The Autographs of Scripture
Paul Mizzi
In biblical parlance, the autographs refer to the original documents of
the several books of the Bible.
When Paul, for instance, dictated the letter to the Romans to Tertius and
handed it to Phoebe to carry it to Rome, the result was the autograph of the
Romans Epistle.
All such original writings have perished; nobody knows what have happened
to them. Perhaps some still exist, but then they cannot be identified as
such. It is these original writings which the church claims to be inspired
documents, that is, as coming from the Holy Spirit, wholly free from error,
and absolutely infallible.
The copies made from them, known as the manuscripts or apographs, though
highly accurate, because of the malignity of heretics and inadvertent minor
mistakes by the copyists, contain some variations among them. But they
reflect to a very high degree the original message as given by inspiration,
so that the faithful need not despair or abandon the concept of Bible
infallibility.
By collation conservative scholars have arrived at a very accurate
rendering of what the autographs must have been like. This type of criticism
is necessary and healthy so that the church may be confident in claiming to
possess the pure Word of God.
The Jewish Bible
The work of the Jewish scribes give the Christian confidence in the
integrity of the Old Testament.
Our Lord Christ and his apostles frequently rebuked the Jews for their
corruptions in religious matters, but never did they criticise them or their
leaders of corrupting the documents of the Old Testament.
Rather, they urge their listeners to peruse and search these inspired
documents, which as we know, only copies of the same were extant even by
that time.
What would be the point for Christ or his apostles to quote from Moses
and the prophets if their writings were corrupted. But in actual fact they
frequently quote them, and this they do confidently without ever insinuating
textual corruption.
Although various corruptions might have crept into the Hebrew manuscripts
through the carelessness of transcribers and the waste of time, they do not
cease to be a canon of faith and practice. For besides being in things of
small important and not pertaining to faith and practice, they are not
universal in all the manuscripts; or they are not such as cannot easily be
corrected from the collation of the Scriptures and the various manuscripts.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the late 1940's, most
scholars were of the opinion that the Old Testament manuscripts did not
reflect the autographs with any degree of accuracy. The latest manuscripts
dated only from the 10th century onwards. But The Dead Sea Scrolls contained
many books from the Old Testament dating to before the time of Christ, and
wonder of wonders, they were very much similar to the medieval Massoretic
text in their contents. So far is the work of the Masoretes from being a
proof of the corruption of the sources that, on the contrary, it was
intended to guard against errors, so that not even one small point could
afterwards be altered or destroyed.
The Jewish scribes were very careful in transcribing the Old Testament,
so much so that they carefulness amounted virtually to superstition. The
Masoretes used to add the words of every line and note the number in the
margin so that none could be added or subtracted. Such painstaking work is
impressive and incredible to us.
They really believed that their copying was of extreme importance; they
could not and would not tamper with it. The Jews, being the book-carriers of
the New Testament church (as Augustine calls them) did their job very well
indeed. One qualifications to work as a scribe was to fully believe in the
inspiration and content of the Old Testament.
Humanly speaking, they could not have fulfilled their task better, during
whole centuries when the printing press was not yet invented.
The Johannine Comma
1 John 5:7 and the words "in earth" from verse 8 are found in the
Authorized Version but not in the modern versions.
It is said that the first instance of this verse is found in a treatise
written by a Spanish Christian named Priscillian, some time before his
execution on a charge or heresy in AD 385. It was written into the margin of
some old Latin manuscript and from thence passed into the text, being added
to the Vulgate about AD 800. At this point the balancing words "in earth"
were added to the listing of the witness which followed.
From Erasmus' text the passage was taken over into German by Luther and
into English by Tyndale. Erasmus' text became the basis of the great edition
of the Greek text by Stephanus in 1550, which became known as the Textus
Receptus from which most subsequent translations were made up to the late
19th century.
I am persuaded that, the textual evidence being what it is, the verse
should be retained and considered as part of the inspired text. Not only
because it is a direct reference to the Trinity (for this may easily be
proved from the rest of the Bible), but because I find it difficult
(considering the wise providence of God) to allow such a long sentence to be
extrapolated in the original text for whole centuries.
Why the translators of the AV did not use the LXX
No better course may be taken than to refer the question to the actual
translators of the Authorised, and ask them why they did not take the LXX as
a criterion for their work.
Mr. Miles Smith, who wrote the original preface to the Authorised
Version, admits that the LXX did not go unnoticed by the translators. He
further writes: "Notwithstanding, though it was commended generally, yet it
did not fully content the learned, no not of the Jews..."
