Who wrote the Bible and which translation can we trust?
The Bible did not come as one complete book. Rather, it is a compilation of “copies of copies,” written by various authors from the Old and New Testaments.
The ancient manuscripts and fragments were written in Greek and Hebrew languages. They were later translated into Latin (Vulgate) in 382 A.D. and in English (KJV) in 1611.
The Vulgate and KJV translations came from similar sources known at that time. However, the Vulgate had mistranslations making the KJV a more faithful translation, sourced directly from the ancient manuscripts.
Today, there are several Bible translations that were carefully translated by modern Bible scholars, from the same ancient manuscripts and fragments. Recently discovered manuscripts attest to the faithfulness of the modern Bible we have and manuscripts from the first century.
Section 1 – The old testament copies
Section 2 – The oldest Bible manuscript
Section 3 – New Testament translations
Section 4 – Modern Bible translations we can trust
Can we trust the modern Bible if it was based on copies?
Yes, the Bible is considered the most accurate ancient manuscript. The earliest copy of the Old Testament discovered was the Dead Sea Scrolls dated 70 B.C. The earliest copy of the New Testament is the John Rylands MS dated AD 130.
All of the New Testament books were written within a lifetime of the death of Jesus. Thus preserving the teachings of Jesus to His disciples.
SECTION 1 – The Old Testament Bible Copies
1. Septuagint (Old Testament)
Background: During the exodus (1450-1400 BC), when the children of Israel (Jacob’s descendants) were enslaved from Egypt, God asked Moses to deliver them to the promised land.
During this time, God gave Moses the ’10 commandments and his instructions for the people to follow, thus the traditional date for Moses’ writing of Genesis to Deuteronomy written in their Hebrew language.
Jews generally divided the Old Testament into three sections: The Law, The Prophets, and The Writings. The Law or Torah consists of the first five books of Scripture that contain the historical background of the creation and God’s choosing Abraham and the Jewish nation as His chosen people.
MOST IMPORTANT BIBLE EVIDENCE.
The original tablet of Moses and whatever manuscript they had at that time was lost after thousands of years. However, copies of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament, traditionally known to be written by Moses) survived through the centuries, known as Hebrew translation or the Torah.
The oldest manuscript that exists today is called the Septuagint or LXX*. It is the earliest known Greek translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew text. The translation from Hebrew to Greek began around 247 BC by seventy scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, for an expanding community of Greek-speaking Jews and was completed no later than 117 BC.
* The Roman numeral LXX refers to the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who solely translated the Five Books of Moses into Koine Greek in the 3rd century.
WHERE IS THE ARK OF COVENANT TODAY?
2. Masoretic Text (Old Testament)
The Masoretic text comes from the Hebrew word ‘masoret,’ which means ‘tradition.’ The traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible was meticulously assembled and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation.
This monumental work was begun around the 6th-century in Babylonia and Palestine to reproduce, as far as possible, (as far as possible??) the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
The Masoretic Text includes several (copies) Old Testament books and works dated between 500-1000 AD. (sudden shift to the codex is confusing. what even is it and how does it relate to Masoretic?) The Codex Leningradensis is a complete copy of the Hebrew Old Testament dated AD 1010.
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism. However, contemporary scholars seeking to understand the history of the Hebrew Bible’s text use a range of other sources. (Wikipedia)
SECTION 2 – The oldest Bible Manuscripts
Biblical manuscripts are handwritten copies of a portion of the text of the Bible. The word Bible comes from the Greek ‘Biblia’ (books); the manuscript comes from Latin words ‘manus‘ (hand) and ‘scriptum‘ (written).
An original manuscript (the parchment the author physically wrote on) is called the “autographa” or autographs. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures to huge ‘polyglot codices’ (multi-lingual books) containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works. (Wikipedia)
The most famous Old Testament Bible manuscripts are the Aleppo and Leningrad Codex. They are the oldest Hebrew language manuscripts of the Tanakh.
Although the Aleppo Codex is more famous, the Leningrad Codex is the oldest and most complete Codex of the Tiberian mesorah that has survived intact.
