What is the Bible? New Testament

Arrangement, Timeline, & Authorship

Arrangement

The literary arrangement of books of the New Testament is split by genre.  Note that Luke and Acts are twin volumes, even though we often separate them in the Canon arrangement.

"The Order of the Books of the NT" from Menorah Bible.

Timeline and Authorship

In the time of the New Testament, dictating letters to scribes was a common occurrence. The process of having a scribe write down the words that were dictated was normal, and can be observed in the New Testament. The person recording the dictation is referred to as an amanuensis.

Dates adapted from “The Progress of Revelation” MacArthur Study Bible, Word Bibles, 1997.  pg. xxxi.

For more dating information on the New Testament chronology see:

Language & Alphabets

Koine Greek

Koine Greek is also known as ‘Common Greek.’ Koine was the common language that became the lingua franca after Alexander the Great’s conquests and resulting Hellenization of the Mediterranean areas.

Koine Greek was mostly used from around 300 B.C. - A.D. 300. It replaced classical Greek and was the everyday-language Greek. There was a large geographical usage thanks to Alexander the Great vast area of conquest. The Septuagint, New Testament, and early Church fathers were written Koine Greek.

F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Teppan, New Jersey. Fleming H. Revell, 1950, 1980), 11.

Greek Uncial Alphabet

Α alpha

Β beta

Γ gamma

Δ delta

Ε epsilon

Ζ zeta

Η eta

Θ theta

Ι iota

Κ kappa

Λ lambda

Μ mu

Ν nu

Ξ xi

Ο omicron

Π pi

Ρ rho

Σ sigma

Τ tau

Υ upsilon

Φ phi

Χ chi

Ψ psi

Ω omega


Greek Minuscule Alphabet

α alpha

β beta

γ gamma

δ delta

ε epsilon

ζ zeta

η eta

θ theta

ι iota

κ kappa

λ lambda

μ mu

ν nu

ξ xi

ο omicron

π pi

ρ rho

σ,ς sigma

τ tau

υ upsilon

φ phi

χ chi

ψ psi

ω omega

Word separation (scriptio discontinua) is characteristic of later manuscripts, circa A.D. 1000. Varied paragraph headings (kephalaia) exist in the papyri.  Breathing and accent marks became a feature of the text generally with Miniscule manuscripts. Some late uncial manuscripts feature word separation and accent markings.

"It will be noticed on even the most casual inspection that most Greek manuscripts are written without separation between words and sentences. This kind of writing, called scriptio continua, is easiest to read when one is reading aloud, syllable by syllable. Occasionally the grouping of syllables into words is ambiguous. For example in Roman 7:14 ὄιδαμεν may be divided into ὄιδα μεν, and in 1 Tim. 3:16 the words ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν may be taken as ὁμολογουμέν ὡς μέγα ἐστὶν. In Lev. 5:1 uncial manuscripts read HΨΥΧHHAΝΟΜΟΣHΔΙΑCΤEΛΛΟΥCΑ , which in some editions of the Septuagint (Tichendorf; Swete) is read ἢ ψυχὴ ἡ ἄνομος ἡ διαστέλλουσα, whereas the same letters (in accord with the Hebrew) can be read ἢ ψυχὴ ἡ ἄν ὁμοςῃ διαστέλλουσα (Rahlfs).

It must not be thought, however, that such ambiguities occur frequently. In Greek it is the rule, with very few exceptions, that native Greek words can terminate only in a vowel (or dipthong) or in one of three consonants." 

Bruce M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography (Oxford University Press, 1981), 31.

Text Type Families & Manuscripts

Manuscript Materials

Materials

Making Manuscripts

(6:19)

Manuscript Construction

Construction Arrangement

Categories of Manuscripts

Papyrus Manuscripts

“In other words, the papyri have confirmed various readings as authentic in the past 116 years, but have not introduced new authentic readings.”

Dr. Daniel Wallace   http://www.dts.edu/read/wallace-new-testament-manscript-first-century/


𝕻52 “St. John's fragment” John 18:31–33,37-38

A.D. 110-125

Uncial Manuscripts

Minuscule Manuscripts


Text Type Families

Textual variants were often copied and became part of the pedigree of a related document family. The New Testament variants fit well into four major families.

