CSNTM and St. Catherine’s Monastery

I just posted this at my other site, KJVOnlyDebate.com, and thought my readers here would also be interested in it:

John Chitty, known in the blogosphere as Captain Headknowledge, recently had the opportunity to attend a symposium on the St. Catherine’s monastery library and the significance of the Sinai manuscripts, held at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM).

Chitty has shared the text of Father Justin’s lecture: “St. Catherine’s Monastery: An Ark in the Wilderness”. I encourage you to take a look as the lecture covers the well known and the not so well known about St. Catherine’s Monastery. I’m not sure I had heard that they made some new manuscript discoveries there as late as 1975.

Here is an excerpt from the lecture notes, but I encourage you to go read the whole thing:

The monastery has never been destroyed or abandoned in all its centuries of existence. The climate at Sinai is surprisingly dry and stable, the humidity averaging from twenty to thirty percent. All of this, and the diligent care of the monks, account for the preservation of many manuscripts. The Sinai library is today a remarkable treasure for the antiquity and the significance of its volumes.

The library contains 3304 manuscripts, written in eleven languages. These are predominantly Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Georgian, and Slavonic. The manuscripts range in content from copies of the Scriptures, services, and music manuscripts, to sermons, writings of the Fathers, lives of the Saints, and books of inherited spiritual wisdom. The library also includes medical treatises, historical chronicles, and texts in classical Greek, which is the pinnacle of the Greek language.

A few of the manuscripts are splendid works of art, with gilded letters and brilliant illuminations, created in Constantinople in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, when the City was at its height as the centre of culture and devotion. But no less significant are the humble manuscripts written at Sinai, often on reused parchment, bound between rough boards, the pages stained from long use, a witness to the deprivations and austerity of Sinai, to the generations of monks who have maintained the life of devotion and the cycle of daily services at this holy place.

But perhaps we would come to a greater appreciation of the Sinai library if I could describe four manuscripts in particular, all of which have been recently studied by scholars.

Saint Catherine’s Monastery is a treasury filled with things new and old. Scholars still have much to learn from its library, its numerous icons, vestments, ecclesiastical vessels, its architecture. In all of this, it is a veritable ark in the wilderness.

See also a few related posts from John Chitty on the Sinai manuscripts:

“The Constantine Codex” by Paul L. Maier

Only if Indiana Jones were to discover a lost book of the Bible, battle his way past Islamic terrorists and later sneak into the inner recesses of the Vatican — only then, would an adventure story compare favorably with those envisioned by Dr. Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University. Dr. Maier is famous for his academic work which includes accessible editions of Eusebius and Josephus. His fiction works, however, have sold millions of copies, and with A Skeleton in God’s Closet, he virtually created a new genre of fiction: the archaeological/theological thriller.

The Constantine Codex, released by Tyndale House this May, is the third book in the “Skeleton” series. It continues the story of archaeologist and Christian scholar Jonathan Weber and his escapades. The tale begins with the discovery of a few leaves from the lost works on early church history written by Hegesippus, on whom Eusebius leaned in part for his monumental work on the early church. The contents of those leaves hint at a previously unknown book from the pen of Luke, the author of a Gospel (bearing his name), and the book of Acts — both of which are in the Christian New Testament. Fascinated by the implications, Jonathan Weber and his wife Shannon (who unearthed the missing leaves) plan to embark on a mission of discovery — searching for authentication of their discovery, and the cooperation of the librarians of many of the greatest treasures of ancient Biblical manuscripts. Before they can leave, a world-wide commotion erupts over the Arabic translation of Weber’s influential textbook on the New Testament, and Weber ends up on the receiving end of a fatwa (a death warrant given by a Muslim ayatollah). With the CIA fearing for their safety, the Webers push on and embark on their trip in pursuit of a lost chapter of church history. What they eventually find will change their lives, and the history of Christianity, forever.

This fast-paced tale takes the Webers from the Roman tomb of St. Paul, to a dark subterranean chamber reserved for manuscripts in disrepair, and leads to a world-class debate with a leading Muslim intellectual in no less a venue than the Hagia Sophia. And all of this pales in comparison to the incredible discovery of lost portions of the New Testament and the challenge this presents to Weber and his foundation of leading Christian scholars of multiple disciplines.

As Maier weaves this tale he includes equal potions of intrigue and suspense, with wonder and raw emotion. His technical discussion of the authentication of manuscript finds and ancient scribal practices is spot on, and his ability to describe and draw you into the scene is superb. Archaeology, theology, textual criticism, church history and intra-church politics — all of these disciplines and more are tapped as Maier expertly crafts this story. The result is a tale which is intellectually satisfying, experientially rich and a fantastic read to boot.

Maier is a master writer, and The Constantine Codex stands testimony to that. Having not read Maier before, I was pleased to find that this did not detract from following the storyline of this book at all. If you’re looking for a great adventure tale, and especially if you are fascinated by archaeology, theology or textual studies, you will want to read this book.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Tyndale House Publishers. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

You can purchase a copy of this book from any of these fine retailers: Christianbook.com, Amazon.com or direct from Tyndale.

BibleWorks 9 and a Revolution in Textual Critical Studies

Check out these two videos to see what the new BibleWorks 9 software, available mid-July, can do when it comes to textual critical tools. I saw a demo of this feature back in April at The Gospel Coalition Conference, and was blown away by the potential of this tool for textual studies of all kinds. One can only hope that many more manuscripts will be added, and fresh Majority Text collations and other tools will be incorporated into the CNTTS apparatus which is made so accessible by means of BibleWorks 9. BibleWorks promises that as more manuscripts become available, those updates will be provided free of charge to BibleWorks 9 users.

Watch the videos, and check out BibleWorks 9!

~ cross posted from my group site, KJVOnlyDebate.com

A Biblegeek’s Dream: Viewing The Dead Sea Scrolls

I had the opportunity of a lifetime. Last night, fellow biblioblogger and good friend, Shaun “the Bible Geek” Tabatt and I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls! They are on display at the Science Museum of Minnesota from now through mid-October.

Words cannot describe the experience. A picture might help. Notice the smiles…

Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography inside the exhibit. But I don’t know how you’d be able to take in the exhibit with flash photography all around.

The exhibit has plenty of information and artifacts to hold your interest for 2 hours or more, easily. I felt like we were rushing and we spent more than an hour and a half. If it was just Shaun and I and no babysitters to worry about, we’d have spent all night there…. As it was we had our wives and another couple along with.

I enjoyed learning more about the history of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Duke University refused to purchase some of them when first found. And three were advertised for sale in a newspaper, if you can believe it.

The scroll jars and artifacts from 2,000 years ago were also fascinating. The coins dating back to before Christ were even more interesting. I couldn’t help but thinking of National Treasure (the movie), when we noticed the humidity and temperature gauges in the display cases.

The highlight, of course, were the scrolls themselves. They had 5 manuscripts on display. I’ve heard that a total of 15 mss will be rotated through the exhibit. Of the 5 I saw, only 3 were Biblical: Isaiah, Psalms and Genesis. The other texts were the Temple Scroll, and the Damascus document.

With my limited Hebrew (and with some help from the English translations), I was able to make out some words in the Hebrew. On the Psalms manuscript, which was by far the largest manuscript there (portions of six or seven columns), a proto-Hebraic script was used for the name of the LORD (Yahweh). On the other scrolls I was able to read the tetragrammaton (YHWH). On the Genesis scroll I was able to see Jacob’s name twice. I also clearly observed that there were no vowel points in the Hebrew script. (A point that some King James Onlyists dispute, siding with John Owen against the unified testimony of evangelical scholarship.)

The whole exhibit was exhilirating, but there was something extra special about a couple of the text choices. Isaiah’s manuscript started with 53:10. They don’t mention how Christianity interprets that text, however. Even more thrilling to me, was seeing Ps. 119:89 written there in a 2,000 year old manuscript. “Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens”. These manuscripts attest that God has preserved His Word for us faithfully down through the ages on earth, even, like it is in heaven.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is widely proclaimed as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. God in His providence has given us more insight into the original text of Scripture. And while there remain some questions as to particular readings here or there, the Dead Sea Scrolls witness to the stability and accuracy of the text of the Bible. It was a privilege to see some of that in person.

For more on the Dead Sea Scrolls, you’ll want to come up to Minneapolis and visit the exhibit. Or you can learn more at some of the following links.

“New Testament Text and Translation Commentary” by Philip Comfort

Author: Philip W. Comfort
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 899
Publisher: Tyndale House
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 9781414310343
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have always been intrigued by textual criticism and the study of how we got our Bible. The Bibles we have today are the descendants of hand written manuscripts, written on papyri, vellum or paper, and in either large (uncial) or small (miniscule) letters. Those manuscripts were written originally in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic, and later translated into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and other languages. Today we have English Bibles finely produced from the magic of printing presses and publishing houses. But how can we know that these Bibles accurately represent what was originally written? This is where textual criticism comes in — a highly disputed field, especially in today’s skeptical age. Textual scholars referred to as critics, take the time to compare all the hand written manuscripts that have been preserved down to our day. Using various methods of comparing, contrasting and evaluating the readings of numerous manuscripts (over 5700 for the NT!), they help guide today’s church in deciding which textual variants are the likely original readings.

Philip Comfort is one of these scholars, and he has provided a fabulous resource for Bible scholars, pastors, and others to study the textual data on all the 3,000 or so places in the New Testament where we find textual variants that may affect the Bible translations we have in our hands. Comfort focuses primarily on the variants which result in differences between the various English Bible versions in use today (KJV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV, HCSB, NLT, TNIV, NRSV, etc.). He also highlights some of the intriguing variants and places where the Western family of manuscripts often expands the text. What makes Comfort’s work so especially valuable is that his discussion is all in English! He discusses the Greek and other languages, but is mindful of the non-technical, English speaking reader. This makes New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (NTTTC) very accessible, opening up the intricacies of textual critical studies to the average Bible student.

While Comfort may not include all the textual data accessible to scholars in the UBS4 or NA27 Greek texts and other scholarly resources, he does format his work and provide relevant information in a much more user-friendly format. In places where there are two or more variants that have affected the English Bibles, Comfort will first give each variant reading in Greek and English, then he lists the Greek manuscripts and other supports for each variant, and he also adds which English Bibles follow that variant in their text or margin. Following all of this, he offers a brief discussion of that particular variant, taking us step by step through how a conservative, evangelical scholar will assess this textual evidence to arrive at a conclusion concerning this particular reading.

This detailed analysis of each major variant in the Greek New Testament makes up the bulk of the book and provides an easy to look up reference for practically any passage where one might encounter a variant. Comfort also provides a brief overview of textual criticism and a very interesting assessment of the major textual witnesses for each section of the New Testament. He displays an extensive understanding of the papyri manuscripts in particular as well as the history of textual criticism and all the relevant data. A few appendices are also included for more specialized discussions.

NTTTC doesn’t stick to strictly textual critical matters. In Mk. 7:3 a discussion of manners and customs of Bible times is required to understand the Greek phrase “wash their hands with a fist” . Exegetical matters are also addressed, such as in the conservative and delicate handling of the variant at 1 Cor. 14:34-35. NTTTC’s format makes difficult and highly technical discussions much easier. When discussing the ending of Mark, he helpfully lays out all 5 variations of the ending providing a few pages of discussion. At Acts 20:28 he discusses two variants together, by first delineating all the various combinations of the two variants, and helpfully summarizing the options and discussing each option in light of exegetical matters as well.

The discussions in NTTTC prove enlightening. One learns the importance of understanding the patterns of particular scribes when discussing variants such as Luke 24:3 where Comfort explains why Westcott and Hort were wrong. The major passages like the ending of Mark and John 7:53-8:11 are covered in depth. Comfort is honest about some variants being driven by theological considerations, such as in Heb. 2:9. Interestingly, the theological bias in textual variants was almost always rejected by the church in days of old as well as today.

One excerpt of this work will serve to illustrate its value well. Regarding Jude 4, Comfort states:

The reading in TR, poorly attested, is probably an attempt to avoid calling Jesus δεσποτην (“Master” ), when this title is usually ascribed to God (Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10). Hence, θεον (“God” ) was appended to δεσποτην. However, 2 Pet. 2:1, a parallel passage, identifies the redeemer, Jesus Christ, as the δεσποτην. So here also the WH NU reading, which is extremely well documented, shows that Jude considered Jesus to be the absolute sovereign.

As one well attuned to the issues relating to King James Onlyism, I found this volume especially helpful. 26 times I found a KJV reading to be supported by no Greek manuscripts. Western additions such as “full of the Holy Spirit” at Acts 15:32 and “Jesus” at Acts 17:31 reveal that “omissions” are in the eye of the beholder. Does the TR omit these important phrases or the Western texts add them? It was through my KJV Onlyism debate lenses that I discovered a few minor errors in Comfort’s text. He wrongly claims the KJV followed Stephanus’ 1550 TR (along with the WH/ NU modern Greek Text) at Rev. 16:5 when in fact they followed Beza’s conjectural emendation “and shall be” instead of “holy one” . He also seems to state that a variant at Rom. 7:6 was introduced by Elzevirs’ TR and then later adopted by the KJV, however the KJV was translated 22 years prior to the Elzevirs’ work. The reading in question was introduced by Beza in one of his editions used by the KJV translators. Also at Luke 2:38 he lists the Vulgate as the sole support for the KJV reading, but Robinson-Pierpont’s Majority Text edition includes the KJV reading “Lord” .

I would have liked Comfort to address more passages relevant to the KJV Only debate. It would have been great if he had mentioned which variants the printed Greek Majority Text’s of Hodges-Farstad or Robinson-Pierpont adopted as well. But space constraints are totally understandable. I also wish he had somehow indicated if the manuscript listings given for a particular passage are complete or not. If more evidence is available (or not) for a given variant, it would be nice to know. Perhaps using an asterisk when all the known witnesses to a variant were listed would help.

All in all, I can’t recommend Comfort’s work more highly. This is an important volume and I will be referring to it often in years to come.

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Amazon.com or direct from Tyndale House.