From Scrolls to the English Standard Version of the Bible
How the Bible We Read Today Came to Us
Estimated reading time: 25–30 minutes
The Bible that a modern reader opens is the end result of a long history.
The Scriptures were originally written on scrolls and codices in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Those writings were copied by hand for centuries. They were gathered into recognized collections, translated into other languages, preserved in thousands of manuscripts, reproduced through the printing press, examined through textual criticism, and eventually translated into modern English versions such as the English Standard Version.
That history raises important questions.
- What languages were the biblical books originally written in?
- Do any of the original manuscripts still exist?
- How were the biblical books recognized as Scripture?
- Did the manuscripts agree with one another?
- Which Greek text do modern translators actually translate?
- How many manuscripts did Luther, Tyndale, and the King James translators possess?
- Who decides which manuscript reading is most likely original?
- What does a Bible teacher mean when saying, “The Greek says…”?
- How did we finally arrive at the ESV?
The history is more complicated than either of two common assumptions.
The Bible did not fall from heaven as a completed English book.
But neither was it assembled arbitrarily centuries after the events it records.
Its history involves divine revelation, human authorship, ordinary manuscript transmission, the discernment of the believing community, scholarly investigation, translation, and remarkable preservation across thousands of years.
1. Before There Was a Bible
The Bible began as individual writings.
The Old Testament developed across many centuries. Its books include law, historical narrative, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, and other forms of literature.
The New Testament arose within the first century AD from the apostolic proclamation of Jesus Christ and the life of the early church.
The individual writings were not originally bound into a single volume called the Bible.
They circulated separately and in collections.
The Torah, prophetic writings, Psalms, apostolic letters, and Gospels were copied and read before they were physically gathered into the form familiar to modern readers.
2. The Original Languages of Scripture
A crucial distinction must be made between the Old and New Testaments.
The Old Testament
Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew.
Smaller portions were written in Aramaic, particularly parts of Daniel and Ezra.
Therefore, when scholars seek the original-language text of the Old Testament, the primary manuscript tradition is Hebrew and Aramaic.
Ancient Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament are extremely important, but they normally represent translations of Hebrew or Aramaic texts rather than the original language of the biblical authors.
The New Testament
The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the widely used Greek of the eastern Mediterranean and much of the Roman world.
Therefore, Greek manuscripts are the principal original-language witnesses for reconstructing the New Testament text.
This distinction is fundamental:
Old Testament: principally Hebrew and Aramaic originals.
New Testament: Greek originals.
When this study later discusses differences among Greek New Testament manuscripts, it is specifically referring to manuscript copies in the language in which the New Testament books were originally composed.
3. What Were the Original Manuscripts?
Scholars commonly call the first physical copy produced by a biblical author or under the author’s direction an autograph.
Paul’s original letter to the Romans, for example, would have been an autograph.
The original handwritten copy of Luke would have been an autograph.
The autograph of Isaiah would have been the original form of that prophetic writing.
None of the biblical autographs is known to survive today.
This should not be surprising.
Ancient writing materials were vulnerable to:
- repeated handling,
- humidity,
- insects,
- fire,
- warfare,
- deterioration,
- deliberate destruction,
- and ordinary wear.
Papyrus in particular survives best under unusually dry conditions.
Ironically, archaeology sometimes preserves discarded documents better than heavily used ones. Receipts, private letters, contracts, and tax documents thrown into rubbish heaps in the dry Egyptian climate could survive for centuries, while important religious texts repeatedly handled in churches might wear out.
The disappearance of the autographs therefore does not mean that the writings disappeared.
They were copied.
4. From Scroll to Codex
Many ancient Jewish writings were preserved on scrolls.
A scroll consisted of sheets joined into a continuous roll. The reader unrolled one portion while rolling another.
Early Christians increasingly adopted the codex.
A codex resembles the modern book: sheets are stacked, folded, and bound along one edge.
The codex provided practical advantages.
It allowed:
- easier access to particular passages,
- writing on both sides of a page,
- several books to be collected together,
- and quicker comparison among passages.
By the early centuries of Christianity, substantial collections of Christian writings were increasingly preserved in codex form.
This physical development helped make possible something resembling the Bible as a single book.
5. The Greek Old Testament — The Septuagint
Several centuries before Christ, Jewish communities increasingly lived outside Judea.
Many spoke Greek rather than Hebrew.
Beginning approximately in the third century BC, Jewish translators rendered the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek.
This collection is commonly called the Septuagint, often abbreviated LXX.
The name comes from an ancient tradition associating the translation of the Torah with approximately seventy or seventy-two translators.
But we should not imagine the Septuagint as though one committee translated the entire Old Testament at one time.
Different biblical books were translated at different times, by different translators, and with different translation styles.
Nor did only one absolutely uniform Greek textual form circulate.
Different Greek forms and revisions developed.
Later Jewish translators and revisers included figures such as:
- Aquila,
- Symmachus,
- and Theodotion.
The Greek Old Testament became extraordinarily important for early Christianity.
Many Old Testament quotations found in the New Testament resemble Greek forms of the Old Testament known from the Septuagint tradition.
This means that early Christians frequently encountered Israel’s Scriptures in Greek.
6. The New Testament Writings
The New Testament books were composed during the first century AD.
Approximate dates remain debated, but a broad scholarly reconstruction places them within roughly the middle and latter decades of the first century.
Paul’s letters are among the earliest surviving Christian writings.
The four Gospels, Acts, the General Epistles, Hebrews, and Revelation followed within the developing apostolic period.
These books were originally written to particular communities or audiences.
Romans, for example, was addressed to Christians in Rome.
1 Corinthians was sent to the church at Corinth.
Galatians addressed churches in Galatia.
Luke explains that he investigated earlier testimony and traditions before composing his Gospel.
The books were therefore both historically situated writings and, as the church came to recognize, Scripture.
7. Copies Began Almost Immediately
When a church received an apostolic letter, it was natural to preserve and copy it.
Paul himself encouraged the circulation of letters:
“And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans.”
— Colossians 4:16
Collections of Paul’s letters therefore developed relatively early.
The Gospels likewise circulated among Christian communities.
By the second century, Christian writers were quoting from writings that would become part of the New Testament canon.
The existence of numerous geographically separated churches meant that multiple lines of manuscript transmission developed.
That fact becomes extremely important for textual criticism.
If an error entered one copy, other independent copies could preserve another reading.
8. The Earliest Surviving New Testament Manuscripts
The original manuscripts no longer survive, but increasingly early copies do.
Among important early witnesses are papyrus manuscripts commonly designated by the letter P followed by a number.
Examples include:
P52
A small fragment of John’s Gospel, usually dated broadly within the second century.
P46
Contains substantial portions of Paul’s letters and is commonly dated around the late second or early third century.
P66
Contains much of the Gospel of John and is commonly dated around AD 200.
P75
Contains substantial portions of Luke and John and is generally dated to the late second or early third century.
These manuscripts are not autographs.
But they demonstrate that New Testament writings were being copied and circulated long before the great complete codices of the fourth century.
9. Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus
Two especially important Greek biblical manuscripts date from approximately the fourth century.
Codex Vaticanus
Codex Vaticanus, conventionally designated B or 03, is preserved in the Vatican Library.
It contains most of the Greek Old Testament and much of the New Testament.
Its surviving New Testament text ends during Hebrews, and several later books are absent from the preserved manuscript.
Vaticanus is valued because of its antiquity and textual quality.
Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus, designated א or 01, was brought prominently to scholarly attention in the nineteenth century through discoveries associated with St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai.
It contains much of the Greek Old Testament and the complete New Testament.
It also contains early Christian writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas and part of the Shepherd of Hermas.
Neither Vaticanus nor Sinaiticus is an original biblical manuscript.
They are witnesses to a much older textual tradition.
10. How Was the Canon Recognized?
The word canon refers to the collection of books recognized as authoritative Scripture.
The formation of the canon must be distinguished from manuscript transmission.
These are different questions.
Textual transmission asks:
What wording did a biblical book contain?
Canon formation asks:
Which books belong to Scripture?
The Old Testament canon developed within Judaism before and around the beginnings of Christianity, although questions concerning the exact boundaries of some collections continued.
The New Testament canon developed gradually as Christian communities recognized certain writings as apostolic and authoritative.
Factors included:
- connection with apostles or the apostolic circle,
- consistency with the received rule of faith,
- widespread use among churches,
- antiquity,
- and recognition as authoritative Scripture.
By the second century, the fourfold Gospel collection and Pauline letters were already widely influential.
Some books were accepted virtually everywhere.
Others were debated longer.
Among the more disputed books were:
- Hebrews,
- James,
- 2 Peter,
- 2 and 3 John,
- Jude,
- and Revelation.
Other early Christian writings were highly valued but ultimately not included in the New Testament canon.
11. Did the Council of Nicaea Decide the Bible?
No.
The Council of Nicaea in AD 325 did not establish the New Testament canon.
Its principal controversy concerned the relationship between the Father and the Son, particularly the teaching associated with Arius.
The commonly repeated claim that church leaders gathered at Nicaea and selected the books of the Bible by vote is historically inaccurate.
Canon recognition developed across a much longer period.
12. Athanasius and the Twenty-Seven Books
An important milestone occurred in AD 367.
In his thirty-ninth Festal Letter, Athanasius of Alexandria listed the same twenty-seven New Testament books recognized in Christian Bibles today.
This does not mean Athanasius invented the canon.
His list reflects a process of recognition already well advanced.
Regional councils such as Hippo and Carthage later affirmed similar lists.
The canon therefore developed through widespread ecclesial recognition rather than through one dramatic meeting at which the Bible was suddenly created.
13. Jerome and the Latin Vulgate
As Latin became increasingly important in western Christianity, the need arose for a more consistent Latin Bible.
Around the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Jerome undertook major translation and revision work.
The resulting Latin biblical tradition became known as the Vulgate.
For many centuries the Latin Vulgate became the dominant Bible of western European Christianity.
That had enormous consequences.
Western Christians often encountered Scripture through Latin rather than directly through Hebrew and Greek.
14. Manuscripts Did Not Agree Perfectly
Hand copying inevitably produced variations.
Scribes could:
- misspell words,
- reverse word order,
- repeat words,
- omit words,
- accidentally skip from one similar line to another,
- harmonize parallel passages,
- clarify difficult wording,
- or occasionally incorporate explanatory notes into the text.
Thus the surviving manuscripts are not letter-for-letter identical.
This applies particularly to the enormous Greek manuscript tradition of the New Testament.
15. Did the Greek New Testament Manuscripts Agree with One Another?
No.
The surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament contain many textual variations.
That statement applies specifically to the New Testament because the New Testament books were composed in Koine Greek.
The situation is different for the Old Testament.
Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with portions in Aramaic. Greek Old Testament manuscripts, especially those belonging to the Septuagint tradition, therefore represent ancient translations rather than the original language of the Old Testament authors.
For the New Testament, however, Greek manuscripts are the principal original-language witnesses.
They are supplemented by:
- ancient Latin translations,
- Syriac translations,
- Coptic translations,
- other ancient versions,
- and quotations from the New Testament in early Christian writers.
These additional witnesses are valuable because an early translation may sometimes preserve evidence of a Greek reading that is absent from surviving Greek copies.
16. Most Greek Manuscript Variations Are Minor
A large proportion of manuscript differences involve:
- spelling,
- word order,
- articles,
- conjunctions,
- grammatical endings,
- repeated words,
- omitted short words,
- and similar scribal differences.
Greek permits greater flexibility in word order than English.
Thus two manuscripts may contain the same words in slightly different order while communicating essentially the same sense.
Many manuscript variants therefore disappear completely in English translation.
But it is important not to exaggerate this observation.
It would be inaccurate to say:
“Manuscript variants never affect meaning.”
Some unquestionably do.
17. Some Variants Do Affect Meaning
A smaller number of textual variants change the wording sufficiently to affect how a particular verse or passage is understood.
Among the most familiar examples are the following.
Mark 16:9–20
The traditional longer ending of Mark is absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus and from other important evidence.
Modern translations commonly print the passage but identify the textual question.
John 7:53–8:11
The account of the woman caught in adultery is absent from the earliest surviving Greek manuscripts and occurs at different locations in some later manuscripts.
The story has a complicated manuscript history.
John 5:3b–4
Some later manuscripts explain that an angel periodically stirred the water at the pool of Bethesda.
That wording is absent from important early witnesses.
Acts 8:37
The Ethiopian eunuch’s confession of faith appears in some manuscripts but is absent from many early Greek witnesses.
1 John 5:7–8
A later form of this passage contains an explicit reference to the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.
This wording, known as the Comma Johanneum, is not present in the early Greek manuscript tradition and became especially prominent through the Latin textual tradition.
These examples demonstrate why the responsible formulation is:
Most Greek New Testament manuscript variations are minor and do not materially alter the sense of the passage. Some variants do affect the meaning of particular verses and therefore require careful evaluation.
18. Who Determines Which Reading Is Original?
No single scholar, church, denomination, or manuscript determines the answer.
Textual critics compare the available evidence.
They consider questions such as:
- How old is the manuscript?
- Where did it originate?
- Is the same reading found in geographically independent manuscripts?
- How are manuscripts related to one another?
- What kinds of mistakes did particular scribes tend to make?
- Which reading best explains how the other readings could have arisen?
- Is the reading supported by ancient translations?
- Is it quoted by early Christian writers?
Older does not automatically mean correct.
A later manuscript can preserve an ancient reading.
Likewise, the reading appearing in the greatest number of manuscripts is not automatically original because large groups of manuscripts may descend from a common ancestor.
Textual criticism therefore involves historical judgment rather than simple counting.
19. More Manuscripts Can Reduce Uncertainty
At first this sounds paradoxical.
Discovering more manuscripts reveals more textual variants.
Does that make the New Testament less certain?
Not necessarily.
More independent witnesses also make it easier to identify copying mistakes.
Imagine ten handwritten copies descending from several earlier copies.
If nine contain one accidental spelling error but an earlier independent branch preserves another form, scholars can investigate how the readings developed.
The abundance of manuscript evidence therefore provides both the variants and the means of studying them.
20. Establishing the Text Is Not the Same as Interpreting It
This distinction is essential.
Textual criticism asks:
What did the earliest recoverable Greek text most likely say?
Exegesis asks:
What does that wording mean?
Those are not identical questions.
Two scholars may completely agree about the Greek words in a verse and still disagree about:
- grammar,
- punctuation,
- context,
- theological implication,
- or how the passage relates to other Scriptures.
Romans 9:5 provides an example.
The ancient manuscripts did not contain modern punctuation.
Scholars can agree on the Greek words while disagreeing over precisely how the final phrase should be punctuated and related to Christ.
Therefore, manuscript agreement does not automatically produce interpretive agreement.
21. Who Determines the Meaning?
No one individual simply determines the meaning of Scripture.
