Podcast 61: Is the New Testament Reliable? (Apologetics 11)

Apologetics 11: New Testament Transmission

With the New Testament we can’t argue for a reliable transmission on the basis of meticulous Hebrew scribes. More often, especially early on, the Christian scribes focused more on quantity than quality so they could get the word out as quickly as possible. However, the sheer number of manuscripts that survived and the relatively early date of several ensure that we can employ a range of strategies to recover the original text with 99.5% accuracy. In fact, when we compare the New Testament to other ancient literature it is almost embarrassing how much better it is than the others.

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Notes:

How To Determine Reliable Transmission

• Two factors that need to be tested to prove reliability
  • number of copies
  • time span between extant copy and autograph
• extant means the existing copy
• autograph means what was originally written

A Wealth of Manuscripts

• extant means currently in existence
• Uncial manuscripts
  • all-capital Greek letters
  • 306 manuscripts dating to as early as the third century (200’s ad)
  • Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (both date to around ad350
  • about 250 years between the completion of the NT and the first full copies of it
• Minuscule
  • Cursive writing emerged in ad 800
  • 2,856 manuscripts
• Lectionaries
  • Contain NT Scripture in the sequence that it was to be read in the early churches at appropriate times of the year
  • 2,403 manuscripts
• Total Greek Manuscripts = 306 + 2856 + 2403 = 5,565 currently (according to Bruce Metzger)
• Also there are ancient translations
  • Approximately 10,000 copies of the Latin Vulgate
  • 9,300 copies in Ethiopic, Syriac, and Aramaic.
• Grand Total = over 24,000 manuscripts
• critical editions
  • NA28  \ all modern translations for the NT are based on one of these
  • UBS4 /
  • Stephanus[1] (KJV was translated from Stephanus) see footnote and next page
    • originated from Erasmus’ 1516 critical edition and complutensian polyglot of 1522
    • based on 20 to 25 mss, mostly medieval 8th c. or later
  • notable differences
    • Comma Johanneum
    • two later additions that still appear in our Bibles are Adulteress woman and long ending of Mark
• resources
  • Bruce Metzger’s A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament
  • NET Bible
• Translations
  • major strategies
    • formal equivalence (word for word)
    • dynamic equivalence (thought for thought)
  • translations using outdated Greek manuscripts
    • KJV, NKJV, YLT, ASV, Amplified
  • range of Bibles from most literal to least
    • NASB
    • HCSB
    • ESV
    • NRSV
    • NET
    • NAB
    • NJB
    • NIV
    • NCB
    • GNB
    • CEV
    • NLT
    • Living
    • Message

Time Between Autograph and Extant Manuscript

• see chart on pp. 142-143 in Building Belief
• The John Rylands papyri manuscript found in Egypt, which is a small portion of the Gospel of John, is dated from ad 117-138. This means that we have a manuscript within nearly 30 years of the autograph. (Only 30 years between Gospel of John and P52 – John Ryland’s Papyrus)

Variants between Manuscripts

• If we