800s.

The same logic is used in evaluating variant readings in various Greek or Hebrew manuscripts of biblical material. Scribes often would make a change to simplify, to clarify, or to explain. Scribes also occasionally would make changes in a text to make it fit better with their theology or practice, but this type of change is usually detectable.

Here are some principles that textual critics use as they try to find the reading that explains all the other readings. First are external criteria, related to the manuscript itself:

1. In general, earlier manuscripts are more valuable than later manuscripts. The age of manuscripts is determined in several ways. In some cases, the style of handwriting or type of writing surface can give an idea about the date of a manuscript. Later manuscripts are usually dated by the scribe on the cover page. Carbon dating is often also used to help in dating manuscripts.

2. In general, readings that are widely distributed geographically are better readings. In other words, if a particular wording is found on manuscripts from Egypt, Rome, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, then it probably comes from much older manuscripts whose copies managed to spread all over the world.

Internal criteria relate to the contents of the manuscript:

3. In general, the more difficult reading is to be preferred. This difficulty can be theological, grammatical, logical, or any other area in which a scribe might be tempted to simplify or clarify. Rarely would a scribe complicate a simple text.

4. In general, the shorter reading is to be preferred, unless it seems obvious that a scribe has simply omitted material (skipped a word, a line, etc.).

5. In general, the reading whose exact wording is different from passages elsewhere in scripture is to be preferred. This is because a scribe will tend to harmonize texts.

6. In general, the less ‘smooth’ text is probably closer to the original, since scribes would tend to make a text smoother rather than less smooth.

Applying these and other principles of textual criticism is as much an art as a science. The words ‘in general’ must be used with them all because they often conflict with one another in a given passage. For example, a longer reading may also be a ‘more difficult’ reading in some cases.

In cases of minor variation between manuscripts, it is usually more difficult to use these rules with precision. Fortunately, with major variations, there is usually fairly good evidence that points toward the best reading. We will look at some examples as we move forward in the class.

So these principles, while very helpful, do not automatically result in total agreement among all scholars on the best reading of a given passage. This is one reason why our contemporary English Bibles have many footnotes giving alternative readings. While these notes sometimes result from disagreement in the translation committee about how certain Greek or Hebrew words should be translated into English, at other times the issue is which Greek or Hebrew words actually belong in the text. Yet, as I’ve said, most of these differences are very small, and none affect the overall message of scripture.

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The Preservation of the Old Testament

Jewish scribes. As we will see, we have many manuscripts of New Testament books, going back as far as the fourth century, with fragments going back to the second century. In comparison, the witness we have to the Old Testament text seems unimpressive.

The books of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians know as the Old Testament, were originally written between 1200 and 300 b.c. Yet the oldest complete Hebrew Bible we have was copied in 1008 a.d. Fortunately, we have portions of the Old Testament in much older manuscripts, but these portions are small.

Why are the manuscripts of the Old Testament so late, even though the books were written centuries earlier than those of the New Testament? The main reason for this is the Jews’ reverence for their scriptures and their concern for their purity. In the words of Neil Lightfoot, “the Jewish scribes looked upon their copies of the scriptures with an almost superstitious respect, which led them to give a ceremonial burial to any copy which was old or had become worn. Their motive was to prevent the improper use of the material on which the sacred name of God had been inscribed.”

But even though our best Hebrew manuscripts are very late, the quality of the text is extremely good. Jews always had very strict rules about preserving the sacred texts accurately, and their scribes preserved a more uniform text than any other text in the world, including the New Testament. This is especially significant when we consider that the Hebrew language is extremely difficult to write, and many pairs of letters look very similar to one another, leaving an opening for many mistakes.

The Masoretes. Over the centuries, several groups of Jewish scribes and scholars came together with a common interest in preserving the text of the Hebrew Bible. It is through the efforts of these groups that we have the Hebrew Bible in such good condition today. The most important of these groups, the Masoretes, was centered in Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, and came into being about 500 years after Christ.

The Masoretes are perhaps best known for adding vowels to the Hebrew language. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are all consonants. This was fine as long as Hebrew was regularly spoken by people, but once it was a dead language, help was needed to preserve proper pronunciation. Thus the Masoretes developed a system of dots and lines above and below the letters to indicate vowel sounds and accentation.

The Masoretes were also very interested in preventing scribal mistakes as they copied manuscripts. They applied a very intricate system of counting on a recently completed manuscript to check its accuracy:

They numbered the verses, words, and letters of each book. They counted the number of times each letter was used in each book. They noted verses which contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain number of them, etc. They calculated the middle verse, the middle word, and the middle letter of each book (Lightfoot, 55).

In some cases, the Masoretes also preserved accuracy by having different scribes write the consonants, the vowels, and the marginal notes on a given manuscript. In fact, in the golden age of the Masoretic school, scribes would specialize in one or two of these three parts of a manuscript.

For example, in our oldest complete manuscript, the Leningrad Codex, the same man wrote all three parts: Samuel son of Jacob. We know this because he wrote his name on the title page. For the Aleppo Codex, three-fourths of which is preserved, Shelomo son of Buya‘a wrote the consonants, and Aaron son of Asher added the vowel pointing and marginal notes.

We have a number of manuscripts from the Masoretes, and they are remarkably uniform. The careful rules of copying produced a very solid Old Testament text. But other manuscript traditions exist as well.

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Manuscripts of the Old Testament

HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS

MASORETIC TEXT (MT)

All printed editions of the Hebrew Bible use this text as their basis. Unlike some other text traditions, the Masoretic Text is very uniform from copy to copy.

Principal Masoretic Manuscripts:

Leningrad Codex (L) 1008 a.d. This is our oldest complete OT manuscript, now in the St. Petersburg library in Russia.

Clairensus (C) 895 a.d., contains the prophets only.

Aleppo Codex (A) 930 a.d. This manuscript was a complete copy of the OT until anti-Jewish riots in 1947 in Syria (where Aleppo is located) destroyed about one-fourth of the pages.

Petersburg Codex (P) 916 a.d., contains the prophets only.

Ben Asher Manuscripts, two manuscripts produced by the family of Asher around the year 900.

Erfurt Codices (E1, E2, E3), found in Germany dating to the 1300s, 1200s, and 1000s, respectively.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS (QUMRAN)

These scrolls were found in 1947-58 in caves near the Dead Sea. There a radical Jewish sect lived a communal existence in the desert at a place called Qumran. The Qumran sect flourished around the time of Christ, and many of these texts are dated in the century before His birth. Most of these texts are very fragmentary, but the texts that survive there give a witness that is 1,000 years older than the Masoretic Text. In addition to biblical material, many texts about the beliefs of the Qumran community were found. Each Qumran text is numbered by (1) which of the nine caves the scroll was found in, (2) the letter Q for Qumran, (3) the abbreviation of the biblical book, and (4) a letter differentiating it from other texts of the same book.

Principal Qumran Texts:

The Qumran Isaiah scroll (1QIsa^a). This is the most well-known find at Qumran. It is a complete Isaiah scroll, probably written by two scribes with two different master manuscripts. The main difference between the two halves is grammatical usage.

Commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab). This manuscript offers quotations from the first two chapters of Habakkuk, then introduces comments with the phrase ‘this means...’.

Psalm Scroll from Cave 11 (11QPs^a). This manuscript contains 41 of the biblical Psalms and several Greek and Syriac hymns.