Meaning is investigated.
Interpreters examine:
- vocabulary,
- grammar,
- syntax,
- literary context,
- historical setting,
- ancient usage,
- the argument of the biblical author,
- and the broader witness of Scripture.
Lexicons can help determine how Greek or Hebrew words were used.
Grammars help explain sentence structure.
Historical research helps illuminate context.
But none of these replaces careful interpretation.
A lexicon does not mechanically determine theology.
Neither does a manuscript editor.
The textual critic determines which wording is most likely early.
The interpreter asks what those words mean.
The theologian asks how that teaching relates to the whole counsel of Scripture.
These tasks overlap, but they must not be confused.
22. How Many Greek Manuscripts Did the Early Translators Actually Have?
This question becomes especially important with the Reformation.
When Luther or Tyndale returned to “the Greek,” they did not possess the enormous manuscript resources available today.
The first widely published printed Greek New Testament appeared through the work of Desiderius Erasmus in 1516.
An important predecessor, the Complutensian Polyglot, had already been printed, but publication was delayed.
Erasmus therefore became the editor responsible for the first Greek New Testament to be widely published and circulated.
23. Erasmus Had Very Few Greek Manuscripts
Erasmus worked in Basel with only a small collection of Greek manuscripts.
The exact count depends somewhat on how the manuscripts and stages of editing are counted, but roughly half a dozen to eight Greek manuscripts were directly involved in the preparation of his early edition.
Most were relatively late medieval manuscripts.
No single manuscript contained the complete New Testament in the precise form Erasmus needed.
He therefore used different manuscripts for different sections.
His manuscript of Revelation was incomplete at the end.
For the missing final verses, Erasmus reconstructed Greek from the Latin text available to him.
That fact is important.
The first widely published Greek New Testament was an extraordinary achievement, but it was not based upon hundreds of ancient manuscripts.
Its manuscript foundation was comparatively narrow.
24. Erasmus and the Comma Johanneum
The history of 1 John 5:7–8 illustrates the difficulty Erasmus faced.
The explicit Trinitarian wording familiar from later editions of the Textus Receptus was not found in the Greek manuscripts Erasmus initially consulted.
He therefore omitted it from his earliest editions.
The passage later appeared in his Greek text after Greek manuscript evidence containing the wording was presented.
Today textual critics recognize that the longer wording entered the Greek manuscript tradition very late and was particularly associated with the Latin tradition.
This example demonstrates that textual questions existed long before modern critical editions.
Erasmus himself had to compare conflicting evidence.
25. Luther and the Greek New Testament
Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German using Erasmus’s printed Greek text, especially the 1519 edition.
His New Testament appeared in 1522.
Thus when Luther “went back to the Greek,” he was not personally comparing thousands of Greek manuscripts.
He was primarily using a modern printed Greek edition constructed from a relatively small manuscript base.
This does not diminish Luther’s achievement.
It clarifies what resources were historically available to him.
26. William Tyndale
William Tyndale likewise sought to translate Scripture from Hebrew and Greek rather than simply reproduce the Latin Vulgate.
His English New Testament appeared in 1526.
Tyndale’s influence upon subsequent English Bible translation was enormous.
Much of his language survived through later English Bibles and ultimately influenced the King James Version.
Tyndale therefore stands near the beginning of the English translation tradition that eventually led through the KJV, Revised Version, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, and ultimately the ESV.
27. Stephanus and Beza
After Erasmus, other editors produced Greek New Testaments.
Robert Estienne, commonly called Stephanus, published several influential editions during the sixteenth century.
Theodore Beza likewise produced important Greek editions.
These editors used more manuscript information than Erasmus had originally possessed, but their printed texts remained substantially within the textual tradition established by Erasmus.
28. The Textus Receptus
In the seventeenth century, the family of printed Greek New Testament texts derived largely from Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and related editions became known as the Textus Receptus, meaning the “received text.”
The term did not describe one ancient manuscript.
Nor was there only one absolutely identical edition.
It referred broadly to a family of printed Greek New Testament editions.
This textual tradition became extremely influential in Protestant Europe.
29. The King James Version
The King James Version, published in 1611, drew upon earlier English translations and the available printed Hebrew and Greek texts.
For the New Testament, the translators worked principally within the Greek textual tradition associated with Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza.
They possessed more textual information than Erasmus had in 1516.
But they did not possess many of the early manuscripts available to scholars today.
Important manuscript discoveries and advances in textual study would come later.
30. Manuscripts Unknown or Unavailable to the Reformers
Among the important witnesses that the earliest Reformers could not use effectively were manuscripts such as:
- Codex Sinaiticus,
- many early papyri,
- P46,
- P66,
- P75,
- and numerous other manuscripts subsequently discovered, catalogued, photographed, and analyzed.
Codex Vaticanus existed, but its contents were not available to early Protestant translators in anything approaching the comprehensive manner available to modern scholars.
Thus Luther, Tyndale, and the King James translators worked from a much narrower manuscript evidence base than translators possess today.
31. The Printing Press Changed Everything
Before printing, every complete Bible required laborious copying.
The printing press allowed identical copies to be reproduced in great numbers.
Johannes Gutenberg’s famous Latin Bible of the mid-fifteenth century demonstrated the revolutionary potential of movable type.
Printing transformed biblical transmission.
For the first time:
- large numbers of nearly identical copies could circulate,
- textual editions could be compared internationally,
- translation could reach far larger populations,
- and textual scholarship could develop upon increasingly stable printed editions.
32. The Rise of Modern Textual Criticism
As older manuscripts became known, scholars increasingly realized that the Textus Receptus did not always preserve the earliest recoverable reading.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scholars began comparing manuscripts systematically.
Important figures included:
- Johann Jakob Griesbach,
- Karl Lachmann,
- Constantin von Tischendorf,
- Brooke Foss Westcott,
- Fenton John Anthony Hort,
- and later Eberhard and Erwin Nestle, Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, and many others.
Textual criticism gradually shifted from dependence upon the traditional printed text toward systematic evaluation of the entire manuscript tradition.
33. The Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament
One of the most important results of modern textual criticism is the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.
The current widely used edition is the 28th edition, usually abbreviated NA28.
NA28 contains two essential elements.
First, it prints an edited Greek New Testament text.
Second, its critical apparatus records important manuscript variations beneath the text.
Thus the editors do not merely present their conclusion.
They provide evidence showing where manuscripts differ.
This allows trained readers to examine the textual problem themselves.
34. The UBS Greek New Testament
The United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, commonly called the UBS Greek New Testament, serves especially translators and students.
Its main Greek text is closely aligned with the Nestle-Aland text.
The chief difference lies not in a fundamentally different New Testament but in how the textual evidence is presented.
The UBS apparatus focuses particularly on variants judged important for translation.
35. When Someone Says “The Greek Says…,” Which Greek Text?
When a pastor, Bible teacher, or study leader says:
“The Greek says…”
they are usually not examining an original manuscript.
Nor are they normally reading directly from Codex Sinaiticus or Codex Vaticanus.
They are usually consulting a modern edited Greek New Testament.
The most common scholarly texts include:
- Nestle-Aland 28,
- the UBS Greek New Testament,
- the Tyndale House Greek New Testament,
- the SBL Greek New Testament,
- Byzantine or Majority Text editions,
- and editions of the Textus Receptus.
At most places these editions agree.
At some textual variants they differ.
Therefore, the expression “the Greek says” can conceal two separate questions.
Question One
Which Greek wording is being used?
That is a question of textual criticism.
Question Two
What does that Greek wording mean?
That is a question of language and interpretation.
At an undisputed passage, saying “the Greek says” may be harmless shorthand.
At a disputed passage, greater precision is desirable.
A teacher might appropriately say:
“The Greek text printed in NA28 reads…”
or:
“Some Greek manuscripts read…, while others read…”
This makes the textual situation visible rather than presenting one editorial decision as though it were the only surviving Greek wording.
36. Other Modern Greek New Testaments
NA28 is highly influential, but it is not the only modern Greek edition.
Tyndale House Greek New Testament
The Tyndale House Greek New Testament was produced through renewed examination of early manuscripts, with particular attention to scribal habits and the earliest available witnesses.
SBL Greek New Testament
The SBL Greek New Testament represents another modern edited Greek text.
Byzantine and Majority Text Editions
Some scholars prefer editions that give greater weight to the Byzantine manuscript tradition, which dominates the surviving medieval Greek manuscripts.
Textus Receptus Editions
Some churches and scholars continue to use editions of the Textus Receptus, particularly within traditions closely associated with the King James Version.
The existence of different Greek editions reinforces an important principle:
There is no single surviving physical manuscript called “the Greek New Testament” from which every modern translation is made.
There are thousands of witnesses that must be compared.
37. Does Textual Criticism Mean Scholars Are Rewriting Scripture?
No.
Textual criticism exists precisely because scholars are attempting to distinguish the earliest recoverable wording from changes introduced during copying.
Consider a simple example.
Suppose twenty manuscripts contain:
Jesus Christ
while several read:
Christ Jesus
and one reads:
Jesus
Textual criticism asks which form most likely gave rise to the others.
The task is not to invent a better sentence.
The task is to reconstruct the earlier wording from surviving evidence.
This is fundamentally a historical investigation.
38. Do Scholars Always Agree?
No.
Textual criticism involves judgment.
Scholars sometimes disagree over:
- how much weight to give particular manuscripts,
- relationships among manuscripts,
- scribal tendencies,
- internal literary evidence,
- or the likelihood that one reading produced another.
Modern critical editions therefore sometimes change as evidence and methods develop.
Such revision should not automatically be interpreted as instability.
It can reflect the normal process of historical investigation.
39. Does Any Major Christian Doctrine Depend Solely on One Disputed Reading?
Some textual variants unquestionably affect particular verses.
Some have also played important roles in Christian preaching and theological argument.
Nevertheless, the major doctrines of historic Christianity do not stand or fall solely upon one disputed manuscript reading.
