Biblical Manuscripts

Definition and Biblical Record

A manuscript is a book copied by hand from an original. Until printing became widespread, the Bible was transmitted only through hand copying. None of the original manuscripts (autographs) written by the biblical authors survive.

Scripture itself depicts the recording and copying of texts. In Jeremiah 36, Baruch writes on a scroll the words dictated by Jeremiah. When King Jehoiakim burns that scroll, the same words are written down again. Deuteronomy 17:18 commands the king to write a copy of the law and read it. In 2 Timothy 4:13, Paul asks that "the books, but especially the parchments" be brought to him.

Materials and Types

Manuscripts were written on papyrus or parchment (prepared animal skin). Their format gradually shifted from the scroll to the codex, a bound book resembling modern books.

• Old Testament: The standard text is the Masoretic Text, transmitted by medieval Jewish scholars who added vowel points and annotations. The Leningrad Codex, from the early eleventh century, is its leading representative. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered from 1947 onward in caves near Qumran, are roughly a thousand years older; among them, the Great Isaiah Scroll largely agrees with the Masoretic Text. The Greek translation known as the Septuagint is also consulted.
• New Testament: More than 5,000 Greek manuscripts are known. They are classified as early papyri; uncial (majuscule) manuscripts, such as the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus; and minuscule manuscripts, which became numerous from about the ninth century. Ancient versions such as the Latin Vulgate and quotations in the writings of the early church fathers are also used in textual study.

Differences Among Manuscripts

In the course of copying, differences arose in spelling and word order, and words were omitted or added. These differences are called textual variants, and most are minor. The discipline of comparing manuscripts to identify the readings closest to the original text is called textual criticism.

The following passages are among the most widely discussed:

• Mark 16:9–20: absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.
• John 7:53–8:11, the account of the woman taken in adultery: absent from early manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.
• The wording in 1 John 5:7–8 concerning the three heavenly witnesses: generally regarded as having entered the text from later Latin tradition. The King James Version includes this wording.

Interpretations and Points of Debate

• Inerrancy and the manuscripts: Many evangelicals who affirm biblical inerrancy hold, as the 1978 Chicago Statement does, that inerrancy applies strictly to the original autographs. They maintain that the manuscripts have been preserved with sufficient accuracy under God's providence.
• Which text should serve as the standard: Most scholars and many seminaries use a critical text that gives priority to the earliest manuscripts. Others, by contrast, favor the Majority Text or the Textus Receptus (the text descended from Erasmus's sixteenth-century printed editions). They argue that the text the church has actually read over many centuries is the correct one, and the view that only the King James Version should be used emerged from this movement.
• Status of disputed passages: Views also differ on whether the passages listed above should be read as part of the canon. Some accept them as text the church has long read, while others hold that they should be set apart as material absent from the original text.

In the Korean Church

The New Korean Revised Version marks certain verses absent from early manuscripts as "(omitted)" and explains the manuscript evidence in a marginal note (for example, Matthew 17:21). The New Korean Standard Version and other translations likewise indicate such cases with brackets or notes. In Korea as well, some maintain that only the King James Version and the Textus Receptus represent the true Bible, a position that forms one strand of the Bible translation debate.