“Every scripture is breathed out by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2Timothy 3:16)
Textual Criticism is the scientific process by which scripture is tested and analyzed to see if it may have been corrupted since the closing of the period of canonization (end of 4th century) up until today. When applying this practice, the intent must be to grow closer to the word of God as opposed to trying to blaspheme it for financial, political, or any other nefarious purposes. It is also the process in which we are able to decipher which variants within which manuscripts are closest to the message in the Autographs. Now the purpose of this blog is not to postulate the Textual Criticism sect of Christianity over the Textus Receptus sect of Christianity, it is simply to answer the question above and explain the process of how our bibles are obtained. A debate on whether this process is to be continued or if it has superseded its original intent is a debate for another time. Before getting into some of the most hotly debated verses of scripture, let’s go over definitions, a rebuttal to the claim that somehow we cannot trust our bibles now because of past interference, as well as the institutes behind these processes and the significance behind their findings.
Autographs– The original documentation that scripture was written on. Of which we do not have any. They were typically done on parchment paper which is biodegradable and unfortunately the tools for preserving it were not invented yet.
Manuscripts (ms.)(plural mss.)- A copy of the autographs, or a copy of the copy. Of which we have 5900 and counting. Whether it be a fragment of a page, a whole page, a whole chapter, a whole book, multiple books, or a complete New Testament. The bibles we use today are derived directly from these Mss. Before the invention of the printing press, when a church for example would receive a letter from Paul, the church would have scribes as diligently as possible make hundreds of copies in order to distribute the message to the people. Given the seriousness and importance of the oral tradition at the time (as discussed in the latest Evangelism class), the scribes for these churches played an integral role and the job was not taken lightly.
Variants– Places inside the manuscripts that differ from each other. Broken down into two categories, additions and omissions. Additions are much more common than omissions. Variants vary in size all the way from an apostrophe up to an entire passage, and everything in between.
United Bible Societies (UBS) is one of the filters in which variants nowadays are forced to flow through before a bible is distributed. They are purposely overly liberal in their flagging of a variant. They are also beyond fully transparent in their findings. In your Bibles today you can see little footnotes labeled either ms (other manuscrits has) or mss (other manuscripts have.) They currently have 1,408 footnotes. So 1,408 times they say “hey this is noteworthy enough to let the reader know that there is still a level of uncertainty here.” They also have a grading scale from A to D about the significance of each variant.
A– Meaning they are certain it is not a mistake but just to be fully transparent and sure, they will flag it because there may be some contention if they don’t. There are 502 variants with an A rating.
B– Meaning they are 99.% positive that they have it correct, but there is always an off chance. There are 533 variants with a B rating.
C– Meaning they are much less certain, wouldn’t suggest to be authoritative with them for the sake of being on the safe side. There are 366 variants with a C rating.
D– Meaning they do not have a clue as to what the actual translation is. Or at least they aren’t confident enough to fill in the gap. There are 7 variants with a D rating.
To put this in perspective, The New Testament contains 179,016 words. 1408 variants. That is .008% of New Testament scripture. We are overly confident that 73.5% of those variants are well figured out (Being A or B ratings.) So we are left with 26.5% of less than 1 percentile which we are not 100% sure on. Those variants With a C and D rating make up a total of .002% of New Testament scripture. Of all of these variants, there is nothing that plays a role in affecting Christian Doctrine. Even If you were to omit these variants, there would be no change to Biblical Doctrine, the early church, the Gospel message, Revelation, Paul’s life work and letters. Which we do see in some translations for example the NLT omitting John 5:4. New Testament scholars determined there is a possibility that the verse was added later by a scribe so that he can illustrate to the reader why the man would be hanging out beside the pool for so long in case the reader is unaware of the tradition.
