Grace Institute: Systematic Theology: Bibliology: Transmission

Bibliology Grace Institute for Biblical Leadership Winter 2006

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IV. Transmission

A. Canonicity

According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is inspired by God. This begs the question, however, as to what books constitute all scripture. How do we know which authors and which books were truly inspired and which were not? Canonicity is the doctrine which establishes the extent of inspired scripture. The word canon means literally a measuring rod. The canon then becomes the measuring rod against which we measure an ancient document to see if it measures up to the level of scripture.

1. Canonicity of the Old Testament

Jesus Christ's affirmation of the Old Testament canon is the basis for accepting these books as inspired. The 39 books found in our modern bibles were entirely contained in the Hebrew bible that Jesus would have used. However, they were split among 22 books which were grouped into either a three-fold (i.e. the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings or Psalms) or two-fold division (i.e. Law and the Prophets). Jesus referenced both the three-fold division (Luke 24:44) and the two-fold divisions of the Hebrew bible (Matthew 5:17, 7:12, 11:13, 22:40, Luke 16:16, 29, 31, 24:27). He defended his teaching by using scripture from all three divisions including the Law (John 5:46), the Prophets (Matthew 11:10), and the Writings (Luke 20:42). In contrast, Jesus never quoted or referred to any of the apocryphal books. Jesus' use of the Old Testament demonstrated His belief in its authority, even down to the smallest grammatical parts (Matthew 5:18, 22:31-33). Clearly the Son of God considered these books to be the inspired Word of God.

If as Christians we believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, his testimony should be all the evidence we need of the inspiration of the Old Testament. Chafer states this well:

It is logically impossible to question the inspiration of the Old Testament without questioning the character and veracity of Jesus Christ. It is for this reason that denial of the inspired Word of God leads to the denial of the incarnate Word of God. [1]

2. Canonicity of the New Testament

a.Apostolic Authority

The authority of the Son of God also serves as a launching point to affirm the canonicity of the New Testament as well. In John 14:26 Jesus tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will remind them of his words and will teach them all things. In John 16:13, Jesus again affirms the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit, and assures his disciples that the Holy Spirit will guide them into truth, revealing to them the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection.

From this we can deduct that the Holy Spirit oversaw the teachings of the apostles, and that their teachings are authentic. The apostles often invoke this Spirit guided remembrance as they share their credentials in their writings (2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:1-4, Hebrews 2:3-4). The apostles considered themselves as authoritative because they had seen, heard, and learned from Jesus and had been reminded of these things by the Holy Spirit. We can therefore consider the writings of the apostles to be canonical.

b. The Pauline Writings

This argument, however, does not hold for the most prolific of the New Testament writers: the apostle Paul. Paul was not one of Jesus original disciples. He was not an eyewitness to Jesus deeds and words. This has caused many to doubt the inspiration of Paul's writings. Furthermore, Paul's writings reveal a more developed theology than the gospels and the general epistles. When this is combined with passages in the Pauline epistles that are contrary to early 21 st century political correctness, it is easy to dismiss these 13 books of the New Testament.

However, Peter affirms the authority of Paul's writings, even going so far as to equate them with scripture:

(2 Peter 3:15-16 NASB)...Our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, just as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

There were other non-apostolic authors as well, such as Mark, Luke, Jude, and perhaps the author of Hebrews. However each of writers was a close associate of an apostle and had tacit apostolic sponsorship. Namely, Luke was associated with Paul, Mark with Peter, and Jude with James. Therefore, these writers were considered authoritative due to their close association with the sponsoring apostle.

3. The Canon Affirmed

The authority and inspiration of these 66 books was established at the time they were written. However, it became important for the church to codify which books were Scripture when non-canonical books began circulating and heresies grew.

Some scholars believe the Old Testament canon was probably first formalized at the Council of Jamnia in AD 90, a council of leading Jews. There is some controversy in Jewish scholarship as to whether or not the council actually set the canon. Nonetheless, the Old Testament seems to be established by the Jews in the late first century. In any case, it should be noted that the Jewish canon only confirmed what Jesus had already established regarding the Old Testament.

