THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

In this section we follow the history of the development of the modern Greek New Testament which forms the base for all modern English translations.

Originally the New Testament was written in the Greek of the New Testament era.  In times past it was thought that this was some special “Holy Spirit” form of Greek.  We now know that it was the common Greek of the 1st century Mediterranean world, influenced by the language of the Septuagint Old Testament.  Some prefer to refer to the Greek of the New Testament as Biblical Koine (common) Greek.  Suffice it to say that the original Autographs were written in a form of Greek well understood in New Testament times, yet influenced by the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint.

(We refer to the original writings of Paul and others as Autographs.  Copies of these original Autographs made by scribes we refer to as Manuscripts or MSS.  Translations of the early Manuscripts we refer to as Versions.)

The original languages of the Bible were Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament, and Greek for the New Testament.

In this study we will primarily be concerned with the Greek and English versions of the New Testament, although some comment will be made regarding the transmission and translation of the Old Testament.

Prior to 1516 AD the Bible used by most Western churches (Catholic and Episcopalian) was the Latin Vulgate.  The Eastern Orthodox churches used Greek versions of the  Bible.

As early as the 7^th century AD, attempts had been made to translate portions of the Bible into English by an unlearned laborer named Caedmon.   In the 8^th century Aldheim translated portion of the Psalms into English.  At about the same time the venerable Bede translated the Gospel of John into English.  In the 10^th century Abbot Aelfric translated additional passages from the Old Testament into English.  The textual base for these translations was the widely accepted Latin Vulgate.

Th history of the translation of the Bible into English, however,  can be said to have begun with John Wycliffe in 1382.  More will be said of Wycliffe’s heroic efforts later.  The point we wish to make here is that it was not until 1516 that any serious attempts were made to establish a Greek textual base for translation into any language in the Western world.  Prior to 1516 the textual base for all translations was the Latin Vulgate.

The reason for the dominance of the Latin Vulgate during the Middle Ages of European Church history related to the limited availability of Bibles, the limited number of people with good reading skills, and the control of Biblical reading and interpretation by the Roman Catholic church.  The Roman church claimed that the ordinary uninformed and unenlightened church member was not able to read the Bible correctly (in fact during this period of history, the common populace was mostly illiterate) and needed the church to interpret the Bible for them.  It was considered “dangerous” and heretical by the Roman church to have unenlightened church members read and interpret Scripture!  It was a cardinal principle of the Roman church that only the church through its “inspired and infallible” Papacy and Bishops was authorized and able to interpret Scripture!  There was no need for the church member to have the Bible in their own common language since the Church interpreted Scripture and doctrine for them.

Several developments, “awakenings and stirrings” within the religious world during the 15^th century, created an environment that broadened interest in a text base for the Bible that challenged the dominance of the Latin Vulgate.  First, Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440 made it possible for the Bible to be circulated widely opening the door for the “mass” circulation of the Bible for the first time.  In 1450 Guttenberg published a magnificent edition of the Latin Vulgate.  Soon Bibles in the vernacular of German, French, Italian, and other European languages were being printed and circulated.  At first the textual base of these translations was that of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.  The dominance of the Vulgate was about to be challenged by a desire to return to the languages in which the Bible was written.

Dr. Bruce Metzger observes that the principle reason for the delay of production of a Greek text of the New Testament was the prestige of the Latin Vulgate.

In 1502 the Cardinal Primate of Spain, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros planned a Polyglot Bible (a Bible in several parallel languages).  This Bible is known as the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (Complutensian is derived from the name of the town where it was printed, Complutum, the Latin for the Spanish town named Alcala).  The Complutensian Polyglot contains Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin texts.  This was the first Greek New Testament to be printed.  Little is known of the text base used in the production of this Greek New Testament.  The Greek for the Old Testament was the Septuagint.

At about the same time as the Complutensian Polyglot was being produced a Dutch scholar, Desidarius Erasmus of Rotterdam was working on a Greek text for the New Testament.  In haste to beat the Complutensian Polyglot to the market, Johann Froben, a Swiss printer in Basle negotiated with Erasmus to print his Greek Text.  Erasmus’ and Froben’s text was rushed to the printers and has the dubious claim to be the first Greek text to be published for sale, although the Complutensian Polyglot proceeded it by a few years!

In spite of the haste in which Erasmus’ text was completed and published in 1516, it was superior to that of the Polyglot and soon became the standard by which Greek texts were measured.  The manuscript base for Erasmus’ Greek text was six late minuscule manuscripts (lower case cursive manuscripts), the earliest of which was a 10^th century AD manuscript.  In some places, Erasmus had no Greek text with which to work, so he produced his own Greek text be translating the Latin Vulgate into Greek.  Because Erasmus’ text did not include a few verses supporting the trinity, Church officials pressured Erasmus to include the verses in his text.  Erasmus, certain that they were not original, boldly said that if one manuscript could be produced that included the questioned section he would include it in his text.  In short time the Church produced such a manuscript, obviously self translated from the Vulgate, and Erasmus, good to his word, was forced to include this section in his text.  (The verses in question relate to 1 John 5:7,8.)  Such was the popularity of Erasmus’ text that these verses were included in the text base of the Textus Receptus and are found in translations such as the King James Version.  Textual scholars today recognize the dubious nature of these verses, and because of the  lack of real textual or manuscript evidence for these verses, they are not included in translations such as the RSV and NIV.

Several excellent Greek textual scholars followed Erasmus and working of his textual base produced improved Greek texts.  First, the Parisian Robert Estienne, or otherwise known as Stephanus in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551, produced four Greek texts.  Then Theodore de Beza, a friend of John Calvin of Geneva, produced another four improved Greek texts in 1565, 1582, 1588, 1598.  Beza’s Greek texts became the basis for a “standardized” Greek text widely received by the church.  The Beza’s text formed the basis for the translation of the King James Version of the Bible in 1611.  In 1624, the brothers Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir of Leiden in 1663 published a Greek text  based on that of Beza in which they observed that theirs was the text “received by all”.  It was from this introductory statement that the term Textus Receptus was derived.

Although the term Textus Receptus dates after the publication of the King James Version, the text of the King James Version, namely that of Beza, was fundamentally the same as that of the Textus Receptus.

It is important to note that although the Textus Receptus was a fine piece of work given the limited manuscript base available at the time, this text base did not have the advantage of the enormous manuscript evidence discovered in the recent times.  For instance, the discovery or availability of the major manuscripts Alexandrinus (1627),  Vaticanus (1819-1890), Siniaticus (1859-1933), all dated after the publication of the King James Version

Although there were a number of major Greek textual recensions made after the acceptance of the Textus Receptus, this text remained for many years the basis for New testament translation.  However, the reign of the Textus Receptus came to an end with several major manuscript discoveries and the work of such textual scholars as Johann Jakob Griesbach (1775), Karl Lachmann (1800), Lobegott Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf (1850, Tischendorf is credited with the discovery and release of the Siniaticus manuscript), Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1850), and finally Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1881).

In 1881 Westcott and Hort published their Greek text.  The  Westcott-Hort text was a departure from reliance on the text base of the Textus Receptus and  a dependence on the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, particularly the Vatican manuscript.  Metzger observed that Westcott and Hort adopted the more recent works of Griesbach, Lachmann, and others, and applying their method “rigorously but with discrimination” produced a Greek text (without a critical apparatus) that became the standard for later textual work in modern times.

In recent years two major Greek texts have been the standard for New Testament translation and critical study.  These Greek texts make use of the enormous manuscript, papyri, version, and resources now available to Greek textual scholars. (We have already noted that there are today in excess of 5,000 manuscripts and such resources available to scholars.)  These two texts, the Eberhard Nestle, et al, Novum Testamentum Graece(1898, 1960, 1993) and the United Bible Society, Kurt Aland, et al Greek New Testament (1966, 2001), have in the 20^th and 21^st centuries been the standard Greek texts adopted by most New Testament scholars.

These two Greek texts, similar in many ways to the Westcott-Hort text, adopt an eclectic approach in which the basic readings of the major manuscripts are evaluated against other significant manuscripts and resources, and a text based on the strengths of the variants is produced.  Each Greek text includes footnotes explaining which particular variant is adopted and others rejected.  The final result of the two texts is almost identical.

A third text known as the Majority Text is favored by some in that it closely resembles the Textus Receptus and the text base of the King James Version.  Those favoring the New King James Version or the Old King James Version obviously favor this text even though the method of determining which variant to adopt is not considered by most scholars to be the best method of textual criticism. (For instance, the majority verdict is not necessarily the correct verdict in most discussions!)  Furthermore, the Majority Text is based primarily on the Byzantine type text, which text family is generally considered inferior to the Western or Alexandrian families.