Not all of the bibles we read out of today are retranslations from other bibles that have come before. Too often throughout history, that was the method. Bibles would be reinterpreted and retranslated by using either Bibles that already existed, or other sources such as the Latin Vulgate. So instead of using other Bibles to form our new Bibles, we apply the scientific process of Textual Criticism to the most original source documents we have. Those being the 5900 and counting manuscripts. In the spirit of complete transparency of what these manuscripts consist of, Prof. Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary has started a website called centerforthestudyofnewtestamentmanuscripts.org. He has gained permission from middle eastern churches where a substantial amount of these documents are preserved to take photographs of the actual manuscripts and have them be subject to further analysis. These are not the only manuscripts we have knowledge of though. For instance, the earliest manuscript we have possession of can be found at the John Rylands Library in Manchester. This particular manuscript is called P52 (papyrus52.) It is a fragment of the Gospel of John. It is dated between 90-100 AD, the autograph of the Gospel of John is thought to be written between 60-90 AD. On one side of the fragment is John 18:31-33 and John 18:37-38 on the other. P52 was discovered at an Egyptian market in 1920 by the scientist/Egyptologist Bernard Grenfell, who had the fragment translated in 1934 by Colin H. Roberts. What’s ultimately reassuring about this story is that what was on the fragment is consistent with what we find in our Bible. There is a similar story about the findings of the Book of Isaiah amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls which will be its own blog soon enough. But as archeological discoveries continue, scripture only becomes more and more backed and strengthened. As Prof. Bill Mounce of biblicaltraining.org would put it; “as the archeological search continues, we’ll only find more. We can’t find less.” We have 12 manuscripts from the second century. By the end of these manuscripts alone, we have 40% of the New Testament complete. From the third century we have 64 manuscripts. From the fourth we have 48 manuscripts, some of which include complete copies of the New Testament. It is particularly arrogant to claim that the men and women who work tirelessly to ensure that we have the absolute most accurate translation of the autographs as possible have some sort of hidden agenda. That they are for some reason purposely changing the stories to fit a particular narrative or worldview that they would like to interject into biblical doctrine. Be really careful before guessing the motives of someone you don’t know, sometimes we don’t even realize our own motives. “You base your arguments on facts, not on what someone else might be thinking.” (Prof. Bill Mounce)
As stated earlier, Textual Criticism is the process in which we are able to determine which variants from which manuscripts most accurately represent what was in the autographs. There are typically two angles of approach in Textual Criticism, internal criteria, and external criteria.
External Criteria- How old the manuscript is usually plays a role in determining authenticity. For example, if you have 30 manuscripts from the second century and they use the word ‘angry’ in a particular place, whereas another 30 manuscripts from the 8th century use the word ‘excited’ in that same place; most likely the autographs used the word ‘angry’ (barring any other evidence otherwise.) The quality of the writing always plays a role as well. The neatness, consistency in writing, and spelling that were consistent with the writing styles coming out of given churches at these times. For example… Say if it were known that the scribes of the early churches in Antioch strictly used the Oxford comma, and were known for being very meticulous in their writing. It would then make it easier to flag any letters claiming to come out of that church as fakes or at least less reliable due to the inconsistencies. Geography is also taken into consideration. As the center of the Church moves to Rome, scholars notice new consistencies that begin to arise in the manuscripts. Also, there are variants conducive with manuscripts from Alexandria that are different from that of the Byzantine text.
Internal Criteria- This is determining which version of the text gave rise to the other. Keeping in mind that words are typically added as opposed to being taken out. For example… If we have a manuscript that has a verse which says “Peter and Thomas went to the water” then in another manuscript it says in that same spot “Peter and Thomas went to the water because they were hot.” In most cases (barring other evidence) we can determine that the ‘because they were hot’ was most likely added later because the scribe felt the need to add context. Which actually leads us to our first example of actual variants…
Addition- John 5:4. Scholars and textual critics alike have determined that this verse was later added by a scribe most likely because he felt the need to explain to the reader why exactly this man would have just been hanging out by the pool for so long. The new version of the NLT even now omits the entire verse.
Spelling differences- These actually account for a large margin of variants. ‘Este’ and ‘Esten’ both mean “it is” or “he is” or “she is.” Although they mean the same thing, if one manuscript has ‘Este’ in a spot, then another manuscript has ‘Esten’ in that same spot, that counts as a variant. Another common example of a spelling related variant is the spelling of ‘John’ sometimes it is with one ‘n’ other times it’s spelled with 2. John 1:30 “after me comes ahner.” Ahner in the original Greek means ‘a man’. Some manuscripts have “after me comes aher.” Aher in the original Greek means ‘air.’
Article placement- In Greek, you tend to place an article in front of proper names. So in some places you’ll see “The Jesus” as opposed to other versions that will have “Jesus.”
Unintentional difference- Romans 5:1. Some manuscripts say “Let us have peace with God” whereas other manuscripts say “We have peace with God.” Now hold on, this variant seems to have a little more significance. One may imply that peace is not yet achieved whereas the other implies that we already have it. So what happened here? Keep in mind the oral tradition of the time. As the church would receive a letter from Paul for example, typically the Elder would read it aloud to the scribes as they would write. The scribes then either heard ‘Echoman’ with a long ‘o’ sound in the middle or ‘Echoman’ with a sharper ‘ah’ sound in the middle.
Intentional difference- Sometimes the writers would add onto and reference other gospels to ensure either they aligned and that they may provide clarity to the reader in some circumstances. Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke 6:20 “Blessed are the poor.” Some manuscripts with the verse from Luke add the ‘in spirit’ line, clearly some of them felt the need to reassure the reader that Jesus wasn’t speaking financially.
Sometimes Jesus Christ is flipped to Christ Jesus. This counts as a variant.
Sometimes there is a conjunction where in other manuscripts in those same locations we don’t find a conjunction.
An Example of a larger variant that includes a couple verses is 1John 5:7-8. (Go ahead, pop open your bible and check the footnote.) The claims against the originality of the verses can be found best explained in Bruce M. Metzger’s ‘A TEXTUAL COMMENTARY ON THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT Second Edition (p.647-648). The trinitarian passage there is absent from every Greek manuscript except for eight total. It has become evident to textual critics that the two verses were derived from the Latin Vulgate then translated back into Greek. You start to see an increase in the usage of this verse in manuscripts from the 16th century. During that time the trinity was a hotly debated topic, and this verse clearly helps the reader understand the trinity. So it is understandable why it was added. Some newer translations omit the verse, or at least alter it to a less authoritative/defining reading. Now in no way does this change anything about the true nature of the trinity. All it is, is a verse that explains the already existing trinity. There are plenty of other verses we can lean on in order to understand the trinity.
Of all the variants that have been found in the manuscripts, there are only two that are of significant length and substance. One of them being John 8:1-11. The story of the lady found in adultery is not found in any manuscripts prior to the 5th and 6th century. (go ahead and check your footnotes again.) What raises a red flag for textual critics is that the story can be found sprinkled in different places throughout other manuscripts, as if they were searching for a home in the Gospel to place the story. That, combined with the surrounding texts, they conclude that the story has been awkwardly thrust into that position in the Gospel. Now this does not mean that the event did not occur, just that critics are pretty confident in saying that John didn’t write that. Nor does it do anything to change the loving and forgiving nature of Christ.
Folks, it’s ok, you can put down the snakes…The other variant passage is Mark 16:9-20, nicknamed as the ‘Longer Ending.’ Although the longer ending is found in about 99% of manuscripts, the oldest/ most reliable manuscripts of Mark leave out 9-20. Those being Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. 4th century church fathers Eusibius and Jerome were onto the addition and concurred that the autographs omitted the longer ending. Looking internally at the verses too, there are inconsistencies with the rest of the Gospel in terms of vocabulary. While it is still a hotly debated topic, one thing can be certain… Whether Mark wrote 9-20 or not, the tomb was empty and the women who discovered it were indeed amazed. After looking back at it, it is easy to see why the scribes may have been unsatisfied with the Sopranos style ending. But this variant ultimately does nothing to affect our faith. This is not the only mention of the resurrection, nor is it the earliest account of it. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrew 11:1) in this case the thing unseen is Mark 16:9-20. If we had every answer for every little question for us at every turn, would we be walking in faith? As much as I do enjoy writing all these blogs and doing my best to answer the more popular questions and arguments we Christians are posed with, I hope I can help some of you get 99% of the way there. But 99% is as far as it is possible to get with “hard proof” or “undeniable evidence” of God and Biblical Doctrine. If at the very least, we don’t leave that remaining 1% for faith, then that wouldn’t be Christianity. Have comfort in understanding that to some extent you’ll have to throw your hands up and say “I just don’t know. But God I trust you and your understanding and reasoning for the things I don’t quite comprehend.”