For example, the textual status of the Comma Johanneum affects whether 1 John 5 contains one very explicit Trinitarian formulation.
But Christian teaching concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not depend exclusively upon that passage.
Likewise, questions surrounding Mark 16:9–20 do not determine whether the New Testament teaches the resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection is independently attested throughout the New Testament.
This leads to an important Berean principle:
A major doctrine should rest upon the broader witness of Scripture, not upon a single textual reading whose originality is seriously disputed.
40. Ancient Translations as Textual Witnesses
Greek manuscripts are not the only evidence for the New Testament text.
Ancient Christians translated the New Testament into numerous languages.
Important early traditions include:
- Latin,
- Syriac,
- Coptic,
- Armenian,
- Georgian,
- Ethiopic,
- and others.
These translations cannot always tell us the precise underlying Greek wording because translation itself introduces interpretation.
Nevertheless, they can provide valuable evidence.
If an ancient Syriac translation clearly reflects one Greek reading, scholars may infer that such a Greek reading existed when that translation was made—even if the particular Greek manuscript used by the translator has disappeared.
41. Early Christian Writers as Witnesses
Church fathers frequently quoted Scripture.
Writers such as:
- Justin Martyr,
- Irenaeus,
- Origen,
- Tertullian,
- Athanasius,
- Chrysostom,
- Augustine,
- and others
sometimes preserve evidence for biblical readings in circulation during their time.
Their quotations must be used carefully.
Authors sometimes quoted from memory or paraphrased.
Later scribes could also alter quotations.
Nevertheless, patristic citations provide another important window into the history of the biblical text.
42. The Hebrew Old Testament
Modern Old Testament translation follows a somewhat different textual history.
The central medieval Hebrew tradition is commonly called the Masoretic Text.
Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes carefully preserved the consonantal Hebrew text and developed systems of vowel points, accents, and textual notes.
Important medieval Hebrew manuscripts include the Leningrad Codex.
Modern scholarly Hebrew editions rely heavily upon this tradition.
43. The Dead Sea Scrolls
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls beginning in 1947 transformed the study of the Old Testament text.
The scrolls contain biblical manuscripts approximately a thousand years older than the principal complete medieval Hebrew codices previously available to scholars.
They reveal two important realities.
First, much of the Hebrew biblical text was transmitted with remarkable continuity.
Second, textual variation also existed in antiquity.
Some Dead Sea Scroll readings resemble the later Masoretic Text.
Others resemble forms reflected in the Septuagint or other ancient textual traditions.
Thus Old Testament textual criticism, like New Testament textual criticism, involves comparison of multiple witnesses.
44. From Hebrew and Greek to English
English Bible translation developed across centuries.
Important milestones include:
- early Old English biblical translations,
- Wycliffe’s Bible in the fourteenth century,
- Tyndale’s New Testament in 1526,
- the Coverdale Bible,
- the Great Bible,
- the Geneva Bible,
- the Bishops’ Bible,
- the King James Version of 1611,
- the Revised Version,
- the American Standard Version,
- the Revised Standard Version,
- and numerous modern translations.
Each represents a particular stage in the history of English language and biblical scholarship.
45. The Tyndale–KJV–RSV–ESV Line
The ESV belongs to a recognizable historical English translation tradition.
A simplified lineage looks like this:
Tyndale
↓
King James Version
↓
Revised Version
↓
American Standard Version
↓
Revised Standard Version
↓
English Standard Version
This does not mean each translation merely copied the previous one.
Rather, each revision inherited substantial English phrasing while reconsidering the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek evidence.
The result is both continuity and revision.
46. The English Standard Version
The English Standard Version, first published in 2001, was produced as a revision within the historic English Bible tradition represented especially by the Revised Standard Version.
Its translators sought an approach often described as essentially literal.
The goal was to preserve, as far as practical in readable English:
- the structure of the original language,
- theological terminology,
- literary patterns,
- and verbal connections across passages.
The ESV is therefore not a translation of the King James Version.
Nor is it based upon the same narrow Greek manuscript foundation available to Erasmus.
Its translators worked from modern scholarly Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek editions informed by a far broader manuscript evidence base.
47. What Text Is the ESV Translating?
For the Old Testament, the ESV translation committee worked principally from the traditional Hebrew Masoretic text as represented in modern scholarly editions while also consulting evidence from:
- the Dead Sea Scrolls,
- the Septuagint,
- the Samaritan Pentateuch,
- ancient translations,
- and other textual witnesses when appropriate.
For the New Testament, translators worked from modern critical Greek editions based upon extensive manuscript comparison.
Thus the ESV reflects both the ancient manuscript tradition and centuries of subsequent textual study.
48. Does This Make the ESV Inspired?
No translation should be confused with the original act of biblical inspiration.
Christian theology historically locates inspiration in the biblical writings as given through the biblical authors.
Translations seek to communicate those writings faithfully in another language.
A translation may therefore be:
- excellent,
- accurate,
- useful,
- authoritative insofar as it faithfully communicates Scripture,
- and yet still capable of improvement.
No English translation perfectly reproduces every feature of Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.
Translation always involves decisions.
49. Translation Itself Requires Interpretation
Suppose a Greek word can carry several related senses.
The translator must determine which English expression best communicates the author’s meaning in that context.
Similarly:
- Hebrew poetry may contain ambiguity,
- Greek participles may have several possible relationships,
- ancient idioms may have no exact English equivalent,
- word order may emphasize something difficult to reproduce,
- and one original word may require several English words.
Therefore, translation cannot be entirely mechanical.
Every translation contains interpretation.
This does not make translation arbitrary.
It means translators must exercise linguistic and contextual judgment.
50. Why English Bibles Sometimes Differ
Modern Bible translations may differ for several reasons.
Different Textual Decisions
Translators may use different underlying manuscript readings.
Different Translation Philosophy
Some translations emphasize formal correspondence.
Others emphasize conveying meaning in natural contemporary English.
Different Interpretive Decisions
The original wording may permit more than one reasonable interpretation.
Different English Style
Vocabulary and sentence structure differ among generations and audiences.
Therefore, differences among translations do not automatically indicate that one translator is dishonest or incompetent.
They often reveal genuine decisions required by translation.
51. Why Footnotes Matter
Modern Bible footnotes can provide a valuable window into textual history.
A note might say:
“Some manuscripts add…”
or:
“The earliest manuscripts do not include…”
or:
“Or…”
Such notes should not frighten readers.
They reveal scholarly transparency.
Instead of concealing uncertainty, translators are informing readers where textual or translational questions exist.
That practice is consistent with careful Berean study.
52. Scripture, Manuscripts, and Translation Must Be Distinguished
Several categories must remain separate.
Scripture
The inspired writings given through the biblical authors.
Autographs
The original physical manuscripts or earliest authorial forms of those writings.
Manuscripts
Handwritten copies preserving those writings.
Critical Editions
Scholarly attempts to reconstruct the earliest recoverable wording by comparing manuscripts and other evidence.
Translations
Attempts to communicate those Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek writings in another language.
Confusing these categories produces unnecessary misunderstanding.
A manuscript is not the same thing as Scripture itself.
A critical edition is not an ancient manuscript.
An English translation is not the autograph.
Yet each can faithfully transmit the biblical text.
53. A Brief Timeline
Before c. 1000 BC onward
Israel’s traditions and biblical writings develop across centuries.
c. Third–First Centuries BC
Greek translations of Jewish Scripture develop, eventually associated with the Septuagint tradition.
First Century AD
New Testament books are composed in Koine Greek.
Second–Third Centuries
Early Christian manuscripts and papyri survive from this period.
Fourth Century
Major codices such as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are produced.
AD 367
Athanasius lists the same twenty-seven New Testament books recognized today.
Fourth–Fifth Centuries
Jerome produces and revises Latin biblical translations associated with the Vulgate.
Medieval Period
Hebrew Masoretic scribes preserve and annotate the Hebrew textual tradition; Greek and Latin manuscripts continue to be copied.
Mid-Fifteenth Century
Printing with movable type transforms biblical publication.
1516
Erasmus publishes the first widely distributed printed Greek New Testament.
1522
Luther publishes his German New Testament.
1526
Tyndale publishes his English New Testament.
1546
The Council of Trent formally defines the Roman Catholic canon in response to Reformation controversies.
1560
The Geneva Bible appears.
1611
The King James Version is published.
Eighteenth–Nineteenth Centuries
Modern textual criticism develops rapidly.
Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries
Numerous early manuscripts and papyri become available to scholarship.
1947 onward
Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls transforms study of the Hebrew Bible.
Twentieth Century
Nestle-Aland and UBS critical Greek New Testaments become major scholarly standards.
2001
The English Standard Version is first published.
54. What Has Remained Constant?
The physical form has changed dramatically.
Scroll became codex.
Codex became printed book.
Printed book became digital text.
Languages changed.
Hebrew and Greek became Latin.
Latin gave way increasingly to vernacular languages.
English itself changed from Tyndale to the present.
Manuscript knowledge expanded.
Translation methods developed.
Yet the continuity of the biblical writings across this history is remarkable.
The very existence of manuscript differences allows us to see the copying process rather than merely imagine it.
The Bible’s textual history is not invisible.
It can be investigated.
55. What Should We Not Claim?
A responsible history of the Bible avoids several exaggerated claims.
We should not say:
“Every manuscript is identical.”
They are not.
We should not say:
“No textual variant affects meaning.”
Some do.
We should not say:
“The Council of Nicaea created the Bible.”
It did not.
We should not say:
“The King James translators had the same manuscript evidence available to modern scholars.”
They did not.
We should not say:
“Modern scholars possess the original manuscripts.”
They do not.
We should not say:
“The critical Greek New Testament is simply one ancient manuscript.”
It is an edited reconstruction derived from comparison of many witnesses.
And we should not say:
“Because scholars sometimes disagree, we cannot know what the New Testament said.”
The evidence does not justify that conclusion either.