Text Type Family Locations

Transmission & Textual Criticism

Transmitting the Text

The transmission of the text of the New Testament would change during the different political climates of the ancient world.  When Christianity was being persecuted, the nature and preservation of documents was different than when it was endorsed and nurtured by the Roman government.

Extant Manuscript evidence by Century

(1 hour)

Great Uncial Codices

א Sinaiticus   A.D. 330-360

A Vaticanus A.D. 325-350

B Alexandrinus A.D. 400-440

C Ephraemi A.D. 450

D Bezae (partial) A.D. 400


These codices are believed to originally contain the whole Bible (Septuagint and New Testament).


Alexandrinus (A)

Alexandrinus is named for Alexandria, Egypt, where it resided for a long time.  

Has two columns per page.  Byzantine family.  At British Library.


http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_1_d_viii




Vaticanus (B)

Vaticanus is thought to be one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the entire Greek Bible.  Has three columns per page.  Alexandrian family.  Lives at the Vatican.


Ephraemi Rescriptus (C)

Ephraemi Rescriptus was deciphered by Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874) in  1840-1843.  It is a palimpsest manuscript, meaning it was overwritten with another text.

Byzantine Family.  In Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris).


Discovery of Sinaiticus (א)

Discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai in 1844.   Sinaiticus has four columns per page.  Alexandrian family. Named Aleph to precede Alexandrinus and Vaticanus.  Parts exist at multiple places, mostly at British Library.

http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/



(2.3 minutes)

Bezae Cantabrigensis (D)

One column per page

Oldest Codex witness to the Western family.  

At University of Cambridge.


Washingtonianus (W)

One column per page

Caesarean family  

Lives at the Smithsonian

Around A.D. 400


History of the New Testament

Errors in Transmission

The same errors in copying manuscripts that affected the transmission of the Old Testament also affect the New Testament.

Geisler and Nix write:

New Testament variants. Because the New Testament manuscripts are so numerous, and because there were many private and ‘unofficial’ copies made, there are more variants in the New Testament than in the Old Testament.

a. In 1707 John Mill estimated about 30,000 variants in the known New Testament manuscripts. Many of the great manuscripts were discovered after that time.

b. By 1874, F. H. A. Scrivener counted nearly 50,000 variants.

c. To date there are over 200,000 known variants, and this figure will no doubt increase in the future as more manuscripts are discovered.

From Geisler and Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Moody Press. 1986. Pg 468.

Comparison of Other Ancient Writings

Author Earliest Copy Number of Copies

From Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Pg. 27.


Overall there are 5,600 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  There exist even some partial papyrus manuscripts from possibly the first century.

Of the variants in the texts, at least 95% are insignificant changes;  such things as spelling or word order. 

This adds up to a fantastic amount of agreement from the massive amount of textual witness.

Higher Criticism

Lower criticism involves the manuscript and textual evidence. Higher criticism takes aim at the internal content of the Scriptures. An example of Higher Criticism in the Old Testament is the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP). In the New Testament, there are theories about the construction of the Gospels that follow similar reasoning.

Modern example of Higher Criticism bring practiced on the New Testament:


Some Issues with Higher Criticism


Conclusion

“So definite is the evidence for the New Testament that no less a scholar than Sir Frederic Kenyon could write:

The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.  Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.

Add to their proximity to the autographs not only the multiplicity of the New Testament manuscripts, but the prolific quotation by the early church Fathers and the plurality of early versions, and without entering into the mechanics by which the character of the New Testament text is established, it can be readily understood why no book from the ancient world comes to us with more abundant evidence for its integrity than does the New Testament.”

From Geisler and Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible (Moody Press. 1986), 405.

References

Recommended books:

Additional helpful books:

More information:

Exercise

Take two minutes to copy the following information via hand written note. Then have someone else check it for errors.

ΟΥΤΩΣ ΓΑΡ ΗΓΑΠΗΣΕΝ Ο ΘΕΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΚΟΣΜΟΝ ΩΣΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΥΙΟΝ ΤΟΝ ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗ ΕΔΩΚΕΝ ΙΝΑ ΠΑΣ Ο ΠΙΣΤΕΥΩΝ ΕΙΣ ΑΥΤΟΝ ΜΗ ΑΠΟΛΗΤΑΙ ΑΛΛ ΕΧΗ ΖΩΗΝ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΝