Publisher’s Note

Welcome to the ebook short How the Bible Came to Be. The selection included in this short ebook is an excerpt from the larger work The Baker Illustrated Bible Handbook by J. Daniel Hays and J. Scott Duvall, eds.

© 2011 by J. Daniel Hays and J. Scott Duvall

Published by Baker Books

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-4026-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Contents

Cover

Publisher’s Note

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contributors

The Inspiration of the Bible

The Production and Shaping of the Old Testament Canon

Writing, Copying, and Transmitting the New Testament Text

The Canon of the New Testament

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Septuagint

Bible Translations and the English Bible

Translations for the World

Back Ads

Back Cover

Contributors

Dr. Stephen Dempster (Atlantic Baptist University): The Production and Shaping of the Old Testament Canon

Dr. J. Scott Duvall (Ouachita Baptist University): Bible Translations and the English Bible

Dr. Bryan Harmelink (SIL International): Translations for the World

Dr. Karen H. Jobes (Wheaton College): The Septuagint

Dr. C. Marvin Pate (Ouachita Baptist University): The Dead Sea Scrolls

Dr. M. James Sawyer (Western Seminary): The Canon of the New Testament

Dr. Mark L. Strauss (Bethel Seminary): The Inspiration of the Bible

Dr. Daniel B. Wallace (Dallas Theological Seminary): Writing, Copying, and Transmitting the New Testament Text

The Inspiration of the Bible

MARK L. STRAUSS

Introduction

At its most fundamental level, the doctrine of inspiration means that the Bible is not merely human reflections about God or meditations on religious themes. It is rather divine communication—God’s message to human beings. “Inspired” does not mean merely inspiring or inspirational in the way that a great work of literature or a piece of art is inspiring. It means that God himself has spoken and has disclosed himself to his people.

The Scriptural Basis for Inspiration

Scripture attests to its own inspiration both directly and indirectly. The Old Testament law is to be obeyed because its imperatives come from God himself. On Mount Sinai Moses receives the word of the Lord and delivers it to the people. The Ten Commandments begin with the affirmation, “And God spoke all these words” (Exod. 20:1). Consider these statements from the great acrostic Psalm 119, a celebration of the precepts, commands, and statutes that God gave to his people:

119:4—“You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.”

119:13—“With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.”

119:86—“All your commands are trustworthy.”

119:88—“I will obey the statutes of your mouth.”

119:89—“Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.”

119:138—“The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy.”

119:152—“Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever.”

God’s word is faithful and true because it comes from the mouth of the one who is “Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11).

Scripture as God’s own self-revelation is equally affirmed in the prophets, where God speaks through his human servants. The formula, “the word of the Lord came to . . .” appears throughout the prophetic corpus (Jer. 1:2; Hosea 1:1; Jon. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1; Hag. 1:1; Zech. 1:1; cf. Luke 3:2). The first chapter of Isaiah illustrates well the multiplicity of expressions: “the Lord has spoken” (Isa. 1:2); “hear the word of the Lord” (1:10); “says the Lord” (1:11); “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (1:20); “the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel, declares” (1:24). The prophets confirm that inspiration is the convergence of the human and the divine. Jeremiah’s prophecies are simultaneously “the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah” and “the word of the Lord” (Jer. 1:1–2). This convergence is especially clear in quotations of the Old Testament in the New. New Testament writers easily move back and forth referring to Scripture as the words of the human prophet (“this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel”; Acts 2:16, citing Joel 2:28–32) or a message given directly by the Holy Spirit (“So, as the Holy Spirit says”; Heb. 3:7, citing Ps. 95:7; see also Heb. 10:15–17, citing Jer. 31:33, 34). The prayer of the church in Acts 4 provides the fullest description: “You [God] spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David” (Acts 4:25; citing Ps. 2:1, 2). God spoke by means of the Spirit through his human agent.

Scripture’s inspiration, affirmed implicitly in these passages, finds explicit expression in 2 Timothy 3:16–17:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Greek word translated “God-breathed” is theopneustos, a term possibly coined by Paul himself to express the nature of inspiration. The King James Version rendering, “inspired by God,” finds it roots in the Latin Vulgate (divinitus inspirata). Unfortunately “in-spired” might suggest that God “breathed into” Scripture its authority, while theopneustos more likely means that God “breathed out” Scripture. Inspiration does not mean divine validation of a human work, but God’s self-revelation of his own purpose and will. Second Timothy 3:16 further affirms that the purpose of inspiration is to enable God’s people to live in right relationship with God (“training in righteousness”) and with others (“equipped for every good work”). The Bible is not an icon to be worshiped or an oracle to be consulted. It is rather a living account of God’s actions in human history and a practical guidebook for living as the people of God.

Second Peter 1:21 provides further insight into the process of inspiration: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (TNIV). While this passage again confirms the divine-human origin of Scripture, it expressly concerns the prophets, who often received oracles and visions directly from God, and so may not be a definitive expression of the manner and means of inspiration. What does it mean, for example, that the prophets were “carried along” by the Holy Spirit? While the precise mode of inspiration remains a mystery, the following clarifications can be made.

Clarifications Related to Inspiration

How can texts written by ordinary human beings in the context of common human experience be at the same time the eternal and unchanging Word of God? The following points seek to clarify the nature of inspiration.

Inspiration Is Not Dictation

Except in some specialized cases, inspiration does not mean dictation. God did not whisper into the ears of the biblical authors, but rather worked through each author’s own circumstances, thoughts, intentions, and personalities to communicate his divine message. The exceptions would be in those cases where the author is told to write exactly what he is told (as in some prophetic texts) or where God himself inscribes the text (as in the Decalogue, inscribed on stone tablets “by the finger of God”; Exod. 31:18). Evidence that inspiration does not mean dictation is the differences among biblical authors in literary styles, including vocabulary choice, sentence structure, level of diction, and choice of genre. Mark’s Gospel, for example, is written in a rather rough Semitic style, with a great deal of parataxis (parallel sentences linked by “and”), while Luke’s has a more refined Hellenistic literary style.

Inspiration Concerns Contextually Located Utterances

The diversity of authorship goes beyond issues of literary style. The authors wrote from within their own historical and cultural contexts, and their writing reflects the boundaries and limitations of each of those contexts. The inspiration of Scripture therefore relates to its original genre, purpose, and occasion. For example, Isaiah’s message of coming judgment against Israel at the hands of the Assyrians is an inspired and authoritative message from God to the Israelites of the eighth century BC. Its message must be understood within the language, culture, context, and literary conventions of that day. Furthermore, this message was intended for that audience in their particular situation. Application to other times and places must be determined carefully through sound principles of hermeneutics. In the same way, Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, for example, were written to a specific group of first-century Christians living in the Greco-Roman city of Corinth and were intended to address their unique problems and concerns. Paul’s instructions and exhortations must be understood first of all within this social, cultural, and ecclesiastical context before they can be applied to other church contexts. Inspiration does not negate the need for the hard work of interpretation (exegesis) or application (contextualization).

Contextual location also relates to the Bible’s many genres and modes of expression. A poem, for example, is inspired as a poem, and so its truth and authority must be understood within the parameters of its literary form. Inspiration must take into account the use of figurative language (“the trees of the field will clap their hands”; Isa. 55:12), metaphor and simile (“the Lord is my rock”; 2 Sam. 22:2), phenomenological language (“the sun rose”; Gen. 32:31), irony (“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” John 1:46), sarcasm (“you are so wise!” 2 Cor. 11:19), approximations (“about eight days later”; Luke 9:28; cf. Mark 9:2: “six days”), and a host of other “nonliteral” literary forms. Narrative must be understood as a story, so that not every statement made is necessarily true. When the high priest says of Jesus, “He has spoken blasphemy” (Matt. 26:65), this is a false statement given by an unreliable character. The dragons and beasts of apocalyptic literature may be mythical and symbolic images meant to communicate spiritual truth.

Inspiration Does Not Negate the Use of Written and Oral Sources

A third clarification relates to the manner in which inspired Scripture was composed. The authors of Kings and Chronicles, for example, drew from a variety of sources, both canonical and noncanonical (1 Kings 11:41; 14:19, 29; 1 Chron. 29:29; 2 Chron. 9:29; 12:15; 20:34; 24:27; 26:22). Luke refers to written and oral accounts that preceded him and from which he likely borrowed (Luke 1:1–4). Most scholars assume both Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their primary sources (“Markan priority”). The letter of Jude cites or alludes to various intertestamental works, including 1 Enoch (Jude 14) and the Assumption of Moses (Jude 9). Paul occasionally quotes from pagan poets and philosophers, including Menander (1 Cor. 15:33), Epimenides (Titus 1:12–13), and Aratus (Acts 17:28 [Luke quoting Paul]). It follows that the inspiration of Scripture does not lie in the sources or traditions behind the text, but in the authors inspired by the Holy Spirit to produce the text. The text represents a faithful and authoritative record of each author’s inspired utterances. In short, the process of writing Scripture—like Scripture itself—was a dynamic interplay between the human and the divine. The authors’ own experiences, recollections, research, selection, editing, and composition were together guided by the Holy Spirit so that the result was the Word of God.

Verbal and Plenary Inspiration

Two terms often used to describe inspiration are plenary and verbal. Plenary means “full” and indicates that all Scripture is inspired and authoritative (2 Tim. 3:16). Verbal means that the words themselves, not just the ideas, are inspired by God. Article VI of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (see discussion below) affirms “that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.” While verbal and plenary inspiration is an important doctrine, both terms must be carefully qualified. For example, while plenary means that all Scripture is inspired, authoritative, and useful, this does not negate the reality of the progress of revelation or of controlling texts and motifs. Old Testament affirmations of the efficacy of animal sacrifices must be understood as incomplete and preparatory statements qualified by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross (Heb. 10:4, 14). The God who communicated partially and incompletely through the prophets has now revealed himself “in these last days” through his Son (Heb. 1:1–2). There are also controlling or paradigmatic texts. Jesus could subordinate the whole law under two commands: love for God and love for others (Matt. 22:35–40).

The doctrine of “verbal” inspiration must also be qualified. While the (Hebrew and Greek) words of Scripture are indeed inspired, words are symbols that indicate conceptual content. It is the meaning of these words—the message that they convey—that is ultimately inspired by God. And words do not carry meaning in isolation, but in dynamic interplay with other words, phrases, and clauses, and in historical, social, and cultural contexts. The ultimate goal of Scripture is not to place words on a page, but to communicate a message from one person to another. Any theory of inspiration that does not give priority to communication over verbal form will fall short, since it misrepresents the nature and purpose of language. This has important implications for the task of Bible translation. An English translation of Scripture remains God’s Word even though it changes all the words (from Hebrew/Greek to English) if it accurately reproduces the meaning of the text. “God’s Word” ultimately means the conceptual content that the author intended to communicate through Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic sentences.

Inspiration and Canonicity

The doctrine of inspiration is closely related to the question of the canon. The canon refers to those books that comprise the church’s authoritative Scripture (see the following articles on the Old Testament and New Testament canons). The ultimate test of canonicity is not whether a book is confirmed by a church council, or written by a prophet or an apostle, or historically reliable, or that its doctrine is in agreement with the rest of Scripture (though these are all important confirmations of canonicity). The ultimate test is whether a book is inspired by the Holy Spirit: “all Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16 NASB). As Bruce Metzger insightfully observes, the canon is not an authoritative collection of books, but a collection of authoritative books. It is not a church council’s authority that makes them a part of Scripture. It is the inspiration and authority of the books themselves. The Holy Spirit is the ultimate test of truth. The apostle John affirms this when he tells his readers, “you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth” (1 John 2:20; cf. 2:27). The Holy Spirit indwelling, guiding, and empowering the people of God recognizes the Spirit-inspired books of Scripture. This is not a subjective test, as some might argue, since the Spirit is not a feeling or intuition, but a real Person who objectively confirms the truth for God’s people: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

This understanding of inspiration also means that biblical interpretation should be a community activity. As the Spirit indwells the individual believer (1 Cor. 6:19), so he indwells the church as a body (1 Cor. 3:16), and together the Spirit-filled and Spirit-guided community provides essential checks and balances for an individual’s own interpretation. This is true both presently—in local congregations and in the church worldwide—and historically—through the councils, creeds, and collective wisdom of the church through the ages.

Inspiration and Inerrancy

Closely related to the doctrine of inspiration is that of the inerrancy of Scripture. The debate over inerrancy arose especially in the context of concerns that the doctrine of inspiration was being undermined by claims of partial or limited authority. Some, for example, have argued that Scripture is authoritative when discussing ethical and theological issues, but not in matters of science or history. The term infallibility is sometimes used in this regard, limiting the scope of inspiration to matters of faith and practice. Others have argued that the Bible contains the Word of God but is not itself the Word of God. Still others claim that Scripture is not divine communication per se, but is a human record of God’s actions in salvation history. Historical or other errors are of little consequence, since it is the God about whom the Bible testifies who is true, rather than the testimony itself.

In contrast to these views of partial inspiration, the doctrine of inerrancy claims that Scripture is wholly true in all that it affirms. The most definitive statement of inerrancy is the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, produced in 1978 by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and signed by three hundred evangelical scholars. Article III of the Chicago Statement affirms “that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God,” and denies “that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.”

Inerrancy must be seen as a philosophical presupposition rather than an empirically verifiable fact. It is impossible, for example, to “prove” the reliability of every historical event in Scripture. There is simply not enough historical data. We can reason, however, that if God is perfect, his self-revelation must also be perfect. Inerrancy is a philosophical given based on the nature of God. Some have criticized the term “inerrancy,” claiming that it is a recent innovation and that the concept is not found in Scripture. Others reject it because it is a negative term, telling us what the Bible is not rather than what it is. Both of these criticisms can be muted by using a more positive definition: inerrancy means that the Bible is true in all that it affirms. As noted above, statements about the truth of God’s Word abound in Scripture, and throughout church history the people of God have affirmed the trustworthiness of God’s self-revelation. Jesus repeatedly spoke about Scripture’s authority and emphatically stated that it could not be broken (John 10:35; cf. Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; 5:17–19; etc.).

As with inspiration in general, the doctrine of inerrancy must be qualified in certain ways. Some of these have been mentioned above, including the use of nonliteral and phenomenological language, approximations, generalizations, and diverse literary forms. A parable is not in error if it recounts fictitious events, since this is the nature of parables. A genealogy is not in error when it skips generations for literary or structural reasons (cf. Matt. 1:1–16; Luke 3:23–38), since this was common practice in ancient genealogies. Scripture must be read and interpreted within its historical and literary context. The following are two other important qualifications for the doctrine of inerrancy.

Inerrancy Is Limited to the Original Autographs

Before the invention of the printing press, all documents were copied by hand (a handwritten copy is known as a “manuscript”), a process that inevitably resulted in errors. Of the thousands of biblical manuscripts that have survived, no two are exactly alike. Inerrancy, therefore, relates only to the “autograph” (the original copy penned by the author), none of which have survived. This, however, should not disturb students of Scripture. While it is true that we do not have exact copies of Scripture, the wealth of early and reliable Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, together with the finely developed discipline of textual criticism, means that we can reproduce the original text with a very high degree of accuracy. As Article X of the Chicago Statement reads,

We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy.

The Bible is without exception the best-preserved document from the ancient world, both in terms of age and number of manuscripts. Furthermore, despite some uncertainties on individual readings, no point of Christian doctrine is at stake because of a textually disputed passage. This is so because the great doctrines of the faith are confirmed not by one passage, but by the whole testimony of Scripture.

Inerrancy and the Limitations of Human Language

Another necessary qualification for the doctrine of inerrancy is that all language carries a measure of ambiguity and imprecision. Though the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture may be perfect, the vehicle of transmission (human language) is subject to ambiguity and imprecision. Our comprehension of divine revelation is therefore always partial and incomplete (1 Cor. 13:12). While this is certainly true, common sense and human experience teach us that we can know truly even if we can’t know perfectly. If this were not the case, no human communication would be successful. Those reading this paragraph, for example, cannot know with absolute precision the author’s intention in every nuance of every word. (The author himself could probably not tell you that!) Yet the reader can discern enough to say, “I understand.” Though the human element (languages and readers) inevitably results in less-than-perfect comprehension, the creative power of human language together with the illumination by the Holy Spirit means that the message comes through truly, even if not perfectly.

Inspiration and Authority

A natural implication of the inspiration of Scripture is its authority. If the Bible is God’s Word, then it has authority over God’s people in matters of faith and practice. The authority of the Bible encompasses experience, reason, and tradition. Authority over experience means that personal feelings or intuitions must not overrule the Bible’s clear teaching. Of course, all interpretation is affected by one’s life experiences and background, and it is impossible to approach the text completely free of bias. Yet the goal must always be to hear God’s voice in Scripture rather than to impose one’s feelings and agendas on the text.

Authority over reason does not mean that biblical truth is irrational or illogical. Rather, it means that we take the supernatural as a given, expecting that God can and does act above and beyond the natural world. It also means that apparent contradictions and historical problems do not negate biblical truth. Rather, we adopt a “wait-and-see” attitude, expecting Scripture’s veracity to be vindicated. It also means that we develop an attitude of humility and open-mindedness, recognizing that Western standards of empirical truth may not always correspond with the enculturated nature of biblical revelation.

Finally, authority over tradition means that the church’s historical councils and creeds represent truth inasmuch as they reflect the teaching of the Bible. The Bible stands in judgment over historical and systematic theology. Each generation of the church must therefore return to Scripture to examine, confirm, and even correct its beliefs and practices.

The Production and Shaping of the Old Testament Canon

STEPHEN DEMPSTER

Introduction

The Old Testament canon consists of thirty-nine books in Protestantism, forty-six books in Roman Catholicism (adding Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Ben Sira, Wisdom, 1–2 Maccabees, with additions to Daniel and Esther), and forty-eight books in the Orthodox church (adding 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees). The Jewish Bible, which is identical with the content of the Protestant Old Testament, consists of twenty-four books, but divided and arranged differently. Christian Old Testaments emphasize eschatology (the future) by placing the prophets at the end; Jewish Bibles highlight ethics by having their first five books (the Law of Moses) function as a structural center, around which the other main divisions (the Prophets and the Writings) are organized in concentric circles.

The Notion of Canon

The word “canon” is derived from a Hebrew word signifying “reed” (qaneh) and by extension “measuring stick.” It enters into the Greek language as “canon” (kanon) with a wider semantic range signifying exemplary standards in relation to literary works, grammatical rules, and even certain human beings. The word was coined in the early church to indicate an absolutely authoritative, complete list of God-inspired books, which was the standard of truth (Athanasius, 39th Festal Letter). Although such a list was considered closed, it is clear that the creation of the canon did not happen in an instant. It had a long and complex history before such closure occurred. The historian Josephus (AD 95) describes a closed list of inspired books that had been authoritative for all Jews for centuries (Against Apion 8).

Scholars frequently distinguish between two senses of canon: material and formal. “Material” refers to a collection of authoritative books that is in the process of formation—an evolving canon. Sometimes this is named Canon 1, or proto-canon. “Formal” signifies an authoritative collection of books, or Canon 2—a closed canon.

Writing, Books, and Literacy

The Bible did not become a book in the modern sense until well into the first few centuries AD when the codex (the modern book) was invented. Before that time it was a collection of scrolls. Greek manuscripts from Christian sources in the fourth and fifth centuries AD were the first “books” to contain all the writings of the Old Testament (two of the most complete manuscripts are Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus). In Judaism, the first attested Bible containing all the sacred writings is dated to the eleventh century AD (Codex Leningradensis).

The Bible first existed as oral proclamation, which was then made permanent through writing because of its importance. The Hebrew word used to indicate the activity of oral proclamation is the word “to call, to call out.” Later Jewish tradition refers to the Bible as not that which is written but that which is called out. Thus the biblical literature was preeminently that which was read aloud, frequently in public gatherings.

Nevertheless, the Bible consisted of writings. In the ancient world, writing and reading were the prerogative of an elite group of scribes. Writing systems were complex and ponderous, requiring the memorization of hundreds of signs. Consequently only a small number of professionally trained scribes would be literate, employed in administrative tasks such as record keeping and accounting as well as political and cultural ones such as the production of royal propaganda, legal documents, and culturally significant texts. With the dawn of the alphabet at the turn of the second millennium BC, this changed. Due to the vast reduction of writing symbols down to a few dozen signs, literacy became democratized—at least in theory. Semitic alphabets start appearing in the land of the Bible in the second half of the second millennium BC (at sites such as Ugarit and Izbet Sartah). One has recently been found in Tel Zayit, dating to the tenth century BC. The beginnings of the Bible take place, then, in the midst of an epistemological and social revolution as well as a religious one—the God of the universe begins to make himself known in texts! The gods of all the other nations revealed themselves in images, but Israel found her God in the text. This provided a theological motivation for literacy (Deut. 6:9).

In ancient Israel, literacy probably expanded outside of the limited scribal circles. For example, in the book of Judges, a young man could write out the ancient version of a “hit list” when he was captured (Judg. 8:14); Isaiah could divide people into literate and illiterate classes (Isa. 29:11); a common soldier found it incredible that his superior officer considered him illiterate (Lachish Letter #3); an ordinary laborer could commemorate the completion of a building project in writing (Siloam Inscription). In addition, the ending of Ecclesiastes (12:12) assumes a great deal of literacy among its audience, not to mention that it was incumbent upon the head of each Israelite household to write on the doorposts and gates of his homestead (Deut. 6:9).

The Old Testament as a Whole: Different Arrangements and Canons

The formation of the Old Testament occurred over a long period of time. The earliest writer to appear in its pages is Moses (Exod. 17:14) and the last is Ezra (8:1), a scribe patterned after the great Moses. Between these two Mosaic figures is a potpourri of writings spanning centuries that became part of the Old Testament: legal collections, poetry, narratives, prophecies, apocalypses, proverbs, lamentations, hymns, riddles, protests, curses, chronicles, lists, letters, and love songs. In the Hebrew Bible this diversity has been arranged in a story line that begins with creation (Genesis) and ends with Israel’s return from exile (Ezra–Nehemiah, Chronicles). This order is different from our English translations of the Old Testament used in churches today. These translations are largely based on Greek Bibles of the early church in which the Prophets sometimes occur at the end. The Hebrew order is designated by the acronym Tanak, which refers to its three major divisions: Torah (Law, Instruction), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). The first division is identical with that of our English Bibles. The second division consists of eight books, later divided into four books of Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) and four books of Latter Prophets (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, the Twelve [minor prophets]). The third (last) division consists of eleven books, but the sequence of the books is not as fixed. Probably the earliest order was as follows: Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra–Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

In the early church there were lists of books and manuscripts that contained additional writings. As the church moved away from the geographical center of Judaism, there was some confusion about its canon, and some books that became popular made their way into various Christian lists and manuscript collections. In order to eliminate some of this confusion, Melito, a bishop from Sardis, made a journey to Palestine around AD 170 to determine the original order and number of the books of the “Old Covenant.” Origen (AD 230) also indicates that he was aware of books that had been added. Later, individuals like Athanasius and particularly Jerome recognized the differences between the canon of Hebrew “truth” and other books. However, the force of tradition was so strong that it was not until the Reformation that there was a concerted attempt within the new Protestant Christian movement to return to the Hebrew canon. This was probably an influence of the Renaissance, which stressed the importance of cutting through the “logjam” of tradition to get back to the original sources. For obvious reasons, this path was not followed by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. They kept some of these additional books that are often called “deutero-canonical” to indicate their distinction from the earlier “proto-canonical” books.

The Beginning of the Old Testament Canon

If there was an event that can be regarded as providing the impetus and nucleus for the canonical process, it was the Sinai covenant. The content of the covenant was largely the giving of the Ten Words (Commandments), which reflected the will of the Creator for Israel to embark on a divine mission to the world (Exod. 19:5–6; 20:1–17). In this public event, God spoke directly to Israel in the thunder of Sinai. This oral proclamation was then made permanent in stone tablets written by God.

The climax of the covenant at Sinai underlines the importance of the written word. The experience of being confronted with the unmediated presence of God traumatized the Israelites, causing them to plead for Moses to be a mediator (Exod. 20:18–20). Moses wrote the words of God in “a book of the covenant,” which was an application of the Ten Words to the daily life of the people (Exod. 21–23). This “book,” which was probably written on papyrus, became part of a sacrificial blood ritual in which the Israelites affirmed obedience to God (Exod. 24:1–8). They were consecrated and cleansed to accomplish a priestly mission to the world. The ritual of the word and blood led to communion: Moses, Aaron, and seventy elders ascended Sinai and experienced a unique encounter with God (Exod. 24:9–11). The basis of this fellowship was God’s grace and the people’s desire to obey the words written in the book.

A consequence of the Sinai covenant was the presence of God with the people, housed in a tent (the tabernacle) in the center of the Israelite camp (Exodus 25–31). In the heart of this tabernacle, God’s invisible presence hovered above the ark of the covenant—a footstool for the divine throne. The ten words written on two stone tablets were placed in the ark, with the book of the covenant placed nearby. The idea of canon is thus inextricably related to covenant.* Unique content and conspicuous setting demarcate these writings and ensure their privileged authoritative status among a people with whom God has chosen to dwell.

Canonical Expansion

Over time a gradual expansion of the canon occurred. Moses is depicted as writing other texts that would have been added to the nuclear canon: a memorial (Exod. 17:14), a travelogue (Numbers 33), and a poem (Deut. 31:22). After his death, provision is made for a prophetic institution that continued the oral proclamation of the will of God (Deut. 18:15–22). The authority of the members of this institution was authorized by their adherence to the nuclear canon and not to dramatic charismatic qualities (Deut. 13:1–6). This opened the way for the integration of future prophetic texts into the nuclear canon of Moses. At the end of the Pentateuch, Moses writes a copy of “this Torah,” a form of the book of Deuteronomy, and places it beside the ark. It was to be read publically every sabbatical year (Deut. 31:9–13, 24–26).

