For all the new knowledge our modern age is amassing, ignorance of the nature of the Bible, and the resulting lack of understanding of its contents, is just short of breathtaking. Before we can discuss the meaning of this verse or that verse, we need to have a good understanding of what exactly the Bible is, and isn't.
It shouldn't really be surprising there is an ever growing pit of ignorance concerning the Bible. Up through the 60's the Bible was part of the literature curriculum of many of our public schools. Writings and speeches of the 19th and first half of the 20th century often made use of literary allusions taken from the pages of holy scripture. Students who had classes such as The Bible as literature, not only read for themselves the source of so much literary and oratorical inspiration, but they would have also learned something about the history of the text itself.
The lack of knowledge surrounding the Bible is evident in both those who claim the Bible as the source of their understanding, and those who profess skepticism and outright disbelief. There are numerous examples of misuse of scripture among both groups, although the nature of that misuse is different for each. For those who receive the Bible as God's word, it is perceived anywhere from a book of ironclad proposition on the one hand, to an a-historical book that aims to present philosophical truth through a medium of myths, legends, allegory, and parable.
Although many skeptics and disbelievers may claim for themselves a truer understanding of the Bible, their own conclusions have far more to do with a desire to justify their disbelief than to seek out what is true. Without even a reading, the Bible is predetermined to be nothing but allegory from Genesis through Revelation. Individual passages are collated and quoted, pressed into service as artillery shells being lobbed into the camp of the enemy, in the hopes of embarrassing the enemy into quiescence and passivity.
In this first post, the focus will be upon the physical nature of the Bible, or holy scripture, setting forth what we know concerning its formation and transmission through the centuries. That such information is of the most dire need is evident in a fairly lengthy article printed by Newsweek, December 23, 2014. The author is Kurt Eichenwald, a writer with impressive credentials in his field.
Newsweek article.
The thrust of the article, "The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin" takes aim at the very real problem of Christians intentionally or unintentionally abusing scripture to suit their needs. This is not a recent phenomenon, for it has always been the temptation to twist scripture. Jesus scolded the scribes and pharisees for twisting scripture and inserting the commandments of men in place of the commandments of God (Mark 7:5-13). Paul, in both letters to Timothy his young disciple, warned of the false teachers who would twist scripture for their own purpose.
Through the period of the so-called Dark Ages, the Church promoted its own traditions over the teaching of scripture while at the same time it used scripture to enforce the authority of a wicked priesthood over the hearts and minds of the people. Going into the Middle Ages, what Bibles existed were kept under lock and key, the common people being forbidden to read and interpret for themselves. The act of translating scripture into a language other than Latin with the purpose of putting scripture into the hands of the people was considered a grave offense against the ruling authority. The fact that scripture is currently being abused is news only to those who are ignorant of history.
As credentialed as Eichenwald may be, his contribution to Newsweek, though salted with quotes of scholars, betrays a deep lack of mastery of the subject as the author's own use of scripture demonstrates an ignorance greater than that of those against whom he railing. I do not wish to make a point by point rebuttal as it would take far too much space. But I do want to pay attention to some key statements that I have seen many other times in the past.
"No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we've all read a bad translation - a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times. About 400 years passed between the writing of the first Christian manuscripts and their compilation into the New Testament."
DEFINING "THE BIBLE"
In this statement alone are several glaring inaccuracies, and that is being gracious. The last sentence of the quote was actually the start of another paragraph, but I believe it is pertinent in trying to make sense of what comes before.
The first major issue is the author's own confusion regarding the nature of the Bible. He claims no man has ever read the Bible, because what we have are bad translations based upon faulty, multi-generational copies. Unfortunately the author doesn't bother to tell us what he thinks the Bible to be, so we're left to figure that out for ourselves.
From a purely historical point of view, the Bible as we know it came into existence at about 325 AD when the emperor Constantine summoned the bishops of the Churches from all across the empire to a council. Among many things decided (which included the language of the doctrine of Trinitarianism), the bishops passed a determination of which writings should be officially received as canonical. Contrary to what many try to claim, the bishops did not decide which books out of many were to be authoritative and which were not, but rather gave universal consent as the shepherds of their Churches to those books that had already come to be regarded as authoritative. This had the effect of finalizing a canon of scripture that already had a history of several hundred years. The result of the council of Nicea is what we today call the Bible.