Again: "Yet for all that, as the Egyptians are said of the Prophet to be
men and not God...so it is evident (and Saint Jerome affirmeth as much) that
the Seventy were Interpreters, they were not Prophets; they did many things
well, as learned men; but yet as men they stumbled and fell, one while
through oversight, another while through ignorance, yea, sometimes they may
be noted to add to the Original, and sometimes to take from it; which made
the Apostles to leave them many times, when the left the Hebrew, and to
deliver the sense thereof according to the truth of the word, as the spirit
gave them utterance."
In another part he continues as follows: "The translation of the Seventy
dissenteth from the Original in many places, neither doth it come near it,
for perspicuity, gravity, majesty..."
The same author then makes it explicit what source the KJV translators
used: "If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of
the Old Testament, the Greek of the New. There can be no doubt, therefore,
that the AV translators went back to the primary sources.
Thus they could ask the reader: "If truth is to be tried by these tongues
(the originals) then whence should a translation be made, but out of them."
Indeed, they recognized the fact that the final authorities in this work
were the Hebrew and the Greek texts.
Every other translation, whether it was the LXX or the Vulgate, however
reputed it was held to be, was considered helpful, but in no way could it
rightly determine the final result. Only the Original Languages were
properly and strictly held to be of final authority.
Working on the correct principle of giving a formal equivalence
translation (rather than the modern notion of a dynamic equivalence), the
KJV translators produced a word-for-word translation which faithfully and
accurately reflects the original autographs.
The Variant Readings
For the New Testament alone, we have a plethora of manuscripts, about
6,000 copies of the whole New Testament or at least substantial parts of it.
When compared with each other certain differences are noted, ranging from
different spellings of the same word (e.g. a proper noun, like Betzatha /
Bethesda) to whole phrases left out (or added).
The purpose and task of Textual Criticism is to ascertain the exact text
of Scripture, as far as possible, as it existed in the original writings.
All manuscript copying was done by hand. Handwriting, depending upon the
skill of the scribe, is always more difficult to read than modern printing.
And add to this the poor quality of the primitive writing implements and
materials which were used and it becomes easy to see how copyists could
inadvertently misread a word in copying.
Many letters, especially in the Hebrew alphabet, are very similar in form
(e.g. resh with daleth), and could therefore easily be mistaken by the
copyist. There may have been changes made by a scribe with the intention of
correcting supposed mistakes in spelling or grammar, or to harmonise similar
narratives in the Gospel records.
Such variant readings never put a Christian doctrine in jeopardy. The
essential message is left intact, in spite of the differences in the
manuscripts.
The Latin Vulgate and the sources behind it
What Old Testament text was used in the production of the Latin Vulgate?
What are the implications?
Jerome, the Bible scholar of the fifth century, produced a fresh Latin
translation of the whole Bible based on the Greek LXX (Septuagint). This
eventually became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic church.
The implications are the following:
1. The LXX was executed by human study and labour not divinely inspired
men. Its authors were interpreters, not prophets.
2. In many instances, it varies from the sources in words and things and
has various false interpretations and discrepancies.
3. The LXX did not remain pure as originally produced, but corruptions
and interpolations have crept in profusely. Jerome had only its ruins and
wreck, so that it could hardly be called the original LXX.
4. The Vulgate, having its source in the LXX, must likewise be an
incorrect translation of the Word of God. It is well-known that the Vulgate
varies so much even from the LXX. Clement VIII grants this concerning the
Sixtine edition, emending it although it had been pronounced authentic by
the Council of Trent and corrected by Sixtus. Two years afterwards, he
reviewed it, restored some things which had been expunged by Sixtus and
changed and corrected many things.
5. There are many passages which, being falsely rendered, give occasion
or support to the most dangerous errors. To give one instance, Ipsa (she)
shall bruise (Genesis 3:15) is referred to the virgin Mary, instead of
Christ.
6. The point is that the Vulgate is a translation of a weak translation
of the Bible. Every authentic translation must be made from the sources so
that mistakes and errors may be scrupulously avoided.
In Scripture translation, great knowledge (which Jerome had) and caution
(which he apparently lacked) are necessary. Three fundamental rules for
translating are as follows:
A. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the
original. (How could Jerome accomplish this without the original?)
B. The style and manner of the original should be preserved as much as
linguistically possible. (Again Jerome was at a loss here).
C. The translation should have all the ease of original composition.
The end result was a Latin translation that could have been much superior
and faithful if the Hebrew was referred to, instead of the Greek of the LXX.
Doctrinal errors in Christendom would have been avoided too! If the source
of learning and teaching within the church is not pure, the doctrine would
not be sound. (Augustine held some silly notions because he knew no Hebrew
and hardly any Greek; his source was only the Latin).