New Testament Textual Transmission

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Well, we're continuing tonight in our study of the transmission of the text of the Bible.
00:09
The transmission of the text.
00:11
This series, for those of you who have not been here, is a series within a series.
00:19
The larger series is apologetics.
00:21
The study of how to defend the Christian faith.
00:26
And then we said one of the things that we end up often having to discuss when we're speaking to unbelievers is the very Bible itself and how we got the Bible and how we know that we can be confident in what the Bible says.
00:42
So we did an offshoot of apologetics and the series that we're doing right now is a series on how we got the Bible.
00:51
And I was thinking about this actually as I was getting ready today.
00:55
I got to thinking about the fact that some of the most prominent cultish groups, like for instance, I'll point out the Jehovah Witness movement.
01:11
One of the things that sort of points out the fact that they're going astray in their teaching is that they have had to interpret the Bible in a different way than it has been interpreted by other scholars for hundreds and thousands of years.
01:31
They have to have their own interpretation.
01:33
They have to change words and modify because they don't believe what the Bible actually teaches.
01:40
In fact, if you ever see, I have one on my desk, or not my desk, but on my shelf rather.
01:45
If you ever see a Bible called the New World Translation.
01:50
The New World Translation is the Bible of the Jehovah Witnesses.
01:55
It's not the same as like the New English Translation or the New International Version or something like that.
02:01
So there are those who have sought to introduce changes in the text.
02:08
And often how they justify those changes is they argue that the Bible has been corrupted.
02:21
They say, we have to make these changes because the Bible has undergone corruption.
02:28
In fact, if you talk to a Mormon about the Bible, and you say, why do we need the Book of Mormon? Well, the Bible itself has been corrupted, so we needed this New Testament.
02:40
A new New Testament, another testament of Jesus Christ.
02:45
The Muslims are very much arguing for the corruption of the Bible.
02:52
In fact, they argue that if you really study the Bible, you'll see Mohammed is the focus of our Bible.
02:59
That Mohammed is the promise of our Bible.
03:02
In fact, some Muslims even argue that when Jesus says, if I go away, I'll send you another comforter.
03:08
And the comforter will come and tell you all things.
03:11
Well, they say that's Mohammed.
03:13
That's not the Holy Spirit.
03:14
That's a promise about the Prophet Mohammed.
03:18
So the argument, whether it's the Jehovah Witnesses, and like I said, not all Mormons, but some Mormons would argue corruption in the Old Testament, New Testament text.
03:27
But particularly the Muslims, there's always this argument for corruption.
03:30
And what corruption is, it's an argument about the transmission of the Bible.
03:36
It's saying that somewhere along the line, from when the Bible was written, we'll say, last week we said, from Moses to me.
03:45
And tonight, it's still Moses to me on the slides, but I sent out a Facebook post.
03:52
I said, really, tonight it's from Matthew to me, because we're going to do New Testament.
03:57
And really, I could have said Mark, because there's debate as to which one wrote first, whether it was Matthew or Mark.
04:03
I could have said from Mark to me, but then maybe it would have been a little confusing, and I don't want to create confusion.
04:08
But the argument is, okay, we've got the New Testament.
04:11
We've got the book of Matthew, and of course the other books that are written in the New Testament as well.
04:16
Matthew isn't the first of the New Testament books.
04:18
The New Testament books that were written were the epistles.
04:21
The Gospels would have been written later, even than the epistles.
04:24
So we have Matthew to me, and I'm over here.
04:30
And transmission is the line.
04:32
How did it get from Matthew to me? And the argument of the cultists, the argument of the false religionists, the argument of those who would oppose Scripture, sometimes even the atheists, is that somewhere in this line, there have been opportunities for corruption.
04:54
Whether it is removing or changing, adding or subtracting from the text.
05:02
So we have lines of spots where corruption has entered, and now maybe there was an addition here, maybe there was a subtraction here, and by the time we get...
05:12
You guys ever played the telephone game? Where I whisper in his ear, you know, Adam eats apples, and by the time it gets back to my dad, it's Purple Monkey Dishwasher or something like that.
05:22
It goes all through the line, and it makes all those changes.
05:25
Well, the argument about the Bible is that it's had all of these variations in transmission, and there hasn't been a consistent transmitting of the text.
05:36
So that's why transmission is important.
05:38
That's why the study of this particular section is so important, because there's the argument that we don't really have what Paul wrote.
05:47
We don't really have what Matthew wrote.
05:50
We don't really have what any of the writers of Scripture, old or new, really wrote.
05:56
There's a book by a man...
06:01
Oh, I can't call his name.
06:03
Jennifer, who did we go see debate Dr.
06:04
White? Bart Ehrman.
06:06
Bart Ehrman is a professor at, I think it's North Carolina University.
06:14
He is well known as a biblical scholar, and he is a scholar of biblical languages, no doubt.
06:22
He reads biblical languages.
06:24
He's done archaeological studies, things like that, of the ancient texts.
06:30
But Bart Ehrman's an agnostic.
06:32
He's not a believer.
06:34
And he would say that the Bible misquotes Jesus.
06:37
In fact, that's in the title of his book.
06:39
The title of the book is Misquoting Jesus, where he makes all of these fantastic claims about the fact that the New Testament gets it wrong.
06:48
And so that's the question of transmission.
06:50
That's the subject of the night.
06:52
That's the focus of what we're going to do.
06:55
Last week, we began with the Old Testament.
06:58
And I want to take a step back, because I know some of you were not here.
07:03
And I just want to quickly run through what we learned.
07:05
I will do it with the slides, and just sort of give you the quick overview of last week, if you weren't here.
07:11
Last week, we looked at...
07:12
Whoa, excuse me.
07:13
That's not the right one.
07:18
Sorry.
07:18
Everything's upside down.
07:20
All right.
07:21
We said the Bible was written by hand, and it was copied by hand.
07:25
There were no fax machines.
07:27
There were no copy machines until the 30s.
07:29
They weren't real popular until the 50s, and it wasn't until my generation that they actually were in your house.
07:34
So you've got to understand that prior to all of this, prior to Gutenberg and the printing press, everything was copied by hand.
07:40
Everything was written by hand.
07:42
They were written on stone.
07:45
They were written on papyri, which was an ancient type of paper that was made from a plant.
07:50
And they were written on animal skins, vellum, parchment, and leather, different types of animal skins.
07:58
The Old Testament is different in its transmission than the New Testament, because the Old Testament was transmitted within one particular community, the Jewish community, and they had a very meticulous method for transmitting the text.
08:14
So the Old Testament was transmitted very meticulously.
08:19
The current rabbinical text, or the text that's used by traditional Jewish rabbis today, it's called the Masoretic Text.
08:28
It was copied between 500 and 1,000 AD.
08:31
That's the oldest Hebrew copies that we have.
08:35
Outside of that, we have the Septuagint, which goes back about 1,000 years earlier than that, and that is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text.
08:43
We have the Dead Sea Scrolls, which go back about the same time as the Septuagint, maybe a little older than the Septuagint, and they give us not complete manuscripts, but they give us fairly sizable sections of the Old Testament that we can compare to modern versions and see that they're still maintaining consistency in transmission.
09:07
And that picture there is the Isaiah Scroll.
09:09
It's inside of a museum.
09:10
It's unrolled around that glass in front of light that's protective to keep it from continuing to deteriorate.
09:18
And you can go to Israel and you can see that.
09:21
And the building that it's in is shaped like the pots that they found it in when they found it near the Dead Sea in a cave.
09:30
The Latin Vulgate is also a reference to history for the Old Testament.
09:36
And as I said last week, all of the evidence points to a very meticulously preserved Old Testament text which accurately reflects the original writings.
09:45
All right, so if you weren't here last week, you're all caught up.
09:48
Now we're on the New Testament.
09:49
Because the New Testament, oh boy, is a lot different.
09:53
Because where the Old Testament had scribes whose job it was to copy the text, who did it in such a way that they were so meticulous that if any error was found, that was destroyed, that they literally knew how many letters were on a section of page and which letter was supposed to be in the middle.
10:14
That's how accurate they were and how meticulous they were in copying the New Testament.
10:21
Not like that at all.
10:24
And you say, well, that doesn't sound good.
10:26
But here's the difference.
10:28
The Old Testament manuscripts, we have very few.
10:31
But because of the meticulous nature by which they were copied, those few manuscripts are very good representations of the original.
10:40
Whereas with the New Testament text, we don't have as many, or rather, we don't have as meticulous copies, but the amount of copies we have makes up for that.
10:53
So let's move now on your sheet.
10:56
As I said, under letter D there, under Part 3, you go to Part 4, New Testament Manuscript History.
11:13
And this is where we're going to begin.
11:19
All right, New Testament Manuscript History.
11:23
Let me ask you a question by a show of hands.
11:25
How many of you have ever studied Greek at all? Okay, a couple of you.
11:32
How many of you did it with me? Okay, all right, good.
11:37
I do believe that studying biblical languages is important for two reasons.
11:43
One, it helps you better understand what the Bible is saying, because if you read an English translation and it's confusing, sometimes going to the underlying language, the actual language it was written in, can help clear up confusion, especially if you have two or three translations that differ.
12:00
If you're reading the NIV and the KJV and the New American Standard, and they differ, having the Greek or the Hebrew helps.
12:09
Now, I have not studied Hebrew as much as I have studied Greek.
12:17
And the reason for that is because my primary focus in preaching is the New Testament.
12:24
I do preach from the Old Testament as well, but I believe that the New Testament is where we are given the revelation which interprets the Old Testament.
12:33
So my primary focus is understanding the New Testament, and that helps me understand the Old Testament.
12:39
So my primary focus of study has been in the Greek language.
12:43
And it's helped me to have a little bit of a better insight into how the text was transmitted, just studying the language.
12:51
Because when the New Testament was written, it was written differently than it's written today.
12:59
I want to show you what I mean when I say it was translated differently, or written differently.
13:13
When the New Testament text was written, this isn't on the slides and it isn't in your notes, I don't think.
13:19
When the New Testament text was written, it was written in what is called unsealed text.
13:25
Unsealed text was how Greek was written in the first century.
13:29
When the Greek, by the way, was called koine.
13:31
Koine, Greek, simply means common.
13:38
Common, it was the common language of the day.
13:41
When Alexander the Great conquered the known world, it was part of his goal to not only conquer the world militarily, but to also conquer the world intellectually.
13:52
He wanted to see Greek thought become prominent in the known world.
13:57
And part of the way he did that was by enforcing and encouraging the Greek language to be the common language of commerce, and how people did business, and how people wrote and thought, because he believed that that was how people should believe and think.
14:14
So koine meant common, that was the language.
14:17
It was called koine, Greek.
14:20
Unsealed text means that it was written in all capital letters, no spaces between words, and no punctuation.
14:42
That's how the, if you look, and we're going to look at some in a little while, if you see a manuscript from the first century on to about the sixth century, that's how it would have been written, because that was how Greek was copied, and that's how it was written.
15:01
So it would be like if I were writing something like this, if I wrote like that.
15:19
What does that say? I love my wife very much.
15:23
That's what it says.
15:24
But is it harder to read than if I would have actually written it the way I should have? Yes.
15:30
So there are techniques and there are methods for reading and understanding unsealed text, but that is what the original text would have looked like.
15:39
It would have looked like a series of uppercase letters basically right beside one another.
15:46
Okay.
15:48
All right.
15:49
So we have unsealed text.
15:52
Now later, later we have something called minuscule.
15:57
Minuscule text, the minuscule text, think of minus like minuscule, is also would later be called cursive, but it's not cursive like we would think of cursive as, you know, joining everything together.
16:25
Minuscule meant that they would have capital letters and lowercase letters.
16:32
The capital letters and lowercase letters would make up the words and there would be separations between words and there was an introduction of punctuation.
16:44
And certain things match our punctuation points.
16:47
Certain things don't match our punctuation points.
16:50
So if you were to open up my Greek text, it's on my shelf, and you look at it and you start reading what sometimes you may think is a semicolon, might be a question mark, those type of things.
16:59
It's different for us than it is in the Greek.
17:02
But anyhow, having said this, the minuscule looks very similar in a sense to our, excuse me, looks very similar to what we would say is more like English.
17:27
Now I know that doesn't look like English.
17:28
What that says is in Arche Einhalagos, as in the beginning was the word, that's spaces and punctuation.
17:37
Actually, that's a breath mark because it says ha, ha.
17:39
That's how you know to say that because there's no H in Greek.
17:43
So there would be a breath mark to make you say ha instead of a on the Omicron there.
17:48
So that's just an example of the difference between what you would see in a first through sixth or seventh century manuscript and a later manuscript would be written and look like this.
18:04
As I said, I think this is helpful because when you start to look at the manuscripts, that's part of how you can tell when and how and where they came from is what type of text was used.
18:18
Two factors give us great confidence in the accuracy of the New Testament text.
18:22
Is this on your sheet? I don't have one of your sheets.
18:25
I just want to see.
18:27
Yes, two factors give us great confidence in the accuracy, thank you, Noah, of the New Testament text.
18:33
Number one, we have copies that are dated closely to the original writings and we have many copies.
18:43
So for instance, do you guys need this? Is anybody still copying this? All right.
18:55
I need a bigger board because what you get is Old Testament.
19:08
Moses wrote when? Sometime around 1500 B.C.
19:16
When's the earliest Hebrew manuscript? I said it earlier.
19:25
Somewhere between 500 and 1000 A.D.
19:29
Is the Masoretic text.
19:33
Now, if you want to argue the Dead Sea Scrolls, they would be somewhere before the cross, probably about two or three hundred years prior to the cross.
19:40
You could say the Dead Sea Scrolls, they did bring us back almost a thousand years prior.
19:45
But still, the earliest completed manuscripts that we have of the Old Testament are over a thousand years, up to 1500 years after the writings of Moses.
19:57
That's the earliest completed Old Testament manuscripts we possessed.
20:02
It's not a bad thing because they were meticulously copied.
20:06
We have witnesses to them in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Vulgate and all these other witnesses that help us know that this is actually what Moses wrote.
20:14
That's what we learned about last week.
20:15
But the New Testament is much different because rather than dealing in centuries or millennia, we deal literally in decades.
20:25
It's a much different situation.
20:27
So the timeline changes.
20:28
We go to the cross, would have been somewhere around 30.
20:34
And then you have the first writings of the New Testament somewhere around 45 with the epistles of James possibly being the first, possibly the Thessalonians being very early.
20:47
So you have the epistles being written right here at 45.
20:52
The last epistle, there is a debate.
20:57
Because what happened in AD 70? The temple was destroyed by Emperor Titus.
21:02
He went in, wiped out the temple, fulfilling what I believe was the prophecy of Jesus when he said not one stone will be left on another.
21:09
And not one was.
21:10
They tore the whole thing down, melted it for the gold, did all that they could to destroy everything, left nothing but one wailing wall.
21:16
And it's still there and that's what they go and pray to all the time when they go over to Israel.
21:19
So we know AD 70 was important.
21:21
There are those who believe the entire New Testament was completed prior to AD 70.
21:26
I tend to be one of those people.
21:27
But I do say I could be wrong.
21:30
But you got the entire New Testament possibly being completed either here, right before AD 70, or up to AD 95.
21:41
Some people believe John's writing of Revelation could stretch out to 95.
21:46
And that's fine.
21:47
If that's your place and position because that's your study, that's fine.
21:50
But it's either here or here.
21:53
We know that there's not any writing past that because the New Testament is written during the Apostolic Age.
21:59
And the Apostolic Age is...
22:02
And that's AA for Apostolic Age, not AA for the other one.
22:08
Bad joke.
22:09
So, the New Testament is written during the Apostolic Age.
22:15
The first copies, and we're going to look at some of them.
22:18
The earliest copies that we possess can be dated as far back as 125.
22:32
So, we're looking at a period of transmission of just at 30 years.
22:43
Just at three decades.
22:45
So, we have three decades versus...
22:49
That is right, right? I'm doing the math right on that? Okay.
22:54
95 to 125 would be 30 years.
22:56
So, we're looking at a difference of...
22:59
It's not even comparable.
23:01
Now, here's the interesting part.
23:03
If you compare the New Testament to other writings, such as Homer's Iliad and things like that, it's nowhere close.
23:10
The New Testament is the best documented, best attested work of the ancient world.
23:17
Not even close with any other writing.
23:20
We are the only ones who have first and second generation copies.
23:26
In fact, a lot of people don't know this.
23:28
You know writings of William Shakespeare.
23:31
Some of his writings, we don't have the original copies.
23:36
And so, we have only the copies.
23:37
And some of those, we don't have the whole part.
23:39
So, some of the plays that we love so much, that were written by William Shakespeare, some of them had to be filled in, because parts were missing.
23:47
People don't realize that.
23:48
And William Shakespeare is certainly much further forward than this time in history.
23:54
So, it's just an interesting reality.
23:57
That the best documented work of the ancient world, by far, without any comparison, I don't care if you're religious, or ireligious, or anti-religious.
24:10
You cannot argue that there's any better attested work than the New Testament.
24:15
Huh? Well, even the JWs would probably just say that the corruption, you know, I don't know that they would argue that it means that it's not the best, but they would say that it still has undergone corruption, yes.
24:32
But, now we're going to begin to talk about some of the actual manuscripts that we have.
24:41
This is exciting for me, because I got a chance to go and excavate photographs of these, and not excavate for real, but like go out and find photos of these, and I've collected them into this PowerPoint, and so I'm really excited to share these with you all.
24:57
But before we even get into that, I need to make a point.
25:02
As the copies began to be disseminated, as the copies began to be made, as copies began to be written, there began to be types, text types, and what that means is you could see specific lines of transmission where this particular person or this particular scribe may have made a change or an error, because this is the thing, there are errors.
25:35
They're sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional, but there are errors in the New Testament text.
25:40
This is what we're going to do when we start talking about textual criticism.
25:43
And we'll see that line, and it'll begin a line of transmission.
25:49
The two most prominent lines of New Testament transmission are what we call the Byzantine and the Alexandrian.
26:07
The Byzantine and the Alexandrian text types.
26:12
And if you ever do a study, which we are doing now, but I mean if you ever do an in-depth study of New Testament textual history, you will see people discussing the variation between the Byzantine family of manuscripts and the Alexandrian family of manuscripts.
26:32
Now the Alexandrian manuscripts are the older manuscripts.
26:38
So the Alexandrian manuscripts tend to be the unsealed text.
26:44
Remember I told you earlier, the ones that all capitals knew? You tend to have the older unseals are Alexandrian.
26:53
The later minuscule texts tend to be Byzantine.
27:01
And so, there's this great debate.
27:05
Because where there is a difference between the two, there's an argument that there should be Byzantine primacy or Alexandrian primacy.
27:17
Meaning that you'll hear people say, well the Alexandrian represents the older, thus the more reliable, and so we should go with the Alexandrian.
27:27
But here's what is often unsaid when that's said.
27:31
The Alexandrian represents the minority of the manuscripts.
27:37
Because we have less that are almost 2,000 years old than we have that are 1,500 or 1,000 years old.
27:43
You see the further back in time we go, the less manuscripts we have.
27:49
So, even though the Alexandrian represents the older manuscripts, it also represents the minority of the manuscripts.
27:58
Because there's more of the Byzantine manuscripts.
28:02
And this speaks of where they came from.
28:03
You have the Byzantine Empire, and of course Alexandria is in Egypt.
28:09
Right? Alexandria was known for scholasticism.
28:12
We've heard of the library, the Alexandrian library.
28:15
There's a lot of scholarship and things coming out of there.
28:18
But some people say that the Alexandrian manuscripts should be cast aside, because they're from Egypt.
28:28
Here's the argument.
28:30
Egypt in the Bible, and I'm not exaggerating this argument.