HISTORICAL TIMELINE OF JEWISH PEOPLE.
The most famous Old Testament Bible manuscripts are the Aleppo and Leningrad Codex.
The Tanakh or Hebrew Bible is the canonical collection of Jewish texts, also a textual source for the Christian Old Testament. These texts are composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew, with some passages in Biblical Aramaic.
The original manuscripts and early copies of the Old Testament disappeared over time because of wars (especially the destruction of the First and Second Temples) and other intentional destructions.
As a result, the lapse of time between the original manuscripts and their surviving copies is much longer than in the case of the New Testament manuscripts.
1. Hebrew manuscripts in the synagogue in Cairo
In the old synagogue in Cairo were discovered 260,000 Hebrew manuscripts, 10,000 of which are biblical manuscripts. There are more than 200 biblical manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of them were written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet before 70 A.D.
2. Old Testament scrolls found in Masada
Five biblical and apocryphal scrolls were found in the Masada excavations, including fragments of two scrolls of Leviticus, one each of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, and two manuscripts of the Psalms.
3. The Leningrad Codex
Also known as Codex Leningradensis (1008 A.D.) is the oldest and most complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, kept at the National Library of Russia.
Manuscripts earlier than the 13th century are scarce. The majority of the manuscripts have survived in fragmentary conditions. The Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete codex of the Tiberian mesorah that has survived intact to this day.
The oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible
In 1924, after the Russian Revolution, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). Because the Codex was used as the primary text for the Biblia Hebraica since 1937, it became internationally known as the “Leningrad Codex.”
The Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (written in the Hebrew language) and the source on which the Hebrew texts translation of today are based.
The Leningrad Codex is kept and preserved at the National Library of Russia. It is said that the State of Israel has reportedly sought to acquire it but was unsuccessful.
The Leningrad Codex is the source which the Hebrew texts translation of today are based.
4. Allepo Codex (10 A.D.)
The Allepo Codex contains the entire Old Testament from the early tenth century A.D. It includes the complete Old Testament.
It is dated around 95 A.D. Unfortunately, over one-quarter of this Codex was destroyed in anti-Jewish riots in 1947, and most of the Pentateuch part had been lost.
Called ‘Keter Aram Tzova’ in Hebrew, it is the most famous manuscript of the Tanach. The Allepo Codex is one of the oldest and most accurate versions of the Old Testament. It is kept in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The Allepo Codex is one of the oldest and most accurate versions of the Old Testament
5. The most important Hebrew Old Testament copies
Other important manuscript discoveries of the Bible in Hebrew text in modern times are the Cairo Geniza (c. 1890) and Dead Sea Scrolls (1947). [List of Hebrew manuscript]
Geniza Fragments (400 AD)
This portions the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, discovered in 1947 in an old synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, which date from about 400 A.D. Ben-Asher Manuscripts: five or six generations of this family made copies of the Old Testament using the Masoretic Hebrew text, from 700-95A.D.D.
The Dead Sea Scrolls (Between 150 BC and 70 A.D.)
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1946 from the eleven Qumran caves near the Hellenistic-period Jewish settlement at Khirbet Qumran in the eastern Judaean Desert, the modern West Bank. The caves are located about two kilometers from the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name.
The scrolls are most commonly made of animal skins, but also papyrus and one of copper. About 15,000 fragments from more than 500 manuscripts were found divided into biblical and non-biblical manuscripts. They have been called the most significant manuscript discovery of modern times.
The third oldest known serving manuscript
The discovery is of great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the third oldest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon.
Also found along were the Deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts, which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.
Most of the texts are written in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic and a few in Greek. Most texts were written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. (Wikipedia)
The Dead Sea Scrolls, dated 200 BC to 7A.D., is perhaps the most exciting modern-day discovery of ancient Bible manuscripts. It contains the entire book of Isaiah and portions of every other Old Testament book, but Esther.
The scroll has 19 copies of the book of Isaiah, 25 copies of the book of Deuteronomy, 30 copies of the book of Psalms, among others.
The modern-day discovery is significant because through the centuries of bible translations, comparing the present-day Bible with the Dead Sea Scrolls (particularly the Great Isaiah scroll) shows it is identical with very minor and less significant differences.
Equally important is that it refutes sensational stories that “lost” books of the Bible or other “secret” literature. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were copies of books of the Old Testament from 250-150 BC as they knew then, and as we know now, thus the accuracy.
Interesting facts about the Dead Sea scrolls
● Prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel not found in the Bible are written in the Scrolls.
● It is found relatively intact; it is 1000 years older than any previously known copy of Isaiah.
● Found has never before seen psalms attributed to King David and Joshua.
● For the most part, the Scrolls were written in the original Hebrew and Aramaic.
● It was probably hidden during the outbreak of the First Jewish RevoltA.D.D. 66-70).
● There are previously unknown stories on Enoch, Abraham, and Noah.
● The last words of Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali and Amram (Moses’ father) were written in scrolls.
Other early copies of Scripture from the first centuries A.D.
- Freer Greek Manuscript V
- Origen’s Hexapla
- The Lucian Recension
- The Hesychian Recension
- The Samaritan Pentateuch
SECTION 3 – New Testament Bible translations
Like the Old Testament, there are no known original manuscripts of the New Testament. Those that exist today are autographs and copies of copies written in Greek. However, over 6,000 early manuscript copies or portions of the Greek New Testament exist today.
1. Latin Vulgate
Also known as St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome, the leading biblical scholar of his day, to produce an acceptable Latin version of the Bible in 382. He used various sources and translations. This version became the established Bible of the entire Roman Catholicism.
The translation into vulgar tongues was discouraged. Eventually, the laity was prohibited from possessing the Bible or translating it (Decree of the Council of Toulouse 1229; Ruling of the Council of Tarragona of 1234).
WHY MARTIN LUTHER LEFT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
2. John Wycliffe English Translation
John Wycliffe was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, Biblical translator, reformer, and seminary professor at Oxford. He was an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century.
Earlier in 1376, Wycliffe wrote ‘Civil Dominion,’ arguing a need to reform the Roman Catholic church. His plea is ignored and instead focused on a need to translate the Bible into English.
He completed a partial translation from the Vulgate into English in 1382. It became known as Wycliffe’s Bible. His followers, known as Lollards, were later persecuted, and some burned at stake for promoting the English translation of the Bible.
PROTESTANT & CATHOLIC UNITY IMPOSSIBLE?
3. William Tyndale English Translation
William Tyndale translated the first English Bible directly from Hebrew & Greek texts. He used several manuscripts older than Rome’s Latin Vulgate. Tyndale’s Bible laid the foundations for the succeeding English Bibles. He was burned for heresy in 1536.
Before his execution, Tyndale had only finished translating the entire New Testament and roughly half of the Old Testament. Miles Coverdale completed it, hence the “Coverdale Bible.” Tyndale’s Bible laid the foundations for many of the English Bibles today.
William Tyndale’s translation challenged the Catholic doctrine and enraged authorities. He replaced words faithful to the original manuscript, putting Rome for the erroneous Latin Vulgate translation.
He denounced the practice of prayer to saints. He taught justification by faith, the return of Christ, and the mortality of the soul.
Tyndale translated the New Testament from Greek into English and was printed at Worms in 1526 with 3,000 copies.
When they reached England, the Bishop of London seizes every copy of what they see as heretic translation.
The new translations were burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII.
The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public became. The translation from the source illuminated God’s word to the laity.
The Roman Catholic church declared that it contained thousands of errors and intended to burn all copies. Anyone possessing it risked imprisonment or death. Today, only two known copies are left of Tyndale’s 1525-26 First Edition Bible.
William Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536 for translating the Bible into English. Perhaps the most significant impact of this Bible is its influence on the modern Christian Bible today. It has been suggested that around 90% of the King James Version is from Tyndale’s works.
William Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536 for translating the Bible into English.
WHY PROTESTANTS LEFT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
4. The Geneva Bible
In 1553 Mary Tudor became Queen of England. She was committed to eliminating Protestant influences in England and restoring Roman Catholicism as the official religion.
England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII. Queen Mary was greatly influenced by her mother, Catherine of Aragon, a devout Catholic.
There was intense persecution of Protestants known as the ‘Marian Persecutions,’ which earned her the nickname Bloody Mary. Queen Mary had over 300 Protestant believers burned at the stake, and many others fled to other countries rather than face certain death for not supporting Roman Catholicism.
Protestant leaders fled to Geneva, Switzerland, to avoid the persecution in England. Among them were Miles Coverdale, John Foxe, Thomas Sampson, and William Whittingham. With the support of John Calvin and the Scottish Reformer John Knox, these English Reformers decided to publish an English Bible.
Building upon earlier translations of William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale, the Geneva Bible was the first English translation in which all of the Old Testament was translated directly from Hebrew manuscripts. Much of the translation work was done by William Whittingham, the brother-in-law of John Calvin.
The Geneva Bible was the first English translation in which all of the Old Testament was translated directly from Hebrew manuscripts.
The Geneva Bible was the first to add numbered verses to the chapters to reference specific passages more comfortably. It is also considered the first English “Study Bible.” William Shakespeare quotes hundreds of times in his plays from the Geneva translation of the Bible.
The Geneva Bible became the Bible of choice for over 100 years of English-speaking Christians. The 1611 King James Bible clearly shows that its translators were influenced much more by the Geneva Bible than any other source.
The Geneva Bible itself retains over 90% of William Tyndale’s original English translation.
HOW ATHEISTS BANNED BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
5. King James Version
Catholic Queen “Bloody Mary” was succeeded by her half-sister Queen Elizabeth I, who strengthened the Protestant Church, also known as the Church of England. When she died, the protestant clergy in 1604 asked the new King, James I, for a new translation.
They knew that the Geneva Version had won the people’s hearts because of its excellent scholarship, accuracy, and exhaustive commentary. However, they did not want the controversial marginal notes (proclaiming the Pope an anti-Christ, among others).
KJV intended to be the “translation to end all translations”
In 1604, King James I commissioned 47 Bible scholars to settle the perceived problems of earlier translations and create an authoritative Bible translation for the Church of England. K.J.V. was to end all Bible translations.
Jewish Bible scholars also helped with the translation. The new version was more faithful to the original language of the Bible than its predecessors, such as the Latin Vulgate that Roman Catholics used.
KJV completed in 1611
The first of the huge (16 inches tall) pulpit folios known today as “The 1611 King James Bible” came off the printing press. A year later, a shorter version was printed so individuals could have their copy of the Bible.
Sources of the King James Bible
- William Tyndale’s New Testament translation
- Masoretic Hebrew manuscript (Jewish Old Testament)
- Greek Septuagint
- Textus Receptus (Greek New Testament; Coverdale; Great Bible)
- Latin Vulgate (2 Esdras only)
- Possibly Stephanus; Codex Bezae
6. Other New Testament Bible Manuscripts
The Codex Vaticanus (300–325 AD) and Codex Sinaiticus (330–360 AD)
There are only two other complete texts of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). These are the Codex Vaticanus, held at the Vatican, and the Codex Sinaiticus (written in Greek), held at the British Library in London.
Most current scholars consider the Codex Vaticanus to be one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament,[3] with the Codex Sinaiticus as its only competitor. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of the Sinaiticus text, the Codex was unrivaled. [Frederick Scrivener]
The Codex Sinaiticus (330–360 AD)
It is one of the essential books in the world discovered in Mt. Sinai Monastery in 1859 by Dr. Constantin Von Tischendorf. It is named after the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, where it had been preserved until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Codex Sinaiticus is an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible written in the 4th century (c. 330–360). It contains the earliest complete copy of the New Testament, initially discovered in Sinai in 1844. Other dating shows it was written around 375-400 AD.
It contains all of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament. It was presented to the Russian Czar and, in 1933, was bought by England. Today, it is in the British Museum in London.
Handwritten over 1600 years ago, the manuscript is in Greek and is considered the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Codex Sinaiticus is regarded as the oldest substantial book to survive antiquity – it is of supreme importance for the history of the book.