Other principal manuscripts: 11QtgJob, 1QIsa^b, 5QDeut, 1QLev, 4QJer^a, 4QJer^b, and others.

THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH

After splitting with the Jews around 200 b.c., the Samaritans began to develop their own text of the first five books of scripture—the only books they deemed authoritative. It now differs from the Masoretic Text in some 6,000 places—most minor variations. It now survives in two manuscripts from the 1100s and 1200s, and many later ones.

OTHER HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS

Nash Papyrus, copied on papyrus rather than parchment, contains the Ten Commandments and portions of the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9). The Ten Commandments are taken partly from Exodus 20 and partly from Deuteronomy 5. The sixth and seventh commandments appear in reverse order. This fragment was probably copied not from a biblical manuscript, but rather from a worship or devotional text. This fragment is dated in the first or second centuries b.c.

Geniza Fragments. Many synagogues had a special, sealed-off room called a geniza where old manuscripts were kept until they could be destroyed. In Cairo, a geniza was apparently forgotten about and was completely walled in during a remodeling project. Archaeologists about 125 years ago uncovered this geniza, which has produced many good manuscript fragments that were intended to be buried centuries earlier. Over 200,000 fragments have been identified from the Cairo Geniza, many of which are biblical materials, most from the years 400-600 a.d. They have a less-developed system of vowel pointing and help to explain several developments in the Masoretic Text.

Wadi Hever Fragments. These fragments, dated at 50 a.d., were found in a ravine and contain fragments of Genesis, Numbers, and Psalms.

Wadi Murabba'at Fragments. Fragments of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and Psalms dated in the 600s.

MANUSCRIPTS IN OTHER LANGUAGES (Versions)

These texts are not in the original Hebrew, but often were translated from an earlier Hebrew text than those we have today. Thus they are useful for comparative purposes.

THE SEPTUAGINT (LXX) Greek

Septuagint is Greek for “seventy” and is abbreviated by the Roman numeral LXX. This name came from the legend that this Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible was done by 72 scholars in 72 days. The quality of this translation differs greatly from book to book, but it was the most commonly used Bible translation during the time of Christ and the early church. Most of the Old Testament quotations in New Testament texts come from the LXX. Since it was translated in about 250 b.c., the LXX is based on an older Hebrew text than we have today. A number of books are much longer in the LXX than in the Masoretic Text.

THE TARGUMS Aramaic

These began as impromptu oral translations in the synagogue from the Hebrew scrolls to the Aramaic language that the people spoke. Gradually, these translations were written down, but they retained their informal, paraphrased character.

THE PESHITTA Syriac

THE OLD LATIN TRANSLATION

THE LATIN VULGATE

Translated by Jerome in the fourth century.

Some Textual Criticism Examples from the Old Testament

Deuteronomy 32:43

A fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4QDeut^a, contains Deuteronomy 32:8 and 32:37-43. Its reading of the passage is longer than the Masoretic Text. The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) translators seem to know the longer version rather than the shorter version, and in fact has two lines in addition to what is found in the Dead Sea fragment. This probably means that the Septuagint translator was working from an earlier Hebrew original that was more similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

4QDeut^a (NRSV)	Masoretic Text (KJV, NIV)	Septuagint/LXX
Rejoice, you heavens, with him; And bow before him, all you gods. For he avenges the blood of his sons, and takes vengeance on his adversaries, He repays those who hate him, and atones for the land of his people.	Praise, O nations, his people; For he avenges the blood of his servants, and takes vengeance on his adversaries, and atones for his land, his people.	Rejoice, you heavens, with him; and let the angels of God worship him. Rejoice, you nations, with all his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him. For he will avenge the blood of his sons and will take vengeance and render justice on his enemies. And will repay those who hate him, and the Lord shall purge the land of his people.

Job 2:9

Here the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, has a much longer reading than the standard Masoretic text. Although some of this additional material may reflect embellishment by a scribe, some may be closer to the original.

Masoretic Text (KJV, NIV, NRSV)

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Bless* God and die.”

*Most scholars assert that the word for ‘bless’ here is a sarcastic way for Job’s wife to say ‘curse’. This also occurs in a couple of other passages.

Septuagint/LXX

And when much time had passed, his wife said to him, “How long will you hold fast your integrity, saying, ‘See, I wait a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance’? Look, your name is abolished from the earth, as well as your sons’ and your daughters’, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows. And you yourself sit down to spend the nights in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting of the sun, that I may rest from my labors and pangs which now beset me. So say some word against the Lord, and die.”

The Preservation of the New Testament

The New Testament manuscripts known today are more numerous, and older, than those of the Old Testament. Approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts have been discovered, along with hundreds of manuscripts in other languages and quotations in other literature. With so many manuscripts, there is, not surprisingly, significant variation. The vast majority of these variants are very minor, but a few involve entire sections that are added or deleted from the text.

Even though our manuscripts are numerous, there are relatively few very early manuscripts. This is partly the result of the Decian persecution (around the year 250), the last major imperial persecution of Christians in the Roman empire. During this persecution, imperial troops made a special effort to destroy all manuscripts containing Christian literature.

Handwriting styles. Before the year 800 a.d., two types of handwriting were commonly used in the Greek language. For everyday documents such as letters, receipts, deeds, and so forth, a cursive style was used, with letters running together and many abbreviations used. Literary works, on the other hand, were written in a more formal uncial handwriting. Here the text was printed, with each letter separated from the others. Uncials were written entirely in capital letters, with no punctuation or even spacing between words.

Over time, the uncial style deteriorated into a clumsy and hard-to-read script. Around the year 800, a reform in handwriting was initiated, and a new style was created for the production of books. Known today as minuscule, this style features smaller letters connected with a running hand. This modification of the cursive style quickly became popular with scribes because it was easier to write and saved paper.

Thus we have two basic types of handwriting in our biblical manuscripts: the early manuscripts are uncials, while the later ones are minuscules. Uncial script occasionally causes ambiguity in certain texts, since there is no way to tell when one word (or sentence, or paragraph) begins and another ends.

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Manuscripts of the New Testament

GREEK MANUSCRPTS

PAPYRI

Our oldest witnesses to the books of the New Testament come from papyrus manuscripts, most of which are very fragmentary. Most of these manuscripts have been discovered in the past 100 years, and have shed much light on the text of the New Testament. Papyrus manuscripts are abbreviated by the letter ‘p’ in the Old English typeface. Two of the most important collections of papyri were discovered in 1930-31 by Sir Chester Beatty, and in 1955-56 by M. Martin Bodmer. Our papyrus manuscripts are written in uncial script.

p⁴⁵ (200-250 a.d.). This papyrus, a part of the Beatty collection, contains portions of 30 leaves of a 200-leaf edition of the gospels and Acts. What remains today is mostly from Mark, Luke, and Acts.

p⁴⁶ (c. 200). This Beatty papyrus preserves 86 slightly mutilated leaves of a 104-leaf codex ten NT letters. Included are the book of Hebrews and all of Paul’s letters except those to Timothy and Titus. No pages remain from 1-2 Thessalonians, but they were probably included on the missing pages.

p⁴⁷ (250-300). This Beatty papyrus preserves 10 pages from the middle of the book of Revelation, covering 9:10-17:2.

p⁵² (100-150). This tiny fragment is the oldest New Testament fragment that we know of today. Measuring 2½ by 3½ inches, it contains a few verses from John’s gospel (13:31-33, 37-38). In 1920, Bernard P. Grenfell acquired this fragment in Egypt along with hundreds of other fragments from a variety of literary works. He later donated his fragment collection to the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England. There p⁵² remained unnoticed until 1934, when C. H. Roberts was sorting through these manuscripts and recognized this one as a fragment from the Fourth Gospel.