The development of the New Testament canon was a long process. Most of the New Testament books were immediately recognized as inspired and became an integral part of church life. The church did not see a need to formalize the canon, however, until certain heretics in the church began compiling their own lists of “inspired” books supporting their viewpoints. Furthermore, by the third and fourth centuries, a number of false gospels (known today as the “Gnostic” gospels) were proliferating.

Therefore it became necessary to determine which of the many books circulating among the churches were authentic in their apostolic authority. There was never a debate amongst the early churches as to the inspiration of the books written by the apostles. The debate came chiefly as to whether or not specific books were written either by the apostles or by someone sponsored by an apostle (e.g. Luke had Paul's sponsorship while Mark was sponsored by Peter).

The New Testament Canon was recognized at the Council of Hippo in AD 393. The church used a four-fold test given to determine whether a book should be included in “the canon,” or the group of books accepted as Scripture [2]:

• Was it written by an apostle or with an apostle's backing?
• Does the book claim to be inspired?
• Do the churches accept the content?
• Does the book have the feel of genuineness?

The church did not question the canon until the Protestant reformation. Some Lutheran churches began to question the books of Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John and Jude. Luther himself had issues with the inspiration of the book of James as well. In reaction to this, the Roman Catholic Church came together in the Council of Trent (1543-63) and reaffirmed these books as part of the canon, but also adding the deuterocanonical books as part of the canon as well. These books, also known as the apocrypha, are primarily books written between the Old and New Testament. They have never been included in the Jewish canon, and were not considered by the church to be on-par with scripture until the Council of Trent.

The process of canonization did not make the books “inspired,” but were used to help determine which books were already inspired.

B. Textual Criticism

When we state that the scriptures are inspired and inerrant, we are speaking of the original autographs (i.e. the original documents written by the original authors). Unfortunately, we do not have any of the original autographs. Instead all we have are copies of copies of copies. However, because we have such an abundance of copies, and some of those copies are dated to within decades from when the original, scholars have been able to create, through painstaking study, editions of the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures which are as close as the original as we can determine. The science of comparing ancient manuscripts to determine a probable original text is known as textual criticism.

1. The Process of Textual Criticism

a. Interpreting the Unicals

The earliest manuscripts look much different than modern writing. First, the chapters divisions were not added to the text until the 13 th century, which verses not added until the 16 th century. The earliest Greek manuscripts are in uncials, meaning they used all capital letters, and didn't provide any spaces in between the words. So for example, if we used uncials in English, John 3:16 would look like this:

FORGODSOLOVEDTHEWORLDTHATHEGAVEHISONLYBEGOTTENSONTHATWHOSOEVERBELIEVEDINHIMWOULDNOT
PERISHBUTHAVEETERNALLIFE.

As if that weren't difficult enough, ancient Hebrew writing did not include any vowels. Psalm 23:1-1 would look like this:

THLRDSMSHPHRDSHLLWNTHMKSMLDWNNGRNPSTRSHLDMBSDQTWTRS.

You can imagine the difficulty modern scholars have in trying to determine the original. Sometimes this leads to some ambiguity.

THEREAPERSONTHEFIELD

Does this say, “the reapers on the field,” or “there a person on the field?” Most of these ambiguities can be determined by context, and in only rare occasions has the interpretation of the uncials lead to disagreement among scholars.

b. Comparing the Copies

In the children's game called telephone, one person whispers a phrase into the ear of another. Then that phrase is whispered to the next person, and so forth until the final person hears the message. The fun of the game comes when the last person says what they heard and compares that to the original message. Invariably the message has become corrupted through the transmission process.

This same problem arises in the hand written copies of the scriptures over the centuries. As scribes copied the scriptures over and over, small mistakes were made in the copying process. Part of the process of textual criticism involves comparing all the various copies we have the scriptures and looking for the mistakes made by scribes.

If you have numerous copies spread over a large geographic area, you may have numerous errors, but not all the errors will be the same. So, for example, all the manuscripts found in Egypt may have one error, but those found in Asia Minor might have a different error. By tracing back these errors to their sources, and then comparing these, scholars have been able to piece together a text today which is as close to the original as possible.

The best estimates today suggest that 97% of our New Testament and 90% of the Old Testament is beyond doubt [3]. Furthermore, none of the passages in question contain critical doctrinal teaching which would put our faith in doubt.

2. Tests for Textual Reliability

There are four primary tests when determining the reliability of an ancient document:

• How many copies of the document are available?
• Where were the copies found?
• What is the length of time between the original and the earliest copies?
• What differences are there between the copies?

How does the scripture hold up to these tests?

a. The New Testament

There are thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament dating back as early as the second century. The earliest dated portion of the New Testament is a fragment of the gospel of John, P52, which is dated to 125 to 130 AD. This is earlier than some more liberal scholars thought John was even written! The number of manuscripts before 300 AD is limited because of the persecution the church faced under Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian sought to eliminate Christianity by not just burning churches and killing Christians, but by systematically burning books. The manuscripts after this period are far more numerous and located in primarily in monasteries around the Mediterranean.

The oldest manuscripts containing the full New Testament are from the fourth century. These are uncial manuscripts written on parchment. These include:

• Codex Vaticanus (B) - it has been housed in the Vatican in Rome since at least the Middle Ages.
• Codex Sinaiticus ( Sin. ) - it is located today in the British Museum. The Codex Sinaiticus has a colorful history. Originally found in 1844 in a garbage can in an Egyptian Monastery, this Codex was donated to the Russian Czar in the 1850s. The Soviets sold the codex to the British Museum in 1933.
• Codex Alexandrinus (A) - This text is believed to have originally come from Alexandria, Egypt. It is housed in the British Museum. It is dated to the fifth century.

There are only two passages of scripture which show any major differences between these codices. Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 do not appear in the Codex Sinaiticus or the Codex Vaticanus, and most scholars today do not believe these passages to have been part of the original text.

Nonetheless, when you compare the number of manuscripts and the date between the original text and the earliest manuscript, there is no comparison between the bible and other ancient literature. If one is to doubt the textual reliability of the New Testament, then one can not state with any confidence that we know the original of any of the ancient text.

b. The Old Testament

The Old Testament presents unique challenges for the textual critic. The Jews had such regard for the scriptures, that when they became old and worn, they burned the scrolls. Furthermore, Jewish scholars established a “standard” Hebrew text between the seventh and tenth centuries, known as the Masoretic text. All copies of the Jewish scripture which did not match this text were destroyed.

There are thousands of copies of a Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint. This translation was completed in the second century BC in Alexandria, Egypt traditionally by 70 scholars, thus the term Septuagint, which means 70 in Greek. The most reliable codices from the fourth and fifth century AD include copies of the Septuagint. There are some differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text, but most of these can be attributed to translation differences.

In 1947 a shepherd boy in Palestine found the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was a copy of the Old Testament dating back to the second century BC in Hebrew. This is probably the most important archeological find of the 20 th century. While there are differences found between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text, given that the Masoretic text comes nearly 1,000 years after the scrolls, it is remarkable how little difference has been found between these two copies. The differences between the Dead Sea scrolls and the Masoric text are few and relatively insignificant.

3. The Greek Text Today

The earliest printed edition of the Greek New Testament was edited by Erasmus in the sixteenth century. Erasmus did not have access to all the Greek manuscripts and actually translated parts of the book of Revelation from Latin back into Greek to complete his New Testament! Stephanus edited the first Greek bible which had our modern chapter and verse structure in 1550. The Elziver brothers edited the text which came to be known as the Textus Receptus , meaning the “text received by all.” This is the standard text used by the translators of the King James Version and was the standard until the 19 th century.

In the 19 th century there were a tremendous number of new manuscripts being discovered, not the least of which was the Codex Sinaiticus. This led to more reliable version of the Greek New Testament, including Westcott and Hort's 1881 version, and the current standard text by Nestle, Aland and Metzger.

C.Translation

1. The History of the English Bible

The English language has been blessed with a multitude of translations. The earliest translation of the bible into English was by John Wycliffe who translated from the Latin in the fourteenth century. Wycliffe was declared a heretic by the church, and even though he died of natural causes, the church had his remains exhumed and burned along with his books 12 years after his death.

William Tyndale was the first to translate from the Greek text into modern English. His 16 th century translation is the basis for nearly every other English translation. He also was declared a heretic and was burned at the stake for his efforts to get the bible into the vernacular of the people.

The church and the English monarchy struggled to suppress English translations of the bible, until after the English reformation when King Henry VIII broke from Rome. After this numerous editions of English bibles were created. Finally, in 1611, King James I called the leading scholars of England together to create the Authorized Version of the bible. This translation was the standard for centuries, and has profoundly influenced the English language to this day. The influence of the King James Version on the English speaking world and on English speaking Christianity can not be understated.

However, today the King James Version is showing its age. First, the translation is based on thee textus receptus , meaning it was translated from an older, less reliable version of the Greek text. Secondly, the language of 17 th century England is not the language of today. In fact, the translators of the KJV used much of Tyndale's translation, which was already 100 years old and the language was already archaic even when first published.

Today, there are more translations of the bible into English than into any other language. As such, by comparing and contrasting the better of these translations, the modern English reader can have confidence that they understand the original text as well as can be possible without actually learning the original Hebrew and Greek.

2. Translations Today

Which translation, however, is the best? That is a difficult question to answer, because each translation was written for a different purpose. To understand which is “best” you have to understand the different philosophies of translations:

a. Translation Philosophy

i. Literal translations

Some translators attempt to follow the original languages as literally as possible. That is, each word is translated directly and consistently. There is less importance placed on readability in English and more importance placed on the original word order and grammar. Such translations are more consistent with the original text, but are much more difficult to read in English. Examples of literal translations are the King James Version (KJV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), and English Standard Version (ESV).

ii. Dynamic Equivalence translations

Other translations attempt to translate not each word, but each thought. These translations are much easier to read in English and capture the significant point of each passage. These translations are not as consistent in the translation of the words nor do they follow the original word order. This requires that the translator make some interpretative decisions in the process of translation. Examples of dynamic equivalence translations are New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT).

iii. Paraphrases

Like a dynamic equivalent translation, the focus of the paraphrase is to make the text easier to read in English and to capture the impact of each passage. The author will take broad liberties, often amplifying and expanding from the original text. Paraphrases are useful for gaining an understanding the original feeling of the passage. However, the paraphrase has significant interpretation done for the reader. Examples of paraphrases include the Message, the JB Philips translation and the Living Bible (LB).

b. Which is Best?

There is a place for all three translation methods. A paraphrase is useful for understanding the feel or emotional impact of a passage, something which is frequently lost in a literal translation. However, for a detail verse-by-verse study or exegesis, a literal translation is best as it leaves most of the interpretative decisions to the reader. For general use, the dynamic equivalence makes a good compromise of readability and accuracy.

New translations are always welcome, because language continually changes. While the language of the King James Version is beautiful and poetic and has had significant impact on the English language, one must re-translate from the Elizabethan style of language to understand it today. Even the NIV and NASB are no longer contemporary, having been translated now two decades ago.

3. Translations into other Languages

The bible is the most translated book in the world. As of 2005, according to Wycliffe Bible Translators, there are 422 languages which have the entire bible. Over 1,000 have a translation of the entire New Testament. Another 2,500 languages are in the process of having the bible translated. However, there are still over 2,500 languages on which no translation work has even started. This, however, represents a small percentage of people who do not have the bible in their native tongue.

4. Are Translations Inspired

Often the multitude of translations causes people to doubt whether or not they can actually trust their English bibles. However, it is actually the great number of translations which provide us with an assurance that indeed we can trust and understand our bibles today. While there is no substitute for learning Greek or Hebrew, the layman can approach his English bible with confidence, knowing that the best scholarship available has created the best translations available. By comparing and contrasting the various English translations, we are able to gain and understanding nearly as good as reading the original.

While we say that inspiration applies only to the original autographs, to the extent that copies of those autographs and translations from the original represent the original autograph, our bibles today are also inspired. While we continue to grow in our understanding of what the original autographs might say, modern textual criticism and translation work has provided us with scriptures as close to the original as can be had. Therefore, trust your bibles, study your bibles, and consider them as inspired!

Footnotes

1. Lewis Sperry Chafer. Major Bible Themes . (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 21.
2. John McRay, “Bible, Canon of the.” Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology . “ http://www.biblestudytools.net/Dictionaries/BakersEvangelicalDictionary/ ”
3. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg and Robert L. Hubbard. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation . (Nashville TN: W Publishing Group, 1993), 69-74.
4. Josh McDowell. Evidence That Demands a Verdict . (San Bernardino CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1979), 48.

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