28:34
This is the argument I've heard.
28:35
We should not use the Alexandrian manuscripts because Alexandria is Egypt in the Bible.
28:40
Egypt's always evil.
28:45
That's the argument.
28:45
I'm not saying I agree with it, but they talk about the fact that you had the pharaohs in Egypt.
28:50
There were people always coming out of Egypt.
28:51
Jesus fled to Egypt, but then came out of Egypt.
28:54
And anything they would say coming from Egypt, it's a representation of evil.
28:58
I don't agree with that argument, but you'll hear.
29:01
I mean, I know some of you guys know who had this conversation, and he made that argument.
29:06
We shouldn't give primacy to the Alexandrian manuscripts because they came out of Egypt, and nothing good comes out of Egypt.
29:12
Sounds kind of like what they said about Jesus.
29:14
Nothing good comes out of Nazareth.
29:18
However, when you hear the term majority text, you'll hear this.
29:23
If you ever do a study and you really get in-depth, you'll hear these words.
29:26
You'll hear Byzantine, Alexandrian, majority.
29:28
When they talk about the majority text, they're almost always representing the Byzantine text because there are more later manuscripts than there are early manuscripts.
29:40
I've already said this is the minority because they're older and there's less of them.
29:46
Does that make sense? Yes.
29:52
No, they were copied in Egypt.
29:56
Yes.
29:56
Yeah, Alexandria, Egypt is where they were found.
29:59
Yeah, and I'm not sure even that they were copied there.
30:01
I say they were copied there.
30:02
Maybe that's where they were found.
30:04
They're considered the Alexandrian manuscripts because of that particular lineage.
30:11
No, not Alexander.
30:12
No, no, no, no, no.
30:13
Alexandria, Egypt.
30:15
Yeah.
30:15
So you have two family lines.
30:19
And this is going to be important next week or the week after or whenever we get there because when you start talking about textual criticism, meaning we're going to actually look at texts in the Bible where there are differences in manuscripts in the most important variants, meaning the places in the Bible where there are the most important questions as to whether or not this text is or isn't actually part of the original.
30:50
It's usually a debate between what's in the Byzantine or the majority or what's in the Alexandrian, the minority but older manuscripts.
31:02
That's where the question will come.
31:04
In fact, I'll give you one right now.
31:07
We're not debating this tonight.
31:08
I'm just saying, do you remember when Jesus was on the cross? And you remember when he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
31:17
That entire line is a debated text as to whether or not that was actually the words of Christ from the cross.
31:26
And there is a good reason to question the legitimacy of that line.
31:34
We'll talk about that at a later date.
31:37
But that's one of the things.
31:39
It's only in that one gospel.
31:41
It's only in that one place.
31:42
And there are many manuscripts that do not contain it.
31:47
And they're older.
31:48
You say, but I like it when Jesus said that.
31:51
I just want to know what he said.
31:54
You know who did say it and there's no debate about it? Stephen.
31:59
Remember when he was being stoned, he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
32:03
So there is conjecture that perhaps it was added as a way to insinuate that Christ had the same feeling of intimacy and forgiveness as did Stephen.
32:22
And that's what we call an intentional variant.
32:27
Now, I'm not sending you home tonight worried about your New Testament.
32:32
Let me tell you something.
32:34
If we don't talk about this here, then you're going to go send your kids off to college and somebody like Bart Ehrman is going to talk to them about it there.
32:43
It's better to know and study these things here.
32:46
I have an entire book on my desk.
32:48
And this is on my desk because I keep it close.
32:50
It's Philip Comfort's New Testament Textual Variants Encyclopedia.
32:55
Every variant in the New Testament is explained.
32:58
What manuscripts it's in, what manuscripts it's not, and why we believe it's a variant.
33:05
I incurred by the book.
33:07
It's a great tool.
33:09
So, anyhow, that's one of those that we'll get to.
33:14
And so, having said all that, I have five minutes left.
33:17
Great.
33:18
No, I don't.
33:19
I've got as much time as I want.
33:20
Y'all can leave when you want.
33:22
But I want to show you some of the manuscripts that we have.
33:25
And, by the way, when I say manuscript, that's another thing that can be kind of confusing.
33:30
Because some of the manuscripts are about that size.
33:36
Because that's all we have left.
33:39
A papyri manuscript can only be a piece of it.
33:43
But if there's enough written on it to read what it is, we can tell what it is and when it was written.
33:48
What does that prove? It proves that the document existed at that time.
33:55
You see, up until about maybe 50 years ago, I might be a little off on my dating there.
34:01
But there was an argument that the Gospel of John wasn't written by John the Apostle.
34:08
But that it was written by some later person, a pseudonym, using John as a pseudonym.
34:14
We know that's what happened with the Gospel of Thomas.
34:16
Thomas didn't write the Gospel of Thomas.
34:17
It's a 2nd, 3rd century work at best.
34:20
The Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, 4th, 5th century, sometimes later.
34:24
So we know that does happen.
34:27
But why can we be confident in the Gospel of John as having been written by John? Well, one of the reasons why is because one of his disciples actually testifies to him having written that Gospel in his writing.