Prior to the publication of p⁵², many scholars were asserting that the Fourth Gospel was written during the second century, perhaps as late as 160. This fragment proves that it was written much earlier, early enough that it had time to be transmitted from Ephesus to Egypt by the early second century. Scholars now date John’s Gospel in the 90s.

p⁶⁶ (125-200). This manuscript, also known as Bodmer Papyrus II, preserves 104 pages comprising most of John’s gospel (1:1-6:11, 6:35b-14:15). Other fragments from this manuscript preserve small parts of the rest of the book. This is the oldest manuscript preserving a substantial portion of a NT book.

p⁷² (200s). This manuscript contains the oldest known copy of the letters of Peter and Jude, along with Psalms 33-34 and some extrabiblical Jewish and Christian writings.

p⁷⁵ (175-225). This manuscript contains the gospels of Luke and John, and 102 of the 144 pages have survived at least in part.

VELLUM UNCIALS

Our earliest vellum manuscripts are written in uncial script. These manuscripts are the oldest complete and near-complete copies of the entire New Testament. Until the publication of the papyri during this century, these were our best manuscripts, and printed editions of the Greek New Testament still rely heavily on these manuscripts. Vellum uncials are abbreviated using Hebrew, Greek, and European letters.

!—Sinaiticus (300s). This manuscript was discovered in 1844 by Constantin von Tischendorf in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. It was a complete copy of the Old and New Testaments in Greek. Some of the Old Testament has been lost, but the entire New testament is extant. It uses as its abbreviation the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph.

Tischendorf was in the Near East in search of biblical manuscripts when he came to St. Catherine’s in 1844. There “he chanced to see some leaves of parchment in a waste-basket full of papers destined to light the oven of the monastery. On examination these proved to be a copy of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, written in early Greek uncial script. He retrieved from the basket no fewer than 43 such leaves, and the monk casually remarked that two basket loads of similarly discarded leaves had already been burned up! Later, when Tischendorf was shown other portions of the same codex . . . , he warned the monks that such things were too valuable to be used to stoke their fires” (Metzger, 43). Tischendorf took the 43 discarded leaves back to Europe.

In 1853, Tischendorf returned, but learned nothing more about the manuscript. In 1859, he visited again, and this time was able to look at the manuscript. He saw that the complete New Testament was extant, along with two additional Christian works. But the monks would not allow Tischendorf to buy or borrow the manuscript to study it in detail. Finally, in Cairo, Tischendorf was allowed to transcribe the manuscript. In time, he convinced the monks to donate the manuscript to the Czar of Russia.

A—Alexandrinus (400s). This manuscript contains most of the Old Testament and most of the New Testament. In 1627, 16 years after the translation of the King James Version, this manuscript was presented to King Charles I of England by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople. Its wording comes from two different families of texts, indicating that the scribe probably used a different original for the gospels from that of the rest of the NT.

B—Vaticanus (mid-300s). As its name suggests, this manuscript is in the Vatican Library in Rome, and has been there since before 1475, when it was listed in the library’s archives. Unfortunately, authorities at the Vatican did not allow scholars to study it until it was finally published in 1889-90. This manuscript originally contained all of the Old and New Testaments and most of the Apocrypha. Today, the manuscript is missing its beginning pages (Genesis 1-46), its final pages (Hebrews 9:14-13:25, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation), and 30 Psalms from the middle of the codex.

Metzger says, “The writing is in small and delicate uncials, perfectly simple and unadorned. Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing has been spoiled by a later corrector, who traced over every letter afresh, omitting only those letters and words which he believed to be incorrect” (47).

C—Ephraemi (400s). This manuscript was erased during the 1100s and rewritten with a Greek translation of 38 sermons by St. Ephraem, a Syrian church leader in the 300s. Using chemical reagents, Tischendorf was able to restore the original text. Today 64 leaves of the Old Testament text and 145 leaves of the New Testament remain, containing portions of every NT book except 2 Thessalonians and 2 John. The manuscript contains both the Greek text and a Latin translation in parallel columns. At least two later scribes have made corrections to this manuscript.

D—Bezae (400s or 500s). This manuscript was presented in 1581 to the library at Cambridge University by Theodore Beza, a French scholar who succeeded John Calvin as the leader of the church in Geneva. This manuscript contains most of the text of the four gospels and Acts, and a small fragment of 3 John. Like Ephraemi, this text has parallel columns of Greek and Latin.

Bezae is quite different in some places from most of our other uncial manuscripts; but many of the later, minuscule manuscripts preserve readings similar to Bezae. These differences are most numerous and apparent in the book of Acts. Bezae’s version of Acts is 10% longer than that of the other uncials.

D^p—Claromontanus (500s). This manuscript contains the letters of Paul and the book of Hebrews. It too contains Greek and Latin in parallel columns. It carries the same abbreviation as Bezae because its readings are similar to Bezae, and Bezae does not contain these books.

W—Washingtonius (350-450). This manuscript, at the Freer Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is a complete text of the four gospels with different portions reflecting different text types. Most interesting is its lengthy addition after Mark 16:14.

T—Borgianus (400s). This fragment preserves 179 verses from Luke 22-23 and John 6-8.

N—Purpureus Petropolitanus (500s). About 182 leaves of this 462 page manuscript of the gospels remain. It was written in silver ink on purple parchment, with the names of God and Jesus written in gold.

H^p—Coislinianus (500s). Paul’s letters written in very large handwriting.

O—Sinopensis (500s). Matthew’s gospel in gold ink on purple vellum.

I—Washington Pauline Manuscript (400-600). 84 pages of an approximately 210 page edition of Paul’s letters.

P^apr—Porphyrianus (800s). One of the few uncials to contain the book of Revelation. Also includes portions of the book of Acts, the book of Hebrews, and the letters of Paul, Peter, James, and Jude.

E—Rossanensis (500s). A manuscript of Matthew and Mark, and the earliest known manuscript to feature watercolor illustrations—seventeen in all.

Uncials written 700-1000—E, E^a, E^p, F, F^p, G, G^p, H, H^a, K, K^ap, L, L^ap, M, R, S, S^ap, V, X, Z, ), 1, 7, =, A, M, Q, S.

MINUSCULES

Over 2,800 New Testament minuscules are now available. Because of their late date (800-1600), these manuscripts are more important for comparison than for finding original readings. Many of these manuscripts are highly ornamented. Minuscules are identified by a one- to four-digit number.

CHURCH FATHERS

The early leaders of the church (100-450) quoted from New Testament works often in their own writings. Some wrote in Greek, some in Latin, and a few in other languages. Scholars look at these quotes for comparison with various manuscript traditions, and by doing so can often determine the approximate age or geographic location of certain readings.

LECTIONARIES

A lectionary is a schedule of which scriptures are to be read in public worship each week. Over time, these readings were written in their entirety in their weekly sequence. Ancient lectionaries in several languages are available today, and are useful for comparison on the passages they preserve.

