The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (9 page)

Since the establishment of the old covenant was accompanied by covenant documents, it would seem to have been a reasonable expectation that there would be new covenant documents upon the institution of the new covenant. This expectation would not only explain the rapid reception of the NT writings in the churches but also the recognition that these documents were Scripture on a par with the OT in virtually contemporaneous documents (1 Tim 5:18; 2 Pet 3:16). If this assessment is accurate, the idea of a NT canon was not the idea of some fourth-century Christians or even the product of a second- century reaction to the truncated canon of Marcion. Rather, the concept of a New Testament flows organically from the establishment of a new covenant, predicted by the OT prophets and instituted in and through the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who thus became the very fount not only of all Christian salvation blessings but also of the NT canon.

Conclusion

The canon of Scripture is therefore closed. In one sense the canon was closed around 95 when the book of Revelation was written as the last book to be included in the canon of the NT. Properly conceived, the church's duty was to recognize the canon of inspired writings and to proclaim the truths they contained. This is what the church did and is continuing to do. Moreover, as demonstrated above, this recognition of NT canonical books came quite early, earlier than many are prepared to concede, and differences in opinion regarding individual NT books were settled through a process of deliberation until one finds a virtual consensus regarding the contents of the canon of the NT in the fourth century.

SIDEBAR 1.5: DID THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT UNDERSTAND THAT THEY WERE WRITING SCRIPTURE?
¹

Some have suggested that the Gospels were composed to be read in the churches as part of a liturgical cycle.
²
If so, it is hard to dismiss the view that the Gospels were intended to be used as Scripture since the OT was already being read in the churches in such a way. Also, both Matthew and Luke saw themselves as continuing the biblical history of the OT.
³
By extension this applies also to the book of Acts because Luke-Acts was conceived as a two-volume work (see Acts 1:1). It is also very likely that John understood the Apocalypse to be Scripture. The direct visions from God, the command for those with ears to hear, and the warning neither to take away nor to add to the prophecy of this book all sound like injunctions appropriate for Scripture.

The fact that all the Gospels were declaring the fulfillment of the OT promises in Christ also supports the notion that the NT writers understood themselves to be writing Scripture.
⁴
Like the Gospels, Paul's letters were also to be read in the churches in keeping with Paul's explicit instruction (as in Col 4:16). It would seem that Paul, at least, understood his letters to be authoritative for the church. While they may not have foreseen the entire body of NT writings, the writers of the various NT documents most likely understood their work within the larger framework of Scripture. Thus the expectation of new covenant documents may have played a part in the production of the NT.

__________________________

¹
For an affirmative answer with regard to the Gospels, see D. M. Smith, “When Did the Gospels Become Scripture?” JBL 119 (2000): 3–20 (the 1999 SBL presidential address).

²
For Matthew, see G. D. Kilpatrick,
The Origins of the Gospel According to St. Matthew
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1950); and M. D. Goulder,
Midrash and Lection in Matthew
(London: SPCK, 1974); for Mark, see P. Carrington,
The Primitive Christian Calendar: A Study in the Making of the Marcan Gospe
l
(Cambridge: University Press, 1052). For a more recent defense, see Hengel,
Four Gospels
, 116.

³
Smith, “When Did the Gospels Become Scripture?” 8–10.

⁴
Ibid., 13.

THE TRANSMISSION AND TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: IS THE BIBLE TODAY WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN?

The Bible was originally written in the languages in use at the time. The OT was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the NT in Greek. The Bibles used today are translations from the original languages into English or other languages. Jesus most likely taught in Aramaic—though he probably also knew Hebrew and Greek—so that the Greek NT itself for the most part represents a translation of Jesus' teaching from the Aramaic into Greek.
¹⁰⁴

The question “Is the Bible today what was originally written?” involves two important questions. First, are the available manuscripts of the Bible accurate representations of the original manuscripts (the autographs of Scripture) of the respective books of the Bible? This is an issue of textual
transmission
. Second, are the available translations faithful renderings of the Bible in the original languages? This is an issue of
translation
.

Textual Transmission: Are the Available Manuscripts Accurate and Reliable?

With regard to the first question, no original autographs exist of any biblical text; only copies are available. The word
manuscript
is used to denote anything written by hand, rather than copies produced from the printing press.
¹⁰⁵
Textual evidence constitutes anything written on clay tablets, stone, bone, wood, various metals, potsherds (ostraca), but most notably papyrus and parchment (animal hides, also called vellum).
¹⁰⁶

Most ancient books were compiled and then rolled into a scroll.
¹⁰⁷
Since a papyrus roll rarely exceeded 35 feet in length, ancient authors divided a long literary work into several “books” (e.g., the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles consisted of a two-volume set composed by Luke).
¹⁰⁸
These were published by both individuals for private use and by professionals for sale. In both cases the books were copied laboriously by hand.

One of the mysteries of Christian literature is the preference for the codex rather than the roll. Even when only a page of an ancient book is found, it can easily be determined if it comes from a roll or a codex: the codex has writing on both sides of the page. The roll was considered the more literary form for books. It is likely that the NT always circulated as a codex. The origin of this preference has been suggested by Skeat to be the four-Gospel codex
¹⁰⁹
and by Gamble the Pauline corpus.
¹¹⁰
In either case it was most likely a Christian innovation to publish sacred books in codex form.

