hczuloo.blogg.se - Textual criticism of the old testament

In English the indefinite article “a” gets an “n” added when the next word starts with a vowel. The single most common textual variant is called a “ moveable Nu“, with “Nu” being the Greek letter which sounds like our “N”. Remember, there was no dictionary in ancient times, and thus no defined right or wrong way to spell a word. In fact, the most common type of Textual Variant is spelling differences, often a single letter. These comprise over 75% of all textual variants, which means over 75% of textual variants have no effect on anything whatsoever. These are Textual Variants which have no effect on anything.

Textual Variants that are NOT meaningful, even if viable.

Both Viable and meaningful ( they do change the meaning and do have a chance of being original).

Meaningful but Not viable ( they do change the meaning, but have no chance of being original).

Viable but not meaningful ( they don’t change the meaning and have a chance of being original).

Neither meaningful nor viable ( they don’t change the meaning and have no chance of being original).

Some variants appear in only a single ( late) manuscript, and thus the chances of them being in the original text are extremely low.įrom those two options, we can create a list of four types of Textual Variant. These Textual Variants have a decent chance of having the wording of the original document. For example, if one manuscript said “Jesus was happy” and another says “Jesus was sad”, that’s a meaningful variant because it changes the meaning of the text. These textual variants have an impact on what the text means. 🙂 We can broadly class all Textual Variants into two classes. What “Textual Variants”? How bad are They?įortunately, they just aren’t that bad. When two copies disagree with each other, you have a variant in the text between two documents: this is ( unsurprisingly) called a “Textual Variant”. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the scribes who did the copying occasionally made some mistakes.

Before Gutenberg invented the printing press in the early-mid 1400s, everything was copied by hand. So what we have are copies of copies of the original ( sometimes many generations of copying deep). Those copies were copied, which were copied, which were copied, which were … However, the originals were copied many, many times. They were originally written on either papyrus ( essentially paper) or possibly parchment ( animal skins) which have long since degraded with time and use. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but we don’t have the original documents that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and other New Testament writers wrote. A “textual critic” is not someone who criticizes the Bible, but someone who tries their best to reconstruct the original text. The practice of Textual Criticism is not “ criticizing the Bible“, it’s trying to recover the Bible’s original text.

The study of the copies of a written document whose original ( the autograph) is unknown or non-existent, for the primary purpose of determining the exact wording of the original. In the process you will gain an appreciation for the vast work that has been accomplished in preserving the text of Scripture and find a renewed confidence in its reliability.Here is an excellent definition of Textual Criticism from Dan Wallace, who is one of the most respected Textual Critics in the world today. Wegner gives you an overview of the history and methods, aims and results of textual criticism. In plain language and with ample illustration, Paul D. But if you are one of those interested in a general understanding of textual criticism, this book introduces you to textual criticism of the whole Bible-the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. That is why nearly every book on the subject focuses on the textual criticism of either the Old or New Testament. In fact, the task of textual criticism is so daunting and detailed that it is divided between Old Testament textual critics and New Testament textual critics. Sorting out the errors and determining the original wording is the task of textual criticism. And despite the most careful and painstaking efforts of scribes and publishers down through the centuries, errors of one sort or another have crept in and have been reproduced. The Bible has been on a long historical journey since its original composition.