Two other laws in Deuteronomy stressed the importance of this new text. First, each future ruler had to make a new copy of Deuteronomy from one in the possession of the Levites. The royal copy was to govern the thinking of the king, who was envisioned as literate (Deut. 17:14–21). Second, this type of Torah-thinking was to percolate down to the head of every Israelite household, who was to write down Torah words on his doorposts and gates. This suggests an ideal of functional literacy for many members of Israelite society, and not just royalty and the court (Deut. 6:4–9).

During the conquest, Joshua functioned like a good Israelite leader by writing part of the Torah written by Moses on a newly made altar on Mount Ebal (Josh. 8:30–35). There it was read in the presence of all Israel, including the blessings and the curses (cf. Deuteronomy 27). This was the “doorposts and gates” of the new, national house of Israel. After the conquest, Joshua renewed the covenant with Israel at Shechem, after which he wrote the words of the covenant down in “a book of the Law [Torah] of God” (Josh. 24:26), which was placed near a stone in a sanctuary. Later, immediately preceding the rise of kingship, Samuel wrote down the responsibilities of a king in a book, placing it in a sanctuary (1 Sam. 10:25). Other literature dealing with the history of the nation would have gradually been added to this collection.

Streams of Revelation

Other streams of revelation contributed to the growth of the canon besides Torah. Prophecy and wisdom also played a role (Jer. 18:18; Ezek. 7:26; cf. 1 Sam. 28:6). In the biblical tradition, the Torah, associated with Moses, was interpreted to the people by priests. Its locus was the sacred space of the sanctuary. The word was associated with prophets, and it was in harmony with the Torah and based upon it. Its locus was the prophet and his disciples who preserved and transmitted it (Isa. 8:16–20; Jeremiah 36). But wisdom was more of a human word from below—immanent revelation, the ability to discern through reason the divine will in nature and human experience. This type of revelation came to be associated with the sage (the wise person), who had the powers of observation and insight, the sage par excellence being Solomon. The locus for this writing would have probably been the royal court where scribes were responsible for preservation of texts and their transmission (Prov. 25:1).

The court or the sanctuary may also have been the locus for musical compositions, which reflected human address to God in prayer, protest, and praise: the Psalms. David and various musicians were associated with many of these, and later texts show that written materials provided the basis for such worship (e.g., 2 Chron. 29:30). The authority for such compositions would have been linked to the most venerable kings in Israel, David and Solomon, God’s chosen instruments to lead his people.

Exile and Canon

The exile had a profound impact on the nation, calling its very existence into question. Although the temple was destroyed, the literature housed in it would have been saved, and literature from prophetic and wisdom sources, including psalms, would have been gathered. In the absence of sacred space, sacred texts became all the more important. A sustained effort was made to make sense of the exile in historical narrative, and the result was largely a four-volume work that used many older sources and that narrated Israel’s history from the conquest to the middle of the exile. Combined with the Torah, the new story line would have extended from creation to the exile. The extension of the history (Joshua–2 Kings, excluding Ruth) represented the outworking of the predictions of the last book of the Torah, Deuteronomy—blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience—in the life of the nation. It began with a celebration of Passover in the land (Joshua 5) and ended with one during Josiah’s reformation (2 Kings 23). The history was completed with the release of the exiled Davidic king, Jehoiachin, from a Babylonian prison (2 Kings 25:27–31).

Formulaic language characteristic of this history also appears in the titles of the major prophetic works, and there are crucial repetitions that link the Former and Latter Prophets (2 Kings 25 = Jeremiah 52; 2 Kings 18–20 = Isaiah 36–39). These works complemented one another as the history leading to the exile is matched by the unheeded prophetic words that predicted the doom of the nation. But the literature was not only gathered and edited to explain disaster; it also offered hope. In the Former Prophets there is a covenant with David, that he would have an everlasting dynasty (2 Samuel 7); Jehoiachin’s release from prison shows that this promise is not dead. In the Latter Prophets there are also many announcements of future salvation that cluster around the resurrection of the Davidic house. The fact that the Twelve contain postexilic prophets (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi) indicates that the last prophetic scroll was completed after the exile.

Post Exile, Canonical Synthesis, and Closure: From Canon 1 to Canon 2

After the return of the exiles from Babylon to Judah, another reform occurred that was inspired by the written word. Reforms instituted by Ezra and Nehemiah culminated with a dramatic reading of the Torah before a large assembly of Jews (Nehemiah 8). In a public square of the city, a large wooden podium was erected upon which Ezra, the latter day Moses, stood to read this book. When he opened the scroll, his audience stood, and as he read in the Hebrew of the Torah, the priests helped the people understand it by paraphrasing it in Aramaic. The people learned about various issues and festivals, and were eager to obey. The Torah clearly consisted of Genesis–Deuteronomy, since the prayer of Nehemiah in the next chapter rehearses the history of Israel in sequence through the Pentateuch and beyond. The importance of the written word is symbolized not only by its physical elevation, but by its importance for governing the life of the people. During this time, there certainly would have been an archive in the temple for the sacred writings.

Jewish tradition indicates that sometime during the latest period in the Old Testament, canonical revelation came to an end. Prophecy was waning (Zech. 1:5; 7:7, 12). In the apocryphal Jewish history titled Maccabees, written in the second century BC, there is an awareness that prophecy has ceased (1 Macc. 4:46; 9:27; 14:41). Writing toward the end of the first century AD, the Jewish historian Josephus states categorically that the Jewish Bible has been a finished product since the Persian period because of “the failure of the exact succession of the prophets” (Against Apion 8). Later Jewish tradition confirms this picture. Moreover, any book that tried to present itself as “canonical” had to be written under the guise of an ancient biblical figure in order “to make the canonical cut” (e.g., Enoch, Joseph and Asenath, Baruch).

Since revelation ceased at the end of the biblical period, a decision was probably made to synthesize all the authoritative writings into an integrated unity, making collections of authoritative books into one authoritative collection. The various types of revelation were organized into three distinct sections: Torah, Prophets, and Wisdom. The latter category became more generic. If the threefold division is not in evidence in Ben-Sira as “Torah, Wisdom and Prophecy” (39:1), it is by the time of his grandson (“Torah, Prophets and the Rest of the Books”). It was not until the second century AD that the third division became known as “the Writings.”

Probably during the latest period of the Old Testament under Ezra (the second Moses, so to speak), the literature was edited and synthesized into a complete whole. Much of the Torah and the Prophets (both Former and Latter) were substantially shaped, as were other documents outside these categories. A final redaction probably took place, which imparted to the material a definitive canonical stamp, its distinctive eschatological message, as well as the importance of study and meditation leading to wisdom. The focus was on becoming spiritually literate while waiting for God to act in the future.

Significant canonical seams stitch together the major divisions. At the end of the Torah, there is the recognition that Moses was a prophet that was unequalled (Deut. 34:10), which implicitly calls for wisdom in studying his revelation while waiting for a comparable prophet (Deut. 18:15–18). Joshua, the new leader, is the preeminent wise man, endowed with the Spirit of wisdom (Deut. 34:9). At the end of the Prophets, there is a coordination of Moses representing the Torah and Elijah representing the Prophets. The exhortation is to remember the Torah and anticipate Elijah, whose coming will usher in a new age (Mal. 4:4–6) and will be the precursor of the final Mosaic prophet.

At the beginning of the Torah, the word of God creates light that establishes the rhythm of the day and night (Gen. 1:3–5); at the beginning of the Prophets, there is a call for Joshua to meditate on the Torah day and night and thus prosper in his way (Josh. 1:8), and at the beginning of the Writings, there is an identical exhortation to each Israelite (Ps. 1:2–3). The great words of life that lit up the world can now light up one’s life as one meditates on them day and night.

This editorial uniting of these major units into an integrated whole has a number of implications. The awareness that a great era of revelation has come to an end inspires believers to meditate on the Scriptures day and night while waiting for the next great revelation. Thus it is probably not an accident that many of the last books of the Tanak are wisdom books, and stress the importance of the sage, the student. Chronicles may well have been written as a way to close the entire sequence, as it is clearly a book of reflection and constantly reinforces through its stories the importance of obeying the divine word and prospering (2 Chron. 20:20; 31:21; 32:30). Its focus on the story of David indicates the main locus of biblical hope—the Davidic covenant.

External evidence for such a canonical process consists of a few clues. In 2 Maccabees, there is a reference to Nehemiah gathering books to form a library, which could represent books from the second and third divisions of the canon (2 Macc. 2:13–14). A later text dating to the end of the first century AD indicates that Ezra was involved in producing ninety-four books, twenty-four of which were to be used in public and seventy in private by the enlightened (2 Esdras 14:44–47). The first collection refers to canonical books and identifies Ezra as having had an important role in their production. Similar comments are made in later Jewish sources.

The New Testament Era and Beyond

One common reference to designate the Scriptures in the New Testament is the bipartite formula, “the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12; John 1:45; Rom. 3:21). However, in two texts Jesus refers to the vast canonical sweep of revelation either in promise or judgment implying the tripartite (three-part) division. In Luke 24 Jesus states that his death and resurrection fulfilled all the predictions in all of the Scriptures, which he calls not only “Moses and the prophets,” but also “the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:27, 44). The “Psalms” may have been an abbreviated reference to the “Writings,” the third part of the canon, which contained the book of Psalms. Moreover, in Luke 11:49–51, Jesus predicts the completeness of judgment that is going to come upon the present generation for rejecting him. He accuses religious leaders of belonging to a chain of murderers who killed prophets from Abel to Zechariah the priest, whose respective martyrdoms both called out for vengeance (Gen. 4:10; 2 Chron. 24:22). It is no coincidence that both figures are found in the first and last books of the Tanak. Thus Jesus is attacking the religious leaders for their scriptural piety—a piety that has killed the prophets, from the first book of the Bible to the last, and all those in between. This completeness in judgment is particularly effective if there is completeness to the entire canonical range of Scripture.

Shortly after this period, the Jewish historian, Josephus, writing in an apologetic tone to a Greek and Roman audience, indicates that Jewish history is superior to that of its contemporary gentile competitors because of the reliability and inspiration of its historical record, consisting of twenty-two books arranged in a tripartite category, which has been closed for a long period because of a break in the succession of prophets (Against Apion 8). If Josephus’s claims are taken seriously—and there is no reason why they should not be—it means that the Old Testament canon had been well established for some time and was accepted by most of the various streams of Judaism. Although Josephus’s arrangement of the canon was unique, it still respected the tripartite structure. His concern for history dictated that he move all the historical books from the third section into the second section after the five books of the Torah, and leave the wisdom and poetic books alone in the third division.

Another enumeration from the late first century testifies to an order of twenty-four books (2 Esdras 14:45). Later tradition (Origen, AD 230) suggested that twenty-two and twenty-four were alternate orders, with the smaller number resulting from books being combined with one another (Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah). The first explicit Christian list claiming Jewish influence names twenty-one books and occurs at the end of the second century AD. Missing from this canon (Melito’s) is Esther, which had been a controversial book in both Christianity and Judaism. Nevertheless, there is a remarkable continuity with the numbering of Josephus and 4 Ezra. Another source, dating from the Mishnaic period (AD 1–200), also presents a tripartite canon, beginning with Genesis and concluding with Chronicles (Baba Bathra 14b).

Conclusion: Text and Hermeneutics

After Christianity separated from Judaism because of the events surrounding the destruction of the temple and the influx of gentiles into the church, the Greek Bible (the Septuagint) was quickly adopted for use in the church. In fact Paul used it widely in the developing church of the first century as his citations from the Old Testament clearly indicate. As the rift between Judaism and Christianity widened, it was inevitable that there would be confusion within Christianity regarding the exact limit and contours of the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament). As the geographical distance increased between the church and the center of Judaism, Christian “canons” reflected this difference. Protestant Christianity emerging out of the Reformation returned to its Jewish sources for the Old Testament, but with a different arrangement and numbering system based on Christian antecedents.

Within Judaism, there is remarkable stability and continuity, not only in the numbering of the books but also in their texts. This suggests that an archetype produced in temple circles would have been preserved after the destruction of the temple to provide the basis for transmission for the next one thousand years. The scrupulous care this process demonstrates is enough to prove the practical authority of these books. The fact that shortly before the first century AD Greek translations of Hebrew texts were being revised to this particular archetype implies canonical authority.

The structure of the Hebrew Bible stresses the importance of internalizing the divine word, and meditating on it while waiting for a Davidic descendant. By closing with the Prophets, the Christian Old Testament emphasizes this eschatological aspect further. While both texts are in search of an ending, the New Testament begins joyfully and unequivocally with the announcement that the search is over in Jesus Christ, David’s greater Son. He is the ultimate embodiment of the divine Word (John 1:14), the definitive exegesis and goal of the canon (John 1:18, 45), the decisive end of the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 17:1–8).

Writing, Copying, and Transmitting the New Testament Text

DANIEL B. WALLACE

The original twenty-seven books of the New Testament disappeared most likely within a few decades of their composition. We must rely on handwritten copies, or manuscripts (MSS, singular MS), to determine the wording of the original (or autographic) text. Because they are handwritten copies, no two MSS are exactly alike. Even the two closest early MSS have several differences per chapter. With over 250 chapters in the New Testament, one can easily see that wording variations among the MSS will be abundant.