MANUSCRIPTS IN OTHER LANGUAGES (Versions)

SYRIAC

Syriac was the language of Syria and Mesopotamia. Two manuscripts exist from the Old Syriac translation, done in the 300s. There are 350 copies of the Peshitta translation of the 400s, and three copies of the Palestinian Syriac translation of the 1000s.

LATIN

Latin was the language of Rome. Many versions in Old Latin circulated in Africa and Europe almost from the beginning. In 384, Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate to be used as a standard for the Roman church. Its influence was felt as late as the King James Version. Church fathers also wrote in Latin.

OTHER LANGUAGES

Coptic (the language of Egypt), Georgian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Armenian, and others.

Some New Testament Examples

Acts 8:37

This verse, which describes the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, is absent from almost all manuscripts, yet it found its way into the King James Version, and thus into the English Bible tradition.

Witnesses containing this verse: E^a (700s), minuscule 629, several late minuscules, and a few copies of the Latin Vulgate.

Witnesses without this verse: p⁴⁵ (200s), ! (300s), A (400s), B (300s), C (400s), 33, 81, 614, p⁷⁴, 049, 0142, 81, 88, 104, 181, 326, 330, 436, 451, 614, 1241, 1505, 2127, 2412, 2492, 2495, Syriac versions, Coptic versions, Ethiopic versions, and most copies of the Latin Vulgate

John 7:53-8:11

This touching story of Jesus probably circulated separately from the written gospels for a number of years before being included in John’s gospel (or, in a few manuscripts, Luke’s gospel).

Witnesses containing this story: D (400-600), E (700s), F (800s), G (900s), H (900s), K (900s), K^ap (900), N (800s), 28, 700, 902, 1, 565, 1076, 1570, 1582, and some copies of the Armenian version.

Witnesses without this story: p⁶⁶ (150-200), p⁷⁵ (175-225), ! (300s), B (300s), L (700s), N (500s), T (400s), W (400s), X (900s), ) (800s), 1 (800s), Q (800s); minuscules 0141, 0211, 22, 33, 124, 157, 209, 788, 828, 1230, 1241, 1242, 1253, 2193, and others. Versions in Old Syriac, Old Georgian, Armenian (some copies), Ethiopic, Gothic, and Old Latin.

Early uncials A and C probably lacked this story as well. They are both defective in this part of John, but there would not have been room for 7:53-8:11 on the missing pages.

No church fathers mention this story until Euthymius Zigabenus in the 1100s.

Mark 16:9-20

This conclusion to Mark’s gospel seems mostly adapted from material from other gospels. It probably did not come from the same writer as the rest of the gospel. Some manuscripts end the gospel with 16:8, others add a ‘shorter ending’ of just one verse, and others add verses 9-20. Codex Washingtonius (W) adds all of verses 9-20 plus an interesting further passage after verse 14, a passage known to the Latin translator Jerome, although it finds its way into no other manuscripts.

Witnesses containing all these verses (the ‘longer ending’): A (400s), C (400s), D (400-600), K (800s), L (700s), W* (350-450), X (800s), ) (800s), 1 (800s), A (800s), Q (800s), 28, 33, 374, 565, 700, 892, 1009, 1010, 1071, 1079, 1195, 1230, 1242, 1253, 1344, 1365, 1546, 1646, 2148, 2174. Versions in Latin (Vulgate), Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic. Church fathers Iranaeus, Tertullian, Aphraates, Didymus. Several of these manuscripts put asteriks around this passage, indicating that it is questionable.

Witnesses with the ‘shorter ending’ (see below): L (700s), Q (700s), 099, 0112, 274, 579. Some copies of versions in Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopic. (Most of these contain also the longer ending.)

Witnesses ending at verse 8: ! (300s), B (300s), 304. Versions in Syriac, Coptic, Old Latin, Armenian, and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts. Church fathers Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Ammonius, Victor of Antioch, and Euthymius

Text of the ‘Shorter Ending’: And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.

Text of Codex Washingtonius’ addition (after v. 14): And they excused themselves, saying, “This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and the power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits. Therefore reveal your righteousness now”—they said this to Christ. And Christ replied to them, “The term of Satan’s power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was delivered over to death, that they might return to the truth and sin no more; that they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness which is in heaven.”

1 John 5:7-8

In this passage, the King James Version reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And there are three that witness on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” However, the first sentence is found in virtually no manuscripts except later manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate.

Since the other sentence in this text mentions three witnesses, scribes probably saw this as referring to the Trinity, and may have written the extra sentence first as a marginal note in the Latin text. A couple of later scribes then incorporated this sentence into the text.

When Erasmus published the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, it lacked this sentence, to many people’s dismay. He then stated that if the Comma Johanneum (as this sentence was called) was found in a single Greek manuscript, he would include it in his next edition. Thus a scribe made a new manuscript containing these words, one of only four to do so!

Manuscripts containing this sentence: 61 (1500s), 88 (1100s), 629 (1300s), 635 (1000s), and later copies (after 1000) of the Latin Vulgate. On manuscripts 88 and 635, the sentence is not in the main text, but was added in the margin by later scribes in the 1500s and 1600s. These manuscripts seem to translate the sentence from later versions of the Latin Vulgate.

Witnesses not containing this sentence: !, A, B, K, P, Q, 048, 049, 056, 0142, 33, 81, 88, 104, 181, 326, 330, 436, 451, 614, 630, 845, 1241, 1505, 1739, 1877, 1881, 2127, 2412, 2492, 2495. Versions in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic. Church Fathers Iranaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian, Dionysius, Hilary, Athanasius, Basil, Faustinius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose, Didymus, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Cyril.

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How Books Were Chosen for the Bible

This is perhaps the most uncomfortable topic that we will cover in this series. For many, the Bible has always been readily available in its present form, and our only dilemma has been which English translation to use. It is easy to assume that it has always been that way—that the writers of the biblical books wrote their works for the express purpose of including them in a book called the Bible.

This assumption, of course, is not a good one. Most of the books of scripture were written to deal with specific situations at specific places. These works then began to be shared among churches, and over time began to be regarded as having authority for the church at large. The Old and New Testaments as we know them are the result of centuries of debate and transition in the church and, in the case of the Old Testament, in Judaism as well. This process is known as canonization, and was not complete until the last half of the fourth century a.d.

The word ‘canon’ comes from a Greek term that usually denotes a ruler or measuring rod. Over time, the word came also to be used to indicate a rule or norm of faith in a number of religions. Finally, the word came to refer to a specific set of writings that hold authority with a given group of people.

I want to affirm at the outset my faith that the Holy Spirit of God was intimately involved in this process. When we speak of the inspiration of scripture, we usually think of the writing process, and speculate about how the Spirit might have guided the biblical authors as they wrote. But if the writing process is inspired and the process of canonization is not, our likelihood of having the correct, inspired works in our Bibles is very remote. Human beings are simply not capable of making such decisions with full discernment. Yet my faith tells me that God gave His people what they need by involving His Spirit in the process of canonization.

The Jewish Canon

The development of the Jewish canon of the Old Testament scriptures is partly hidden to us today, due to a lack of historical sources, yet it is important to us because the earliest Christians inherited the Jewish canon—though they well may have made some adjustments, as we will see below.

