It would be nice to say that once we’ve got Jesus and the canon settled, that’s the end of the story. And it would be partially true. If you read the books of the Bible, no matter what translation they are in (unless it is by some sort of weird group purposefully altering the text), you will find the same basic truths. Mankind has repeatedly rebelled against God; God has repeatedly stepped in to restore the relationship. God has provided everything for us; we just need to submit to his guidance. A focus on loving God and loving others is central.
But when it comes to details, things get a little bit more complex. If you just walk into a Christian bookstore, there you’ll see many translations. Biblegateway.com has twenty-two English translations, plus a bunch in other languages as well. And that’s just scratching the surface of issues. Not only do people translate the original texts of the Bible differently; there is also disagreement as to what the original text is.
Let’s start, for example, with the Old Testament. For the Old Testament, the best ancient text still existing is what is called the Masoretic Hebrew text, the type of text found in synagogues throughout the Jewish world. Although there exists virtually letter-for-letter agreement among the texts throughout the world, many scholars believe that the Masoretic text as it currently exists is the result of a deliberate process of standardization which resulted in the destruction of the previous variety among texts.
Scholars who want to work out exactly what the original text was therefore have to try to work with sources other than Hebrew manuscripts. They work by comparing ancient Hebrew manuscripts with the substancially different Greek Septuagint text of the Old Testament, and ancient Aramaic paraphrase/commentaries called Targums. Even when the Hebrew text is trusted by scholars, the vowel points often aren’t.
In the New Testament, it is generally agreed that the New Testament was given in Greek (although some believe that parts were written in Hebrew or Aramaic). Thankfully, we have a much wider variety of sources to work with in the Greek New Testament than in the Hebrew Old Testament. Currently we have about six thousand hand-copied manuscripts of the Greek New Testament from all sorts of various reasons, along with ancient translations in Aramaic, Latin, Ge’ez, and other languages.
Textual criticism, also called lower criticism, is the science (some would say art) of comparing evidence in order to find the original form of a particular text. In the case of the Bible, it is done in order to discover what the text said as originally given by God. Closely related to the topic of textual criticism is the area of translation. Translators frequently refer to the ideas of textual critics in order to explain areas of the text that seem difficult to them, and to choose between readings when differences exist in the various texts before them. More on that later.
beyond the canon list
It would be nice to say that once we’ve got Jesus and the canon settled, that’s the end of the story. And it would be partially true. If you read the books of the Bible, no matter what translation they are in (unless it is by some sort of weird group purposefully altering the text), you will find the same basic truths. Mankind has repeatedly rebelled against God; God has repeatedly stepped in to restore the relationship. God has provided everything for us; we just need to submit to his guidance. A focus on loving God and loving others is central.
But when it comes to details, things get a little bit more complex. If you just walk into a Christian bookstore, there you’ll see many translations. Biblegateway.com has twenty-two English translations, plus a bunch in other languages as well. And that’s just scratching the surface of issues. Not only do people translate the original texts of the Bible differently; there is also disagreement as to what the original text is.
Let’s start, for example, with the Old Testament. For the Old Testament, the best ancient text still existing is what is called the Masoretic Hebrew text, the type of text found in synagogues throughout the Jewish world. Although there exists virtually letter-for-letter agreement among the texts throughout the world, many scholars believe that the Masoretic text as it currently exists is the result of a deliberate process of standardization which resulted in the destruction of the previous variety among texts.
Scholars who want to work out exactly what the original text was therefore have to try to work with sources other than Hebrew manuscripts. They work by comparing ancient Hebrew manuscripts with the substancially different Greek Septuagint text of the Old Testament, and ancient Aramaic paraphrase/commentaries called Targums. Even when the Hebrew text is trusted by scholars, the vowel points often aren’t.
In the New Testament, it is generally agreed that the New Testament was given in Greek (although some believe that parts were written in Hebrew or Aramaic). Thankfully, we have a much wider variety of sources to work with in the Greek New Testament than in the Hebrew Old Testament. Currently we have about six thousand hand-copied manuscripts of the Greek New Testament from all sorts of various reasons, along with ancient translations in Aramaic, Latin, Ge’ez, and other languages.
Textual criticism, also called lower criticism, is the science (some would say art) of comparing evidence in order to find the original form of a particular text. In the case of the Bible, it is done in order to discover what the text said as originally given by God. Closely related to the topic of textual criticism is the area of translation. Translators frequently refer to the ideas of textual critics in order to explain areas of the text that seem difficult to them, and to choose between readings when differences exist in the various texts before them. More on that later.
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