The discipline known as textual criticism is concerned with these MSS. It is the study of the copies of any written document whose autograph (the original) is unknown or nonexistent for the primary purpose of determining the exact wording of the original. Textual criticism is necessary for virtually all ancient literature. The New Testament is no different in this regard. New Testament textual criticism (NTTC) is needed because of these two facts: disappearance of the originals and disagreements among the extant (remaining) MSS.

My limited objective in this chapter is to (1) discuss the history of the transmission of the New Testament text, (2) lay out the problems of NTTC, and (3) examine the practice of NTTC.

History of the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament

When an apostle wrote a letter to a congregation, it was only natural that that church would want to share that letter with other congregations. (Indeed, this was even mandated on occasion [Col. 4:16].) All such copies had to be made by hand. Differences would inevitably arise in these copies. For the most part, the changes introduced by scribes were unintentional—confusing letters or words, skipping or duplicating words or even whole lines, and the like.

As the early church grew, the demand for copies of the New Testament documents grew with it. When the Synoptic Gospels became known in various parts of the Roman Empire, scribes would notice the differences among them. And they would tend to harmonize the Gospels by “correcting” the wording in a MS of one Gospel so that it would conform to the wording in a parallel passage in another. Copyists also tended to smooth out the text grammatically and stylistically, add clarifying words and phrases, and substitute common forms for unusual forms. Scribes made such alterations most often because they thought that their exemplar was corrupt, but in so doing they often inadvertently changed the text from its original wording.

As the church branched out into regions where Greek was not the primary language, the need for translations of the New Testament became apparent. In the second and third centuries, the New Testament was translated into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic for people groups in Italy, North Africa, Syria, and Egypt. In later centuries, the New Testament was translated into Armenian, Gothic, Georgian, Arabic, and several other languages.

Greek, however, continued to be the major vehicle of the New Testament in most Mediterranean regions through the early centuries. The major churches in larger cities began to exercise an influence on the form of the text, so that “local texts” emerged. Two distinct text-forms from the earliest centuries have been detected: the Alexandrian and the so-called Western. The Alexandrian text was produced, as its name implies, in and around Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria had a history of careful MS production long before Christianity existed. Christian scribes, influenced by this tradition, generated what is considered today as the most reliable text of the New Testament. The Western text, though not beginning in the West, found its way to Gaul, Italy, and North Africa. A much less accurate text-form (full of harmonizations, expansions, and theological alterations), the Western text nevertheless enjoyed wide influence, though most of the Western MSS extant today are in Latin. It is probable that the missionary impulse, rather than faithful copying practices, was responsible for many of the Western text’s alterations of the original wording.

By the fourth century, a new text-form, the Byzantine, began to emerge. Largely based on the Alexandrian and Western, and, in time, heavily influenced by the church’s liturgy, the Byzantine text became the dominant form in the East, especially after Constantine moved the capitol from Rome to Constantinople. This text-form was inferior due to its late date and dependence on the earlier text-forms. As Latin continued to spread throughout Western Europe, Greek was becoming increasingly restricted to the East. By the ninth century, the Byzantine became the predominant text-form in Greek, with the Alexandrian shrinking due to the Muslim conquest of Egypt and the Western being relegated mostly to Latin MSS. Thus, because Greek was increasingly restricted geographically, the Byzantine text not only became dominant among Greek MSS, but was also produced under tighter controls than the Latin MSS. In light of the historical situation concerning the production of these text-types, most scholars allot the greatest preference to the Alexandrian MSS and the least to the Byzantine.

The Problems of New Testament Textual Criticism

The problems of NTTC can be succinctly discussed under two broad labels: materials and methods.

The Materials

While scholars of other ancient literature suffer from a lack of data, those who work with New Testament MSS suffer from an embarrassment of riches. These witnesses to the text of the New Testament fall under three subcategories: Greek MSS, ancient translations (or versions), and quotations from the New Testament in the writings of the church fathers. Like great works of art, most are possessed by institutions and a few by individuals. Consequently, most are housed in libraries around the world.

Greek manuscripts

The Greek MSS are the principal documents used to determine the wording of the New Testament. They are broken down into four categories: papyri, majuscules, minuscules, and lectionaries.

The first group, papyri, are identified by the material the MS is made of. The second and third groups, majuscules and minuscules, refer to the writing style (either capital letters or cursive hand) of the MSS. And the last group, lectionaries, refers to MSS that are not continuous texts from the Gospels, Epistles, and so on, but are various portions of text that were assigned reading for particular days. Generally speaking, the papyri are the earliest of these four groups of MSS, and certainly the rarest (owing to the fragile writing material), while the majuscules are next, followed by the minuscules and lectionaries.

As of July 2009, the statistics on the Greek MSS of the New Testament were as follows:

Papyri

Majuscules

Minuscules

Lectionaries

Total

124

318

2895

2436

5773

These MSS date, for the most part, from the second to the sixteenth centuries. Some of the more important papyri are P^45 (third century), P^46 (ca. AD 200), P^66 (ca. AD 200), and P^75 (third century). These are early and substantial MSS that include large portions of the Gospels and Paul’s letters.

By the fourth century, the great majuscule MSS were produced, including the earliest complete extant New Testment, Codex Sinaiticus. Codex Vaticanus, also from the fourth century, is nearly complete. Sinaiticus (aka A, or 01) and Vaticanus (aka B, or 03) both belong to the Alexandrian text-form. Their common ancestor must be quite ancient since they are relatively closely related and yet there are numerous and substantial differences between them. This suggests that there were several intermediary ancestors between the common archetype and these two majuscules. Indeed, when they agree, their common reading usually is from the early second century.

A few of the later MSS were copied from a much earlier source. For example, MS 1739, a tenth-century minuscule, was copied directly from a late fourth-century MS. Even some of the early MSS show compelling evidence of being copies of a much earlier source. Consider again Codex Vaticanus, whose text is very much like that of P^75 (B and P^75 are much closer to each other than either is to A). Yet the papyrus is at least a century older than Vaticanus. In several places, the wording of Vaticanus is certainly more primitive than that of P^75. This means that P^75 is not the ancestor of B, but that both go back to a still earlier common ancestor, probably one that is deep in the second century.

Ancient translations (or versions)

The second most important kinds of witnesses to the New Testament text are known as versions (or early translations). The value of a version depends on its date, the translation technique and care, and the quality of the text from which it is translated. The versions are important for another reason: except in rare and controlled instances, once a version was completed it did not interact with the Greek MSS again. Thus when a particular version consistently has one reading in its extant copies, that reading usually reflected that version’s original. The three most important versions are the Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Other important versions are the Gothic and Armenian, followed by the Georgian and Ethiopic.

There are almost twice as many Latin MSS of the New Testament as there are Greek (over 10,000 compared to about 5,700). They date from the third to the sixteenth centuries, but their origins may go back into the second century. They are basically representatives of the Western text.

The Coptic MSS come from Egypt, with roots reaching back to the beginning of the third century. Perhaps thousands of Coptic MSS exist today, but only a few hundred have been cataloged. They are representatives of the Alexandrian text.

The New Testament was translated into Syriac no later than the early third century. The earliest form is a representative of the Western text. The surviving copies of Syriac New Testament MSS number in the hundreds, perhaps thousands.

Besides the Latin, Coptic, and Syriac, other ancient versions should be noted. The Gothic was translated originally in the fourth century, as was the Ethiopic, and the Armenian probably from the fifth. These three versions have a yield of well over two thousand MSS extant today.

All told, the ancient versions of the New Testament still in existence are probably between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand. Exact numbers are difficult to come by because not all the MSS have been cataloged.

Quotations by church fathers

Commentaries, homilies, and other writings by ancient church leaders known as church fathers are so plentiful that if all the Greek and versional witnesses were destroyed, the text of the New Testament could be virtually reconstructed just from the data in these patristic writings.

The quotations of the New Testament by the fathers number well over a million. The fathers write as early as the late first century, with a steady stream through the thirteenth, making their value for determining the wording of the New Testament text extraordinary.

There are problems in citing fathers, however. First, the fathers’ writings are found only in copies, not originals. Second, some fathers are notorious for quoting the same passage in different ways.

But there are means to determine on many occasions, with a great deal of certainty, what form of the New Testament text a particular father was quoting from. When carefully evaluated, patristic citations of the New Testament are quite valuable because the date and locale of the father can be pinpointed, and thus they can fill in many gaps in our knowledge of the transmission of the text.

Summary: An embarrassment of riches

The wealth of material that is available for determining the wording of the original New Testament is staggering: over 5,700 Greek New Testament MSS, as many as 20,000 versional MSS, and more than 1 million quotations by patristic writers. In comparison with the average ancient Greek author, the New Testament copies are well over a thousand times more plentiful.

These thousands of MSS, versions, and patristic quotations have produced hundreds of thousands of textual variants (the best estimates are about 400,000). These two considerations—the number of MSS and the number of variants—lead to our next consideration: How should scholars sift through all this material? What methods should they use to determine exactly the wording of the autographs?

The Methods

There are two broad databases of textual criticism: external evidence and internal evidence. External evidence has to do with the materials—the MSS, versions, and fathers. Internal evidence has to do with the wording of the text in these various witnesses and why it has undergone changes. In other words, external evidence looks at the variety of witnesses, while internal evidence looks at the variety of variants.

The predominant school of NTTC is called reasoned eclecticism. In essence, it treats both external and internal evidence equally, giving no mandatory preference to either aspect, no exclusive preference to any text-type or group of MSS. It regards both internal and external evidence as subjective in varying degrees, and views skillful wrestling with both considerations as the surest way to recover the wording of the original text.

The Practice of New Testament Textual Criticism

When the external and internal evidence point in the same direction, there is greater confidence that the wording of the autographs has been determined. Internal evidence is often in apparent conflict with external evidence, however, requiring more probing to determine the wording of the autographs.

Examination of the Internal Evidence

Internal evidence is an examination of the wording of the variants in order to determine which reading gave rise to the other(s) and is therefore most probably original. The basic guideline of internal criticism is: choose the reading that best explains the rise of the other(s). Although judging internal evidence can appear to be a subjective exercise, scholars bring to bear sound and proven methods for analyzing the material: transcriptional probability and intrinsic probability.

Transcriptional probability

Transcriptional probability has to do with what a scribe would be likely to do. There are two types of changes to the text that scribes made—intentional and unintentional. Often scribes intended to alter the text—either for grammatical, theological, or explanatory reasons, as noted earlier. But due to problems of sight, hearing, fatigue, or judgment, scribes also often changed the text unwittingly. A common mistake of the scribes was to write once what should have been written twice (haplography). It especially occurred when a scribe’s eye skipped a second word that ended the same way as the word before it; it also occurred when two lines ended the same way. Another error was when a scribe wrote twice what should have been written once (dittography).

Intrinsic probability

Intrinsic evidence examines what the biblical author was likely to have written. Two key issues are involved: context and style. Which variant best fits the context? Considerations of the flow of the argument generally reveal one reading to be superior to the other(s). Which variant better fits the author’s style? Here the question concerns how an author normally expresses himself, what his motifs and language usually involve. One of the reasons that most scholars do not regard Mark 16:9–20 to be authentic, for example, is that the vocabulary and grammar are quite unlike the rest of the Gospel of Mark. When this observation is coupled with the strong likelihood that scribes could hardly resist letting Mark’s Gospel end with verse 8, and with the fact that the earliest and best MSS lack these twelve verses, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of seeing Mark 16:9–20 as added later.

Once the internal evidence has been examined, one usually has a sense as to which reading likely gave rise to the other(s). To the degree that the intrinsic and transcriptional probabilities confirm each other, one can have relative confidence that that reading is most likely authentic.

Examination of the External Evidence

Three external criteria are used to judge which variant is more likely to be the wording of the original: date and character, genealogical solidarity, and geographical distribution.

Date and character

The preferred variant is one found in the earliest MSS. This is because there is less time between them and the originals and thus less time for intermediary copies. Also, the MSS that elsewhere prove themselves to be the most reliable are given preference (but it is not an absolute preference). A meticulous scribe working on a fifth-century MS may produce a more reliable text than a third-century scribe who is more interested in getting the job done quickly. Thus the date of the MS is a significant factor, as is the general character of the MS.

Genealogical solidarity

When almost all of the MSS of a certain text-type agree on a reading, the local ancestor of that text-type probably contained that reading; the reading is thus considered genealogically solid.

What exactly is a text-type? A text-type is a large group of MSS that share a pattern of readings. There are three major text-types: the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Byzantine. (See the previous discussion on origins and locations, “History of the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament.”) When the better Alexandrian MSS have the same reading, for example, there is high probability that the Alexandrian local original had that reading. Thus by genealogical solidarity one can hypothesize the date of a reading within a text-type back to its local original. Since the Alexandrian and Western texts have roots that reach deep into the second century, when each has genealogical solidarity, their readings are probably second-century readings.

Geographical distribution

The variant found in geographically widespread locations in the first few centuries of the Christian era is more likely to be original than one that is found in only one location. This is due to the fact that collusion of witnesses is much less probable when these witnesses are distributed in Rome and Alexandria and Caesarea than when they are all located in just Jerusalem or Antioch. By this method, scholars legitimately “push back” the date of a reading behind the time of the witnesses that attest it.

In sum, date and character, genealogical solidarity, and geographical distribution are three ways of looking at the external data and deciding which reading is most likely earlier than the other(s). These need to be compared to one another with the objective of determining which reading is the earliest and thus which reading gives rise to the other(s). But external evidence is not the whole approach. In places where the early MSS disagree, where there is minimal geographical distribution, or where one of the readings is predictable (i.e., is the kind of wording a scribe would be likely to create), internal evidence may be far more important.

Conclusions

Once external evidence and internal evidence are compared, a conclusion as to which reading is the original can be finalized. The textual variant that has the greater claim to authenticity will be found in the earliest, best, and most geographically widespread witnesses; it will fit the context and author’s style; and it will be the obvious originator of rival reading(s). For the vast majority of textual problems, this is a “no-brainer.” And even of the relatively few that are difficult to resolve, a good portion of them can be decided with some confidence by a careful comparison of the external and internal evidence.

There are many occasions, however, in which the external evidence seems to point one way, while the internal evidence points another. How do scholars decide in such instances? If a particular variant is found only in non-Greek MSS, or is found only in a few late MSS, even if its internal credentials are excellent, it is almost always rejected. When there are many thousands of MSS, unpredictable accidents and unknowable motives may be the cause of a stray reading here or there that internally may have good credentials. On a rare occasion, however, the external evidence is very solidly on the side of one reading, but there are sufficiently important MSS for an alternate reading, and the internal evidence is completely on the side of the second reading. In such instances, the second reading is most likely original.

Although the issues are complex, the net result is that 99 percent of the autographic text is well established. And of the remainder, although the interpretation of hundreds of passages is at stake, no cardinal doctrine depends on textually dubious texts.

The Canon of the New Testament

M. JAMES SAWYER

Introduction

Canon (Greek: kanon) originally designated a “reed” that was used for measuring. From this usage, the idea of measuring was derived. Ultimately the term came to be used to refer to a “rule” or “standard” and was applied to any set of books or rules that were normative in a particular discipline. Applied to the New Testament, it has reference to the books that are normative for the church’s faith and practice.

Beneath the idea of canon lies the question of authority. Scholars recognize two different aspects to the concept of the New Testament canon: (1) material canon, and (2) formal canon. From the perspective of the material canon, each book of the New Testament is divinely inspired and was thus authoritative as soon as it was written. In this sense the New Testament is “a collection of authoritative books.” The recognition of the New Testament as it is constituted today, however, took several centuries. The complete list of twenty-seven books was not firmly accepted until the fifth century AD, at which time the formal canon of the New Testament was generally recognized. That is, the church at large recognized these and only these books as having been given by divine inspiration, hence only these books comprised the formal canon. In this sense the canon is an “authoritative collection of books.”

Canon in the Apostolic Era

Christ as Canon

For the early church, Christ, who had recognized and validated the Old Testament and its permanent status as Scripture, was himself the unquestioned authority. In the Gospels we find that while Jesus looked like any one of numerous rabbis, he taught in a manner that set him apart. The first-century rabbis’ teaching was studded with references to traditional authorities. Jesus, however, taught “as one who had authority” (Mark 1:22; Matt. 5:21–22). Believers recognized this as the authority of one who was “both Lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:36), and they treasured his words.

Paul demonstrates that the sayings of the Lord were already in use as a final authoritative guide for behavior—in short, as an early Christian “canon.” A “word of the Lord” was sufficient to settle matters of things like marriage and divorce (1 Cor. 7:10–11). Likewise, the controversy concerning the conduct of the Corinthians at the Lord’s Supper was settled on the basis of the word of the Lord concerning its institution (1 Cor. 11:23–26).

These “sayings of the Lord” clearly had normative status in the early Christian community before the composition of the canonical Gospels. For example, the Last Supper narrative of 1 Corinthians 11 corresponds with Mark 14:22–25, which was written later. Likewise the teaching on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:10 corresponds with Mark 10:9, and the declaration in support of missionaries (1 Cor. 9:14) corresponds with Matthew 10:10 and Luke 10:7. We do have one clear example of an unwritten saying, not found in the canonical Gospels, quoted authoritatively by Paul: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Evidently, the “canonical” status of the words of the Lord produced the motivation to collect these utterances and required that the collection process be conducted with careful regulation. Were this not the case, someone might attempt to introduce some doubtful doctrine or practice by appeal to a new and theretofore unknown “Word of the Lord.” Already by Luke’s time “many” had undertaken the task of writing accounts (Luke 1:1). But apparently there were questions about the authenticity of some of the material circulating. This gave rise to the question of the basis upon which the churches could confidently receive material as authentic. It is in this context that we should understand Luke’s preface to his Gospel. In it Luke tells Theophilus he wrote so that Theophilus might be certain that the things he had been taught were true (Luke 1:1–4).

Canon and the Apostles

Ephesians 2:20 declares the church had “been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” This adds another level of authority in the early church—that of the apostles.

Both the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul make it clear that the apostles held a unique place in the establishment of the church. They were personally chosen by Christ, and they accompanied him from the beginning of his ministry through the crucifixion and resurrection until his ascension. Also, Christ promised them that the Holy Spirit would come, bringing to mind all the things that he (Jesus) had said, and guiding them into all truth. The basis of their witness was their constant companionship with the Savior from the beginning. The special position of the apostles as the authority or standard by which all later teaching was measured became a critical factor in the formal establishment of the canon of Scripture.

The popular idea that a church hierarchy or council imposed the canon on the church does not fit the evidence. It is crucial to note that even the New Testament itself hints of canonical apostolic authority arising. Peter implicitly recognizes the “canonical” authority of Paul’s writings, stating, “There are some things in them hard to understand, which ignorant, unsteadfast people twist to their own ruin, just as they do the rest of the scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:15–16).

Canon in the Postapostolic Church

Tradition and Authority

The apostolic fathers (the church leaders immediately following the apostles) recognized that the authority given to the apostles by Christ was unique and that in the most complete sense the apostles could have no successors. Thus the apostolic fathers recognized a definitive break in authority. Those leaders of the generation after the apostles, such as Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (ca. AD 50–107), acknowledged that the apostles belonged to a clearly marked and now completed stage between the Lord and the then-contemporary church.

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis (ca. AD 70–160), described the problem faced by the early generations of church leadership in determining which (oral) traditions of the Lord were authentic and which were spurious. His answer centered on apostolic authority: if a saying or interpretation can be clearly traced to an apostle, it could be accepted as genuine and authoritative.

The concept of an authoritative Christian tradition can be traced back into the New Testament itself. Paul speaks of the chain of receiving and delivering a body of teaching (e.g., 2 Tim. 2:2; 1 Cor. 11:23). It is therefore not surprising to see in this early period both written works and oral tradition existing side by side in some sort of authoritative fashion. Tradition was grounded in apostolic authority, which had its origin in the Lord himself. In the early decades of the church, apostolic tradition was an authoritative voice in the infant and early church.

In the immediate postapostolic period we find a great stress on apostolic tradition alongside apostolic writings that had not yet begun to be collected into any kind of formal New Testament canon. As the apostles died, this living stream of tradition grew fainter. The written documents became progressively more important to the ongoing life of the church.

The Collection of the Books

The earliest canonical list that we know of was composed by the radically anti-Jewish heretic Marcion (ca. AD 100–165), who accepted only a truncated version of the Gospel of Luke (he excised the infancy narratives) and ten of Paul’s epistles (from which he purged all Jewish references). Two observations need to be made about Marcion’s list. First, while Marcion’s teaching would have been in large measure congruent with gnostic perspectives, his canon included only part of the works received by the church and did not include any “gnostic” works such as the Gospels of Thomas or Mary or the Acts of Peter or the like. Most likely these books had not yet been written, but if they did exist, they were not accepted because of their obvious recent origin. Thus his list, though incomplete, does testify to the authority of the books he included. Second, Marcion’s canon acted as a goad to the church to publish a less eccentric and more complete list of its recognized books. At this time there were collections of the Gospels and of the Pauline Epistles that were circulating, but no formal lists had yet been published. Marcion’s canon prompted the church to act.

In the latter half of the second century the Muratorian Canon was published. This list includes the four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s thirteen letters, Jude, Revelation, 1 John, and at least either 2 John or 3 John or both. So before the end of the second century, at least twenty-one New Testament books were listed as authoritative. The author of the list also notes several other books that were circulating. He comments that these other books fall into three categories: (1) those books that were disputed—that is, accepted by some churches but rejected by others; (2) those that were edifying for use but not authoritative; and (3) those that were to be rejected as heretical. The author lists one disputed book (The Apocalypse of Peter) and one that is edifying but not authoritative (The Shepherd of Hermas), noting that it was of recent origin. He also lists several other books that were heretical and recent and therefore not to be read in the churches.

By the end of the second century there was a remarkably high degree of agreement concerning the vast majority of the New Testament. The twenty-one- or twenty-two-book core remained stable, though the fringe books of the New Testament canon remained unsettled for centuries. This high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of the New Testament was attained independently among the very diverse and scattered congregations not only throughout the Mediterranean world but also over an area extending from Britain to Mesopotamia.

The development of the canon had reached a “status quo.” While in some places certain books achieved local temporary canonical status, these aberrations were few and short-lived. In about AD 320 Eusebius presents a list that is nearly identical with that of the Muratorian Canon in the second century.

Persecution and Canonicity

During the first three centuries of its existence, the church came under repeated persecutions. In the third century the imperial strategy against Christianity shifted; instead of merely coercing individuals to recant their faith, now, in order to destroy the movement, the inquisitors targeted their apostolic books for destruction. This provided a renewed urgency in determining what was and was not inspired and authoritative. The bishops (generally the guardians of the Scriptures in the early church) needed confidence that the books they were willing to die for were indeed Scripture.

The Criteria of Canonicity

Apostolic Origin and Apostolic Doctrine (Orthodoxy)

Documents read in the early church worship services were to be doctrinally pure. This concern for true doctrine can be seen within the New Testament itself. First John identifies as “antichrist” those who deny the humanity of Christ. Paul warns the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 of the dangers of false teachers, as do both Jude and 2 Peter.

Similar concern is seen within the early church. Serapion, bishop of Antioch (ca. AD 200), rejected the Gospel of Peter since its teaching was nonapostolic, saying, “For we, brethren, receive both Peter and the other apostles as Christ; but we reject intelligently the writings falsely ascribed to them, knowing that such were not handed down to us.”

Emphasis on the necessity of apostolic authorship (either directly or through an author’s association with an apostle) was declared by Papias (ca. AD 130) who connected the Gospel of Mark to the authority of Peter. Likewise, it was acknowledged that Luke–Acts, while not written by a member of the inner apostolic circle, nonetheless preserved and propagated apostolic doctrines and had direct apostolic connection to Paul.

The question of the necessity of apostolic origin for a book to be considered canonical is demonstrated by the decades-long debate over the status of the book of Hebrews. In the Greek-speaking East the book was generally considered Pauline and accepted as canonical, whereas in the Latin-speaking West the book was not regarded as Pauline and thus was not initially considered canonical. While the acceptance of Hebrews into the canon was a longer process than the Pauline Epistles, it was ultimately recognized that the work could be traced to a Pauline mode of thought and had the “ring of truth” of apostolic doctrine.

We see here the image of a church fully engaged with verifying the authenticity of its roots. There was no simple credulity to accept even purported apostolic documents at face value. It evaluated those claims both on the basis of external historical evidence and internal consistency with the received apostolic tradition and the undisputed received works that were regarded as having divine authority.

Catholicity and Canonicity

Catholicity is related to the acceptance of a book by the majority of the churches. In the early fifth century Vincent of Lerins articulated the “Vincentian Canon” as a means for determining what was genuinely Christian as opposed to that which was sectarian, idiosyncratic, or heretical. Vincent’s canon did not refer to the authoritative collection of Scripture but rather to that which has “always, everywhere, and by all Christians been believed [about God’s self-disclosure].” The Vincentian Canon reflects the early church’s underlying commitment to catholicity.

Back in the second century, some appealed to secret traditions (e.g., The Secret Gospel of Thomas) for practices and teachings. These largely gnostic works were uninterested in the historicity of the faith and in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Instead they focused on his public sayings as well as his purported secret teachings that he had not entrusted to the masses, or even to all of the apostles. The appeal to catholicity challenged the new “gospels” that arose during the second and third centuries. The church leaders argued that these documents failed the test of catholicity as well as the test of apostolicity and were thus not authoritative.

Public Worship and Canonicity

The early church included from its birth the public reading of Scripture (at first the Old Testament) as part of its worship, a practice inherited from the synagogues. Paul also gave instructions for his epistles to be read publicly in the assembly. The Gospel of Mark gives us a hint (Mark 13:14, possibly addressed to the public reader) that Mark expected the same of his writing. About a century later Justin Martyr describes Christian worship as including the reading of “the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets.” Thus the four Gospels had come to be regarded as Scripture (on the level of the Old Testament) certainly as early as the second century.

In such a context the public reading of a document was an implicit endorsement of its authority and its canonicity. Significantly, fewer than fifty years after Paul had written his epistles to the Corinthians, Clement of Rome urged his Corinthian readers to “take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle.” This indicates that both he and his readers viewed it as authoritative.

The Fourth-Century Consensus and Beyond

The first complete listing of our present canon of twenty-seven books comes from Athanasius in AD 367. He gave his rationale for this list in his opening paragraph. Here he decried those who had fabricated books bearing the names of the saints as authors and by so doing had led the “ignorant and simple . . . astray by evil thoughts concerning the right faith.” Augustine, concurring with Athanasius’s canonical list, gave his criteria for canonicity noting that he preferred “those [books] that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive.” Neither Athanasius nor Augustine made appeal to any council, only to consensus. In the following decades numerous Latin fathers independently published their understanding of the limits of the New Testament canon. All agreed with the Council of Carthage (where the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament were finally canonized), Augustine, and Athanasius. This consensus effectively closed the canon in the West.

Contrary to what is widely assumed, no early church council ever produced an official definition of the canon of the New Testament, or even addressed the issue. The early church never reached a conscious and binding decision as to the extent of the canon. Proof of this fact can be seen in the canons of the various churches of the empire.

While the canon in the West proved to be relatively stable from the late fourth century AD, the canon in the Eastern churches varied, sometimes widely. The Syrian church at the beginning of the fifth century AD employed only the Diatesseron (in place of the four Gospels), Acts, and the Pauline Epistles. During the fifth century the Syriac Peshitta translation was produced and became the standard Syriac version. The Diatesseron was replaced by the four Gospels, 3 Corinthians was removed, and James, 1 Peter, and 1 John were included. The Apocalypse and the other Catholic epistles were excluded, making a twenty-two-book canon. The remaining books did not find their way into the Syrian canon until the late sixth century. While the Syrian church recognized an abbreviated canon for two centuries beyond the Western and the Greek speaking churches, the Ethiopic church recognized the twenty-seven books of the New Testament plus The Shepherd of Hermas, 1–2 Clement, and eight books of the Apostolic Constitutions.

Even in the West the canon was not closed so tightly as to eliminate all discussion and questioning. A case in point is the apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans. In the tenth century, Alfric, the archbishop of Canterbury, lists the work as among the canonical Pauline Epistles. From the sixth century onward Laodiceans occurs frequently in Latin manuscripts, including many that were prepared for church use. The epistle was so common in the medieval period that it was included in several vernacular translations, including the Bohemian Bible (as late as AD 1488). It also appeared in the Albigensian Version of Lyons, and while not translated by Wycliffe personally, it was added to several manuscripts of his translation of the New Testament.

On the eve of the Reformation, Martin Luther questioned the canonicity of James. Specific doubts about canon were also being expressed even by prominent figures in the Catholic hierarchy. Cardinal Cajetan, an opponent of Luther, expressed doubts concerning the canonicity of Hebrews, James, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. Erasmus likewise expressed doubts concerning Revelation as well as the apostolicity of James, Hebrews, and 2 Peter. As the Protestant Reformation progressed, it was Luther’s willingness to excise books from the canon (especially Old Testament apocryphal books) that prompted the Roman Catholic hierarchy to formalize its consensus on the extent of the New Testament canon into a concilar pronouncement. Likewise, by the end of the Reformation the major Protestant traditions also included a list of canonical books in their confessional statements. Although both Protestant and Catholic leaders had raised questions about several books, in the end they both formalized the same list of New Testament books. On the extent of the New Testament, both the Protestant and Catholic traditions finally agreed officially, although in practice neither had ever questioned the four Gospels or the Epistles of Paul.

When all is said and done, there has never been a serious attempt to add a book to the canon nor has there been an effort to excise any of the books agreed to by the early consensus. In the final analysis it must be admitted that the church did not create the canon but discovered it. The books that were recognized attained canonical status because no individual or organization could stop them from becoming so. In other words these books possessed and continue to posses a self-authenticating quality by virtue of the testimony of the Holy Spirit as to their divine origin so that they individually and as a whole imposed themselves on the church as its final authority.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

C. MARVIN PATE

Introduction

In the spring of 1947, three young Bedouin shepherds were in the area called Qumran, which is on the northwest side of the Dead Sea, apparently tending their flock. One of the young shepherds amused himself by throwing rocks at a cave opening in the cliffs to the west of the plateau at Qumran. One of the stones went into the cave and made a shattering noise. The Bedouin did not enter the cave that day, but when one of them did venture in two days later, he found ten clay jars. One of those jars held three ancient manuscripts. The rest of the containers were empty, but later four additional scrolls were found hidden in that cave. This initial find led to a scouring of the area, which revealed more caves and more manuscripts. The discovery of those ancient documents, appropriately called the Dead Sea Scrolls, is regarded by many as the most significant archaeological finding in the twentieth century and as nothing short of providential. This chapter surveys three points regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls: the literature comprising the Dead Sea Scrolls (hereafter DSS); the community producing the DSS; and the theology undergirding the DSS.

The Literature Comprising the DSS

The publication of the DSS stretched from 1947 to 1991, creating a storm of controversy along the way. Such an academic tempest stemmed from inadequate numbers to piece together and translate the scrolls, scholarly hoarding of the manuscripts, and, until late in the process, non-Jewish participation in the project. Keep in mind that the DSS are composed of over 900 separate manuscripts in over 25,000 pieces. Some of the scrolls were almost totally intact (like the Great Isaiah Scroll), but most of them had deteriorated into small fragments, many of them the size of postage stamps. So the task of organizing and putting the fragments back together was huge. Finally, however, all of the DSS were published in 1991. The scrolls themselves date from about 160 BC to AD 68. Four types of literature comprise the DSS: Old Testament books, apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature, commentaries on the Prophets, and writings about the community.

Old Testament Books

Over two hundred Old Testament manuscripts have been found in the eleven caves associated with the DSS, representing every Old Testament book except Esther. The Pentateuch is the division most represented in the DSS. This stands to reason, for the community was extremely devoted to the Mosaic Law. The Prophets (especially Isaiah) receive the next highest distribution of manuscripts, undoubtedly because the community applied these prophecies to itself as well as appealed to them as the basis for its messianic expectation. Except for Psalms and Daniel, the Writings are not heavily drawn upon. The Psalms were utilized in the sect’s worship, and Daniel’s predictions were believed to be actualized in the group. Beyond these examples, the presence of the Writings is minimal.

Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical Literature

By apocryphal or Deuterocanonical literature we mean those Jewish works written after the close of the Old Testament (400 BC). Although they most probably found a place in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), these books have never been considered by official Judaism to be inspired. Nevertheless, Jews have rightly held the apocrypha in high regard, both for its historical and ethical value. In fact, some Christian traditions (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) include them in their canon. Four apocryphal pieces were found in the DSS caves: Tobit, Sirach, Psalm 151, and the Epistle of Jeremiah.

In addition to apocryphal literature, pseudepigraphical works were discovered among the DSS. The pseudepigrapha are Jewish materials written in the last centuries BC and the first two centuries AD, and are not considered canonical by Jews or Christians. Nevertheless, they are valuable historically, ethically, and theologically in that they provide a window into the thought of early Judaism. Three especially are dear to the Qumran community that produced the DSS: 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.

Commentaries on the Prophets

One of the fascinating discoveries that emerged in the DSS was the Qumran community’s unique interpretation of the biblical prophets. Labeled pesher (derived from an Aramaic term meaning “interpretation”), this hermeneutical method contemporized Old Testament prophetic oracles by applying them to current events relative to the Qumran people. Two assumptions informed their approach: (1) they believed that the biblical prophets ultimately referred not to their own time in biblical history, but to the latter days of history; and (2) the Qumran readers also believed that they were living in the end-time and that therefore many of the biblical prophecies pertained to them. They also believed that spiritual insight for grasping the meaning of the text was given to the Qumran members by God. The method itself unfolds in the following steps: the biblical verse is quoted; the formulaic phrase occurs, “its interpretation concerns” (pesher); the application to the day of the Qumran expositor is supplied.

Writings about the Community

The fourth major type of literature in the DSS relates to writings concerning the Qumran community itself, which may be conveniently classified under four genres (literary styles): legal, eschatological, liturgical, and sapiential (wisdom).

1. The legal type of literature in the DSS is basically composed of four foundational documents that stress the utmost importance of the Mosaic law for the Qumran community: the Damascus Document, the Rule of the Community, the Temple Scroll, and Some Works of the Torah.

2. The eschatological (end-time) literature in the DSS reflects the community’s apocalyptic self-understanding. That is to say, the Qumran sect viewed itself to be the true Israel, the righteous remnant with whom God was establishing his new covenant in the last days (see, e.g., 1QS 1:1; CD 4:2). As the faithful of God, the people of the DSS equated their sufferings with the severe messianic woes that Judaism expected would test Israel before the advent of the Messiah (CD 1:5–11; 20:13–15; 1QH 3:7–10). The community’s exile into the desert (Qumran) under the eventual leadership of the Teacher of Righteousness was understood to be the final preparation for the arrival of the messianic age.

Probably the sect’s scrupulous observance of the Mosaic law was motivated by the belief that if Israel kept the Torah, the Messiah would come (cf. CD 4:1–17 with the following rabbinic literature [ca. AD 200–500]: Pirke’ Abot 2:8; b. Sanh 97b; Sifre Deut 34). But by the same token, the period of trials to which the sect was exposed was predetermined by God (CD 1:5–11; 1 QM [War Scroll, Cave 1]). The DSS harbor the hope for the two Messiahs of Aaron and Israel (CD 20:1; 1QS 9:11–12). At that time the sons of light (the Qumran members) will wage war against the sons of darkness (everybody else) and will prevail, thus ushering in the kingdom of God (1 QM) and the New Jerusalem (4QFlor 1:11–12; New Jerusalem texts [5Q554–55]). In anticipation of that day, the Qumran sect observed a messianic meal (1QS 2:11–22), worked at overcoming the evil inclination within them by submitting to the law and the good inclination (the struggle between the two was expected to give way to the cosmic eschatological holy war; 1QS 3–4), and convened to worship God with the angels, which was a proleptic experience of the coming messianic age.

3. Besides the biblical Psalms, other DSS were utilized in a liturgical setting, notably the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH = Hodayot) and the Angelic Liturgy (4QShirShabb; 4Q400–405; 11Q17). The former consists of some twenty-five psalms and takes its name from the verb that introduces these poems: ‘odekah (“Thank you [Lord]”). Form analysis of these hymns suggests they fall into two categories. The first group is written in the first person singular, quite possibly by the Teacher of Righteousness. These lament hymns recount the author’s struggles with his enemies and petition God to vindicate his servant. The second group of hymns in the Hodayot seems to articulate the experiences of the community, which match those of their founder.

The lament form of the Hodayot suggests they served a liturgical purpose. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that they also express the notion that the congregation is united with heaven in a cultic setting to join the angels in worship.

The last mentioned theme is central to the Angelic Liturgy or Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice (4QShirShabb), a collection of poems designed to be read on the Sabbath. These psalms give instruction on how and when to praise God, based on the solar calendar. One of their striking features is the correspondence of heavenly and earthly worship. These materials also borrow from the language of Ezekiel 1 and its presentation of the glorious throne of God. In doing so the Angelic Liturgy serves as an important witness to the pervasiveness of mysticism in early Judaism.

4. That wisdom is vitally important in the DSS is evident from the fact that they preserved the canonical wisdom books, fragments of the popular wisdom work Sirach (ca. 180 BC), and approximately fourteen other wisdom texts (e.g., 4Q184–185; 4Q413–419; 4Q424; 4Q521; 4Q525).Wisdom at Qumran was essentially the Essenes’ (see below) reinterpretation of the Mosaic law.

The Community Producing the DSS

Though debate continues to rage over who wrote the DSS (Essenes, Zealots, Sadducees, Jewish military outpost, etc.), the majority view remains the Essene hypothesis. This understanding also assumes a connection between the DSS and the community revealed by the Qumran excavations. Four pieces of data seem to confirm that the Essenes at Qumran wrote the DSS. First, sociologically the DSS were written by a sectarian, marginalized group, which matches Pliny the Elder’s description of the Essenes (Natural History, AD 77). Second, the archeological evidence connects the DSS with Khirbet Qumran, a site that fits Pliny the Elder’s geographical description of the Essenes (see his Natural History 5.73). Indeed, Pliny’s placement of the Essenes to the west of the Dead Sea, with En-gedi to the south, nicely fits Khirbet Qumran. This is all the more so since the area Pliny describes shows no archaeological evidence of having been inhabited by any other communal group besides the one at Qumran. Third, the paleographical evidence indicates that numerous duplicate copies of manuscripts as well as various styles of handwriting characterize the DSS. This strongly suggests that Qumran was the library or headquarters of a larger movement, which aligns well with Josephus’s description of various branches within the Essene following ( Jewish War 2.8.4 [124]; Ant. 18.1.5 [22]). Finally, historically, the period of Qumran existence, which ranged from the mid-second century BC to AD 68, is in agreement with the time frame mentioned by Josephus regarding the Essenes (Ant. 13.5.9 [171]; Life 1.2). Moreover, it is significant that the period when Qumran was not inhabited, 31–4 BC, correlates with the reign of Herod the Great. Josephus specifically states that the Essenes were highly respected by that ruler (Ant. 17.13.3), implying a relationship between the two (the lack of occupation of Qumran and Herod’s approval of the Essenes). It is a reasonable conjecture that the Essenes, because they enjoyed a positive relationship with Herod, felt no need to live in the desert at that particular time.

The Theology Undergirding the DSS

Most likely, the theology driving the DSS is the familiar Old Testament theme of the story of Israel: sin-exile-restoration. Thus Israel broke the law of Moses; God sent Israel into exile as punishment; Israel will be restored to her land if she returns to the law of Moses. The DSS adhere to this story line, except that they reinterpret the law of Moses along the lines of their sectarian, strict perspective. This is clear from one of the DSS’s earliest foundational documents: Some Works of the Torah (4QMMT). 4QMMT is a short text consisting of three parts: (1) a calendar, consisting of lines 1–20, (2) a section of laws extending from lines 21–92a, and (3) an epilogue composed of lines 92b–118.

The sin-exile-restoration pattern is evident in the epilogue: (1) Israel repeatedly sinned against the Lord from the time of Jeroboam to Zedekiah (lines 104–5); (2) consequently, God rained the Deuteronomic curses on the nation (the exile) (lines 97, 101, 130–36); (3) but true Israel, the Essene community, has repented of its sin (lines 101–2) by segregating itself from the rest of the people (lines 92–94). This has secured for the covenanters the Deuteronomic blessings (restoration) (lines 100, 103–4, 106–8).

Furthermore, the laws required to be followed in order to experience the Deuteronomic blessings are the community’s halakah, which lines 1–92a are devoted to explaining. These consist of the covenanter’s stringent reinterpretation of purity regulations and Sabbath-keeping. It is the sectaries’ commitment to these rules that has caused them to separate from society (lines 92b–94). The Qumran community is thereby justified by God (line 117).

Space does not permit individual treatment of the other DSS. But that data can be summarized under the following categories: (1) wisdom as the sectaries’ reinterpretation of the Mosaic law; (2) the realization of the eschatological Deuteronomic blessings in the Qumran community; and (3) the actualization of the Deuteronomic curses on nonsectarian Jews and gentiles.

It is transparent in all of this that the DSS operate under the assumption that the Torah (more strictly defined) must be kept in order to remain in the covenant, a relationship that excluded gentiles and non-Qumran Jews.

Conclusion

The DSS impact the Bible in two major ways. First, the DSS help to identify and confirm the text of the Hebrew Bible. Second, though there is no direct link between the DSS and the New Testament, the story of Israel as reinterpreted eschatologically by the DSS distinctively reminds one of the New Testament. The difference is, of course, that the latter portrays Jesus as the true Messiah who has brought an end to the law of Moses and that, therefore, salvation is by faith in Christ alone.

The Septuagint

KAREN H. JOBES

Introduction: What Is the Septuagint?

The term Septuagint refers broadly to the ancient Greek versions of the Old Testament originally produced for Greek-speaking Jewish communities and later adopted by the Christian church. The term comes into English through the Latin word for the numeral seventy, septuaginta, a reference to the number of translators who, according to the tradition preserved by Philo, were the first to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Consequently, a common abbreviation for Septuagint is the Roman numeral seventy, LXX. This designation is first found in the phrase “from the seventy” included in scribal notes in the earliest Christian manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament.

How and When Was the Septuagint Produced?

The beginning of the ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Bible is believed to have been in Alexandria, Egypt, during the reign of the Hellenistic king Ptolemy Philadelphus (285–247 BC), when a translation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch, was apparently produced. About AD 150, a document known as the Letter of Aristeas was written that describes the origin and production of this first translation as a defense of its authority and accuracy. Aristeas explains that King Ptolemy was gathering a copy of every book known at that time and commissioned a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures for his library in Alexandria. While the historical accuracy of the Letter of Aristeas is questionable, the extant Greek version of the Pentateuch does exhibit vocabulary that is consistent with an origin in third-century Alexandria. The motive for the translation certainly involved the needs of the Greek-speaking diaspora community of Jews (i.e., those Jews who had been scattered across Asia Minor and the Mediterranean world).

Aristeas claims that from Jerusalem six elders from each of the twelve tribes of Israel were chosen to produce the translation and were sent to Alexandria by the high priest Eleazer along with Hebrew scrolls from the temple. This tradition that seventy-two translators were originally involved in the work conflicts with Philo’s later claim that seventy translators worked independently for seventy days and produced identical translations of the Pentateuch. In both cases, the number of translators is no doubt symbolic. The former, seventy-two, indicates that the translation was produced by representatives of all Israel, and therefore should be read by all Israel as its authorized version. The latter number, seventy, is likely an allusion to the number of elders who assisted Moses in the administration of the law (Exodus 24), expressing the view that subsequent translators of the law are also assisting Moses in its administration. The tradition preserved by Philo that the seventy worked independently and yet produced identical translations is his claim to the divine inspiration of the Septuagint, and therefore a defense of an authority for the Old Greek translation that is at least equal to or superior to that of the Hebrew Scriptures or to subsequent competing Greek versions.

The Greek translation of the Pentateuch probably does date from the third century BC in Alexandria, but it is unknown precisely when and where translations of the other books of the Hebrew Bible were produced. Nonetheless it is clear that over the next few centuries the remaining books of the Hebrew Bible were also translated into Greek. By the beginning of the New Testament era, the entire Hebrew Bible had been completed and was in widespread use. Keep in mind that this was a collection of scrolls (bound books, called codices, were not in use yet). The term Septuagint is usually used in reference to this collection of scrolls.

Over the next two hundred to three hundred years, however, additional Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible were also produced. These are referred to as “versions.” The Christian scholar Origen (ca. AD 185 to ca. AD 254) knew of as many as six Greek versions for many of the books of the Old Testament. In addition to the original Septuagint/Old Greek version, Origen knew of three additional major versions by name—those of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Moreover, for the book of Psalms and a few other Old Testament books, he also knew the versions now referred to as the Quinta, Sexta, and Septima. Because Aquila’s version was produced to closely follow the Hebrew text that had become the standard text in the early second century, Jewish communities tended to adopt Aquila’s version over the older Septuagint/Old Greek version, which continued to be used and preserved by Christians. Origen himself produced a revised version of the Septuagint for the Christian church that brought its text closer to the Hebrew text used at that time. Later, Lucian of Antioch (died AD 312) produced yet another version. One question of scholarly debate is whether these versions were produced by revision of an existing text or new translation of the Hebrew.

The modern edition of the Septuagint (Rahlfs-Hanhart, 2006), binds together the Greek version of each of the canonical Old Testament books along with a number of additional books commonly known as the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books, perhaps giving the appearance that the Septuagint is composed of a broader canon than the historic Protestant canon. The earliest Christian codices do include some of the apocryphal books bound together with the canonical books, but the apocryphal books as a corpus do not appear to have been accepted as canonical Scripture by either Second Temple Judaism or the Christian church.

The Septuagint and the Early Church

Though originally produced within Judaism, the Septuagint and other Greek versions are an important part of the heritage of the Christian church because the New Testament writers frequently quoted one of the Greek versions of the Old Testament. Therefore, the Septuagint and other Greek versions produced before Christ form the most direct literary and theological background for understanding the New Testament. Even though the Hebrew text of the Old Testament is the canonical text for the Protestant churches, methodologically sound exegesis of the New Testament writings must look to the Greek version of the Old Testament where it has been used in the New. As the early church expanded outside of Palestine, the vast majority of Christians could read the Old Testament only in a Greek translation, which, together with the Greek New Testament, stood as the Bible of the church for more than a thousand years. With the exception of a few individuals, such as Origen and Jerome, the church soon lost the ability to read the Hebrew Scriptures until the time of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, when the study of Hebrew was revived in the church. When the Roman Empire split in two at the end of the fourth century, the Eastern church continued to read the Greek versions as their Scripture, and the Greek Old Testament remains the canonical text in the Eastern Orthodox churches yet today.

Bible Translations and the English Bible

J. SCOTT DUVALL

Since the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek (and a small portion in Aramaic), how did it come to be translated into English? Evangelicals believe that the Bible is entirely God’s Word, but that God has worked through various human authors, including their personalities, circumstances, cultural contexts, and writing styles, so that what they wrote was the inspired Word of God. Paul reminds Timothy of the Bible’s divine inspiration: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Up to this point the process looks like this:

Divine author → Human author → Original text of Scripture (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek)

People then wanted to make copies of the original documents (the autographs), and copies were made from the copies, and so on. Although the autographs no longer exist (the case with all ancient documents), we do possess numerous copies of the books of the Bible. For example, there are almost six thousand Greek manuscripts (handwritten copies) of all or parts of the New Testament in existence today.

Before the invention of the printing press in the 1400s, all copies were made by hand, and scribes sometimes made mistakes (e.g., misspelling a word or reversing two letters or omitting a line of text). As a result, the copies we have don’t look exactly the same, although they look remarkably similar, and no major doctrine of the Bible is in doubt because of the wealth of manuscripts.

Textual criticism (or analysis) is the scholarly discipline that compares the various copies of a biblical text in an effort to determine what was most likely the original text. The work of the best textual analysts is presented in the modern critical editions of the biblical text. For the Old Testament, the standard critical text is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS). For the New Testament, it is reflected in the latest edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (GNT) or Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece. These critical editions form the basis for almost all modern English translations of the Bible. A translator or translation committee will use these critical editions to translate the Bible from Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek into English for the benefit of English-speaking readers.

Copies of the original text → Critical text → Translators → English translations → Readers

At this point in the process a translator (or usually a translation committee) will translate the Bible from the source languages (Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek) into the receptor language (in our case modern English). Here is where you enter the picture. As the reader, you pick up your English Bible and begin to read and interpret.

It’s quite a process. God spoke through human authors who composed an original text. The originals were copied and recopied. Textual critics study all the various manuscripts and produce a modern critical edition of the Old and New Testament texts. Translators move the meaning of the ancient biblical text into English for our benefit.

Although the process of Bible translation may seem like a simple process, it’s really fairly complex. No two languages are exactly alike, so there is no one-to-one correspondence between words in the ancient language and English words. A very literal rendering of John 3:16 would read, “So for loved the God the world, so that the son the only begotten he gave, that the one believing into him might not be destroyed, but might have life age.” Is this really the best translation of John 3:16? Could we even read an entire Bible “translated” in this way?

Since languages differ in many ways, making a translation is a complicated endeavor. A more literal translation is not necessarily a more accurate translation. Translation involves more than just stringing together words. Translating the Bible into English calls for reproducing the meaning of a biblical text (in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) in English as fully as possible. There are difficult choices involved in the details of such a process and that explains why English translations differ so much. The translators wrestle with how best to move the meaning in the ancient text into English.

Approaches to Bible Translation

There are two main approaches to translation: the formal approach (“word-for-word”) and the functional approach (“thought-for-thought”). Actually, no translation is completely formal or functional. All translations have a bit of both, but some are more formal and others more functional. The more formal translations—such as the New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version, and Holman Christian Standard Bible—try to preserve the structure and words of the ancient text as much as possible, but they run the risk of sacrificing meaning for the sake of form. The more functional translations—such as New Century Version, New Living Translation, Contemporary English Version, and God’s Word Translation—focus on expressing the meaning of the original text in today’s language, but they risk distorting the meaning of the text by moving too far from the form of biblical language. The following chart shows where many contemporary translations appear on the continuum of translation approaches.

The Living Bible on the right side of the continuum is actually a paraphrase rather than a translation. Instead of translating from the original biblical languages, a paraphrase will restate or explain an existing English translation with easier-to-understand English words and style. Paraphrases such as the Living Bible (1967–1971) or the Amplified Bible (1958–1965) should be viewed as commentaries on the Bible rather than translations of the Bible. But, as the following survey shows, there are many good English Bible translations from which to choose.

English Translations prior to 1611

John Wycliffe produced the first complete translation of the Bible into English in the 1380s. He translated the New Testament from Latin into English and was persecuted for his willingness to put the Bible into the language of ordinary people. John Purvey produced a revision of the Wycliffe Bible (1388), and this translation dominated until the time of William Tyndale. With the invention of the printing press in the mid-1400s, English Bible translation rapidly moved forward.

William Tyndale produced the first English New Testament (1526) based on the Greek text rather than the Latin. Tyndale was executed and his body burned in 1536 for his courageous commitment to Bible translation. In 1535, Miles Coverdale produced a translation of the entire Bible into English (Coverdale Bible). The Matthew Bible was completed two years later (1537) by John Rogers, an associate of Tyndale. Rogers also suffered martyrdom for his work as a translator. In 1539, Coverdale revised the Matthew Bible, a revision better known as the Great Bible because of its larger-than-normal pages. The Great Bible was very popular with the people and was the first English translation authorized to be read in the Church of England.

From Geneva, Switzerland, Oxford scholar William Whittingham and others produced a revision known as the Geneva Bible (1560), which featured Calvinistic marginal notes. This Bible became extremely popular among groups such as the Puritans, but was not permitted to be read in English churches. The Bishops’ Bible, a revision of the Great Bible, was completed in 1568 for this purpose. The Roman Catholic Church also needed an English translation with marginal notes in support of its doctrine, and in 1593 it produced the Douai-Rheims Bible.

The Authorized Version of 1611

In 1604, King James I authorized a new translation of the whole Bible for use in the churches of England. The leading university scholars in England produced the Authorized Version of 1611, commonly known as the King James Version (KJV). The King James Version of 1611 also included the Apocrypha, a group of Jewish books recognized as canonical by Catholics but not by Protestants.

The goal of the KJV translators was to produce an English translation from the original languages that ordinary people could understand and that would be worthy of public reading in the churches. In spite of early criticisms, the KJV became one of the most widely used English translations. The KJV has been revised numerous times since 1611. It’s a revision of the 1769 edition that is prominent today—an edition that differs significantly from the 1611 edition. For example, the original KJV contained the Old Testament Apocrypha, books traditionally accepted by Catholics and rejected by Protestants.

In spite of the popularity of the KJV, translators have been motivated to continue producing new Bible translations for two reasons. First, the translators of the KJV used only about a half dozen, very late Greek manuscripts to translate the New Testament. Since that time, many older manuscripts have been discovered and most scholars contend that these are more likely to reflect the original text. Today, New Testament scholars are able to translate from a Greek text that draws on almost six thousand Greek manuscripts, some dating back to the second century. Sometimes the differences between the KJV and contemporary translations are due to differences in the underlying Greek text (e.g., Acts 8:37; 1 John 5:7–8; Rev. 22:19). Second, the KJV’s use of archaic English words and phrases such as “aforetime,” “must needs,” “howbeit,” “holden,” “peradventure,” and “whereto” confuses contemporary readers. For other examples of outdated language in the KJV, see Exodus 19:18; 1 Samuel 5:12; Psalm 5:6; Luke 17:9; Acts 7:44–45; 2 Corinthians 8:1; James 2:3; 5:11. The KJV was a good translation for its day, but has been eclipsed by numerous contemporary translations.

English Translations Since 1611

The English Revised Version (ERV; 1881–1885) was the first major revision of the KJV, and the first English translation to make use of the modern discipline of textual criticism. American scholars produced their own revision of the ERV in 1901: the American Standard Version (ASV). Toward the middle of the twentieth century (1946–1952), the Revised Standard Version (RSV) appeared, still based on the KJV but with the goal of representing the best scholarship in language designed for public and private worship. The New American Standard Bible (1971) claimed to be a revision of the ASV, but should really be considered a new translation. The New King James Version (1979–1982) made an effort to update the language of the KJV while retaining the same underlying Greek text. The New Revised Standard Version, a thorough revision of the RSV, was completed in 1989 with the goal of being as literal as possible but as free as necessary (in order to accurately communicate the meaning).

There have been many other contemporary translations in recent years that are not tied to the KJV. The New American Bible (1941–1970) and the Jerusalem Bible (1966) are major Catholic translations of the Scriptures. The New Jerusalem Bible, a revision of the Jerusalem Bible, appeared in 1985. Both the New English Bible (1961–1970) and its revision, the Revised English Bible (1989), are translations into contemporary British idiom. The American Bible Society completed the Good News Bible in 1976 (also called Today’s English Version) with the goal of expressing the meaning of the original text in conversational English.

The New International Version (NIV; 1973–1978, 1984) sought to produce a translation in international English offering a middle ground between a word-for-word approach and a thought-for-thought approach. Today’s New International Version (TNIV; 2001) is an attempt to revise the NIV using the best of contemporary biblical scholarship and changes in the English language, especially as it relates to the issue of gender and language. The NIV was thoroughly revised in 2010. As a result, the NIV (1984) and the TNIV will eventually be discontinued. The issue of gender-inclusive language was brought to the fore by the publication of the TNIV. Bible translators will continually be challenged as to how best to translate the meaning of the biblical text into contemporary English in light of language changes such as those in the area of gender.

The New Century Version (1987) and the Contemporary English Version (1991–1995) are recent thought-for-thought translations. The New Living Translation (1996) is a fresh, thought-for-thought translation based on the popular paraphrase, the Living Bible (1967–1971). The New International Reader’s Version (1996) was created to enable early readers to understand God’s Word. Eugene Peterson’s The Message (1993–2002) is an attempt to render the message of the Bible in the language of today’s generation. The New English Translation, commonly referred to as the NET Bible (1998–2005), offers an electronic version of a modern translation for distribution over the Internet (complete with over sixty thousand explanatory notes by the translators). The English Standard Version (2001) is a word-for-word translation that uses the RSV as its starting point. The Holman Christian Standard Bible (1999–2004) also promotes a word-for-word approach unless clarity and readability demand a more idiomatic translation.

Translations for the World

BRYAN HARMELINK

Introduction

From the beginning of time, God has communicated with his creatures by translation of the divine word into human language. The multilingual character of society and the need for translation are evidenced in the pages of Scripture in the interplay of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Gospels themselves are prime examples of translation, expressing in Greek what would have originally been spoken in Aramaic. This has led some scholars, such as Lamin Sanneh, to refer to Christianity as a “translating religion” that places God at the center of human culture. Scripture translation follows the paradigmatic event of Pentecost when God’s Spirit made it possible for those present in Jerusalem to hear the wonders of God in their own languages.

Brief History

Scripture translation is one of the oldest activities of the people of God. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other ancient versions in languages such as Syriac, Coptic, and Latin, are all early evidence of this essential activity that has gone hand in hand with the expansion of the church.

Missionary Era

By the year AD 1500, there had been Scripture translation in approximately twenty languages, but during the next three hundred years this number increased to eighty. Various historical factors such as the intellectual climate produced by the Renaissance, the changes set in motion by the Reformation, and increased exploration around the world contributed to this higher translation activity. These historical factors also set the stage for the missionary era of translation, which was characterized by a cross-cultural translator working within the larger context of other mission activity.

Translation Agency Era

The formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804 could be considered the early beginnings of a new era of focused attention on Bible translation through agencies that focused specifically on the translation and distribution of the Scriptures. This era witnessed an even greater increase in the numbers of translations around the world.

In the 1920s, William Cameron Townsend was working as a colporteur, distributing and selling Bibles in Guatemala. He encountered Cakchiquel speakers who were not able to read the Spanish Bibles he was selling. Their desire for God to speak their language prompted him to learn Cakchiquel and subsequently to begin the translation of the New Testament in that language. Townsend soon realized that translation was needed in many other languages in the world, and in 1934 he organized the first “Camp Wycliffe” to teach insights from the newly developing field of linguistics in order to train others to work in Bible translation. This set the stage for the eventual founding of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), an organization that would bring linguistics and other academic disciplines to bear on the analysis of numerous indigenous languages in diverse regions of the world. It was within this intellectual milieu that Eugene Nida, working with the American Bible Society, developed the model of translation known as Functional Equivalence. This theory provided important conceptual tools for many translators working on Bible translation in very diverse linguistic and cultural settings around the world.

From the middle of the twentieth century onward, several agencies were founded with a specific focus on Bible translation. The work of the Bible societies, SIL, and these agencies contributed to the greatest increase in Scripture translation ever. As a point of reference, in the decade following 1810, translation work was undertaken in twenty-six languages, giving a total of 107 languages with at least some Bible translation. In the decade following 1910, 102 new languages were added to the list—almost as many were added in one decade as the cumulative total a century before. The trend continues: in 1910 the cumulative total was 722 languages, and in 2010 the total surpassed 2,500.

One of the common threads woven through the history of Bible translation is the desire to effectively and appropriately communicate the Word of God in another language. Nida was convinced that the best way to improve the quality of translations was to work directly with translators in the field and provide them with reference helps that addressed translation issues. He was also instrumental in the early stages of training for translation consultants who would become integral members of translation teams by providing additional expertise and periodic training for the translators. In addition to their role as advisers and trainers, consultants typically assist translators by checking their translations prior to publication. Indeed, providing training and consulting expertise is one of the continuing contributions of translation agencies in the twenty-first century.

Further developments in linguistic and communication theories during the final decades of the twentieth century continued to impact translation theory and practice, bringing about a reassessment of the Functional Equivalence model as translators continued to work toward effective and appropriate communication of the Word of God in diverse linguistic and cultural contexts. One of the most significant changes was an increased awareness of the need to provide readers with background materials that assist them in their comprehension of Scripture.

Another influential intellectual current was the rapid growth of Translation Studies as a recognized discipline in the final quarter of the twentieth century. This has brought increasingly diverse fields of study—such as ethics, cultural studies, and postcolonial criticism—to bear on translation philosophy and practice. These fields of study provide Bible translators with important concepts for researching the cultural impact of translation in society, considering key ethical concerns in complex multicultural contexts, and developing a critical awareness of the role of the translator and the translation agency.

Dates of Incorporation of Bible Translation Agencies

New Tribes Mission 1942

Lutheran Bible Translators 1964

Institute for Bible Translation 1973

Pioneer Bible Translators 1976

Evangel Bible Translators 1976

Word for the World 1981

Global Translation Era

The final decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first also witnessed unprecedented growth of the global church. This growth is bringing about significant changes in the Bible translation movement as an increasing number of non-Westerners get involved in Bible translation. In many places this growth may itself be the result of prior translation work.

There is still considerable mission agency involvement in translation around the world, but the emphasis is on the training and participation of people in local communities and churches. This is a significant new era in the history of Bible translation, reflected, for example, by Samuel Escobar’s statement in The New Global Mission that mission in the twenty-first century is the responsibility of a global church. In Whose Religion Is Christianity? Lamin Sanneh states that in the global church the representative believer is no longer a white Westerner, but rather someone from a Nigerian village or a Brazilian favela. The same changes are being seen in the global translation movement where the typical translator is no longer a Western missionary, but rather someone from the language community for whom the translation is being done. The ages-old desire of the church to hear and understand the Word of God is alive and well in the global church.

The Scope of the Remaining Task

According to 2008 statistics, 6,909 languages are spoken by the world’s 6.5 billion people. Of these totals, there is still no Scripture translation for 2,393 languages, spoken by about 200 million people. There is, however, an unprecedented number of translation, linguistic, or literacy programs in progress in 1,998 languages, representing 1.2 billion people. These statistics make it clear that the remaining task is of global proportions and beyond the capacity of any translation agency. Significant progress toward providing Scripture for the remaining language communities will be possible only through the active participation of the global church. Scholars such as Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh, and Philip Jenkins have written volumes on the history and role of Scripture translation in the global Christian movement, but there are many chapters that have yet to be written.

Technology

Advances in information technology have directly impacted the Bible translation movement by providing electronic resources and data management tools specifically designed for translators. Having resources on digital media makes it possible for translators in even the most remote corners of the world to access substantial libraries of exegetical and translation help in a way not previously possible in the history of Bible translation.

One of the most significant ways in which software tools aid the translation process is by simplifying the process from draft to publication. The same digital files can quickly go from an editing session to being printed for trial copies with a few clicks. Most of the tools for prepublication checks on a new Scripture translation are built into the software, which has helped to streamline this phase of the translation process.

New Translation Strategies

Most Bible translation projects have traditionally been carried out in and for one particular language community. There are some situations, however, where certain factors lend themselves to different types of “cluster” approaches. One such approach involves using specialized computer tools that take direct user-input from linguists and translators to process a base translation and produce one or more predrafts in other related languages. Another type of “cluster” approach is where translation teams come from different language communities but share a common Language of Wider Communication, which allows them to work together and take advantage of the expertise of the same translation adviser or consultant. The computer does not in any way replace the translator, but it can be an important tool for certain otherwise tedious text-processing tasks.

Scripture Engagement

The goal of Bible translation has never been about translation as an end in itself. Rather, it’s about providing Scripture in the language people understand so they can use it and effectively engage with it. There has been an awareness of the need for Scripture engagement for many decades, but it has only recently become a primary focus of translation agencies. For some, the sufficiency of Scripture seems to have meant that providing an understandable Bible was enough, but effective engagement with a new translation does not necessarily follow from the translation and publication process. Typically, complex sociolinguistic and missiological factors affect the use of a translation, especially in the diverse multilingual contexts in which most Scripture translation is being done. In current translation projects, these factors are taken into consideration in early planning stages in order to develop strategies for effective engagement with Scripture.

New Distribution Strategies

New information technologies have not only impacted the translation process, but also the distribution of the translated Scriptures through web-based delivery. Digital media have opened up new frontiers for making the Scriptures available in ways never before imagined possible. The world is not equally “flat” everywhere, but access to digital media no longer requires costly computers with internet connections. Many less expensive mobile devices are becoming more available, thereby creating new and exciting avenues for Scripture distribution and engagement.