Text: 2 Peter 1:16-21, Title: It’s All Greek to Me, Date/Place: NRBC, 6/14/09, PM
A. Opening illustration: speak to the uniqueness of the bible—Josh McDowell, New Evidence, pg. 4-15
B. Background to passage: Peter is explaining the reliability of the gospel and the testimony of the apostles. It’s accuracy was crucial in the first century and it is crucial now. He tells them that believers do not follow myths. The word means: a legendary story or account, normally about supernatural beings, events, or cultural heroes, and in the NT always with an unfavorable connotation—‘legend, myth, tale, story, fable. My goal for tonight is begin to explain the powerful evidence behind the NT and its documentation and composition. I really want to encourage notes, questions, and discussions for clarification’s sake.
C. Main thought: The documentary evidence for the NT is simply overwhelming, thus we can trust our NT.
A. Sources
1. Papyri – the papyrus plant is a reed abundant along the banks of the Nile in Egypt. When laid flat and criss-crossed, it made a good writing surface, at least on one side. This was the primary material used for writing during the first century. The oldest fragments and texts that we have are from this type. There are about 110 of these dating from the second century to about the seventh century, with some reading going back into the first century. All of these are partial copies.
2. Uncials/Codices – this is the way that the NT was first written in book form. It contained long strings of capital letters with no spaces, punctuation, or divisions. This type dominated manuscripts from the second to ninth centuries. Our best preserved and most complete older copies are in this format. There are about 307 of these, some of which date back to the second century, but the best copies are from the fourth/fifth.
3. Miniscules – these were done in small cursive handwriting and dominated our copies from the tenth century till the invention of the printing press. There are over 2800 of these.
4. Old Versions – These are usually associated with language such as Latin or Syrian. They are complete copies of the NT. The Old Latin and Vulgate (about 10K combined) copies are most helpful and date back to the fourth century. There are over 19,000 of these in existence today.
5. Lectionaries – These are compilations of scripture for reading in church services with more liturgical denominations like Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, etc. We have over 2400 of these manuscripts.
6. Church Fathers – Early church leaders and their associates quoted from the NT writings numerous times in letters, teachings, books, and documents. Many from the first and second centuries.
7. Illustration: the most interesting papyri was one discovered by a Spanish Jesuit paleographer named O’Callahan, who found fragments of the gospel of Mark in Cave 7 in Qumran (the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls) in March of 1972. The contents of this cave had been previous dated to between 50 BC - 50 AD. If fragments of Mark date to the 50’s, Matthew has to date to the early 50s or late 40s (Epistle of James written about 45 AD), less than 20 years following the crucifixion! Make a comparison to something that happened in 1989, also speak to the nearness of NT documents versus other ancient histories, It has been said that if we lost all of our Gr. mss that the quotations in the church fathers could be found the entire NT. Between 96 AD (Clement of Rome) and Eusebius in 325 AD there were nearly 40,000 quotes from the NT. Papias (a companion of Polycarp who along with Ignatius knew John the Apostle) argued clearly for the powerfully for the existence and circulation of all four gospels prior to the end of the first century.
8. The most manuscripts of any ancient book that we have is 643 copies of Homer’s Illaid; next most is 200 copies, then 20 copies. The NT is the most quickly copied, most accurately copied, most commonly copied book in the history of ancient literature. The bottom line that we have over 25,000 mss and versions of the NT. Then on top of that, we have the 40,000 quotes from early believers. We have ample evidence that the NT that we hold in our hand this evening is what the Apostles wrote with their own hands. Not that many of you ever doubted that, but the fact is that we must give a good reason for not doubting that. We must equip our children with this information so that they may develop convictions before the face major crises of belief in colleges and universities of really smart people whose sole purpose in life seems to be to undermine the confidence in the scripture.
B. Textual classifications
1. So with all the thousands of manuscripts, why all the variation in bibles? Why are words or verses left out or altered? A couple of reasons: money, translators preference, and textual variants. There are certain families of Greek mss that have similar readings. And usually translations are based on one particular family of texts or the other. But even within a family of texts there may be different readings. There are lists of mss that tell which are from which family for one to compare when dealing with a variant.
2. Alexandrian – few in number, but old texts, initially found near Alexandria, Egypt. This is the text family that just about every modern translation that you used is based upon, except for the KJV, NKJV, ISV, and a couple of others.
3. Byzantine – this the majority of mss that we have, about 90%. There is a subset of these mss called the Majority Text. This is the text that the KJV, NKJV are based on. There are some scholars who argue for a byzantine priority.
4. Western/Caesarean – These are just examples of other text types that are out there. There are others.
5. Illustration: see diagram below about textual variants, kinda like when you have that circle in a room of 20 people, and the first whispers in the ear of the one beside him, then says “pass it on,”
6. 90% of all Greek mss agree. And there is no major Christian doctrine that is determined by variants. Never the less, people get really riled up about these things. You will see a lot of notes that say something like, “the oldest and best manuscripts read ________.” For a time the mss that we had were oldest in the Alexandrian family of texts, but now, equally old mss have been found for several text types. The ISV is the only translation that I know of that mixes the two families, and evaluates the merits of each individual variant. Why is this important? So you can have a good reason why bible translations differ. And so you can know what to make of it. And give some of you the background to be discerning when it comes to these things.
A. Closing illustration: Dr. Myron Houghton wrote, "To affirm the inspiration and inerrancy of the original writings while casting doubt on the authority of the Bible that is available to us is just plain silly. Can you really imagine someone seriously saying, ’I have good news and I have bad news: the good news is that God wanted to give us a message and therefore caused a book to be written; the bad news is that He didn’t possess the power to preserve it and therefore we don’t know what it said!’ A view of inspiration without a corresponding view of preservation is of no value."
B. Inerrancy without authority is of little value. We must give a reason why we believe, but we also must put into practice the truths found within the pages of these marvelously preserved scriptures
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