56. What Can We Say with Confidence?
We can say that:
- the Old Testament was principally written in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic;
- the New Testament was written in Koine Greek;
- no known biblical autograph survives;
- biblical manuscripts were copied by hand for centuries;
- textual variants arose through that process;
- most New Testament manuscript variants are comparatively minor;
- some variants genuinely affect individual passages;
- textual critics compare manuscripts and other ancient witnesses to reconstruct the earliest recoverable text;
- ancient translations and church-father quotations supplement manuscript evidence;
- early Reformers possessed a much narrower manuscript base than scholars possess today;
- modern translations rely upon a vastly expanded body of manuscript evidence;
- translation requires interpretation;
- and significant textual uncertainty should be acknowledged rather than concealed.
57. A Berean Reflection
The history of the biblical text invites both confidence and humility.
Confidence is appropriate because Scripture has not reached us through a single fragile chain depending upon one manuscript.
Instead, it survives through a broad and overlapping textual tradition spread across centuries, languages, and geographical regions.
Humility is appropriate because no surviving manuscript is the original autograph, no editor is infallible, and no translation perfectly reproduces every feature of the original languages.
The Bereans were commended because they examined the Scriptures carefully:
“They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
— Acts 17:11
The appropriate response to manuscript evidence is therefore not fear.
Nor is it denial.
It is examination.
Where the evidence is strong, we should say so.
Where manuscripts differ, we should acknowledge it.
Where interpretation is disputed, we should distinguish textual evidence from theological judgment.
And where Scripture speaks clearly, Scripture remains the final authority.
Scripture as Our Final Authority
The history described in this study concerns how Scripture has reached us.
It does not place textual critics, translators, church councils, or historians above Scripture.
These disciplines help us answer historical questions:
- Which books were recognized?
- Which manuscript readings are earliest?
- What did Hebrew and Greek words mean?
- How should a sentence be translated?
But the authority of Scripture does not arise because Erasmus printed it, because a council approved it, because scholars reconstructed it, or because a modern translation rendered it into English.
Christian faith confesses that Scripture’s authority rests ultimately upon God, who speaks through the biblical writings.
This project therefore distinguishes between:
the authority of Scripture
and
our human work of identifying, transmitting, translating, and interpreting Scripture.
The latter can contain uncertainty.
The former is the standard by which Christian teaching is finally tested.
Discussion Questions
- Why is it important to distinguish the original biblical writings from surviving manuscripts?
- What is the difference between the textual history of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament?
- Why are Greek Old Testament manuscripts different in status from Greek New Testament manuscripts?
- What does the Septuagint teach us about the linguistic world of early Christianity?
- Why did textual variants naturally arise during hand copying?
- Why is the statement “textual variants never affect meaning” too broad?
- What is the difference between textual criticism and interpretation?
- Who determines which Greek manuscript reading is most likely original?
- Why can more manuscripts actually help scholars identify copying errors?
- What manuscript resources were available to Erasmus?
- Why did Luther and Tyndale have a much smaller textual evidence base than modern translators?
- What is the Textus Receptus?
- When a pastor says, “The Greek says…,” what text is the pastor probably consulting?
- Why should a teacher identify important manuscript differences rather than conceal them?
- How does the manuscript evidence available to modern translators differ from that available to the King James translators?
- Why can two translations based on the same Greek text still differ?
- What is the proper relationship between scholarship and Scripture’s authority?
Summary
The Bible we read today has traveled through a long history.
Its books were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
The original manuscripts have disappeared, but the writings were copied repeatedly.
The Old Testament survives through Hebrew manuscripts, ancient translations such as the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other textual witnesses.
The New Testament survives through thousands of Greek manuscript witnesses together with ancient translations and quotations in early Christian writings.
Those manuscripts contain textual variations.
Most are minor.
Some affect the meaning of particular passages and require careful evaluation.
Textual critics compare these witnesses in an attempt to reconstruct the earliest recoverable wording.
Modern Greek New Testaments such as the Nestle-Aland edition are therefore not individual ancient manuscripts. They are scholarly editions based upon comparison of many manuscripts.
The Reformers did not possess this enormous manuscript evidence base.
Erasmus constructed his first published Greek New Testament from only a small number of relatively late Greek manuscripts. Luther, Tyndale, and subsequent translators depended heavily upon the printed Greek tradition that developed from Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza.
Modern translators possess far more manuscript evidence, including manuscripts many centuries older than those normally available to the Reformers.
The ESV stands within the historic English translation tradition shaped by Tyndale, the King James Version, the Revised Version, the American Standard Version, and the Revised Standard Version, while also drawing upon modern Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek textual scholarship.
This history does not eliminate every textual or interpretive question.
It allows those questions to be examined openly.
The Berean approach therefore neither pretends that manuscript differences do not exist nor assumes that such differences make Scripture unknowable.
Instead, it seeks to distinguish carefully among:
the inspired Scriptures,
the manuscripts that preserve them,
the scholarly texts that reconstruct them,
the translations that communicate them,
and the interpretations through which we seek to understand them.
And through all those stages, Scripture remains our final authority.