Understanding Manuscript Variations in the Bible
New Testament Manuscripts, Textual Families, and Variants
"Many years ago in Dublin, Ireland, I went to the Trinity College Library to see the Book of Kells. Arguably the most famous illuminated vellum Latin manuscript of the New Testament, it dates to the eighth century AD. On that same trip, I visited the British Library in London, where I viewed some of the earliest uncials (Greek parchment manuscripts written with stylized capital letters) of the New Testament, dating to the fourth and fifth centuries, and later the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin to see its collection of biblical papyri dating to AD 200–250 (papyri discovered in Egypt and acquired by Beatty in 1931). An even earlier text of the New Testament is a small bit of papyrus containing a few verses from John’s Gospel dating to about AD 125 that resides in the John Rylands Museum in Manchester, England. Found in 1920 in Egypt, it shows that John’s Gospel was circulating at a very early date far from Ephesus, its traditional place of origin.
Which of these New Testament texts is more accurate? The one dated AD 700, AD 350, AD 200, or AD 125? Is an earlier dated text always better than a later one? A text from the book of Romans in the Beatty Collection is a case in point: one of the oldest papyrus texts, it dates to AD 200 but has a large percentage of variations when compared with other papyri of that time period.[1] How do we know if the biblical texts we are reading have been copied accurately?.." from the article: New Testament Manuscripts, Textual Families, and Variants
Comments