- Nov 18, 2012
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As someone who loves the Greek New Testament and reads in it daily, there are several threads currently in place that are dismaying to me, as they seem to stem from a misunderstanding of the textual situation. I'm going to address the New Testament here, as the OT is really beyond anything I could shed light on in any helpful manner.
What we have are literally thousands of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament itself, copied over from previous versions that were copied over from previous versions, etc. There are some small variations in some of the branches of the trees: one branch may have 'in him', another may leave it out. None of these has any doctrinal significance whatsoever. In addition, we have ancient manuscripts in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Aramaic, as well as other languages such as Armenian. Many of these manuscripts, however, do not cover the entire NT. We also have an enormous number of quotations from the NT that appear in the patristic literature: some early Christian writers quoted extensively, and some paraphrased, and some translated anew into their own language. There are also liturgies, inscriptions and a simply amazing number of attestations as to the consistency of what we have as the New Testament.
I have before me a Greek New Testament that documents the textual variations that have been found to date. Let's look at one verse: John 6:47.
The NASB has 'Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.' My Greek NT has (my rough translation) amen amen I say to you (pl) the one believing has eternal life. There is a footnote on 'believing' that exhibits a wide range of manuscript attestation between including 'in me' and even 'in God' in the Syriac.
The translator is faced with a concern as to how to render the verse in the receiving language, as there is no way to determine which branch of manuscripts and documents to follow. In this case it is reasonable to go either way: believing implies believing in something, and here the context implies believing in Christ compellingly. Thus, whether 'in me' is in the passage or not in translation really does not matter.
The New World 'Translation' has been discussed. I put 'Translation' in quotes because it is not a translation - I understand that the JWs took an existing translation and modified it, as Russell had no Greek, and it could not be considered a translation.
It is a mistake to consider every textual variation as significant or implying that someone hundreds of years ago was a clandestine JW because one or two words have dropped out of a manuscript family. God has safeguarded the text and the meaning of Scripture, but we do not know if 'in him' was subtracted from or added to the text. We know what texts have what, and that is as far as we can go, and we do not profit when we attempt to read far more into textual variations than is appropriate.
If you are interested in manuscript variations I suggest you obtain a United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, edited by Aland and Black, which has a marvelous amount of information in the Introduction and throughout the text on this subject. Paul warned us against foolish disputations about words, and I would like to see the one going on now stopped.
Thank you very much.
What we have are literally thousands of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament itself, copied over from previous versions that were copied over from previous versions, etc. There are some small variations in some of the branches of the trees: one branch may have 'in him', another may leave it out. None of these has any doctrinal significance whatsoever. In addition, we have ancient manuscripts in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Aramaic, as well as other languages such as Armenian. Many of these manuscripts, however, do not cover the entire NT. We also have an enormous number of quotations from the NT that appear in the patristic literature: some early Christian writers quoted extensively, and some paraphrased, and some translated anew into their own language. There are also liturgies, inscriptions and a simply amazing number of attestations as to the consistency of what we have as the New Testament.
I have before me a Greek New Testament that documents the textual variations that have been found to date. Let's look at one verse: John 6:47.
The NASB has 'Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.' My Greek NT has (my rough translation) amen amen I say to you (pl) the one believing has eternal life. There is a footnote on 'believing' that exhibits a wide range of manuscript attestation between including 'in me' and even 'in God' in the Syriac.
The translator is faced with a concern as to how to render the verse in the receiving language, as there is no way to determine which branch of manuscripts and documents to follow. In this case it is reasonable to go either way: believing implies believing in something, and here the context implies believing in Christ compellingly. Thus, whether 'in me' is in the passage or not in translation really does not matter.
The New World 'Translation' has been discussed. I put 'Translation' in quotes because it is not a translation - I understand that the JWs took an existing translation and modified it, as Russell had no Greek, and it could not be considered a translation.
It is a mistake to consider every textual variation as significant or implying that someone hundreds of years ago was a clandestine JW because one or two words have dropped out of a manuscript family. God has safeguarded the text and the meaning of Scripture, but we do not know if 'in him' was subtracted from or added to the text. We know what texts have what, and that is as far as we can go, and we do not profit when we attempt to read far more into textual variations than is appropriate.
If you are interested in manuscript variations I suggest you obtain a United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, edited by Aland and Black, which has a marvelous amount of information in the Introduction and throughout the text on this subject. Paul warned us against foolish disputations about words, and I would like to see the one going on now stopped.
Thank you very much.