If you have a King James Bible you see it is about the resurrected Christ,….quite an important part of Scripture. Now take your Bibles and look at Mark 16:9-20. In other words, the manuscript “Codex Vatican B” does not contain Mark 16:9-20. Testament, testifies that the last 12 verses of Mark do not exist. For example, the witness “Codex Vatican B” (one of the five), a Greek manuscript of the New A textual critic is one who picks and chooses what part of whose story they will believe to be true. Do we listen to the 5000+ witnesses, or do we listen to the 5? Which group do you think would be more trustworthy? At this point we have entered the realm of “textual criticism”. So here is the dilemma when it comes to the “witness” of the Greek manuscripts. These 5000 agree perfectly as to what happened. The judge then listens to the other side which holds over 5000 witnesses. In the court room they tell it to the judge as it is, yet when the judge hears each of their stories, the witnesses do not agree. If we are to understand the foundation of the NIV, it is critical to understand that the NIV is translated from these five manuscripts above which do not agree with one another.īut what does this mean and is it important? Take, for example, five men who are eye witnesses to a crime. For much unlike the 5000+, these five manuscripts are radically different. 1%? These are commonly called the MINORITY TEXTS, but they are also known to many as the corrupted manuscripts. Now we have said that 99.9% of those 5000+ manuscripts agree with each other almost perfectly, but what about the other.
118:8 Putting our confidence in God and not man, it seems apparent our Lord has kept His promise and that His Word is faithfully preserved in over 5000 witnesses!
“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” Ps. God has promised to preserve His Word among us, and God always keeps His promises! Likewise we dare never put confidence in man. In Matthew 24:35 Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but My words shall not pass away.” Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand forever.” See also Is. Not only do we have 5000+ manuscripts which are nearly identical, but the Lord Himself promises us through His Word to preserve His Scriptures for the sake of mankind. You could say that “Over five thousand witnesses agree, this New Testament is God’s holy Word”. Since 99.9% of these manuscripts agree, we can be comforted knowing that God has preserved His Word among us. It is sometimes called the Textus Receptus. This Majority Text was made from more than five thousand (5000+) manuscripts. Other names for the Majority Text are Traditional Text, Syrian Text, Byzantine Text, and the Common Text. Translators of the Bible over the years have used these agreeing manuscripts to make what is called the MAJORITY TEXT. However the majority of these manuscripts agree with each other almost perfectly.
Not one of these manuscripts is exactly the same in Greek content. There are over 5366 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. The word MANUSCRIPTS is used to describe these copies or parchments which still exist. Since the original books of the Bible do not exist anymore, it becomes necessary to translate the Bible from copies of the original. This requires us to reach back in history to the days of the apostles, when the New Testament was written in the original Greek language – sometime between 33-100 AD. To understand Westcott and Hort, you must first understand textual criticism. Though these quotations say nothing of Westcott and Hort, they are hidden behind the words “accepted principles of textual criticism“. “Where existing manuscripts differ, the translators made their choice of readings according to accepted principles of New Testament textual criticism.” In my own NIV Student Bible (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids Michigan, Copyright 1986, 1992), there is no mention of Westcott and Hort, but a mere reference to “textual criticism.” They are not aware nor concerned that almost all the modern Bible versions of our day are built upon the Greek Text of Westcott and Hort, commonly called the Westcott-Hort text. “When the modern Bible reader is asked if they are familiar with the two Textual Bible Critics, Westcott and Hort, most have never heard of them. By the same token, most have rid themselves of the “ancient” King James Version and upgraded for a newer model, such as the NIV, or NASB, etc. When it comes to the various Bible versions of our modern day, most readers assume that all Bibles are created equal, with perhaps differing degrees of readability. Modern Bible Versions, and Westcott and Hort