It is a common sense among many that the Bible is a single work, similar to the claims made for the Koran, or more recently, the Book of Mormon. The word Bible itself is the English version of the Greek word biblos which means book. Originally the collection of the writings that comprise the Bible were referred to as "ta biblia", the books, plural. It was Jerome, a scholar of the 4th century who stressed that the many books should be regarded as one in that taken as a whole (Genesis through Revelation) they unfold the whole story of God and men.
During the days of Jesus' apostles, the letters and writings of the new testament were written on a form of paper made from the papyrus reeds of Egypt. During the period of Israel's history before Jesus, the writings of the old testament were written on scrolls made from sewn animal skin. These scrolls could be relatively short, perhaps a few feet, to quite lengthy. The Isaiah scroll that was found among the Dead Sea scrolls is approximately 60 feet long unrolled.
In Jesus' day, the various scrolls of the Law, Writings, and Prophets were all separate, and often stored in large jars. The scrolls themselves were copies of earlier scrolls, the originals having been written over a period of some 1000 years or greater. There was no such thing as a single scroll that contained all the old testament writings and hence no such thing as a Bible.
A few hundred years before Jesus was born, Jewish scholars began translating the Hebrew language scrolls into Greek, with the idea of making the scriptures more widely available to other Jews who were dispersed throughout the Roman empire. Contrary to the legend, this translation was likely not completed as one single project. These translations would have been written on papyrus paper or parchment, making possible the binding of the leaves into a codex, or what we would call a book. We do not possess any copies or fragments of the Greek old testament prior to Jesus. Our oldest copies are found in the Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus codices, all dated between 300-500 AD.
The various writings of the new testament were not collected into a "book" until some time after they were written. The various letters of Paul, for example, were exactly that - letters written to the various Churches and individuals. It would take some time for the various Churches to circulate to other Churches copies of letters they might have received from Paul or the others.
Returning then to Eichenwald's assertion that no one has ever read the Bible, we can only assume that perhaps he meant no one alive today has ever read the original manuscript of any particular prophet or apostle. While his claim may on the surface appear to have significance, in truth it has no bearing whatsoever upon the point he wishes to present in his article. The exact same argument can be made concerning Jesus, John the baptizer, and all Jesus' disciples, and in fact every person alive at that time. Not a one of them ever read the original scroll of any of the law, prophets, and writings. Every thing they had were copies of copies.
The fact that neither Jesus nor any of his apostles, Paul included, ever suggested that copies could not be trusted as faithful repositories of the things of God invalidates the arguments of those who would denigrate the Bible on the basis of a history of numerous copies. Evidently God does not see that as a problem. Therefore, to make an objection against the Bible on the basis that our modern versions are a product of numerous translations and copies is nothing more than an excuse to not believe.
Eichenwald is not the first to make this assertion. In the early to middle 19th century, Orson Pratt, one of Joseph Smith's early followers, in many of his sermons questioned the text of the Bible. Because the oldest Biblical manuscript in his day was 1200 years later than the time of Jesus, he couldn't be certain that even one word was the same as the original. He too made the assertion that the Bible of his day was a translation of a translation, made from a copy of a copy of a copy. In his various sermons he often made reference to there being thousands of variations between the few Greek texts that were known. At the time he was questioning the Biblical text, we truly did not have the evidence to prove him wrong. The oldest Bible in existence dated only to about 1200 AD. That is a very long time for changes and corruption to occur.
But since the 2nd half of the 19th century, we have found much older copies of the Bible, and we have found fragments of copies - over 30,000 total. Some of these copies have nearly all the new testament writings, others are but a verse or two. Most of these copies are written in Greek. But many are in Coptic or Latin. The copies and fragments fill in for us the period of 200-1000 AD and allow us to trace the history of the transmission of the Biblical text as the gospel spread across the earth.
What is of great interest is we have copies of the gospels, Acts, and the epistles that now date back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries (100-200) For a copy to have been made it was necessary that there be an even earlier copy in existence at that time. Therefore we can say with great certainty that the whole of the new testament writings were written quite early in the history of Christianity.
Along with the manuscript evidence, we have the writings of the Church fathers, beginning with Polycarp a disciple of the apostle John, in which many direct quotes, references, and allusions to the things written in the new testament writings are found. Again, we recognize the simple truth that one cannot quote something if that something has been yet been written.
Eichenwald's assertion that 400 years passed between the time the Christian manuscripts were written and their compilation into the new testament indicates he doesn't understand the process. The collecting together of the various letters began quite early. We have canonical lists as early the middle of the 2nd century by Marcion. Regarded as a false teacher, his canon already consisted of the gospel of Luke and Paul's writings. The Muratorian canon, dated at about 180 AD, lists 22 of the 27 new testament writings. In the late 2nd century, Irenaeus referred to the four gospels as The four gospels. Very early the Christians were judging certain writings as authoritative to the faith and practice. Other writings were considered as useful, and still others were considered heretical. The Nicene council (325AD) did not create the new testament. It put the stamp of approval on what the Church universal had already come to hold as true. The new testament was not a creation of the 4th century.
THE BASIS OF MODERN TRANSLATIONS
The modern Bible that we read is not the product of translations upon translations of copies of copies of copies. Every modern version of the new testament is based upon the original Greek copies, and the old testament is based upon the original Hebrew copies. No Bible is the result of a Hebrew text translated into Greek translated into Coptic translated into Latin translated into German translated into English, yet this is precisely what Eichenwald and those who think like him wish to imply. For clarity, when I say the original Greek copies or original Hebrew copies, I am not referring to the autograph. What I mean is that modern translations are based directly upon the Greek and Hebrew copies without multiple generations of prior translations.
The old testament text is based upon the Hebrew text standardized by the Masoretes about 600 years after the time of Jesus. Though the modern mind might consider this an unacceptably lengthy period compared to the original, we need to remain mindful that the printing press would not be invented for another 800 years. All writings of all nations and kingdoms since writing was invented were hand copied. The modern notion that hand copies could not be trusted never entered the mind of men. They had no other option.
Yet the preservation of records was as important to the ancient mind as it is to the modern mind. For example, the writings of the Jews which became regarded as scripture were themselves in some cases based upon the official chronicles or annals of the various kings of Israel and Judah. This is evident when reading through 1st and 2nd Kings. After recording the deeds of the various kings, we find written, "And are not the rest of the works of king so and so recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (or in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah)." The history of the Jews was not created by their scripture, but rather their scripture was created from the record of their history.
The text of the new testament is based upon a careful comparison of the ancient papyri copies along with the Sinaiticus (350 AD), the Alexandrinus(450 AD), and the Vaticanus (300-400AD). All three of these have both the old and new testament writings, the old testament being the Greek translation known as the Septuagint (LXX). Between these three great codices and the various fragments, our modern day Bibles contain a text whose accuracy to the original autographs could have only been a dream of the ancient scribes.
In my next post, I will deal with the issue of the great number of variations found in the text when all the various copies are compared and the significance for modern readers of the holy scripture.
Following is a very partial listing of the knowledge base reflected in this post plus interesting links.
UBS Greek New Testament, https://www.academic-bible.com/en/home/scholarly-editions/greek-new-testament/greek-new-testament/
A source to see some of the actual ancient copies of new testament scripture - http://earlybible.com/
One of my favorites, the full text of the multi volume set, The Anti-Nicene Fathers, in an easy to navigate layout. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers2/
Website for the Codex Sinaiticus - http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/significance.aspx
also for Codex Alexandrinus - http://www.bibliahebraica.com/the_texts/codex_alexandrinus.htm
Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, Vol 1, Beginnings to 1500.
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. Though some consider Eusebius' treatment of the history of the Church as suspect due to his close ties to the emperor Constantine, it is still a very good source, and our oldest extant history. http://rbedrosian.com/Eusebius/Euch_Menu.html
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