Quality of manuscripts matters more than quantity.

Not all manuscripts are equally important sometimes more is not always better. You might think that finding what most manuscripts contain would solve the matter, but it’s not so simple. In the example of 1 Corinthians 13, most manuscripts include some form of burn. But the most prominent method used by New Testament scholars today is a multifaceted, eclectic process.įirst, the manuscripts themselves are considered-this is called external evidence. How is this done? There’s not just one way, and there is some lively debate about the best way to proceed. The goal is to find the most ancient-and most accurate-reading. This is the task of textual criticism, which uses tightly honed methods to test variant (or divergent) readings that are encountered in manuscripts. The terms look similar in Greek they both make sense in context.

The English translations differ because they are translating different Greek words: some manuscripts have a word for boast and others include some form of burn. Instead, textual criticism means thinking critically about manuscripts and variations in the biblical texts found in those manuscripts, in order to identify the original reading of the Bible.įor example, what do we do when we find differences in 1 Corinthians 13:3 in ancient manuscripts? Some Greek manuscripts read “if I give up my body to be burned” (see ESV KJV), whereas others read “if I give up my body that I might boast” (see CSB NIV). So what exactly is textual criticism? How do you do it? It does not mean that we are criticizing the text of Scripture textual criticism of the Bible has nothing inherently to do with critiquing the Bible. So, if we want to read the New Testament in print today, someone has to do textual criticism to find it so they can translate and print it. Though this applies to all ancient books, the stakes are higher for the Bible. And to complicate matters, no two manuscripts agree exactly. So when someone wants to print an ancient book (like the Greek New Testament), how do they know what to print? Where does one find the authentic Iliad of Homer or Josephus’s Jewish War? These do not exist in only one manuscript, but in many manuscripts. Before that, everything was copied by hand, and it was much easier for errors to enter in to the copying process. This reality applies more broadly, as well, to any book written before the modern printing press, which began to make exact reproductions of works on a larger scale. To put the matter starkly: if we want to read the Bible, then someone has to do textual criticism on it. How does it work? And why exactly do we need it? And more existentially, does this affect the reliability of the Bible? An accurate(and certainly more interesting) name, might be “the study of ancient manuscripts and how we get our printed Bibles from them.” Now we’ve got something to talk about. Most don’t know what it is, and those who do must admit that “textual criticism” is not the catchiest phrase.īut textual criticism does not have to be boring. When I mention this class to someone as we make small talk, I can almost feel the waft of boredom fill the room.

Even as I write that I know how boring it sounds. One of the classes I teach each year covers textual criticism of the New Testament.

Original old testament manuscripts