DRAFTING - Still researching source on dates on history of versions

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Six Proofs of the Source Text

As listed in other places on Biblical Thoughts, there are the:

1. Encryptions,
2. Gematria,
3. Counts of seven and divisibility of 7 when counting,
4. Prophecies with fulfillments,
5. Entire creation,
6. Israel's persecution, dispersion and rebirth as a nation with the prophecies predicting it, and
7. Of course, the scriptures themselves

that prove the Bible has to have it source from outside of the human, earthly and universe domain.  Undeniably and most importantly, the influence of God in the Christian's life when we hand ourselves over to His control will be convincingly enough.

A wonderful research document can be found on this link from David B Lougrhan.   Below is a summary from his work, Dr Steven Anderson, and some other sources. 

Source Text Consists

The Old Testament's (OT) consists of 39 codex scrolls which were written:

• In Hebrew
• In Aramaic
  > Ezra 4:8 through 6:18 and 7:12-26 for a total of 67 verses
  > Daniel 2:4b through 7:28 for a total of 200 verses
  > Jeremiah 10:11
  > Also various single words and phrases throughout the OT and New Testament's (NT)

The New Testament's (NT) contains 27 codex scrolls that were written:

• The NT was written in Greek.  (There are no manuscripts of any part of the NT that have been found written in Aramaic.)
• Aramaic quotes from the Book of Daniel and other OT scriptures. 
  > Matthew 5:22
  > Matthew 27:46
  > Mark 5:41
  > Mark 7:34
  > Mark 10:51
  > Mark 14:36
  > John 1:42
  > John 20:16
  > Acts 9:36
  > Acts 9:40
  > Romans 8:15
  > 1 Corinthians 16:22
  > Galatians 4:6

The codex scrolls are known as books in the modern-day Bible.

Jesus Christ's native tongue was Aramaic.  In many places in the scriptures, as noted above, the original Aramaic was kept.  Possibly one of the most famous quotes of Jesus Christ is "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani in Mark 15:34

The books of the OT and NT were written on clay tablets, vellum or papyrus with a stylus.  Clay tablets could last a very long time, albeit brittle and vellum is animal skin (cattle, goats, deer) and would last longer than papyrus.   None of the original master works have survived, but were copied over time by first the Aaronic Priests, Masorites, early Christians and others.

In the OT period, as a book approached the status of being unusable, it was then destroyed.  The procedure was once a codex was no longer usable or condemned as unfit for use then it was destroyed or put into the Geniza.  Geniza was a storage area for manuscripts that could no longer be used.  After the Geniza became full then all the defective manuscripts were buried with an elaborate ceremony to honor God.

The process of copying any codex was done very meticulously and with a high reverence for each and every letter.  When any name of God was found and copied, the manuscript writer would usually destroy the stylus and begin with a new stylus.  Additionally, the Hebrew letters on a page would be added up both across and downwards to verify that no letter was left out of a copy, which result in destroying a codex that was inaccurate.  This preserved the accuracy of the codex.

Interesting points concerning the original OT codex documents:

• The ancient manuscripts were written without spacing between letters in capital letters, which is called Uncial or Majuscules.  An example in English would be NOMANHASTHSEENGOD. 
• A codex written in all upper-case letters is known as a Majuscule
• A codex written in all lower-case letters is known as a Minuscule

While Ancient Hebrew changed after the Babylonian captivity the changes did not make it entirely different from the predecessor according to scholars.  Hebrew is written from right to left and did not contain any vowels, only consonants.  Scribes after the captivity, devised means of indicating a vowel sounds through the use of points above letters which is known as niqqud.

Based on information from New Testament Textual Research in Munster, Germany, which was summarized by CRI, the latest count as of February 2, 2010 of NT codex copies in existence::

• 2903 Minuscules
• 320 Majuscule
• 127 papyri (case of letters not distinguished)
• 2,445 lectionaries  (case of letters not distinguished)

which totals 5,795.26. 

In comparison to Homer's lliad, the count of copies is numbered to be around 1757.  CRI notes that the earliest NT Greek manuscript is John Ryland's Papyrus codex which is dated by Bart Ehrman as between 125-130 with a 25-year accuracy variance.  There are many other ancient works from Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Caesar, Livy, Tacity, Pliny the Elder, Thucydides and Demosthenes, with fewer copies that are accepted by scholars as authentic without question as compared to the NT which has numerous translations that support a higher level of accuracy.

