The Biblical Sources--Craig A. Evans (LiveBlogging)

This is my first attempt at "liveblogging" so please forgive the many errors that this post contains. I just finished listening to Dr. Craig A. Evans at Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham, AL. This was the first lecture in the 2010 Legacy Bible Conference.

 

The Biblical Sources (overview)

OT in Hebrew (the Masoretic Text)

The oldest complete OT Bible until the DSS discovered is Codex Leningrad (AD 1008). It is unusual to date a manuscript to a precise year.

The Aleppo Codex (c. AD 940)

Cairo Genizah fragments (Medieval). A Genizah was a special closet for holy writings (it wasn’t just a trash can). These documents were retired and actually given a funeral later. This was discovered just over a hundred years ago. Some mss are as old as the 9th century.

OT in Greek (the LXX). Half of the NT quotations of OT follow the LXX.

OT in Aramaic (Targum). The Hebrew was translated into Aramaic, though this post-dates Jesus and the NT writers. Qumran, however, is an exception to this.

OT in Latin. This is the “Old Latin” that was translated by Jerome into the Vulgate (the “common” speech 16 centuries ago).

In all these ancient translations, the great antiquity of the documents shows the stability and consistency of the text.

The Nash Papyrus dates to the 2nd century BC, containing the text of the 10 commandments (Ex. 20; Deut. 5). It is housed at Cambridge University. The value of this papyrus is its helpfulness to scholars in comparing the DSS.

The Dead Sea Scrolls.

There are around 900 scrolls, 220 of which are from the Bible. The DSS carried textual criticism back 1100 years and revealed that the Leningrad was the same Bible that existed a millennium earlier. A facsimile of this scroll is in Jerusalem. Photographs are available online. Bill Brownley and his roommate, surprisingly, found the great Isaiah manuscript and carried it around in a shoebox, showing it to churches in the US!

Dating the Scrolls

They became known in the Western world in 1948-49. How do we know these scrolls are so ancient?

Archaeology (pottery and coins), Carbon 14 (later, AMS), and paleography (Frank Moore Cross) reveal these documents reach back to the era of the Hasmonean rulers and Demetrius, the Seleucid king because there are allusions to these individuals.

Scripture Scrolls

Genesis: 20 scrolls; Exodus, 18 scrolls; Lev., 16 scrolls, Num. 11 scrolls; Deut., 33 scrolls

Joshua--2 scrolls; Judges, 3 scrolls; Samuel, 4 scrolls(settles how tall Goliath was...6 1/2 feet tall, which was tall in the time of David. He was not 9 1/2 feet tall); Kings, 3 scrolls. The Samuel and Kings scrolls preserve passages lost in the Masoretic text. Moreover, one of the Samuel scrolls corresponds to the Greek text.

Isaiah, 21 scrolls; Jer., 6 scrolls; Ezekiel, 7 scrolls; the Twelve, 10 scrolls.

Having a “whole Bible” with all the books is quite modern. In antiquity, one would have a closet full of individual scrolls (some were together, like Ezra and Nehemiah), but most were individual scrolls. In Luke 4, Jesus requested the man to hand Him the Isaiah scroll from the scroll closet. We tend to think of a closed canon with all 39 books in the OT, but in the early church it was not like this.

Other books, “The Writings”

Psalm, 40 scrolls; Daniel, 8; Job, 4; Prov., 2; etc. Psalms has the most by far, which is the same in NT quotations.

There are more books at Qumran that they may have regarded as Scripture (ben Sirach, etc.).

OT Observations

All of the OT books were in circulation in the time as Jesus.

The text of the OT was stable.

Most of the “canonica” books were recognized in the time of Jesus.

The NT Manuscripts

The record here is even stronger. More mss in the original languages. Closer to the time when the originals were written and circulated.

Textual record is strong

5,800 mss (and counting!) have been found. Most errors are quite unimportant (word order, presence or absence of definite article, titles of Jesus--”Jesus Christ,” “Christ Jesus,” or “Lord Jesus Christ,” etc..) Errors average about one every six or seven passages (2.6 million pages in all). Some of the these handwritten mss have fewer errors than today’s modern books!

Greek mss of the NT

Most of the NT documents were composed in the first century, perhaps a few in the second. The 4th century codices were found in the mid-19th century. The 2nd-4th century papyri found in the 19th-20th centuries. In sharp contrast, Erasmus had no mss older than the 12th century! His Greek NT is the basis for the KJV. Things have changed in the past 500 years...we have gone much farther back, closer to the time of Jesus.

The Oldest--Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Bezae, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi Rescriptus.

The Oldest mss--Bodmer, John Rylands (written about AD 140, perhaps 50 years after the original John [c. AD 80] was written. At this time, the original may have been still circulating. Thus, this could have been a copy of the original!), Magdalen College, Chester Beatty (AD 200-400).

Who knows what the future holds? A papyrologist at Oxford said that while 5000 documents from Oxyrhynchus have been published, about 400,000-500,000 remain!

Q&A

Does older always mean more accurate or better? Not always. But the more we have help us to compare better. Sometimes a scribe had a tendency to gloss or change a reading to make it clearer for later readers.

How did the discrepancy about the height of Goliath occur? I have no idea. The words in Hebrew are not even similar! However, because the Greek and the Samuel scrolls from Qumran correspond, meaning that Goliath was likely 6’6” and not 9’6”. David was probably 5 and a half feet at best, so Goliath was still a very large man to him!

The end. I may have to come back tomorrow morning to hear about the Dead Sea Scrolls!