Books eventually succumb to the ravages of time. They either wear out or deteriorate over time. This extended also to the original writings that comprise the NT. Although the autographs are no longer available, the original texts are preserved in thousands of copies. At times critics object that the loss of the scriptural autographs constitutes a major problem for those who defend the trustworthiness of the Bible. Yet this does not necessarily follow. At the outset the lack of autographs helps to direct attention where it properly belongs: the contents of Scripture rather than the physical objects on which it was first recorded.
¹¹¹

More importantly, the extant manuscript evidence instills a high degree of confidence in the text of the Bible.
¹¹²
Both the OT and NT are attested by a large number of manuscripts in a variety of forms spanning many centuries.
¹¹³
The NT texts remain the best-attested documents in the ancient world. The witnesses to the NT fall into three broad categories: the Greek manuscripts; ancient translations (versions) into other languages; and quotations from the NT found in early ecclesiastical writers (the church fathers).
¹¹⁴
The Greek manuscripts include papyrus fragments, uncials (written in all capitals without spaces and punctuation), and minuscules (small cursive-like script).
¹¹⁵

The papyri form the most significant group since their early date implies that they are chronologically the closest to the original autographs. For example, both P
⁵²
(containing John 18:31–33,37–38) and P
⁹⁰
(containing John 18:36–19:7) are most likely dated to within 30 to 50 years of the original writing.
¹¹⁶

The uncials follow the papyri in chronological importance. Codex Sinaiticus, an uncial written in approximately 350, is the earliest extant copy of the entire NT.
¹¹⁷
Other uncials, such as Codexes Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, and Bezae, constitute significant witnesses as well. The minuscules compose the largest group of Greek manuscripts, and they are dated considerably later.

Finally, the translations of Scripture into other languages prepared during the first several centuries of the church and citations of Scripture in the writings of the church fathers provide helpful information that can aid scholars in reconstructing the most plausible original readings. The total tally of 5,760 Greek manuscripts, more than 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, and more than 9,300 early versions results in over 25,000 witnesses
to the text of the NT.
¹¹⁸
When this is compared to other works in antiquity, no other book even comes close. Needless to say, classical scholars and historians would love to be working with books as well attested as the NT.

Table 1.1: Extant Copies of Ancient Works

If there is bad news with regard to this state of affairs, it is that with the sheer multiplicity of manuscripts come some variations in the text.
¹¹⁹
Because they were copied by hand, it is highly unlikely to have two manuscripts that are exactly alike. Thousands of variant readings (most of them minor and inconsequential) exist between the manuscripts. While scribes exhibited great care in their effort to reproduce an exact copy,
¹²⁰
they were not immune from human error. Scribal errors can take the form of unintentional and intentional errors.
¹²¹
Unintentional errors are the cause of the majority of textual variants.
¹²²
These typically include errors of the eyes (e.g., skipping words or losing one's place); the hands (slips of the pen or writing notes in the margins); and the ears (confusing similar sounding words or misunderstanding a word).
¹²³
Intentional errors resulted when scribes attempted to correct a perceived error in the text or altered the text in the interest of doctrine and harmonization.
¹²⁴

The presence of variants has often been used to undermine both the inspiration and reliability of the NT. However, these efforts are regularly plagued by flawed underlying
assumptions. First, the proper subject of investigation is not “Is the New Testament inspired?” but “What is the New Testament?” Second, the reliability of the NT is not materially affected by the existence of variants, which pertain to only a small portion of the NT. In fact, 94 percent of its content is exactly the same in virtually all the existing manuscripts.
¹²⁵

Of the remaining 6 percent, 3 percent constitute nonsensical readings that are transparently not original but the result of various scribal errors. Thus only about 3 percent of the text are properly the subject of investigation. What is more, variants between the available manuscripts should cause no doubt that the correct reading can be found. There is virtually no possibility that among the thousands of manuscripts that exist today an original reading was lost. The correct reading is extant; the task that remains is to identify which of the variant readings most likely reflects the original.

In terms of classification of existing readings, all Greek manuscripts exhibit traits that enable scholars to group them into text families (Alexandrian, Western, or Byzantine) based on geographic origin, Greek style, and date. Through comparative analysis performed by the practitioners of a science called textual criticism, scholars sift through all the extant manuscripts in order to reproduce the most plausible reading of the original autographs in each individual case.
¹²⁶

Textual critics adjudicate between readings through exacting criteria such as dating, text type (geographic distribution), attested readings (how many manuscripts have a certain reading), and possible reasons for variants (such as smoothing out a theologically diffi cult reading). In addition to examining the Greek manuscripts, textual critics also consider all other relevant witnesses such as versions and the church fathers.

Although textual criticism is a very complex and at times controversial science, it has provided students of Scripture with at least two assured results. First, none of the variant readings (including omissions) affect the central message or theological content of the Scriptures. Second, it can confidently be asserted that the text of the Bible today is an accurate and faithful representation of the autographs.

Translation: Are the Available Translations Faithful?

The second issue, namely that of
translation
, follows as a natural corollary once the question of
transmission
is settled. To assess the fidelity and accuracy of the Bible today compared to the original texts, one must investigate the issues of translation theory and the history of the English Bible. The task of translating the Bible from its source languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) into a receptor language (English) involves a plethora of issues related to the nature of language and communication. Is word meaning found in some fixed form of inherent meaning, or is meaning determined by contextual usage?
Is meaning located in the formal features of the original grammar or in the function of words within the grammar? These are just a few of the questions pertaining to translation theory.