The Masoretic Text of the OT (700-1200 a.d.) is divided into three parts. The books of Law and several other books are named according to the first word of the book. Although the books are the same as today’s 39 OT books, several of the books are combined. Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are each combined to make a single book, and the Minor Prophets are combined into the Book of the Twelve. Thus the Masoretic canon had a total of 25 books:

LAW	PROPHETS	WRITINGS
In the Beginning (Genesis) These Are the Names (Exodus) And He Called (Leviticus) In the Wilderness (Numbers) These Are the Words (Deuteronomy)	Joshua Judges Samuel (1-2) Kings (1-2) Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Book of the Twelve	Psalms Job Proverbs Ruth Song of Songs Teacher (Ecclesiastes) How? (Lamentations) Esther Daniel Ezra Nehemiah Chronicles (1-2)

Yet these books were not the only books to be considered sacred by segments of the Jewish community, and some of the books in the Masoretic canon were disputed by some Jews.

These differences were not too important to people until after 70 a.d., when the temple was destroyed and the Jewish community was trying to re-define itself. It was then that the idea of a fixed canon became popular. Before this, Jews had a general idea that some writings were sacred, but fewer definite ideas about exactly which writings belonged in the canon. The books of Law were considered authoritative from the beginning, and even more so after the Babylonian captivity (586-536 b.c.). The Prophets seem to have achieved canonical status in the minds of Jews 200-300 years before Christ. The Writings had always been considered helpful and inspirational, but probably were not equated with scripture minds until after 100 b.c.

One major problem that the Jews faced as they began to define their canon was the status of the Apocrypha. These books were written mostly in Greek during the time we now call the ‘intertestamental period’, and were included in the Septuagint (Greek) version of the OT—although some or all of them were added after the original translation was made.

Some Jews believed that prophecy ceased at the time of King Artaxerxes of Persia, and thus that any book written after that time could not be a part of scripture. Others revered books such as 1-2 Maccabees, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, and others on a par with the rest of the OT. Gradually, these books lost favor with the Jews, partly because they were not written in Hebrew.

The radical sects of Judaism probably had a somewhat different canon from that of the mainstream establishment. The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve much extrabiblical literature, but it is not completely clear which of these, if any, were considered to have the authority of scripture. John the Baptist probably lived in such a community, and it is possible that Jesus did in the years before His public ministry.

A number of Jewish writings mention the threefold division of the canon (Law, Prophets, Writings), and some others mention the number of books in the canon (either 22 or 24, according to these sources). But since they do not list the specific books, we cannot determine for sure whether the canons of these specific writers is uniform. Jesus mentions the “Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44) in the only mention of the threefold division that we find in the NT. The books of Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Esther were the subject of many doubts among Jews between 70 and 300 a.d. The Jewish canon apparently was finalized very gradually in a process that probably did not end until after 350 a.d.

The Christian Canon of the Old Testament

It is impossible to know for sure which books were a part of the canon that Jesus knew. It seems that the canon was still quite fluid at the time, and that in many people’s minds, the distinction between biblical books and other religious literature was blurred. The Christian community inherited the struggles of the Jews as they began to assemble an OT canon. Our current OT books receive the lion’s share of quotations and allusions from NT writers, but scholars are identifying more and more NT illusions to literature outside the Bible. The writer of Jude, for example, quotes from 1 Enoch, a book not even included in the Apocrypha.

The church recorded its development of the OT canon in more detail than the Jewish community did. Many writers made lists of which books they considered authoritative. Here is a summary of that evidence:

Eastern Church

Peshitta (Syriac transl. of scripture)—Our OT books except for 1-2 Chronicles

Justin Martyr (164 a.d.) —Our OT books

Melito of Sardis (170) —Our OT books except Esther

Origen (died 254) —Our OT books

Canon of Laodicea (363) —Our OT books

Athanasius (died 365) —Our OT books except Esther, plus Baruch & Epistle of Jeremiah

Amphilochius (380) —Our OT books (a note says Esther is received only by some)

Cyril of Jerusalem (died 386) —Our OT books plus Baruch & Epistle of Jeremiah

Gregory of Nazianzus (died 390) —Our OT books except Esther

Theodore of Mopsuestia (died 457) —Our OT books except 1-2 Chron, Job, Ezra, Neh., Esther

Western Church

Tertullian (died 230) —Our OT book

Hilary of France (died 368) —Our OT books plus Epistle of Jeremiah

Council of Carthage (397) —Our OT books plus the entire Apocrypha

Rufinias of Italy (died 410) —Our OT books

Augustine (died 430) —Our OT books plus the entire Apocrypha

Martin Luther (1500s)—the first to place the Apocrypha between the OT and the NT

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The New Testament Canon

The writers of the books of the NT very likely did not know their books would wind up in scripture. Rather, each writer wrote his book to address a specific situation in a specific church or churches. But churches that received letters from leaders such as Paul or Peter preserved those letters, copied them, and began to share them with other congregations (see Col. 4:16). Over time, collections of books began to be circulated, probably beginning with the letters of Paul (see 2 Peter 3:16). Later, the four gospels were put in a single book; today we have more manuscripts of gospel volumes than of any other part of scripture.

For a number of years, different sets of books were available in different regions (though there was some overlap). Gradually, the 27 books of our NT became universally available, and in the last half of the fourth century, the NT canon was completed and ‘closed’.

Marcion (144 a.d.), whom the church condemned as a heretic, accepted only parts of Luke and 10 of Paul’s letters, excluding 1-2 Timothy and Titus.

Montanus (160), also condemned as a heretic, accepted all of our NT plus the ‘prophecies’ of Montanus, Prisca, and Maxmilla—all written in the 2nd century.

Iranaeus (180) accepted all of our NT except Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude; and added a book called the Shepherd of Hermas.

The Muratorian Fragment, by an unknown writer and dated around 200, lists all of our NT except Hebrews, 1-2-3 John, and James; and adds the Apocalypse of Peter.

Tertullian (200), writing in Africa, accepted all of our NT except Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter.

Origen (250), writing in Egypt, divided the books into three groups:

Acknowledged Books—books that everyone at his time considered to be scripture:

4 gospels, Acts, 13 letters of Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation

Debated Books—books accepted by only some Christians:

2 Peter, 2-3 John, Hebrews, James, Jude, Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Epistle of Barnabas

False Books—books accepted by no orthodox Christians

Eusebius (325), a historian writing in Palestine, used a similar division:

Acknowledged—4 gospels, Acts, 13 letters of Paul, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Jude

Disputed but Accepted by Eusebius—James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Revelation

Disputed and Not Accepted by Eusebius—

Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Epistle of Barnabas

Heretical Books

Athanasius of Alexandria (367) wrote an Easter letter declaring that the 27 books of our NT were not to be added to or taken from. This settled the matter for the Eastern church.

Jerome (384) translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), including our 27 books in his NT. This settled the matter for the Western church.

The Third Council of Carthage (397) officially declared our 27 NT books as the only authoritative books among Christian literature.

More on the Early Christian Canon

The first NT book to be written was a letter of Paul—probably either Galatians or 1 Thessalonians, written in the late 40s. This means that the church went through its first 15-20 years before any of these books were composed. By the time the last NT book was written, the church had existed for at least 60 years.

The Old Testament. What did the churches use in their proclamation before the canon was completed? From the beginning, especially among Jewish Christians, there was a great deal of reverence for the scriptures of the Old Testament. It seems that they particularly liked the prophetic books, in which they saw a foreshadowing of the life of Jesus. NT writers refer to or quote from the OT in hundreds of cases, and a good number of those allusions are to two books: Isaiah and Psalms. According to Andrew E. Hill, each of these books receives over 400 citations in NT books. Thus the OT and its fulfillment in the person Jesus was an important part of the early church’s identity.

Moses’ law posed a bigger problem for early Christians, for it seemed to many to be so opposite to the gospel of grace revealed by Jesus. Different individuals and churches dealt with this problem in different ways. Lee McDonald lists several of these ways (137-38):

(1) Ignoring or denying vast portions of the law.

(2) Allegorizing the legal codes to bring them into harmony with the teachings of

Jesus.

(3) Emphasizing the faith principle that preceded the law (as Paul did in Gal 3-4

and Rom 4).

(4) Rejecting the whole of the OT as Marcion did.

(5) Redefining the meaning of Law as did Justin and others after him.

Oral traditions. While the OT was considered sacred by the earliest Christians, even more reverence and authority was accorded to a body of material that was not yet written: the sayings and teachings of Jesus. These were shared by word of mouth from church to church, and were the most authoritative material in the church.

These sayings, along with the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, were probably written down quite early. For example, there is a body of material that is common to Matthew and Luke, but not found in Mark. This material, known by scholars as the “Q” material, probably was written sometime before the NT gospels were written. The writers of the NT gospels likely gathered much of their material from these oral and written sources.

Even when the NT gospels were written, the story of Jesus spread orally as much or more than it spread in writing. Papias, writing somewhere around 120-140 a.d., stated his belief that even then, he preferred oral tradition: “For I did not suppose that information from books would help me so much as the word of a living and surviving voice.”

The idea of a NT canon. During the second century, the idea that the church should have a specific, authoritative body of Christian literature (a canon) came very gradually. In the early part of that century (100-150), Christian writers quote a number of times from the gospels, and seem to revere these words above other writings. The Epistle of Barnabas, written between 90 and 130 by an unknown author, introduces a quotation of Matt. 22:14 with the phrase “as it is written.” A book called 2 Clement refers to “the books and the Apostles”—probably referring to the OT and the NT. Polycarp refers to Eph. 4:26 and calls it ‘scripture’.

Marcion’s heresy. Later in the second century, the idea that a fixed body of literature should be selected to establish correct doctrine became more common. It was spurred partly by the teachings of Marcion (d. 160), who believed that the Christian gospel is totally antithetical to Judaism and OT faith. The law of love, he believed, had completely defeated the law of Moses. Marcion did not see any of the OT as scripture, and only accepted portions of Luke’s gospel and parts of 10 of Paul’s letters in the NT. From these books he deleted any positive reference to Judaism or its customs. Although his canon is much different from ours, Marcion is the first writer to make a specific list of canonical NT books.

A closed canon. Marcion’s teachings caused great turmoil in the churches for a number of years. Justin Martyr (c. 160) wrote a defense of the OT as scripture. He also accepted the gospels as authoritative, calling them the “memoirs of the apostles.” Iranaeus went another step and proposed a ‘closed’ NT canon to which nothing could be added (p. 16).

Irenaeus’ concept gained acceptance in the church just in time to defeat the “New Prophecies” of Montanus and his followers in the last part of the second century. Writing around 200, Tertullian condemned both Marcion and Montanus and defined a NT canon that included most of our NT books.

When the emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion around 325, he had a great interest in uniformity of the Christian church across the empire. This included, of course, a standard canon for the universal church. In the last half of the fourth century, through Constantine’s influence, church leaders in the West, the East, and in Africa put together the 27-book canon we have today.

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Books That Almost Made It

THE OLD TESTAMENT

The books that almost made it into the OT are a part of the Apocrypha, which is found between the OT and the NT in some editions of the English Bible. These books are found in the Greek OT but not the Hebrew OT, and influenced the thought of Jesus’ contemporaries even if they were not considered canonical. Today, they are considered as secondary canon (deuterocanonical) by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

1-2 Maccabees is a historical book that describes the Maccabean rebellion of 168-166 b.c. and the events surrounding it. During this period, Jews briefly gained independence from imperial rule.

3-4-5 Maccabees. 4-5 Maccabees are not considered a part of the canon by any Christian or Jewish sect; 3 Maccabees is accepted as deuterocanonical by the Eastern Orthodox churches. 3 Maccabees supposedly describes events around 217 a.d. 4 Maccabees uses Maccabean heroes to illustrate Stoic philosophical principles.

Psalm 151, a song attributed to King David, describes David’s relationship with his brothers and his defeat of the Philistines.

Tobit is a parable about two families: the family of Tobit and the family of his cousin Raguel. Tobit’s life illustrates a religious lifestyle for Jews living in non-Jewish areas after the exile.

Judith describes events that supposedly occurred during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. In a westward expansion, the king meets at the fictitious town of Bethulia a pious widow named Judith, who is armed with nothing but prayer. She charms the king’s commander and kills him before he can conquer the city.

Additions to Esther. The Greek version of Esther is significantly longer than the Hebrew version found in our Bibles, and contains six additions to the Hebrew story. These include a dream by Mordecai, the text of a letter written by the king in ch. 3, prayers by Mordecai and Esther, and a decree by Artaxerxes.

Wisdom of Solomon. This is a book of proverbs attributed to Solomon but written much later, probably around 100 b.c.

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus). The full name of this book is The Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sira. It is an instruction book for aristocratic male children, emphasizing good citizenship and maintaining the status quo.

Baruch is a book describing the final years of the Babylonian Captivity. It contains many types of material: narrative, wisdom, lament, and poetry of comfort.

Epistle of Jeremiah. This letter was supposedly written by Jeremiah to the captives being deported to Babylon. It warns of the dangers of idolatry and apostasy.

Additions to Daniel. Added to the book of Daniel in the Greek Septuagint are the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews (both inserted after Daniel 3:23) and the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon (added at the end of the book).

1-2 Esdras. Also called 3-4-5-6 Ezra, these books expand the story found in Ezra-Nehemiah, importing some material from 2 Chronicles.

Prayer of Manasseh is a devotional piece attributed to Joseph’s son Manasseh.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

Didache (75-125). The full name is “The Teaching of the Lord Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations.” It is an instructional manual on how to perform the various activities of the church, including public worship.

Shepherd of Hermas (90-150), a book of visions similar to the NT book of Revelation. Its main theme is that sinners always have an opportunity to repent and return to God.

Epistle of Barnabas (either 96-98 or 132-135), an unsigned letter later attributed to the biblical character Barnabas, discusses the debate between Judaism and Christianity by asking the question ‘To whom does the covenant belong?’.

Apocalypse of Peter (c. 150). This book features Jesus telling Peter of the gruesome punishments awaiting sinners in hell, as well as the joys of heaven.

The OT Pseudepigrapha and the NT Apocrypha

These books never were considered to be scripture by significant numbers of people, but were extremely influential to the thought of early Christians and Jews. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (from Greek words meaning ‘false writings’) contains Jewish books written basically between 250 b.c. and 250 a.d. This collection contains a lot of apocalyptic literature like our book of Revelation. The most important of these is 1 Enoch, purporting to tell the story of what happened to Enoch when he was taken to heaven without dying (Gen. 5).

