When one hears the word “criticism” applied to the Bible, the immediate response is to think that it refers to being critical of the Bible and its truths. And that definition is sometimes appropriate, especially when it refers to so-called “Higher Criticism” such as Source Criticism and Form Criticism mainly practiced by more liberal Bible scholars. However, there is another type of Bible criticism called, for some reason, “Lower Criticism,” and that refers to Textual Criticism.
It should first be pointed out that if (a) all the manuscripts (hand-written copies) of the Bible were in total agreement with one another or (b) we possessed the original manuscripts of Moses or Paul, for example, there would be no need for Textual Criticism at all. Unfortunately, neither is the case. Therefore, even the translators of the King James Version had to employ the findings of textual criticism to determine which Hebrew and Greek manuscripts were the most reliable before even beginning to translate them into English. And modern translators do the same today.
The goal of textual critics is to restore the autograph (the wording of the original writing by the author) by examining the various hand-written copies (called witnesses or manuscripts) available. But before demonstrating how they go about doing this, Try taking this simple open-book test. As you look at these passages, pay special attention to any footnotes in your Bible associated with these passages (Hopefully, you are using an edition of the Bible that contains some sort of notes in it).
Quiz
1. How does the Lord's Prayer end?
2. Which Gospel contains the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery?
3. How many years did Saul reign according to I Samuel 13:1?
4. What does Matthew 17:21 say about fasting?
5. Were Paul and his co-workers (a) like babes or (b) gentle when they visited the Thessalonians? (I Thessalonians 2:7)
Physical aspects of ancient books
Papyrus scrolls were written on with a reed pen and seldom exceeded 35 feet long. Luke and Acts would have each taken about 31-32 feet (about 20 sheets stitched together). In the early 2nd century the codex (standard book) form was adopted and greatly popularized by the church. Vellum (scraped animal hide) was a more expensive medium utilized from the 3rd century and written on with quill pens. All copies of the Bible were made by hand (manuscripts) up to the time of the printing press. The first complete Bible, in Latin, wasn't published until 1456.
Inherent Problems in Copying
No spaces between words
No punctuation
No upper and lower case letters
No vowels (in Hebrew)
Words at the ends of columns were often run into the next column
Although OT scribes were carefully taught their trade, the copying of NT documents was largely carried out by non-trained people who may not have taken the same care.
Examples:
A. I Chronicles 25:4b can be completely re-translated as a series of psalm titles if one divides the words at different points and inserts different vowels into the original consonantal text: “Be gracious to me, Yahweh, be gracious to me; My God art thou; I have magnified and I will exalt my helper; and Sitting in adversity I said, give clear signs plentifully.”
A simple example of this principle is seen in the string of letters GDSLV. Does it mean God's slave, good slave, God's love, or God is love? It entirely depends on how one divides up the letters into individual words and which vowels one inserts into the text.
B. “Spirit” in James 4:5 may refer to the Holy Spirit or one's spirit depending on whether the S is capitalized.
C. John 3:16 may be a statement by Jesus or by John depending on where one places the closing quotation mark.
Types of Errors in Copying
A. Accidental Errors
1. Mistaking one letter for another. I Timothy 3:16 reads either “who” (os) or God (theos), commonly abbreviated by using only the first letter (theta, which looks like an “o” with a line through it) and last letter, sigma, with a line over it.
2. Haplography (omitting a letter or word) or Dittography (repeating a letter or word). See Question 5 above: I Thessalonians 2:7 may read “...n epioi” or “...n nepioi” depending on which of these two errors has been made.
In I Samuel 13:1, some of the numbers have been accidentally omitted early in the copying process. Since they are numbers rather than words, it is almost impossible to restore the original with any certainty. (Question 3)
RSV has “he was...years old when / he reigned...and two years.”
TEV leaves out the whole verse.
NIV says he was 30 years old (based on a few late Greek manuscripts) and reigned 42 years (The “4” was added to bring it into rough agreement with Acts 13:21, which has 40 years).
3. The marginal note of a scribe has accidentally found its way into the text itself by a subsequent copyist. This is the possible way in which the doxology to Lord's Prayer got originally attached to Matthew 6:13 (Question 1).
B. Intentional Errors (These are much fewer in number)
1. Attempted “improvement” in grammar or style of the author
2. Harmonization with parallel passages. Example is Mark 14:24 where some manuscripts add “new” before “covenant” to agree with the other Gospels.
3. Doctrinal reasons. Later manuscripts add “and fasting” to the end of Matthew 17:21, probably because of the importance of that practice in the early church (Question 4). One late mss. of I John 5 has the following phrase added between verses 7 and 8: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.” This phrase is found in the KJV but in no recent translations. However, Mormons go to great pains to point it out as one of “many” examples where the Roman Catholic Church has tampered with the original text to the point that we cannot trust it at all.
NT Textual Sources
Western Text (earliest example is the Chester Beatty Papyri dating from 200 AD): This textual tradition tends to paraphrase on occasion and to have additions. The Book of Acts, for example is 10% longer in the Western Text.
Alexandrian Text (earliest mss. dating from 350 AD): This is the so-called “neutral” text. It is brief and not polished in style. Early examples include the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus documents, the earliest complete or almost complete NT manuscripts that we possess.
Caesarean Text arose in Egypt, came to Caesarea and then on to Jerusalem. It is a mixture of the Western and Alexandrian textual traditions.
Syrian or Byzantine Text (originating ca. 300 AD with earliest mss. dating 475 AD). This tradition is characterized by its polished style and its tendency to harmonize supposed inconsistencies. This is basically the text used by Erasmus in 1516 when he prepared the standard Greek text (Textus Receptus) heavily utilized by the translators of the King James Version.
Lectionaries from 6th-10th cent. AD; 2,000 mss.
Church father quotations (1st-2nd cent. AD)
Translations such as the Latin Vulgate (384 AD; 8,000 mss.)
OT Textual Sources
Masoretic Text (Heb., MT) – The scholars responsible for maintaining the purity of the text over the generations were carefully trained professionals who utilized special methods to ensure that errors did not creep into the text. Since the vowels were not introduced into the Hebrew Bible until about 800 AD, the Jews also had to preserve the oral tradition up to that time as to how the text should be properly pronounced.
Septuagint (Gr., LXX)
Samaritan Pentateuch (Sam.) – 400 BC origin; earliest manuscripts 11th century AD.
Aramaic Targum/Translation (Tg., Aram.)
Syrian Peshitta (Syr.)
Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran, Q)
Talmud and Midrashes (100 BC-500 AD)
Of special interest is the Septuagint (translation from 250-50 BC; earliest mss. 400-500 AD) since it was the common OT text used at the time of Christ and may witness to an earlier textual tradition than reflected in the standard Hebrew text preserved by the Masoretic scholars (earliest copies 950 AD). The copies of the Bible found in the Dead Sea scrolls (100 BC-70 AD), however, witness to the basic unchanging nature of the Hebrew text over a roughly 1,000-year period.
Confidence in the Text from Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict
Text (Number of mss.) Years lapsed from time of original writingNew Testament (14,000) 40-150
Gallic War (10) 900
Tacitus' History (20) 1,000
Aristotle's writings (5) 1,400
Textual Variations 150,000
Non-Trivial 17,500
Meaning Affected in 50
Lines in Doubt:
New Testament -- 40 out of 20,000
The Iliad -- 764 out of 15,600
The earliest manuscript from the NT found as yet is a fragment copying part of a verse from John's Gospel. It has been dated by handwriting style to about 130 AD, totally disproving liberal theories dating this gospel to later in the 2nd century.
Methods for Deciding Between Conflicting Texts: The overall principle is to look for the textual reading that best explains the origin of the other readings.
External Evidence
A. Date (the earlier the better)
B. Geographical distribution of witnesses
C. Genealogical relationship between texts (rather than sheer numbers)
D. Accuracy of the scribe
Internal Evidence (based on the habits of scribes)
A. More difficult reading preferred
B. Shorter reading preferred (except for obvious accidental omissions)
C. Divergencies in parallel passages preferred
D. Less refined grammar and unfamiliar words preferred
E. Probabilities based on usage of author elsewhere
Example 1: The Woman Taken in Adultery (Question 2)
900 mss. contain the story after John 7:52
100 mss. do not contain the story at all
4 mss. place it after John 21:25
14 mss. place it after Luke 21:38
1 ms. places it after Luke 24:53
1 ms. places it after John 7:36
Which reading explains the other readings? If it was authentic, then later scribes might have purposely deleted it because it showed Jesus being too lenient on an adulterer. To test that theory, one would have to look at the relative ages of the various manuscripts to see if later ones deleted it. On the other hand, if it was a free-floating, authentic story regarding Jesus that was not originally found in any of the four Gospel accounts, its later incorporation in various places until finally settling on John 7:52 would also make sense. Most modern scholars go with this second explanation.
Example 2: The Conclusion to the Gospel of Mark
This important case of textual criticism is discussed in my blogpost “The Ending of the Gospel of Mark.”
Additional Reading
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger
Old Testament Textual Criticism by Brotzman and Tully
The Text of the Old Testament by Ernst Wurthwein
Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism by Harold Greenlee
The New Testament and Criticism by George
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