34:39
So we have an extra-biblical account of John having written that Gospel.
34:43
But there's another reason why.
34:45
Because the oldest manuscript that we possess, that little card I was just showing you, that size, it's a copy of the Gospel of John that goes back possibly to 125, proving that there were copies in circulation by 125.
35:02
Which would mean it had to have existed prior to that.
35:09
So even though we only have a little bit of it, we have enough of it to prove, based on all kinds of different ways they can tell when this thing existed.
35:17
And they can date it within decades of when it was written.
35:21
And they say, you know, some even push it before the end of the 1st century.
35:26
I don't know that I would do that, but I would definitely say 125 is a good place to put it.
35:31
So if John did write in 95, that would mean it could be a 1st or 2nd generation copy.
35:35
It's amazing reality.
35:37
It's amazing things.
35:38
So let's look real quick.
35:40
The oldest full manuscripts that we have that contain the whole thing, or most of the whole thing, are codices, codexes.
35:53
So we have Codex Vaticanus.
35:54
Codex Vaticanus, also called B.
35:56
If you're ever studying and hear somebody talk about Codex B, that's Codex Vaticanus.
36:01
Codex Vaticanus was copied approximately 325 to 350.
36:04
The 4th century manuscript is widely acknowledged as being the most important witness to the New Testament text, because it's got the entirety of the text.
36:12
The manuscript has been located in the Vatican Library in Rome.
36:16
Boo.
36:18
It's been in the Vatican since 1481, but its contents were not made available until 1889.
36:25
By the way, here's why that's important date-wise.
36:29
When was the King James Bible translated? 1611.
36:34
So this wasn't available to the King James translators at that time.
36:39
This is an Alexandrian manuscript.
36:45
See now how this is kind of fitting together? It is rare in that its contents ingrease practically all of the Old and New Testaments.
36:54
It does not include the pastoral epistles.
36:56
That would be 1st, 2nd Timothy and Titus.
36:59
It does not also include Hebrews 9.15 through the book of Revelation.
37:02
So there are certain portions missing.
37:04
But in spite of its gaps, it is considered to be the most exact copy of the New Testament known.
37:10
Printed texts of the Greek New Testament today rely heavily on Codex Vaticanus.
37:14
So this is hugely important in the history of the text.
37:18
And very early.
37:19
And you say, well, it's 325.
37:21
That's 300 years after Jesus.
37:23
Yeah, but in terms of copying and transmission, that's a really short amount of time.
37:27
Go back to the Old Testament.
37:28
Go back to Homer, Iliad and all that.
37:29
But this is really close to have such a complete and useful text.
37:36
The next one is Codex Sinaiticus.
37:39
Codex Sinaiticus, also known as Aleph.
37:42
You've got Aleph and B.
37:43
Codex Sinaiticus, copied approximately 340.
37:48
Codex Sinaiticus is of near equal value of Codex Vaticanus.
37:51
And it is also an important witness to the New Testament text because of its age, accuracy and completeness.
37:56
It is known as Codex Sinaiticus because it was discovered by the textual critic Constantine Tischendorf at St.
38:06
Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844.
38:10
And there's a story that goes along with this.
38:13
And I don't want to spend all our time on this.
38:15
But this is hugely important because you'll hear people.
38:17
They'll say, Codex Sinaiticus is no good.
38:21
It was found in a trash can.
38:25
And why would they throw it away if it had any value? It's not actually what happened.
38:35
And I can't speak authoritatively.
38:40
But as I understand it, Tischendorf was in the monastery.
38:45
And he was recognizing some items that were set for destruction.
38:54
And he noticed they were written in ancient documents.
39:00
They were set to be destroyed.
39:03
And he said, where did these come from? They had these different documents.
39:06
And that's where they found them, in a trash can.
39:09
When they brought him to this, it was wrapped up.
39:13
It was not set to be destroyed.
39:14
It was set off to its side.
39:16
And it was, from what I understand, was wrapped up in a cloth.
39:19
Not in a trash can.
39:22
So, if you ever hear that, look up the story for yourself.
39:25
Don't believe.
39:27
Because a lot of people, they don't like the Alexandrian manuscripts.
39:29
You know why? Because there's places where they disagree with the King James.
39:33
And that's the issue.
39:36
King James-only-ism says the Alexandrian manuscripts are terrible.
39:39
And they're going to find everything they can to go against them.
39:41
Because they don't want them to be accurate.
39:44
And here's an example.
39:45
They'll say, it's found in a trash can.
39:46
It's obviously trash.
39:47
It came from Egypt.
39:48
So it can't be any good.
39:49
Silly arguments.
39:51
But that's the arguments.
39:53
Yes, ma'am.
40:07
I don't know.
40:08
I have not studied the locational history.
40:12
How it got from where it was to where it is now.
40:15
Or where it was when it was found.
40:17
So I don't know the answer to that question.
40:19
I don't know how they came about it.
40:20
But they do know based upon where it was written.
40:24
Or based upon how it was written.
40:25
And dating and things like that.
40:27
When it was copied.
40:29
Codex Sinaiticus contains over half the Old Testament.
40:32
All the New Testament except for Mark 16, 9-20.
40:34
That's one of the ones we're going to look at when we do textual criticism.
40:37
Because the longer ending of Mark is a debatable passage.
40:41
And John 7.53-8.11.
40:43
That's another debatable passage.
40:45
The story of the woman caught in adultery.
40:48
In fact, those are the two longest passages of scripture.
40:51
That are considered to be textual variations.
40:54
And worthy to be discussed.
40:56
The whole story.
40:57
The woman caught in adultery.
40:58
If you take it out.
40:59
John 7.53-8.11.
41:01
You take that story out.
41:02
The text reads just as well without it.
41:06
And in some of the older manuscripts.
41:08
It's not there.
41:08
In others, it's found in other Gospels.
41:10
Like in one, it's found in the Gospel of Luke.
41:15
One textual critic.
41:17
Believing textual critic said.
41:18
He said it's the greatest story in the Bible that's not really in the Bible.
41:23
So there are questions about some of these.
41:26
But again, compared to what we have.
41:28
This gigantic amount of text.
41:31
To have these few verses or passages.
41:33
That we have to ask the question.
41:35
It means we're doing what we should do.
41:37
And that's trying to get to the original.
41:40
Alright, so real quick.
41:41
And y'all don't have to leave.
41:43
If you have to leave, feel free.
41:45
But I want to go through these real quick.
41:46
Because I don't want to start here next week.
41:49
This is P.52.
41:51
This is the closest copy of the autograph.
41:55
That we have.
41:56
Dated somewhere between 110 and 125.
41:58
I said 125 because that pushes it out.
42:01
110 to 125 containing verses of John 18.
42:04
And it's written on the front and back.
42:05
So there's portions of John 18.
42:07
31 to 34.
42:08
And on the back 37 to 38.
42:11
This fragment.
42:12
Only 20 to 30 years removed from the original.
42:16
P.52 confirms the belief that the Gospel of John was written before the end of the 1st century.
42:21
There's no way that copies could be in circulation that quickly.
42:24
If it wasn't written prior to the end of the 1st century.
42:26
This is conclusive proof.
42:29
And again, not debated.
42:31
Even the unbelieving scholars.
42:33
This puts it over the edge.
42:36
P.87.
42:37
This is the earliest known manuscript of the Epistle of Philemon.
42:41
If you look, you'll see they're all capital letters.
42:43
No punctuation.
42:44
No spaces.
42:46
P.77.
42:47
This contains a few verses of Matthew.
42:49
Not much to the manuscripts, of course.
42:51
They're 2,000 years old.
42:53
If you look this good in 2,000 years, I'll be impressed.
42:59
This is P.32.
43:00
Contains portions of the Epistle of Titus.
43:03
This is P.45.
43:04
Contains portions of all four Gospels and Acts.
43:06
That's an actual manuscript codex.
43:09
So that's not just that sheet.
43:14
The codex consists of portions of 30 leaves of codex.
43:17
Which originally consisted of 220 leaves.
43:19
So the original was 220 based on how it was written and being able to count it.
43:24
But right now there's only 30 leaves left.
43:29
P.46.
43:30
Contains almost all of Paul's epistles and Hebrews.
43:33
Meaning that even though I don't believe Paul wrote Hebrews.
43:35
Whoever collected these probably did.
43:37
Because they collected Paul's writings and put Hebrews with it.
43:39
And this is the oldest collection of Paul's writings that we have.
43:42
And it does include Hebrews.
43:47
This P.47 contains portions of Revelation 9-17.
43:51
P.66.
43:52
This is one of the earliest witnesses to the New Testament.
43:54
It's almost a complete copy of the Gospel of John.
43:57
It's P.66.
43:58
This is hugely important.
44:01
Structurally, the text consists of 75 papyrus leaves.
44:05
Double-sided pages.
44:06
The first 26 have been remarkably preserved.
44:10
And can be read.
44:12
P.72.
44:14
This is the earliest copy including Jude and 1 and 2 Peter.
44:17
P.75.
44:18
Large portions of Luke 3 through John 15.
44:23
So you see all these different manuscripts.
44:29
Representing all of these different books of the New Testament.
44:34
Taking us back to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries.
44:38
Now.
44:40
Let me end with this.
44:41
There are other...
44:43
Yes, sir.
44:53
Yes, sir.
44:57
Yes.
45:08
Yes.
45:11
And when we get to translation of the text.
45:15
I'm going to talk a lot about the difference between the older King James.
45:20
And what people would call the King James today.
45:22
Absolutely.
45:23
Most people today are not carrying a King James.
45:25
They're carrying a 1769 Blaney revision of the King James Bible.
45:30
Not a 1611.
45:31
Alright.
45:32
Very quickly.
45:32
There are other witnesses to the New Testament.
45:34
Not only do we have all these manuscripts.
45:36
Over 5,000 manuscripts.
45:38
Handwritten.
45:39
New Testament manuscripts.
45:41
But we also have lectionaries.
