The Text of the New TestamentTHE NEW TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN IN GREEK and modernBibles are translated from a Greek text. The New Testament wasextensively copied through the centuries and thousands of manuscripts areavailable. Modern texts are put together by comparing these manuscriptswith one another. The existence of so many witnesses to the text of theNew Testament not only allows an accurate text to be constructed, butshows that this text is accurate. The witnesses to the New Testament textinclude almost 6,000 Greek manuscripts, about 18,000 manuscripts of theNew Testament translated into early languages, and large numbers ofquotations of the New Testament in other books. The numbers are so greatthat computers and statistical methods need to be used to compare them.This weight of evidence is greater than for any other ancient book.

The Oldest Fragment

Types of WitnessThe first copies of the New Testamentwere written in Greek on Papyrus. Theyare therefore classified as Papyri. After theChurch was established, parchmentmanuscripts were made. The earliest ofthese used only capital letters and arecalled Uncials. Later still lower case scriptwas developed. Manuscripts written inboth upper and lower case are calledMinuscules. Some manuscripts arerearranged to fit daily reading plans. Theseare known as Lectionaries. In addition tothese are translations into ancientlanguages, which are called Versions.

The oldest undisputed piece of the NewTestament is 52, a fragment of John'sGospel written on papyrus. This datesfrom the first half of the second century(around 125AD). Claims of earlierfragments are disputed by most scholars.

Comparison with Other Early TextsThe New Testament stands unique in the number of witnesses to its text. Other ancientworks have far fewer witnesses and the time between the original work and the earliestmanuscripts is far longer.

The Earliest Full ManuscriptsThe earliest substantial manuscripts of theNew Testament are in the Bodmer andChester Beatty collections The earliest ofthese are from the late second century.

Early CitationsThe New Testament was much quoted byancient authors. There are hundreds ofthousands of quotations from workswritten before the reign of Constantinethe Great. It has been said by scholars thatif all the manuscripts of the NewTestament were lost it would be possibleto reconstruct the entire text from thequotations alone. The existence of thisadditional witness shows that the text goesright back to the original documents.

How Accurate?The New Testament consists ofsome 15,000 lines (138,000 words)Of these fewer than 100 lines (900words) are in any doubt. The clearteachings of the New Testament -the essential truths of Christianity -are not endangered by the smallvariations in the manuscripts. TheNew Testament is reliable.

For Pliny the gap is more than seven centuries, for Caesar the gap is more than ninecenturies, and for Tacitus the gap is a millenium. The gap for the Bible is about 130years. The number of witnesses shows a similar story. For the New Testament thenumber of Greek manuscripts is more than 5,800 and the total number of witnesses isabout 24,000. None of the comparison works has more than 20 available manuscripts. Ifone rejects the text of the New Testament one must reject the text of every ancient work.

Time Line

BC/AD 500AD 1000AD 2000AD

New Testament

Oldest Fragmentof New TestamentManuscript

Manuscripts offull text of NT Modern

Day

Translations in English

1500AD

Thousands of

Greek Manuscripts

Caesar'sGallic War

10 manuscripts44BC 900

Pliny the youngerHistory 113AD 850 7 manuscripts

TacitusAnnals 100AD 1,100 20 manuscripts

New Testament 5,800 manuscripts

Written Earliest Manuscript

Theucydides History400BC 900 8 manuscripts1300 years

1000 years

>730 years

>940 years

<130 years

First CompleteBibles in Greek

First PrintedGreek text

For more information: http://biblethink.org.uk/

The Text of the Old Testament

THE MAJORITY OF HEBREW manuscripts of the Old Testament areidentical in their text. This is the result of extremely careful copying andquality control of the manuscripts. The oldest of these manuscripts wasfrom only shortly before 1000BC. However, the text of the Old Testamentis also guaranteed by translations of the Old Testament into otherlanguages in ancient times and copies of Old Testament books foundamong the Dead Sea Scrolls. In view of this evidence one can onlyconclude that the modern Hebrew text of the Old Testament is exactly thesame as it was at the time of Jesus, or when the prophets wrote it.

The Masoretic TextThe Hebrew Old Testament was written in a script where the letters represent only theconsonants. The vowels were inserted later in the form of small symbols (called points)which were written around the consonantal letters.

The main text of the Old Testament is the Hebrew text preserved by Jewish scribesfrom the first century onwards, The text was preserved by extreme care in copying, afterwhich a careful count of words and even letters is made to ensure that the copy is correct.

The result of this is that there is no variation at all in the consonantal text of Hebrewmanuscripts of the Old Testament; variation in the vowels is almost absent. The only realvariation is in the marginal comments. This is strong evidence for the accuracy of thetext of the Old Testament.

The Oldest FragmentThe oldest fragment of the OldTestament known is a smallinscription on a silver scrollfrom the beginning of theseventh century BC whichcontains the text of Numbers6:24-26. Before the scroll wasdiscovered critics had claimedthat this text was written in the3rd century BC; the Bibleindicates that it was writtenmuch earlier than this.

TranslationsThe Old Testament was translated intoGreek and Aramaic before the time ofJesus. Latin followed before 400AD. Allthese translations were copied by groupslike the Orthodox Church who wereindependent of Jewish scribes. Thesetranslations show conclusively that thetext of the Old Testament has beenpreserved accurately.

Old Testament New Testament

The Lawof Moses

The Psalmsof David

Nehemiah

Oldest Fragmentof Old TestamentManuscript

Old TestamentManuscripts inDead Sea Scrolls

Translation ofOld Testamentinto Greek

Thousands ofModern Manuscripts

Time Line of the Bible

ModernDay

Translateddirectlyinto Latin

Aleppo Codex(c930AD)

Isaiah

Cairo Codex(c895AD)

Cairo Genizafragments c400

1500BC 1000BC 500BC BC/AD 500AD 1000AD 1500AD 2000AD

English Translations

The SeptuagintThis is sometimes referred to as the LXX.It is a translation of the Old Testament intoGreek made in the reign of Ptolemy II ofEgypt, which puts it at about 250BC. Thisdate is confirmed by the nature of theGreek used, the fact that works written inthe second century BC quote the LXXaccurately, and the presence of Septuagintmanuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The LXX became the standard OldTestament of the Greek Orthodox churchand was copied in their monasteries. Thisprovides a witness which is independentof the Masoretic Text.

The Dead Sea ScrollsIn 1947 a cache of scrolls was found in a cave near the Dead Sea. These were dated tothe period before Christ. Further finds over the next few years produced hundreds ofscrolls from the period 250BC to 68AD. Among these were copies of at least part ofevery book in the Old Testament (except Esther). These were less carefully copied thanthe official scrolls from the Jerusalem temple, butare still almost exactly identical to the textalready known from the Masoretic manuscripts.The picture to the right shows one of the cavesin which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Thisis cave four at Khirbet Qumran. Fragments ofhundreds of manuscripts were found in thiscave, many of them biblical.

The Samaritan PentateuchThe Samaritans made copies of the firstfive books of the Bible. They then becameestranged from the Jews so that the text oftheir scriptures were not compared withone another. This is therefore anindependent witness to the text.

What it MeansThe text of the Old Testament is secure. The available Hebrew manuscripts are a goodenough witness on their own, but the existence of other, independent, witnesses helps toshow how excellent the Hebrew text of the Old Testament is. The oldest substantialmanuscripts of the Old Testament are from the second century BC. These confirm thatthe text of the Bible used by Jesus is exactly the same as the text of the Old Testamentthat we have today.