The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible’s original text, the history of the Bible, and the history of Western book-making is immense.
Codex Sinaiticus is considered as the oldest substantial book to survive antiquity
Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The handwritten text is in Greek.
The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version known as the Septuagint, which early Greek-speaking Christians adopted.
The Septuagint and the New Testament text have been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors in the Codex. (CodexSinaiticus.org)
The Codex Vaticanus (300–325 AD)
A Greek copy of the entire Old Testament and most of the New Testament. Copied between the years 325 and 350 16, the Codex Vaticanus has resided in the Vatican’s library since 1481 as one of the most trustworthy witnesses to the New Testament text.
It is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament) and is considered the best Greek text of the New Testament, with the Codex Sinaiticus as its only competitor. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of the Sinaiticus text, the Codex was unrivaled.
The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are based mainly on the text of the Codex Vaticanus. (More on Codex Vaticanus)
(Other NT Manuscripts)
Codex Washingtonianus (4–5 A.D.)
The Codex Washingtonianus or Codex Washingtonensis also called the Washington Manuscript of the Gospels. The Freer Gospel contained the four biblical gospels written in Greek on vellum in the 4th or 5th century.
The Washingtonianus is best known for an extra passage near the end of the Gospel of Mark attributed to Jesus and doesn’t appear in any other known biblical manuscript. (National Geographic)
The Chester Beatty Papyrus II (100 AD)
The earliest piece of the New Testament is known to exist. This contains most of Paul’s letters copied circa AD 100.
The John Rylands Manuscript (130 AD)
It contains part of the Gospel of John, copied in AD 130. It can be found in the John Rylands Library of Manchester, England.
The Bodmer Papyri and Bodmer Papyri II
New Testament texts were discovered in these manuscripts, dated 150 to 200 A.D. They were found in Egypt and now lept at the Bodmer Library of World Literature. Other significant collections include the Codex Alexandrinus, an Egyptian text circa AD 450, the Codex Ephraemi, and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.
Notable Latin versions of Scripture include the Itala Version completed around AD 200 in the North Africa region, the Wurzburg Palimpsest Codex circa AD 450, and the Lyons Codex from about AD 650. The most famous Latin version is Jerome’s Vulgate from AD 390-404.
SECTION 4 – Modern Bible translations we can trust
There are more than a hundred versions of the Bible from several religious sects and denominations, but not all Bible translations or text should be trusted. Some of these Bibles include insertions and extra-biblical sources that go against the teachings of Jesus’ apostles.
For example, the Catholic Bible omitted the second commandment that says ‘Do not make any graven image nor bow down to it.’ They then split the ninth commandment into (9th) thy neighbor’s wife and (10th) thy neighbor’s good) to make up for the 10th command. [See comparison]
Another example is the Jehovah’s Witnesses Bible translation. They do not believe Jesus is God and altered several words to support their fallacy. [CARM]
NASB, HCSB, Legacy
The N.I.V. is the most popular version because it can easily be understood. However, most serious Bible readers consider it oversimplified and have veered from the King James version, more so from the Hebrew & Greek texts. Most Christian Pastors use NASB, HCSB, and Legacy Standard Bible.
The Legacy Standard Bible seeks to be a window into the original Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. It translated individual words as consistently as possible within their nuances and the author’s intent. The intent is to preserve the legacy of the NASB. One of its translators is apologist John MacArthur.
The King James Version has some mistranslations also like in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth”
Heaven must be heavens, the original Hebrew word used is “hasamayim”
John 1:18
” No man hath seen God at anytime, the only begotten Son, which is in the bossom of the Father, He hath declared him.”
begotten Son must be begotten God, because the original Greek words used are “monogenes theos”
I only learned this from “Members Church of God International “MCGI”
The Codex Sinaiticus website presents the Codex Sinaiticus however their translations are failing…..
I don’t really stay in using only 1 Bible translation…. This is a way for you to verify if the translations are reliable…
I am using biblehub.com, they have interlinear translation of the original hebrew and greek words…. I think it is trust worthy as each words are hyperlinked with its corresponding definitions….