The Christian Bible was written over a period of more than 1000 years, originally in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Many biblical books drew on earlier sources, either written or oral (e.g., the Pentateuch or the gospels), while others were primarily original creations (e.g., Ruth or the letters of Paul). As scribes copied the various books of the Bible, they frequently made changes to the text of either a major or a minor nature. When the changes were major, it is often difficult to distinguish the role of the scribe from the role of the author. No original manuscripts, directly from the hands of the author, survive to the present day. Furthermore, no biblical manuscript contains a copy of the text that is identical to that written by the author. It is the goal of textual criticism to evaluate the existing manuscripts and try to arrive at earlier forms of the biblical text. But exactly what forms of the text do textual critics try to determine?
After a book was written and had been in circulation for some time, it was not uncommon for someone, either the author or a later individual, to take the first edition of a work, make substantial and often systematic changes, and then put the new edition of the book into circulation. When both earlier and later editions of a book circulated at the same time (though often in different places), the book is said to have multiple literary editions.
Many examples of multiple literary editions of biblical books exist. The books of Daniel and Esther are familiar examples, since the versions found in Protestant and Catholic Bibles reflect either the earlier, Hebrew edition (Protestant) or the later, Greek edition (Catholic). What is called the Greek edition may well have been based on a Hebrew Vorlage, especially in the case of Esther. The book of Samuel also exists in two literary editions represented by the Hebrew MT and the Greek LXX, but in this case the Greek version is older, or, more precisely, the Hebrew Vorlage behind the LXX represents the older literary edition. Other Old Testament examples of books that exist in multiple literary editions are Jeremiah and Job.
The book of Acts is the best New Testament example of a book that has multiple literary editions. An earlier, "Alexandrian" form of the text is found in most manuscripts and is the version translated in modern Bibles. A second, "Western" form of the text is somewhat longer and contains more explanatory material, among other things.
The goal of textual criticism is often described as "the recovery of the original text." However, with multiple literary editions, more than one "original text" can be posited, and it is debatable which one should be the target of the textual critic. In other cases, all extant witnesses to the text are so far removed from the time of composition that the recovery of the "original text" is impossible. This is particularly true of certain Old Testament books, whose oldest witnesses are centuries younger than the presumed "original text." A more reasonable goal in the case of many biblical books is the recovery of the earliest possible form of the text or, when multiple literary editions exist, the earliest form of each distinct edition. However, it is an equally valid goal to try to reconstruct the form that the text had in a certain time and place, for example, the prevailing text of the Pentateuch in Egypt in the fourth century B.C.E. or the standard text of the four gospels in Syria in the third century C.E.
If one goal of the textual critic is to reconstruct earlier versions of the text, another goal is to trace the history of the biblical text as it was transmitted. To accomplish this goal, scholars must study individual biblical manuscripts in the original languages, translations of the text into secondary languages, and scribal practices in the ancient world. This last focus is the subject of several recent books, as biblical scholars are coming to appreciate for the first time what a study of ancient scribes can tell them about the transmission of the biblical text.
When individual books of the Bible were first written, they were usually copied by nonprofessional copyists for several generations of transmission (generations of transmission refers to the number of copies that lie between a later manuscript and its earlier predecessor). Later, as the work achieved a more authoritative status, professional scribes began copying the work. As might be expected, more variants were produced by nonprofessional than by professional scribes, but the latter were not immune from introducing variants into the text.
Two kinds of variants exist in biblical manuscripts: unintentional and intentional. Unintentional variants are those that a scribe made by mistake, such as:
Scribes sometimes changed the text that they were copying intentionally. Intentional changes include the following:
Despite the changes that crept into the biblical text as it was copied repeatedly over the centuries, the basic shape of the text was preserved, and the overall meaning was unimpaired.
Scholars consider three main types of material as witnesses to the text of the Bible: original language manuscripts, translations, and quotations in other works.
Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts may be grouped into three different categories. The first and largest category is the Masoretic Text (MT), the text produced in the Middle Ages by Jewish scribes. All complete Hebrew Bible manuscripts are examples of the MT, the oldest of which were copied 1000 years or more after the books were written. The second category of Hebrew manuscripts is the Samaritan Pentateuch, a version of the Pentateuch preserved and passed down by the Samaritans, who split from the Jews sometime around the 6th century B.C.E. The third category of Hebrew manuscripts includes manuscripts discovered in recent years by archaeologists and others, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and other finds. The Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts are by far the oldest Hebrew Bible manuscripts extant, but they are quite fragmentary, representing only portions of most Old Testament books (and nothing of Esther).
Thousands of Greek New Testament manuscripts exist, many copied within 300 years of the composition of the books, and a few within 100 years. Most New Testament manuscripts are continuous-text manuscripts (i.e., those in which the text of a given book is recorded consecutively from beginning to end), but many lectionary manuscripts exist as well. Lectionaries preserve the text not in the normal canonical order but section by section in the order in which the passages were read in the liturgical cycle of the church.
The oldest translation of the Hebrew Bible is the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The Law was translated in the 4th century B.C.E., the Prophets in the 2nd century B.C.E., and the Writings by the end of the 1st century C.E. (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes). Other ancient translations of the Old Testament translated directly from Hebrew Bible manuscripts are the Aramaic Targums, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Latin Vulgate. In addition, many translations were made from the LXX (e.g., Coptic, Armenian, Old Latin).
The Greek New Testament was translated into Latin beginning in the 2nd century C.E. and into Syriac and Coptic by the 3rd century. Manuscripts in these languages were used later as the basis for translations made in other languages, such as Armenian (from Syriac) and Old English (from Latin).
Jewish and Christian writers frequently quote or allude to passages of scripture in their works. These witnesses are important, but it is often difficult to tell is the writer intends to quote a biblical passage verbatim or only to paraphrase it. The Mishna and Talmud, important Jewish works, contain many Hebrew Bible citations, and Christian leaders (often called Patristic writers or Church Fathers) preserve many quotations and allusions to both the Old and the New Testaments. The New Testament itself is a witness to parts of the Old Testament.
Modern textual critics read the Bible in the original languages and often in one or more languages in which ancient translations were written. They examine manuscripts and use critical texts to reconstruct earlier forms of the text, both for scholarly study and for use in modern translations. The United Bible Society, an umbrella group that works with Bible societies from all over the world and which has published all or parts of the Bible in thousands of languages, produces guidelines for translators that include text-critical comments about important readings.
The details of how textual critics go about their work is beyond the scope of this course, but it may be said in general that textual critics make decisions about which variant reading to prefer on the basis of two kinds of evidence: external and internal. External evidence includes such matters as the age of the manuscript, the overall quality of the manuscript, the geographical distribution of a particular variants, and the distribution of a variant among different text-types. Internal evidence involves questions such as "Which reading was the author more likely to write?" "Which reading best explains the origin of the others?" and "Which reading were scribes more likely to transmit?" Textual critics don't simply count the number of witnesses that have a certain reading, because older readings might well be preserved at times in only a small number of extant witnesses, due to the vagaries of history and preservation.
A comparison of a modern, critical translation of the Bible with an older, traditional translation like the King James Version shows that textual criticism has made a huge impact on what people think of as the biblical text. A comparison of different modern translations shows that scholars have different opinions about specific readings (just look at all the footnotes that deal with textual issues in a modern Bible!), but there is a general consensus among scholars and Bible translators concerning the general shape of the critical text of both the Old and the New Testaments. Because of the work of dedicated textual critics, experts in biblical languages, theologians, and editorial boards, today's translations of the Bible allow modern people to read accurate versions of the Bible in language that they can understand and enjoy.