HISTORY OF BIBLE IN OUR HAND TODAY
(From Manuscripts to Print to Hand)
INTRODUCTION
The English word Bible comes from the
Greek words biblos/biblion which means ‘the scroll’ or ‘the book’. The bible is
not a single book but the Book of Books. The Christian Bible consists of 66
books divided into 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New
Testament. The Apocryphal Books/Sections (around 14 books) are present in a few
bibles. The bible was written over a period of about 1600years (from
around1400B.C to around 100A.D.) by about 40authors who lived in different
periods with different cultures and they were kings, shepherds, prophets and
other leaders. The Jewish Old Testament is called Tanakh and the books of the
Bible is written mostly in Hebrew and little in Aramaic. The New Testament is
written mostly in Greek.
TIMELINE OF THE BOOKS OF BIBLE- OLD TESTAMENT
Books
|
Most
Likely Author
|
Time
Period of Writing (approx.)
|
Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
|
Moses
|
1400
B.C.
|
Joshua
|
Joshua
|
1350 B.C.
|
Judges,
Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel
|
Samuel/Nathan/Gad
|
1000 -
900 B.C.
|
1 Kings,
2 Kings
|
Jeremiah
|
600 B.C.
|
1
Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah
|
Ezra
|
450 B.C.
|
Esther
|
Mordecai
|
400 B.C.
|
Job
|
Job,
Compilation may be by Moses
|
1400
B.C.
|
Psalms
|
Several
different authors(Asaph, Ezra, the sons of Korah, Heman, Ethan, Moses, etc),
and mostly David
|
1000 -
400 B.C.
|
Proverbs
|
Solomon,
Agur and Lemuel
|
900 B.C.
|
Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon
|
Solomon
|
900 B.C.
|
Isaiah
|
Isaiah
|
700 B.C.
|
Jeremiah,
Lamentations
|
Jeremiah
|
600 B.C.
|
Ezekiel
|
Ezekiel
|
550 B.C.
|
Daniel
|
Daniel
|
550 B.C.
|
Hosea
|
Hosea
|
750 B.C.
|
Joel
|
Joel
|
850 B.C.
|
Amos
|
Amos
|
750 B.C.
|
Obadiah
|
Obadiah
|
600 B.C.
|
Jonah
|
Jonah
|
700 B.C.
|
Micah
|
Micah
|
700 B.C.
|
Nahum
|
Nahum
|
650 B.C.
|
Habakkuk
|
Habakkuk
|
600 B.C.
|
Zephaniah
|
Zephaniah
|
650 B.C.
|
Haggai
|
Haggai
|
520 B.C.
|
Zechariah
|
Zechariah
|
500 B.C.
|
Malachi
|
Malachi
|
430 B.C.
|
TIMELINE OF THE BOOKS OF BIBLE- NEW TESTAMENT
Books
|
Most
Likely Author
|
Time Period of
Writing (approx.)
|
Matthew
|
Matthew
|
A.D. 55
|
Mark
|
John
Mark
|
A.D. 50
|
Luke
|
Luke
|
A.D. 60
|
John
|
John
|
A.D. 90
|
Acts
|
Luke
|
A.D. 65
|
Romans,
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians,
1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon
|
Paul
|
A.D. 50-70
|
Hebrews
|
Unknown,
most likely Paul, Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos
|
A.D. 65
|
James
|
James
|
A.D. 45
|
1 Peter,
2 Peter
|
Peter
|
A.D. 60
|
1 John,
2 John, 3 John
|
John
|
A.D. 90
|
Jude
|
Jude
|
A.D. 60
|
Revelation
|
John
|
A.D. 90
|
CANONIZATION- OLD TESTAMENT
The historical record of the
Jews were written down on leather scrolls and tablets over centuries. The first
five books called the Torah (The Law) were written and/or edited primarily by
Moses in the early 1400's BC, probably in Sinai. Thereafter, other scriptural
texts were written and collected by the Jewish people during the next 1,000
years. About 400 BC, the Law, and the other Jewish Scriptures were arranged by
councils of rabbis (Jewish teachers), who then recognized the complete set as
the inspired and sacred authority of God (Elohim). In the meantime, the books
of the Hebrew Bible were arranged by topic, including The Law (Torah),
the Prophets (Nebiim), and the Writings (Ketubim). The first
letters of these Hebrew words Ta, Na, and K - form the name of
the Hebrew Bible - the Tanakh. Besides, Jesus and other
apostles quoted from the Old Testament scriptures and authorize its canonicity.
CANONIZATION- NEW TESTAMENT
Around 40 AD, and continuing
to about 100 AD, the eye-witnesses to the life of Jesus, including Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude, wrote the Gospels, letters or
books that became the Bible's New Testament. The Authors quoted the Verses from
31 books of the Old Testament, and widely circulated their material so that by
about 150 AD, early Christians were referring to the entire set of writings as
the "New Covenant." In 397 AD, in an effort to protect the scriptures
from various heresies and offshoot religious movements, the current 27 books of
the New Testament was formally and finally confirmed and "canonized"
in the Synod of Carthage. The Early Church had three criteria for determining
what books were to be included or excluded from the Canon of the New Testament.
ü First, the
Book/Epistle/Teaching must have apostolic authority—the
Book/Epistle/Teaching should be written either by the apostles
themselves, who were eyewitnesses to what they wrote about or written
by associates of the apostles.
ü Second, the
Book/Epistle/Teaching must be in conformity to what was called the
"rule of faith. The Book/Epistle/Teaching should be congruent
with the basic valuable principles that the church recognized as normative.
ü Third, the
Book/Epistle/Teaching should have continuous acceptance and usage by
the church at large.
Many books like the gospel of
Thomas is not included in the Canon of the New Testament as they didn’t pass
the credibility test for Canonization.
CRITICISM
There is no other book in the
face of the earth that has experienced much criticism as that of the Bible. The
fact is the Bible is mostly criticized not only by the non- believers but
believers too criticize in the act to acknowledge and confirm the truth they
believe. The major criticisms from the non-believers are because of the fact
that they don’t try to understand what it really, practically and literally
means, they want every part of it to be instantly applicable. Not only bible
but any other book couldn’t be produced that makes an individual content, and
then there will be a dilution of the Truth for sure. Most of the Documents
produced/submitted for negative criticism don’t pass the reliability test.
The ‘Word of God’ is never
changing and ‘Truth’ Stands forever in spite of whether a person likes it or
not.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
The Indestructibility and the
Fulfillment of the prophecies was the foremost External Evidence for the Bible.
Renowned Bible scholar F.F. Bruce declares: There is no ancient literature
in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as to the
New Testament.
Homer's Iliad, the most
renowned book of ancient Greece, is the second best-preserved literary work of
all antiquity, with 643 copies of manuscript support discovered to date. In
those copies, there are 764 disputed lines of text, as compared to 40 lines in
all the New Testament manuscripts. In fact, many people are unaware that
there are no surviving manuscripts of any of William Shakespeare's 37 plays
(written in the 1600s), and scholars have been forced to fill some gaps in his
works. This pales in textual comparison with the over 5,600 copies and
fragments of the New Testament in the original Greek together, assure us that
nothing's been lost.
All of the New Testament
except few minor verses can be reconstructed outside the Bible, from the
writings of the early church leaders in the second and third centuries AD.
Ø Clement (30-100 A.D.) wrote an
epistle to the Corinthian Church around 97 A.D. He reminded them to heed the
epistle that Paul had written to them years before. Clement had labored
with Paul (Philippians 4:3). He quoted from the following New
Testament books: Luke, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, 1 and 2
Peter, Hebrews, and James.
Ø The apostolic fathers Ignatius
(30-107 A.D.), Polycarp (65-155 A.D.), and Papias (70-155 A.D.) cite verses
from every New Testament book except 2 and 3 John. They thereby authenticated
nearly the entire New Testament. Both Ignatius and Polycarp were
disciples of the apostle John.
Ø Justin Martyr, (110-165 A.D.),
cited verses from the following 13 books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark,
Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, 1
and 2 Peter, and Revelation.
Ø Irenaeus, (120-202 A.D.), wrote
a five-volume work Against Heresies in which,
Ø He quoted from every book of
the New Testament except 3 John.
Ø He quoted from the New
Testament books over 1,200 times.
The church in Jerusalem played
a central role in the Book of Acts, but the destruction of the city in 70 A.D.
was not mentioned. The Jewish historian Josephus cited the siege and
destruction of Jerusalem as befalling the Jews because of their unjust killing
of James the brother of Jesus.
MANUSCRIPTS- OLD TESTAMENT
The Dead Sea Scrolls,
discovered in Israel in the 1940s and '50s, provide astounding evidence for the
reliability of the ancient transmission of the Jewish Scriptures (Old
Testament) in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. Bible manuscripts are compared
to other ancient writings; they stand alone as the best-preserved literary
works of all antiquity. Remarkably, there are thousands of existing Old
Testament manuscripts and fragments copied throughout the Middle East,
Mediterranean and European regions that agree phenomenally with each other. In
addition, these texts substantially agree with the Septuagint version of the
Old Testament.
The following is a list of
oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament that are still in
existence.
The Dead Sea Scrolls: date from 200 B.C. - 70 A.D. contains the entire book of
Isaiah and portions of every other Old Testament book except Esther.
Geniza Fragments: portions the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic,
discovered in 1947 in an old synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, date from about 400
A.D.
Ben Asher Manuscripts: five or six generations of the family made copies of
the Old Testament using the Masoretic Hebrew text, from 700-950 A.D. The
following are examples of the Hebrew Masoretic text-type.
· Aleppo Codex: contains the complete Old Testament and is dated around 950 A.D.
Unfortunately, over one-quarter of this Codex was destroyed in anti-Jewish riots
in 1947.
· Codex Leningradensis: The complete Old Testament in Hebrew copied by the
last member of the Ben Asher family in 1008 A.D.
MANUSCRIPTS- NEW TESTAMENT:
The manuscript evidence for
the "New Testament" is also dramatic, with nearly 25,000 ancient
manuscripts discovered and archived so far, at least 5,600 of which are copies
and fragments in the original Greek. Some manuscript texts date to the early
second and third centuries, with the time between the original autographs and
our earliest existing fragment being remarkably short, 40-60 years.
Julius Caesar's The
Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to
1,000 years after the original autograph); Pliny the Younger's Natural
History (7 manuscripts; 750 years elapsed); Thucydides‘ History (8
manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed); Herodotus' History (8
manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed); Plato (7 manuscripts; 1,300 years); and
Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years).
There are over 5,600
early Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament that
is still in existence. The oldest manuscripts were written on papyrus and
the later manuscripts were written on leather called parchment.
125 A.D. -The New Testament
manuscript which dates most closely to the original autograph was copied around
125 A.D, within about 35 years of the original. It is designated "p
52" and contains a small portion of John 18. (The "p"
stands for papyrus.)
200 A.D. - Bodmer
p 66 a papyrus manuscript, contains a large part of the Gospel of
John.
200 A.D. -Chester
Beatty Biblical papyrus p 46 contains the Pauline Epistles and
Hebrews.
225 A.D. -Bodmer
Papyrus p 75 contains the Gospels of Luke and John.
250-300 A.D. -Chester
Beatty Biblical papyrus p 45 contains portions of the four Gospels
and Acts.
350 A.D. -Codex
Sinaiticus contains the entire New Testament and almost the entire
Old Testament in Greek. It was discovered by a German scholar Tisendorf in 1856
at an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Sinai.
350 A.D. -Codex
Vaticanus contains almost complete New Testament. It was cataloged
as being in the Vatican Library since 1475.
ARCHAEOLOGY AND SCIENCE
Archaeology is the scientific
discipline that didn't exist until about 150 years ago, though some of the
archaeology and excavation support the Bible. Archaeology wasn't even a
"soft" science prior to the 19th century, it was merely treasure hunting
conducted by self-seeking opportunists. Therefore, many excavations were botched
and many discoveries were lost. With the rise in academic interest and the
proliferation of technological tools, a systematic approach to archaeology has
taken off in the last century, revealing a great deal about the ancient world.
Also, other advancements of Sciences such as Radio- Carbon Dating and Theories
are not facts but just the quest for facts. They have their own limitations as
they depend on various Criteria and the probability wasn’t much considerable.
Bible Never Contradicts the
Laws of Science in its Teachings but the Sovereign God, who is the author of
everything, can do it, did it and may do it. Also, the Bible doesn’t support
and needn’t support all the theories of Science.
EARLY TRANSLATIONS- OLD
TESTAMENT
Although the Jewish Scriptures
were copied by hand, they were very accurate copy to copy. The Jews had a
phenomenal system of scribes, who developed intricate and ritualistic methods
for counting letters, words, and paragraphs to ensure that no copying errors
were made. Dead Sea Scrolls has confirmed the remarkable reliability of this
scribal system over thousands of years. The Old Testament was translated very
early into Aramaic and Greek. In 400B.C. the Old
Testament translation in Aramaic was made and it is called the Aramaic
Targums. This translation helped the Jewish people, who began to speak
Aramaic from the time of their captivity in Babylon, to understand the Old
Testament in the language that they commonly spoke. In the first century during
Palestine of Jesus' day, Aramaic was still the commonly spoken
language. For example Maranatha: "Our Lord has come," in 1
Corinthians 16:22 is an example of an Aramaic word that is used in the New
Testament. In 250B.C. the Old Testament was translated into Greek. This
translation is known as the Septuagint. It is sometimes designated
"LXX" (which is the Roman numeral for "70") because
it was believed that 70 to 72 translators worked to translate the Hebrew Old
Testament in Greek. The Septuagint was often used by New Testament writers when
they quoted from the Old Testament. The LXX was the
translation of the Old Testament that was used by the early Church. It was
during this process that the order of the books was changed to the order we
have in today's Bible: Historical (Genesis -Esther), poetic (Job - Song of
Songs), and prophetic (Isaiah - Malachi).
The following is a list of the
oldest Greek translations of the Old Testament that are still in
existence.
· Chester Beatty Papyri Contains nine Old Testament Books in the Greek
Septuagint and dates between 100-400 A.D.
· Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus each
contain almost the entire Old Testament of the Greek Septuagint and they both
date around 350 A.D.
EARLY TRANSLATIONS- NEW
TESTAMENT/BOTH TESTAMENTS
During 180A.D. the original
writings of the apostles were translated from Greek into Latin, Coptic (Egypt)
and Syriac (Syria), and widely disseminated as "inspired scripture"
throughout the Roman Empire (and beyond). Early translations of
the New Testament can give important insight into the underlying Greek
manuscripts from which they were translated.
195 A.D. -The name of the first translation of the Old and New Testaments into Latin was
termed Old Latin, both Testaments had been
translated from the Greek. Parts of the Old Latin was
found in quotes by the church father Tertullian, who lived around 160-220 A.D.
in North Africa and wrote treatises on theology.
300 A.D. -The Old
Syriac was a translation of the New Testament from the Greek into
Syriac.
300 A.D. -The
Coptic Versions: Coptic was spoken in four dialects in Egypt. The Bible
was translated into each of these four dialects.
380 A.D. -The Latin
Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome. He translated into Latin the
Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. The Latin
Vulgate became the Bible of the Western Church until the Protestant Reformation
in the 1400s. It continues to be the authoritative translation of the Roman
Catholic Church to this day. The Protestant Reformation saw an increase in
translations of the Bible into the common languages of the people.
Other early translations of
the Bible were in Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic, Slavic, and Gothic.
1380 A.D. The first
English translation of the Bible was by John Wycliffe. He
translated the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate. This was a
translation from a translation and not a translation from the original Hebrew
and Greek. Wycliffe was forced to translate from the Latin Vulgate because he
did not know Hebrew or Greek.
PERSECUTIONS/THREAT for FIRMNESS
The Pope was so infuriated by
John Wycliffe’s teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, After
44 years of Wycliffe’s death, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and
scattered into the river!
One of Wycliffe’s
followers, John Hus, actively promoted Wycliffe’s ideas: that people
should be permitted to read the Bible in their own language, and they should
oppose the tyranny of the Roman church that threatened anyone possessing a
non-Latin Bible with execution. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415,
with Wycliffe’s manuscript Bibles used as kindling for the fire. The last words
of John Hus was that “in 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for
reform cannot be suppressed.”
Almost exactly 100 years
later, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses of
Contention (a list of 95 issues of heretical theology and crimes of the Roman
Catholic Church) into the church door at Wittenberg. The prophecy of Hus had
come true! Martin Luther went on to be the first person to translate and
publish the Bible in the commonly-spoken dialect of the German people; a translation more appealing than previous German Biblical translations.
In the 1490’s another Oxford
professor, and the personal physician to King Henry the 7th and
8th, Thomas Linacre, decided to learn Greek. After reading the Gospels in
Greek, and comparing it to the Latin Vulgate, he wrote in his diary, “Either
this (the original Greek) is not the Gospel… or we are not Christians.” The
Latin had become so corrupt that it no longer even preserved the message of the
Gospel, yet the Church still threatened to kill anyone who read the scripture
in any language other than Latin, though Latin was not an original language of
the scriptures.
John Bunyan (author of
Pilgrim’s Progress) and many other noble saints suffered a lot by the Roman
Catholic Church for following the Protestant Bible’s.
REASONS FOR
THREAT/PERSECUTIONS
Ø The Church’s
thoughts and actions were anti-biblical, so if people were able to read the
Bible in their own tongue, the church's income, and power would crumble.
Ø They could
not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of
sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured
"Purgatory".
Ø People would
begin to challenge the church's authority if the church was exposed as frauds
and thieves.
Ø The
contradictions between what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would
open the public's eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear
that the institutional church held.
Ø Salvation
through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for
priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers.
Ø The
veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be called into
question.
Ø The availability of
the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked
church. Neither side would give up without a fight.
APOCRYPHA
Apocrypha is a written work
that contains certain disagreements about biblical canonicity. Apocryphal
writings are a class of documents that are not worthy to be properly called as
Scripture. Apocryphal books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of
Jesus ben Sira (Sirach), Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (in the Vulgate this is
chapter 6 of Baruch), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, Susanna and
Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3
Maccabees, 1 Esdras, etc. Apocrypha is well attested in surviving manuscripts of
the Christian Bible (For example, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex
Alexandrinus, Vulgate, and Peshitta.). After the Lutheran and Catholic canons
were defined by Luther (c. 1534) and Trent (8 April 1546)
respectively, early Protestant editions of the Bible (notably the Luther Bible
in German and 1611 King James Version in English) seems not omitting these
books, but placed them in a separate Apocrypha section apart
from the Old and New Testaments to indicate their status.
Though, as with other ancient
writings, the Apocrypha may sometimes be referenced for support.
BIBLE IN PRINT
Gutenberg first printed the
Latin Bible in 1456, before that all Bibles were hand-copied onto
papyrus, parchment, and paper. After that, the bible started to spread
vigorously and extensively.
1514 A.D. -The Greek New Testament
was printed for the first time by Erasmus. He based his
Greek New Testament from only five Greek manuscripts, the oldest of which dated
only as far back as the twelfth century. With minor revisions, Erasmus' Greek
New Testament came to be known as the Textus Receptus or
the "received texts." New Testament of
Erasmus focused attention on how corrupt and inaccurate the Latin Vulgate
had become, and how important it was to go back and use the original Greek (New
Testament) and original Hebrew (Old Testament) languages to maintain
accuracy.
1522 A. D. -Polyglot
Bible was published. The Old Testament was in Hebrew, Aramaic,
Greek, and Latin and the New Testament in Latin and Greek. Erasmus used the
Polyglot to revise later editions of his New Testament. Tyndale made
use of the Polyglot in his translation on the Old Testament into English which
he did not complete because he was martyred in 1534.
The Geneva Bible was the first
Bible to add numbered verses to the chapters in about 1560 so that referencing
specific passages would be easier. It was more popular than King James Version
at some period of time.
1611 A.D. -The King
James Version was printed in English from the original Hebrew and
Greek. The King James translators of the New Testament used the Textus
Receptus as the basis for their translations. The King supported
the translation in huge quantities for political reasons, but God used it for a
noble cause.
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
The first hand-written
English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380's AD
by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian. They were
translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text available
to Wycliffe.
William Tyndale was the
Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds
the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the
English language in 1526 A.D. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so
fluent in eight languages that it was said one would think any one of them to be
his native tongue.
Then the Geneva Bible was
published in 1560 A.D. and KJV in 1611 A.D. and slowly the previous versions
were revised, new versions were made for better clarity due to the discovery of new
manuscripts and the advancement of Language. As well as the Bible was translated
according to the dialects of different people living in different parts of the
world, over the next few hundred Centuries. Huge versions came into existence.
1968 A.D. -The United
Bible Society’s fourth Edition of the Greek New Testament made use of
the oldest Greek manuscripts which date from 175 A.D. This was
the Greek New Testament text from which the ASV and the NIV were
translated.
1971 A.D. The New
American Standard Version (NASV) was published. It makes use of the
wealth of much older Hebrew and Greek manuscripts now, that weren't
available at the time of the translation of the KJV. NASV’s wording and
sentence structure closely follow the Greek in more of a word for word style.
1983 A.D. The New
International Version (NIV) was published. It also made use of the
oldest manuscript evidence. It is more of a "thought-for-thought"
translation and reads more easily than the NASV.
2002 A.D. The English
Standard Version (ESV) was published as a translation to bridge the
accuracy of NASB and the readability of NIV.
TRANSLATION VS INTERPRETATION
There was a common
misunderstanding about Bible interpretations and Bible translations. The Bible
has been translated mostly from its original languages, but it has not been
changed, interpreted or interpolated along the way.
Today's accepted Bibles are not translations of texts translated from
other interpretations - they go right back to the ancient source manuscripts.
The primary differences
between today's Bible translations are merely related to how translators
interpret a word or sentence from the original language (Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek). This is no different than any other book we read in English that was
translated from a different source language.
Bible as an inspired ‘Word of
God' is without error and pure. But the Copies or Translations may always have
copyist error or error of inappropriate words. For there is a saying that’s
practical and real “To err is human”
The problem could be always
overcome by referring to more than one translation for interpretation where
there is a need for Clarity.
TEXTUAL VARIANTS:
The academic discipline of
"textual criticism" assures us that the Bible translations we have
today are essentially the same as the ancient Bible manuscripts, with the
exception of a few inconsequential discrepancies that have been introduced over
time through copyist error. We must remember that the Bible was hand-copied for
hundreds of years before the invention of the first printing press.
Nevertheless, the text is exceedingly well preserved.
Of the approximately 20,000
lines that make up the entire New Testament, only 40 lines are in question.
These 40 lines represent one-quarter of one percent of the entire text and do
not in any way affect the teaching and doctrine of the New Testament.
Comparing this with
Homer's Iliad, Second most preserved ancient Script, of the
approximately 15,600 lines that make up Homer's classic, 764 lines are in
question. These 764 lines represent over 5% of the entire text, and yet nobody
seems to question the general integrity of that ancient work.
Westcott and Hort, in 1870s, state that the New Testament text remains over 98.3 percent pure no
matter whether one uses the Textus Receptus or their
own Greek text which was largely based on Codex Sinaiticus and Codex
Vaticanus.
When textual critics look at
all 5,600 Greek New Testament manuscripts they find that they can group these
manuscripts into text-types or families with other similar manuscripts. There
are four text-types.
Ø The Alexandrian text-type,
found in most papyri and in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus date prior to
350 A.D.
Ø The Western text-type,
found both in Greek manuscripts and in translations into other languages,
especially Latin.
Ø The Byzantine text-type,
found in the vast majority of later Greek manuscripts. Over 90 percent of all
5,600 Greek New Testament manuscripts are of the Byzantine text-type. The
Byzantine text-type is "fuller" or "longer"
than other text-types, and this is taken as evidence of a later origin. The reason
that we have so many manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type is that the
Byzantine Empire remained Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian until the Islamic
Turks overran its capital, Constantinople, in 1453. Constantinople is now
called Istanbul and is Turkey's largest city, although no longer it's capital.
Ø The Cesarean text-type,
disputed by some, found in p 45 and a few other manuscripts.
TAMIL TRANSLATIONS
The history of Bible
translation into Tamil begins with the arrival of Bartholomew Ziegenbalg
(German missionary) at the Danish settlement of Tranquebar in 1706. He had a
remarkable gift for languages and he was tireless in diligence and made rapid
progress. He had completed the translation of the New Testament within five
years of his arrival in the Tamil area; it was published in 1714, and by 1719,
the year of his death, he had finished the Old Testament up to the Book of Ruth.
The remaining work was completed by another German missionary, Benjamin
Schultze, and published in Tranquebar in 1728.
Philip Fabricius, also a
German, spent twenty-four years on the translation of the Bible which was
published in 1777.
Along with Ziegenbalg,
enormous works were done by William Carey and Henry Martyn at a later period.
There was apparently something more than a mere translation of the Bible. Behind
such dedication, we are also able to identify the conviction about the
importance of local languages. They brought to the local people a sense of
pride in their own languages.
In the meantime there were
many people in the Bible Society like C.T.Rhenius who worked tirelessly for the
translation works in Tamil
A fresh Common Language
translation of the Tamil Bible was brought out in the year 1995. The same has
been in circulation now. This text is undergoing revision for setting right all
inconsistencies including typographical errors.
QUOTATIONS ABOUT ‘BIBLE’
“Within the covers of the
Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”― Ronald Reagan
“But for this book we could
not know right from wrong.”― Abraham
Lincoln
“You Christians look after a
document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn
the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it
as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.”― Mahatma Gandhi
"It is impossible to
rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." ―George Washington
"There are more sure
marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history."
― Sir Isaac Newton
“Out of 100 men, one will read
the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.” ― D.L. Moody
PASSION FOR ‘WORD OF GOD’
“It ain’t the parts of the
Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.”― Mark Twain
“Take all that you can of this
book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier
man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)”― Abraham Lincoln
“A good church is a
Bible-centered church. Nothing is as important as this–not a large congregation,
a witty pastor, or tangible experiences of the Holy Spirit.”― Alistair Begg
George Muller had extreme
passion and reverence to the “Word of God”. He read the Scriptures on his
knees.
CONCLUSION
"Beautiful, Best and
Believable Book for me forever is 'BIBLE'. I Believe it's a Big and Bountiful
manual for me from Majesty as a manual for a machine from Manufacturer. It's
because Man's Mind always Muddle and Fiddle but BIBLE always manifest all Folding’s"
References:
1.
When Critics Ask “By
Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe
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