Original Scripture Needed?

Because the 1st written codex is not available, many people believe that the Bible cannot be correct or will have mistakes introduced over time.  As noted above, the ancient copies were copied with very detailed procedures to verify accuracy and old copies were still highly venerated where elimination went through a ceremony to honor the codex before God.

Additionally, while translations have problems because words can change meaning over the centuries, that does not prove the scripture is flawed. 

A warning concerning distortion and changing the Word of God, specifically in the Book of Revelation, is:

Why Not 70 Books?

Incidentally, some scholars argue the book of Psalms was most likely 5 books that were combined into one which would have given the total of OT books at 43 and the grand total of 70 books in the Bible rather than 66 books. 

History of Versions

• The foremost recommended source text is the "Traditional Received Text (Textus Receptus), which is also known as the "Byzantine Text" or the "Majority Text", because it is has the most manuscripts that are still in existence.  Roughly 90% of the 5000 manuscripts that are still in existence.
• The Textus Receptus is 90% of the Greek manuscripts which are still in existence and hence the Majority Text.
• Besides the 5795 count of NT documents there are over 1,800 copies of Versions plus 86,000 scriptural citations from the Church Fathers that are evidence of the accuracy of Textus Receptus.
• Small errors have been documented and sometimes corrected over time when dealing with translations and versions in the Textus Receptus versions.
• The "Minority Text", known also as the Alexandrian Text, are the work of Egyptian scribes that were not Believers who omit approximately 200 verses, contradicts themselves in hundreds of places and are overtly incorrect.  Because of Minority Text, modern translations have misleading and incorrect footnotes.
• Neutral Texts are those texts which match both Textus Receptus in places and match Minority Texts.  The Neutral texts make up 5% of the 5200 manuscripts.
• First copies of William Tyndale's NT were burned in London as it was a criminal offense to have one.  Tyndale was so skilled in 7 languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English and French) that people considered all of them his native tongue.   Tyndale was martyred.
• Key points concerning the Revised Version is it is from the Minority Text whose authors rejected key points such as inerrancy of the original scriptures, made alterations to the Scriptures to reflect their different beliefs and had men who believed in Evolution and questioned the deity of Jesus Christ.  Furthermore, Revised Standard Version has members who had Roman Catholic bias towards the Catholic viewpoints which have been proven to be against many scriptures.   See this link regarding a very long list of errors, which is part 2 of David B Lougrhan full document from above.
• The list of books of the Tanach and Christian Bible, which is Judaism and Christianity, are basically the same with some slight differences.

This table is being compiled from several sources and is not completely confirmed or absolutely accurate, but is a good start:

Some Versions

........ following sections are not complete yet!

Dead Sea Scrolls:

Estimated to be from 408 BC to possibly 318 AD.  They contain around 25% of the Old Testament.  They were discovered in the Qumran Caves, eleven caves in Khirbet Qumran of the West Bank, between 1946 and 1956.  There are at 981 different texts.  The dating was done by two methods: radiocarbon and paleographic dating.  Additionally, for the dating there were two types of bronze coins found (1) the first type from Hasmonean leader in the 2nd century BCE, born 164 and reigned from 134 to his death in 104 BCE; and, the (2) coins pertaining to the first Jewish Roman War.

These Texts are the 3rd oldest known surviving manuscripts.  They are used in the Hebrew Bible Cannon and  {....}

The following are a list of some of the versions of the scriptures that more information is warranted from the chart above.

Septuagint

Estimated to be started in 300 BC.  These are the translation of the first five books of the Old Testament in Alexandria and others into Koine Greek.  The work was done by 70 Jewish scholars and derived its name from the Latin "vesio septuaginta interpretum" meaning "translation of the seventy interpreters".

Aramaic Targums

Paraphrases of hte Scriptures in the Aramaic dialiect because Hebrew had ceased to be a living language.

Aquila Theodotion and Symmachus version

Made in the 2 century BC for the Jews by Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus

Syriac Version

It is a Syriac Version of the Pentateuch made by Jews

Hebrew Samaritan Pentateuch

It is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible written in the Samaritan alphabet.  It goes back to the 4 century BC.

The Tanakh is the first five books of the Bible.  They are written by Moses except for the last 8 verses.

The following are dealing with the New Testament

Examples of Historical discoveries of written documents: