GREEK
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTS
And
The
Power New Testament
By
Wm.
J. Morford
The
Gospel message of God’s love and redemption comes very clearly through every
one of the thousands of hand-copied Greek manuscripts that we now have. The
variations do not contradict one another, because most of the changes were
additions that well-meaning copiers inserted to enhance the basic message.
There
are well over 5,000 Koine Greek texts of the New Testament, making the NT the
most copied of all ancient Greek literature. Greek scholars organize these
documents into groups with similar variations, or ‘families’ of minor
differences among the manuscripts. That there are differences might surprise
some, but when you think about hand-copied documents of around 200,000 words,
copied by hand for 1,500 years, you can see the potential for variations. One
word misspelled in one copy may be repeated in copies made from that document.
Because with hand copying each copy always descended from one particular
document, and then many copies came from that, all ancient manuscripts have
been traced to four basic texts. These are called “families” with each
developing largely along geographical bounds, depending on the organization
doing the copying.
The
Roman Church was the largest church organization and covered most of the known
Western world, so most of the later manuscripts are from that family, known as Byzantine.
The other families are Western, the smallest; Caesarean; and Alexandrian.
The Alexandrian has the oldest manuscripts.
Scholars of Koine Greek generally consider the Alexandrian the most
reliable.
A
standardized Greek text became possible with the invention of the printing
press in the fifteenth century (about 1450), so that today we have essentially
three Greek texts that are popularly looked on as “authentic.”
These
texts are: Textus Receptus, Majority Text, and United Bible
Society Text (UBS).
The
term Textus Receptus, a name some apply to the King James Version (KJV),
was first coined by the Elzevir brothers for their second edition of the NT,
printed in 1633, twenty-two years after the KJV. The brothers, commercial
printers in
Some
consider the Textus Receptus to be the text used for the KJV, but, since the
KJV was published in 1611, the Textus Receptus could not have been used for the
King James Bible. Although Erasmus was the greatest scholar of the 16th
century, he did not attempt a scholarly study of ancient texts for the 1516
printing of the Greek text. He used only six manuscripts, including five
Byzantine and one 12th century non-Byzantine, completing his work in
just seven months in order to be the first to publish. Meanwhile, an official
Roman Catholic printing of a more comprehensive text was delayed awaiting
Vatican approval, so a Swiss printer named Froben paid Erasmus to come up with
the text that made Froben the first to publish
a Greek NT.
The
Majority Text is much more recent. Because the Textus Receptus at times
was not supported by even the Byzantine texts, in the latter half of the 20th
century the editors of the KJV modified the Textus Receptus to bring it in line
with the Byzantine manuscripts. Since those texts form the majority of New
Testament manuscripts, two
None
of those later manuscripts was copied earlier than the tenth century. In contrast there are hundreds of truly ancient manuscripts; many
are quite reliable. It
is important to understand that the oldest manuscripts now available to
scholars were not known in the 17th century when the KJV was
translated. However, for over a hundred years scholars have had more than
thirty manuscripts from the second and third centuries. Yet all of the oldest
manuscripts were ignored by those who coined the phrase ‘Majority Text’.
Thus the Majority Text is not a critical text, but one that in essence takes a
vote, simply saying “Because more manuscripts say this, it must be right.”
That
brings us to the United Bible Society Text (UBS). The United Bible
Society is a group of scholars, knowledgeable in the Koine or classic Greek
language, in which the NT was written. Their life work is the study of the
ancient texts to determine which text is most likely what the first century
author wrote. We have no manuscripts from the first century, but a few from the
second, and an increasing number from each later century. We also have other
documents, such as lectionaries, which were weekly readings of Scripture used
in the early churches throughout the Middle East and
The
UBS uses methods very similar to the methods used by scholars of Classic Greek
who have standardized Greek classical literature – and the scholars of
Classic Greek have far fewer manuscripts with which to work. The work of these
scholars is called Textual Criticism, so the result of their work is called a
Critical Text. The Nestle-Aland text of the early twentieth century is
essentially what we have in the current Fourth Edition of the UBS Greek text,
published in 1993. This text is as close as modern scholarship can come to what
the New Testament authors wrote in the first century.
Understanding
the differences in the various texts is very important for Christians. In the
end we are speaking of at most a few hundred words that are in dispute, out of
about 200,000 words in the whole NT. Some of the differences are for reasons
listed below:
1.
To begin with, the earliest first
century copiers did not know they were copying Scripture – just Good News to
send to a friend. Koine Greek had
some differences in the various regions where it was spoken, so if the friend
lived in a different region, the copier might feel obligated to change a word
for the recipient.
2.
In hand copying mistakes were made
just as today in writing to a friend few of us get really upset if there is
wrong spelling or grammatical error.
3.
In the early centuries some effort was
made to harmonize the Gospels, thus bringing the longer end to Mark 16, based
on Matthew 28.
4.
From the fourth century on some
phrases were added to reinforce Roman Catholic ideology, such as the phrase on
baptism in Matthew 28:19, which
5.
The longest addition is the passage on
the woman caught in adultery, John 7:53b – 8:11. None of the oldest
manuscripts has this passage, and these early writings include texts from
6.
The monks when copying would have
someone seated at a table, facing a group of copiers, also seated at tables,
and the one at the head table would dictate the text. Sometimes he would see a
notation in a margin that really made a passage stronger or clearer, so he
would dictate that, inserting it at the appropriate place.
7.
The copiers did not catalog and retain
older copies. When a manuscript became unreadable or unusable it was scraped or
erased with an acid solution and re-used. A re-used manuscript is called a Palimpsest.
At least 97 Palimpsest
manuscripts
exist, from
the
second through the eighth centuries. About 36 of these are second or third
century.
It
is a wonder we have as many manuscripts as we do! The surprising thing is that
with some of these the earlier text was not obliterated, but can be read.
Looking
at the story of the woman caught in adultery shows us both what is wrong in
some additions and also what is right. That only the woman was brought could
not have been written by a Jewish person because Leviticus 20:10 and
Deuteronomy 22:22 say that both the man and the woman are to be stoned when
caught in adultery. The heathen societies of those centuries and cultures held
that a wife was a chattel, a possession of the husband. He could punish her as
he saw fit. Adultery was not a sin to heathens nor was it against the law, so
bringing only the woman is evidence that the passage was not written by John.
The point of the passage, though, is good – not to cast stones at the woman
because no one there was without sin. I am not to judge others, but examine
myself to bring myself closer to being like Him. That message is very strong in
Matthew Chapter 7 and others and does not need the addition of this passage in
John.
Another
example of an addition is in Luke 23:34. The sentence, “Father, forgive them
because they do not know what they are doing.” was added in the fourth
century. It certainly does no harm, but it was not written by John, so it
should not be used. We know Jesus had already forgiven them because He taught
so much on the need for forgiveness, but apparently someone thought that if
Stephen said that when he was being stoned, then Jesus should have the same
reference.
An
additional example of added text is the long ending of Mark 16. The original
document had no chapter or verse numbers, but the ending was with what is now
the 8th verse of Chapter 16. In an attempt to harmonize with Matthew
verses were added to Mark, a really beautiful text – but not original.
Since
a number of ministries use verses 15-18, And
He said to them, “Going into all the world, you must now preach the Gospel to
all creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one
who does not believe will be condemned. And
signs will follow those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons, they
will speak in new tongues, and they will take up snakes in their hands, and
when they would drink poison it would not harm them, when they put their hands
on the sick they will become well.
The
earliest manuscript with verses 9-20 is code named “A”, from the fifth
century. Other manuscripts from the fifth century on have variations of those
verses. There is nothing harmful in those verses, not anything that changes the
Gospel message; however, since they were not written by Mark, they should not
be included.
All
those additions and changes do not alter the Gospel message. They were inserted
with good
intentions, but they are not what the
author wrote. Others believe, as I do, that the closer we get to the original
first century writings, the more anointing the Scripture will have. Of
today’s available Greek texts, the UBS stands out as the closest to the first
century writings, so that is the text used for The Power New Testament. Also,
the Nestle-Aland, or its descendants as they
became available, has been used for numerous modern translations, such as The
New American Standard.
If
we take the text with the most unsupported variations as the “worst” we
still have a good text. On the other hand, if we take the text that the
scholars might label “best” we still have an imperfect text because we have
no original with which to compare. The whole point of textual criticism is to
get as close as possible to the original first century documents.
There
are differences in translation of the Greek text. Most translations are very
“Western” in their thinking and fail to capture the power and authority
that is in the Greek text. An example is the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9. Therefore
you must be praying in this way:
‘Our Father, Who is in the heavens:
Your name must at once be made holy:
10.
Your kingdom must now come:
Your will must be done right now,
as in heaven also on Earth:
This
is the literal translation and emphasizes not only the power, but that the
responsibility is ours. How is God’s name made holy on earth? It is by the
righteous behavior of those who worship Him. It is not something we are asking
God to do – we are praying that we must become more like Him! If we are not
making His name holy, then we are profaning it!
Therefore
the ideal is to use the most authoritative and authenticated Greek text,
translated to express more precisely what the words meant to the authors of the
New Testament.
To
achieve this goal necessitates not only scholarship, but accuracy in bringing
out the full intent of the written word so that its meaning will equip and
inspire a new generation of believers. As we come closer to the original, a
dramatic unfolding of the Word of God occurs, and one can surely sense a new
immediacy of God’s Word as it impacts us today.
For
instance, God’s healing power is continually emphasized throughout the
Scriptures, and while Mark 16 is used in many teachings on healing, The Power New Testament, I
believe, continues to powerfully validate and convey the absolute integrity of
God’s Word on healing and deliverance in many other verses, such as
Matthew 10: 8. You must continually
heal sicknesses, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons: you took
freely, you must now give freely. We have in Luke 10:9. and
you must continually heal the sicknesses in this city and you must say
to them, ‘The
We,
at Shalom Ministries, see many healed and delivered by the awesome and
unchangeable power of God as we continue to teach God’s Word across
We
encourage believers to read the Word, actually ‘eat’ the Word of God for
growth and maturity. Not only is every word and promise validated by our
ancient texts, but I believe the integrity of all of God’s commands,
instructions and teachings of the first five books of the Bible, the Hebrew
Torah, are inclusive in this translation that brings out the rich Hebrew idioms
and our Jewish roots, giving us a wonderful fullness of God’s Word. This is
the power of the Gospel.
For I am not ashamed of
the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who
believes, Jewish first and then Greek.
For the righteousness of God is revealed in this, coming out of faith
for greater faith, just as it has been written, “And the righteous will live
by faith.” (Heb.2:4) (Romans
1:16,17)
According
to the grace of God, since it was given to me as a skilled master-builder, I
placed a foundation, but another is building. And each must continually see how
he is building. For no one is able to place another foundation other than the
One being laid, Who is Jesus Messiah.