06.04. Examining the Text

Chapter 3 Examining the Text In the last chapter we traced the records of the Old Testament to the time of Christ and his apostles, and beyond; but before entering upon the particular theme of the present chapter we should do the same for the New Testament. After we pass the era of the printed Bible we find the New Testament like the Old in manuscript form, the oldest of which manuscripts carry us back to the fourth century. The three oldest are the Alexandrian, or Codex “A,” the Vatican, or Codex “B,” and the Sinaitic, or Codex “Aleph.” The last two are certainly of the fourth century, and the first named, of the earlier part of the fifth.

It is notable also that the custody of these three is divided between the three great branches of the Christian church, the Protestant, the Roman Catholic, and the Greek, in the order named. The first is deposited in the British Museum, the second in the Vatican Library, and the third in the Royal Library at St. Petersburg. The fact that these three manuscripts are thus held by the three branches of the Christian church, in which there has been much rivalry and contention on doctrinal points, has contributed much to the preservation of the integrity of the text and the evidence of its genuineness.

Back of these manuscripts we trace the history of the New Testament through the versions of the second century, as in the case of the Old Testament. There are two versions of that century, the Latin and the Syriac, sometimes called the “Peshetta,” which means “literal.” These versions were referred to in speaking of the Old Testament, and it is in order here to say that they contain the Old Testament as well as the New. The former of the two was the Bible of the Western and the latter the Bible of the Eastern church in that early day. Of course, it is not claimed that these versions are in existence today, but through the copies of them which we possess and the testimony concerning them in the writings of the early church fathers, there is no question as to their existence at that time. The Syriac, it is believed, dated from about 150 A.D., but as the books which formed its collection must have existed for sometime previously in a separate form, its history practically brings us back to the close of the apostolic age at the end of the first century when John, the last of the apostles, died.

We thus see, in summing up, that as early as the middle of the second century of the Christian era, and in the case of the Old Testament as early as the middle of the third century before Christ, there existed the same books as those now in our Bible, ascribed to the same authority and containing in all material points the same text. This applies to all the books of the Old Testament without exception, and to all of the New with the exception of II Peter. It is true that the Latin version of the second century omitted Hebrews, James and II Peter, and that the Syriac omitted II and III John, Jude, Revelation, and II Peter; but putting these two versions of the same century together we have all the books of our Bible excepting II Peter. And what is even more remarkable we have no other books than those now in our Bible. The reason for the omission of II Peter and the circumstances under which it came subsequently to be received into the Canon, will be presented in a later chapter.

We are now ready to proceed with the particular subject assigned for this chapter, namely, the examination of the text. For example, it has been stated above, that our Bible is the same as that of the early manuscripts and versions in all material points, a qualification which at once suggests the query as to the points in which it is not absolutely and precisely the same. In answering this query we come face to face with another concerning the “various readings” of the manuscripts and versions, about which we have been hearing a great deal. To understand this question it should be borne in mind that multitudinous copies of the Bible have been made in different tongues and different ages, showing evidence of misapprehension of the text in some places and carelessness in others. To quote another here, “Even printed books often contain numerous inaccuracies in spite of the most careful reading of proof-sheets; and in writing the risk is much greater than in printing, revision and correction of each copy being necessary and laborious. Sometimes the writer transcribed from a manuscript before him and sometimes from dictation. In the one case his ear was liable to deceive him, in another his eye. Misunderstanding of the manuscript from which the transcriber wrote may sometimes have led to error. Its abbreviations may have been misinterpreted or its words inaccurately divided.

Now it is the province of Bible criticism to examine these “various readings” of which there are very many, hundreds of thousands indeed, in order to determine the correct text. There are definite rules by which this examination is conducted, and so scientifically has it been accomplished that, as Bishop Westcott says: “Seven eighths of the words are raised above all doubt whatsoever by a unique combination of authorities, while the questions forming the remaining one eighth are, for the most part, simply those of order and form; so that in the last analysis not the slightest possible question can arise over more than one sixtieth part of the whole text” The late Dr. Ezra Abbott, of Harvard University, an authority on questions of textual criticism, almost as distinguished as Bishop Westcott himself, and quoted by the writer in The Bulwarks of the Faith, dismisses nineteen-twentieths of these “various readings” from consideration altogether as obviously of no importance, nineteen-twentieths of the remainder as relating to matters of spelling, grammar, construction and order of words without affecting the sense; and then adds that even what is still left does not involve an important historical fact or essential doctrine or revelation, but at the farthest only the number of proof-texts by which it may be sustained.

Acts 8:37 and 1 John 5:7-8, are illustrations in point. Neither of these verses appear in the Revised Version, because the testimony to their genuineness did not appear to be sufficient. They refer indeed to doctrines of the greatest importance, but their existence in the text is not at all essential to the enunciation and establishment of those doctrines, as even the most cursory reader of the Bible and the least intelligent of Christians knows. It would be very interesting, indeed, to go further into details in the examination of the text and give illustrations of the “various readings” so called, but for this the reader must be referred to larger and more pretentious works, in which connection I should like to name The Angus-Green Cyclopedic Hand-book to the Bible, by the late Joseph Angus, D.D., to which especially the new edition, indebtedness is acknowledged.