There are also a number of ‘testaments’—statements given by famous OT characters at the time of their deaths. The most well-known of these is Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, giving deathbed utterances of all 12 of the sons of Jacob. Also included in the Pseudepigrapha are prayers, psalms, odes, legends, and wisdom literature.

The New Testament Apocrypha is a more loosely-defined collection, but generally includes early Christian writings that are similar in literary style to our NT books. Thus we have a number of apocryphal gospels: the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the Gospel of Andrew, the Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Matthias, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Thomas (Sayings). Although most are attributed to apostles, all were probably written in the second century. Most are very fanciful and contain theological principles that differ from those of our NT gospels. The Gospel of Thomas (Sayings) contains no narrative, but simply lists 114 sayings of Jesus. Many of these sayings are identical to those in the NT gospels, and this gospel is more accepted by scholars than the other apocryphal gospels since its discovery in 1948. Other books in the NT apocrypha include epistles and books resembling Acts.

Books That Barely Made It

THE OLD TESTAMENT

The books that were questioned throughout the process include 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, and Ecclesiastes. These are some of the latest OT books to be written, and some believed that they were written after the Lord had quit speaking to humankind through human prophets.

1-2 Chronicles narrates the same history found in 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. Since the writer of Chronicles has a somewhat different perspective on these events that the writer of Samuel and Kings, many people felt that the Chronicles should be left out for the sake of theological uniformity. Esther likely made some people uncomfortable because its main character and hero is a woman. Job and Ecclesiastes look at life using more of a Greek worldview, and thus some stalwart Hebrew thinkers saw no value in them.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

The four gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters were accepted by the majority of churches almost from the beginning. The remainder of the NT had more trouble. The book of Hebrews was finally accepted because it became associated with the apostle Paul. Many churches had doubts about the authenticity of 2 Peter and 2-3 John. The book of James was rejected by many because it does not mention the cross. Jude and Revelation were late entrants into the canon debates, and we have fewer manuscripts of Revelation than of any other book.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?

The Christian canon was formulated by church leaders over 350 years of time. This should not alarm us, because it illustrates a very basic fact: that the Bible is the church’s book—a book that the church found useful, and thus authoritative, for its day-to-day life. I have no doubt that God’s hand was involved, helping those church leaders discover which works would be useful for churches thousands of years later.

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The History of the English Bible

The Bibles we read today are English translations of the original biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. We are indebted to these translations for making the scriptures available to us as regular Christians.

People have not always had the scriptures available to them in their native languages. During most of the Middle Ages (600-1300), very few people had access to understandable scriptures. Only religious leaders were privy to the contents of these sacred writings. In the Western church, the Latin Vulgate became the official Bible, even after Latin was no longer spoken by ordinary people. Priests alone were educated in Latin, and even they often had little idea what they were reading. The scriptures were truly ‘closed to the public’ by the iron hand of the institutional church.

Christianity spread to the British Isles before the year 400, but it was a thousand years later that the first English translation of scripture was made by John Wycliffe. For his entire life, Wycliffe was an outspoken critic of the power politics of the Roman papacy. Near the end of his life, Wycliffe, with the help of some of his students, translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English, completing the project in 1382. Thus the first English Bible was translated not from the original languages, but from the Latin translation.

In 1388, his friend John Purvey corrected and revised Wycliffe’s first edition. Purvey’s Bible was the dominant English Bible for some 125 years. Yet due to the cost of books and the persecution of the church, few average Christians were able to secure copies of this Bible.

In 1510, William Tyndale arrived to study at Cambridge University and studied Greek under Desiderius Erasmus, who in a few years would publish the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament. While studying there, he developed a passion that would consume him for the rest of his life: a desire to produce for the common people of England a translation of the Bible based not on Latin, but on the original Greek and Hebrew. “He once said to one of his opponents: “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the scriptures than thou doest” (Lightfoot, 77).

After Erasmus completed his printed Greek New Testament in 1516, Tyndale set out to translate it. He left England and completed the translation in Hamburg, and began to have it printed in Cologne. But Tyndale’s work associated him with the reformer Martin Luther, who had just completed a German translation of the Bible. Thus when the Pope’s supporters realized what was happening, they threatened Tyndale’s life, forcing him to flee Cologne with the sheets of his partially printed New Testament. He went to Worms, where the people were sympathetic to the reformation, and completed the printing there.

In 1526, the first copies were smuggled into England, where they were bought enthusiastically. The religious establishment in England immediately condemned the popular translation and burned copies of it in public ceremonies. In the meantime, Tyndale was working on his translation of the Old Testament. He released the first five OT books in 1530 and several other OT books in succeeding years.

It appeared that official opposition to his translation had subsided, and Tyndale returned to England. But he was betrayed by the Romanists who remained there, and was imprisoned in 1534. “In 1536, after spending months in prison, he was strangled and burned at the stake, crying, ‘Lord, open the King of England’s eyes’” (Lightfoot, 78).

But despite his death, Tyndale began a movement that could not be quenched. Miles Coverdale in 1535 circulated the first translation that was not officially opposed. John Rogers published what he called ‘Matthew’s Bible’ in 1537. Coverdale edited the ‘Great Bible’ in 1539, the first English Bible to be authorized to be read in the churches. King Henry VIII was a supporter of the Great Bible and placed a copy in every church in England. “People flocked eagerly to the churches to see the Bibles which had been set up for reading, and at times the preachers complained because the people chose to read the Bible rather than listen to their sermons” (Lightfoot, 79).

The Geneva Bible was published in 1560. It was printed in a smaller book with more legible type, and also included commentary and illustrations, making it the first Bible popular with families. This Bible was commonly used in the time of Shakespeare and the first pilgrims to America. “It is sometimes called the ‘Breeches Bible’ because it says that Adam and Eve ‘sewed figge leaves together, and made themselves breeches’ (Gen. 3:7)” (Lightfoot, 79). But the Geneva Bible was unpopular with the clergy, since its commentary notes presented the perspectives of the reformation. Thus they published in 1568 the Bishops’ Bible. In 1582, the Roman Catholics produced their own English translation.

Throughout the 1500s, England’s Christians were in turmoil because of conflict between those who sympathized with the papacy and those who sympathized with the reformers. By 1600, the Church of England had cast its lot with Protestantism, but this did not eliminate theological diversity in England. Plenty of papal supporters remained, and dissenting groups such as the Anabaptists were gaining strength on the opposite side of the spectrum.

In 1604, King James summoned people from diverse religious groups to a conference on religious toleration, later known as the Hampton Court Conference. There the suggestion was made that a new translation of the Bible be made into contemporary English. Such a translation, it was suggested, would have no commentary notes. This would help the translation to avoid the biases of individual authors such as were found in the Geneva Bible. James readily agreed to this proposal, and appointed a team of 48 scholars to thoroughly revise the Bishops’ Bible. The King James Version was completed in 1611, and was officially appointed as the only Bible to be used in the churches.

The KJV remained the most popular English translation of scripture for over 300 years. Yet as the English language changed, more ancient manuscripts were discovered, and Greek and Hebrew scholarship advanced, it was inevitable that there would be revisions. In fact, even the KJV Bibles available today have been significantly revised since 1611—revisions that were gradually introduced over 300 years’ time.

In the late 1800s, after the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus and other important early manuscripts, it became clear that the KJV rested on a less reliable textual base. The Greek Bibles used by the KJV translators were based on manuscripts written between 1100 and 1300. With the discovery of manuscripts almost a thousand years older, a much more reliable Greek text was available on which to base newer translations. In addition, even by the 1800s the meaning of certain English words and phrases had changed since the time of the KJV.

In 1870, the Church of England voted to produce a revision of the KJV. The Revised Version was completed in 1881 (NT) and 1885 (OT). Although American scholars participated in this effort, the linguistic style and word spellings adopted by the committee were those used in England rather than in the United States. After the release of the RV, the Americans on the committee continued to meet and produced their own American Standard Version in 1901.

In 1948, the International Council of Religious Education released a revision of the ASV called the Revised Standard Version. It is the first translation to put the text into paragraphs or poetic lines rather than simply making a new indention for each numbered verse. It also removed the archaic “thee” and “thou” pronouns, except when they refer to God. For 50 years, the RSV was the translation of choice in the scholarly community, and also enjoyed wide use in many churches, particularly in mainline Protestant groups.

Some conservative scholars, however, thought the RSV went too far, and produced in 1963 the New American Standard Bible, which employed up-to-date textual research but returned to the KJV format of making an indention for every verse. It retains the RSV usage of “thee” and “thou” only in reference to God. In substance, the NASB is very similar to the RSV.

In 1973, the widely popular New International Version was produced by a team of conservative scholars. It is the first translation to displace the KJV as the best-selling English Bible. In 1989, the RSV was again revised and named the New Revised Standard Version. It has become the translation of choice for the scholarly community.

One positive feature of twentieth-century translations has been that most have been prepared by teams of scholars from widely divergent backgrounds. This helps to eliminate the bias that is based on a single person’s perspective. Members of Churches of Christ have participated in the translation of the RSV, the NIV, and the NRSV.

Many other translations have been published in the past 30 years, both in England and in this country. Most are quite adequate, and all convey the essential truths of salvation, yet all of them also have weaknesses. In a day when we are blessed with so many translations, our best bet is to consult as many of them as possible when we do Bible study. By doing this, we can glean the best of each translation and come to fuller understanding of the sacred text.

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Commonly-Used English Bibles

Here are some strengths and weaknesses (from my perspective) of the most popular Bibles today. Again, the best way to study the Bible in English is to avail yourself of the rich variety of translations, rather than restricting yourself to just one.

King James Version (1611) Many English translations had been made by the early 1600s, including that of William Tyndale. King James, leader of the Church of England, felt the need to have a single, ‘authorized’ translation for use in all churches in his kingdom. The KJV reflects the practices of the English church of that day, which was in a bitter struggle with Roman Catholics on one side, and evangelical dissenters on the other. It is based on the manuscripts available at that time, the oldest of which was written after 1000 a.d. It is difficult to detect literary styles and devices, since each verse is printed as a new paragraph, and poetic material is printed the same way as prose. Watch, however, for paragraph symbols (¶) to bring some level of organization to the reading. Despite these weaknesses, the KJV remains the most beautiful English Bible. Some historians believe William Shakespeare contributed to its language! Its beauty derives partly from the fact that it was intended to be read aloud. If you don’t recognize the beauty of the KJV, read it aloud slowly.

American Standard Version (1902). This is a stiff translation because it translates the Greek and Hebrew over-literally, not taking into account the differences between those languages and English in sentence structure and syntax.

Revised Standard Version (1948). This translation was the version used by scholars for almost 50 years. It used many newly-discovered manuscripts for the first time. It was translated by mainline Protestants with public reading in mind. For silent reading, sometimes the paragraphs are too long and the wording too cumbersome. It was the first major American version to put the text into paragraphs and poetic lines, and to attempt to make poetry just as poetic in English as it is in Greek or Hebrew. The RSV keeps “thee” and “thou” when referring to God, but removes them when referring to humans.

New American Standard Bible (1963). This version was done by conservative scholars as a reaction against the RSV, which they thought was too liberal. This version returns to the KJV method of printing one verse for each indention. It follows the RSV on usage of “thee” and “thou.”

New International Version (1973). This version was an attempt by conservative scholars from many groups to render the text accurately but in contemporary language. They consulted the most recently discovered manuscripts and used a very careful method of translation. In the 1980s, the NIV surpassed the KJV as the best selling American Bible, and remains so today. Its prose is usually excellent, but its poetry is sometimes too prosaic. It sometimes softens the Bible’s sharp language and glosses over diversity of perspective. This version was designed primarily for silent reading. Overall, it is a good, accurate translation that should be a part of anyone’s library.

New King James Version (1979). This translation was prepared by fundamentalist scholars and is in some ways a reaction against the NIV. It keeps the KJV tradition of printing one verse per indention, but improves on the KJV by putting poetry in poetic lines and separating paragraphs with white space. The language is updated somewhat, but often seems stiff and contrived to me. It lacks the artistic beauty of the KJV, but it improves on some (but not all) of the KJV’s weaknesses for contemporary readers.

The Word: New Century Version (1980s). This translation was prepared by Church of Christ scholars and reads very similarly to the NIV. It has enjoyed increased popularity lately as the translation used in Max Lucado’s study Bible.

New Revised Standard Version (1989). This version was translated by a committee of top scholars from across the theological spectrum, including one from Churches of Christ, and reads well both orally and silently. It is based on the latest manuscripts, and is the new version of choice for scholars of all persuasions. One well-known feature of the NRSV is its gender neutrality. Increasingly in English, the words ‘he’ or ‘him’ must refer to a male, while in earlier English as well as Greek and Hebrew, it could refer to male or female. Thus at points where the biblical writer uses a masculine pronoun but refers to males and females, the NRSV rephrases it for clarity of communication. The NRSV generally reads well in poetry and in prose, though its vocabulary is somewhat larger than that in the NIV, and the length of sentences is sometimes a bit cumbersome for the silent reader. This is a very good translation which I highly recommend.

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Contemporary English Version (1995). This translation was commissioned by the American Bible Society, which recognized the large number of people, both in this country and abroad, who speak English as a second language. This version uses a relatively small vocabulary and simple sentence structures, but is aimed at adults who have more than a child’s grasp of both the English language and of spiritual concepts. Its language is gender neutral, and is ideal for silent reading. It is sometimes a bit awkward to read aloud, and the poetry sometimes lacks the impact that other versions convey. This is an very good translation which I highly recommend; it tends to state the Bible’s concepts in the simplest possible way.

PARAPHRASES do not follow the Greek or Hebrew literally, but try to convey the impact and meaning of the text to a contemporary audience. Used alongside translations, paraphrases can bring the text alive in exciting ways.

The 1950s paraphrase by J. B. Phillips is still a favorite of many readers. Phillips writes with a stunning eloquence that conveys deep impact and artistic beauty.

Millions of readers love the Living Bible of the 1960s for its down-to-earth tone and readability. It now has a successor, The New Living Translation, which is something of a cross between translation and paraphrase.

Eugene Peterson’s best-selling The Message (New Testament first published 1992) communicates the message of scripture powerfully in the language of today’s American young adult. The New Testament and a number of Old Testament books are now available.