45:44
What's a lectionary? A lectionary is the manuscript arraigned in sections.
45:50
For the purpose of being read in public worship.
45:52
Sort of like our modern liturgies.
45:55
They would take text from the New Testament.
45:56
Write them in lectionaries.
45:57
And we have over 2,200 lectionaries which have been discovered.
46:04
Handwritten lectionaries that were used in the church.
46:07
All of these bear witness to what the New Testament said.
46:10
We also have translations.
46:12
We have the Old Syriac.
46:14
We have the Old Latin.
46:15
We have the Peshitta which is the New Syriac.
46:18
Which was translated in the 5th century.
46:21
And we have the Latin Vulgate which was translated in the 4th century.
46:24
So we have all of these which bear witness to what the New Testament said as well.
46:29
So if somebody says, well your Bible's been corrupted.
46:33
We can say, well not only do we have over 5,000 manuscripts.
46:37
And yes there's questions about some of where those manuscripts disagree.
46:40
But no one could have come along and corrupted anything.
46:43
There's just too many of them.
46:45
There was never a time in history where everyone could have collected everything written by Paul.
46:49
And all the copies.
46:50
And all the copies of those copies.
46:52
And destroyed them and written their own.
46:54
Oh I didn't like what Paul said in Romans so I'm going to collect all the copies of Romans.
46:57
And I'm going to write a new epistle to the Romans.
47:01
Couldn't have happened.
47:02
It was copied too prolifically and too quickly.
47:06
And spread too widely for such a deliberate corruption to ever have taken place.
47:13
And had such a thing taken place at any point in the transmissional history.
47:18
We could recognize it.
47:19
You see people don't like the fact that I question the story about the lady caught in adultery.
47:25
But the blessing is I can question it.
47:28
I can look and say okay here's the transmissional history.
47:31
And I can study the transmissional history.
47:33
And I can ask the question.
47:36
Because I have enough evidence to look at to ask the question.
47:43
If there was ever a time.
47:44
You'll hear people say oh Constantine in the 4th century changed the Bible.
47:50
And rewrote everything.
47:52
And he created the Bible to suit himself.
47:56
And if you've never heard that argument.
47:58
Your kids will hear that in college.
48:01
Constantine changed the Bible in the 4th century.
48:04
Let me tell you something.
48:05
We have absolute proof that that's not true.
48:08
Absolute proof that's not true.
48:09
Because we have manuscripts that predate that.
48:13
That prove that they existed prior to him.
48:17
And they say the same things ours do today.
48:20
So that kind of nonsensical argument is only made out of ignorance.
48:28
So we have lectionaries.
48:29
We have the translations.
48:30
And we have early Christian writers.
48:32
I'm going to read this.
48:33
Many volumes of literature exist from the era of the early church.
48:38
Many of their writings are filled with quotations from the New Testament.
48:43
These men possess copies of the New Testament.
48:44
Which are older than our manuscripts today.
48:47
And as Bruce Metzger says.
48:48
So extensive are these citations.
48:50
That if all the other sources for our knowledge of the New Testament were destroyed.
48:55
They would be sufficient alone in reconstructing practically the entire New Testament.
49:01
So even if we didn't have any manuscripts.
49:04
Even if we didn't have any lectionaries.
49:05
We have the early church writers.
49:08
Who were quoting from the scriptures that they had.
49:12
And we have enough of that.
49:13
That we could reconstruct almost the entire New Testament out of just their quotes.
49:20
It's the best attested work from the ancient world.
49:24
Absolutely.
49:25
The New Testament is certainly worthy to be respected as the best attested work.
49:31
But it's also.
49:32
There's no body of ancient literature.
49:34
According to F.F.
49:34
Bruce.
49:34
One of the great Greek scholars.
49:37
Said there is no body of ancient literature in the world.
49:40
Which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.
49:47
That's our New Testament.
49:49
That's our New Testament.
49:50
That's what we stand on.
49:51
That's what we believe in.
49:52
That's what we trust.
49:53
Do we have questions? Do we have textual criticism? Do we have legitimate times where we can have conversations about the Alexandrian.
49:59
And the Byzantine.
50:00
The majority versus the minority.
50:01
Can we have that question? Can we have that conversation? Yes.
50:04
But at the end of the day.
50:06
Nothing else from the ancient world.
50:08
Even comes close.
50:11
To what we have.
50:13
In the New Testament.
50:15
So that's the transmission.
50:18
Next week.
50:18
We're going to look at.
50:20
Well what do we do.
50:21
When we come to.
50:23
John 7.53 through 8.11.
50:25
What do we do with that passage? What do we do.
50:28
With the longer ending of Mark.
50:31
That's a question we need to answer.
50:32
And we need to know how.
50:34
That question is answered.
50:36
Alright.
50:37
Let's pray.
50:38
Father.
50:38
I thank you for tonight.
50:39
I thank you for the time of study.
50:40
I pray that this has been something that's been enlightening.
50:43
And encouraging.
50:44
For everyone here.
50:45
And I pray that it's been accurate.
50:47
And truthful.
50:48
In Jesus name.
50:50
Amen.