Manuscript

Manuscripts in the Bible

The Bible itself describes the copying of documents. Deuteronomy 17:18 directs that when a king takes the throne, he is to make a copy of the book of the law in the presence of the priests the Levites and keep it with him to read all the days of his life. A copy here means a book written out by hand from another. Ezra 4:11 quotes "the copy of the letter" sent to the Persian king. In Jeremiah 36, after King Jehoiakim burns the scroll, Baruch writes down the words again as Jeremiah dictates them (Jeremiah 36:32).

Background

The Hebrew word mishneh in Deuteronomy 17:18 means "a second thing," that is, a copy. The Septuagint rendered the expression as "this second law." The English name of the book, Deuteronomy, is generally said to derive from this rendering.

Before the invention of printing, documents were transmitted by being copied by hand onto papyrus or parchment. Ezra is introduced as "a ready scribe in the law of Moses" (Ezra 7:6). Later, the scribes took on the work of copying and teaching the law.

Transmission of Biblical Manuscripts

The autographs (the manuscripts written by the authors themselves) of the books of the Bible have not survived.

• Old Testament: The Old Testament has been transmitted chiefly in the Masoretic Text, a Hebrew text preserved by medieval Jewish scholars who added vowel points and annotations. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the Qumran area beginning around 1947, are far older manuscripts and have become an important resource for textual study.
• New Testament: More than 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are known. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, both from the fourth century, are the best-known examples.

The discipline of comparing points of difference among manuscripts in order to determine the reading closest to the original is called textual criticism. A well-known example is 1 Corinthians 13:3, in the so-called Love Chapter. Depending on the manuscript, one of two words with similar spellings appears. The New Korean Revised Version renders the phrase "though I give my body to be burned," while the New Korean Standard Version adopts the sense "so that I may boast."

Interpretations and Issues

• Inerrancy of the autographs and providential preservation: Many evangelical and Reformed theologians hold that biblical inerrancy applies to the autographs and that comparing the manuscripts makes it possible to recover the original text sufficiently. Chapter 1, section 8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith confesses that the Scriptures in the original languages have been kept pure in all ages by God's providence.
• Support for the Textus Receptus: The Greek text printed from the sixteenth century onward, known as the Textus Receptus, became the basis of the King James Version. Its supporters regard it as the result of providential preservation and distrust modern critical texts that give priority to older manuscripts. Those who follow the critical text respond that earlier manuscripts are closer to the original.
• Historical criticism: Historical-critical scholarship treats differences among manuscripts as evidence for studying how the text was transmitted and formed.
• A commonly repeated story: Sermons often include the illustration that "if a copyist made a mistake in even a single letter, the entire scroll was discarded." This is generally understood to derive from later Jewish regulations governing the copying of Torah scrolls for synagogue worship, and it does not apply to all manuscripts.

In the Korean Church

The New Korean Revised Version leaves some verses blank, marked "(none)," and gives the alternative reading in a marginal note introduced by "Some manuscripts." Matthew 17:21 is one example. Questions about this notation frequently arise in Bible study. Some churches and organizations maintain that only translations based on the Textus Receptus are the true Bible. This issue is treated under the Bible translation debate.