Which 'New Testament'?
Forwarded from another Forum:
There are roughly 5500 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in existence today, unfortunately about 5100 of them are newer than the 9th Century C.E.
None of them are complete, and no 2 of them are in complete agreement with one another.
This was mainly because the “autographs” and the earliest generation copies were destroyed. The only manuscripts in existence that pre-date the middle of the 4th Century C.E. are fragmentary at best, some of them only contain 1 or 2 verses.
Two of the older manuscripts, Papyrus 66 (p66) and Papyrus 75 (p75) which date back to approximately 175-225 C.E., each contain a large portion of the Gospel of John. P66 contains verses: 1:1 – 6:11; 6:35 – 14:6; 14:26; 14:29 - 30; 15:2 - 26; 16:2 - 4; 16:6 - 7; 16:10 - 20; 20:22 – 23; 20:25 – 21:9. P75 contains verses: 1:1 – 11:45; 11:48 – 57; 12:3 – 13:1; 13:8 – 9; 14:8 – 30; 15:7 – 8.
One thing that they share in common is that neither one of them contain the spurious pericope of the Adulteress commonly found at John 7:53 – 8:11, which was added much later.
Aside from that, they differ from each other in over 70 occurrences.
Now keep in mind that these were written 100 – 150 years before the “official” Christian belief system was instituted by the pagan Emperor Constantine in 325 C.E., more on that in a moment.
Another thing to consider is the four major Codices, also known as “The Great Uncials”. These would be the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Bezae, and the Codex Alexandrinus.
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The Codex Sinaiticus
dates back to the late 4th century. It contains the Hebrew Scriptures, Greek Scriptures, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. It was written by 3 different scribes. Alterations were made to it by 9 “correctors” between the 4th and 12th centuries. Matthew 16:2 f. is omitted; Mark ends at 16:8, Luke 22:43 f. was marked as spurious by the first corrector, but these signs were canceled by the third corrector. John 5:4 and the Pericope de adultera are omitted. The doxology of Romans comes after 16:23 verse 24 being omitted. