June 26th: Bible Manuscripts & Translations

Speaker: Chris Laws

BCF 1.1 “For the better preserving and propagating of the truth … it pleased the Lord to commit his revealed truth wholly to writing.” 1.8 “Because the original tongues are not known to all the people of God … the Scriptures are therefore to be translated into the ordinary language of every nation” so that we may “search the scriptures” (John 5.39).
God inspired, then preserved in writing for all people and all time. Two stages:

1. Preserved the manuscripts. We possess no original autographs. Most extant mss >1000 yrs after original.
Hand copied until printing press invented in 1450. A story of extraordinary care & precision.
2. Translations. After 3,500 years of meticulous preservation, translators are ruining the text.

VERBAL INSPIRATION – God inspired every word
First book of Bible: Deut 4.2 “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it.” Last book: Rev 22.18-19 No adding or taking away.
Matt 5.18 “One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled.”
The prophets weren't merely conveying God's thoughts in their own words.
Jer 26.2 “Speak all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word.”
We want to know what did God actually say?

OLD TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS
How were the words preserved for us? Rom 3.2 “Unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
A whole story in these words. Scribes copied it with meticulous care. They kept it pure.
Deut 4.2 prohibited alteration of the text. MH: “and to the great care & exactness therein are we very much indebted, under God, for the purity & integrity of the Hebrew code.”
Christ said of the OT 1,500 years after Moses, “The scripture cannot be broken” (John 10.35). It had remained intact.
The Jews buried worn out scrolls hence very few old mss.

Masoretes at Tiberias famously set about establishing the text (AD500-1000). Error detection systems.
Dead Sea scrolls – a snapshot of God superintending fallible men
Discovered in 1948 by Arab boy. Isaiah dated 100-200BC.
Earlier this month (Guardian June 6th 2025) Daniel dated c5.5C BC - contemporary with Daniel.
Compared to Masoretic text – “practically 100% conformity…the variants being entirely insignificant” (Rene Pache).

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS
No centralised system as with Jews. Bible went worldwide.
Copies carefully made by faithful churches. Christians eager to preserve over centuries like Jews.
Best attested ancient document by far.
5,500 mss/ 10,000 versions (Latin first done 50 years later, then others)
32,000 quotations (1st & 2nd C onwards)/ 2,500 lectionaries. TOTAL 50,000
Cf Plato (400BC) – 7 mss. Aristotle (350BC) – 5 mss.

Degree of agreement extraordinary. Gresham Machen in 1930s said differences “infinitesimal in comparison with what they have in common”. Gaussen: scarcely 10 verses out of 7,959 contain differences of any gravity.
No doctrine of the faith rests upon a variant reading.
At Reformation, a great drive to establish Gk text. Erasmus first in 1516. Textus Receptus (TR) = Gk text used for KJV

CRITICAL TEXT
Since then a few older mss discovered.
Two favourites are the Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Sinaiticus. Considered most important because oldest.
They differ from majority and widely from each other – gave rise to the critical text.
The critical text led to the Revised Version (RV) of 1881. Footnotes appear: “some ancient authorities omit...”
The longest omission is 12 verses: woman taken in adultery (John 7.53 – 8.11) in vast majority of mss (TR).
“Most of the ancient authorities omit John 7.53 – 8.11.” Misleading.
If you remove it, the passage doesn’t make sense.
Augustine discovered some omitted it because they were offended at grace offered to adulterers.

TRANSLATIONS – bigger problem.
Many translations followed the RV: ESV, NIV, NKJV, Good News Bible (GNB).
Moslems scoff at many different Bibles.
Two kinds of translation approaches.

1. Formal equivalence
As literal, as close to original as possible. Wording, grammar, structure. May lead to clumsy English.
Basis: Scripture’s verbal inspiration. Eg KJV.

2. Dynamic equivalence
Most modern translations. Use most natural kind of English. Tries to reproduce the impact of the Greek.
Basis: God inspired thinking/ideas, but left the words to authors.

NIV
1978. Publisher's goal “to do for our time what the KJV did for its day”. Committee's 1st concern “accuracy of translation”.
Over time there have been growing concerns over accuracy. Uses critical Gk texts, not Reformation TR.
1. Simplifies. Charges AV with lack of clarity eg Eph 1.3-14 Gk one sentence, AV 3, NIV 8.
Bible requires effort. Some things “hard to be understood” (2 Pet 3.16).
2. Addition of words without italics. NIV's change meaning, interpretation. Hence original text lost.
3. Omits omits 23 complete verses found in the KJV.
4. Expresses biblical ideas in modern ways – Gal 1.16 “flesh and blood” = “any man”.
5. Interpretation intrudes. Matt 6.22 “If therefore your eye is single” = “if your eyes are good”.

NKJV
Best of moderns. Not TR – editors favoured Egyptian Gk mss, corrupted by heretical tradition.
Dynamic approach: Matt 7.14 “Because strait is the gate, and narrow (difficult) is the way.”

ESV
English Standard Version, 2001. Highly popular. A mixture of both schools of thought or methods. Derived from RSV. Product of ecumenical NCC of America.
Eg: The ending of Mark’s Gospel is missing, but is in over 99% of the mss.
All the early versions agree (Latin Vulgate), and the early church fathers quote it.
But the ESV and RSV say “some of the early mss” exclude it. Some = 2. ESV describes it as spurious.

SUMMARY
1. Most modern versions are based on the critical text.
2. They use ‘dynamic equivalence instead of literal and formal’ – trying to capture the thoughts behind the words rather than translating the words themselves. In contrast, the KJV is a strict translation, word for word from the best manuscripts, producing a literal rendition of the inspired text. We want the exact words not just an equivalent. We want the verbs intended by God, not just the thoughts inserted by the translators.
3. Omission (leaving out): many modern versions) omit complete verses found in the KJV (not to mention about 500 portions of verses). E.g.: Mt 18.11; Acts 8.37.
4. Produced by unbelieving liberal theologians holding in contempt the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture and sold to unsuspecting believers.

Rome taught we need mother church to read scripture – the Reformation repudiated that. It is the reader's business to study and interpret.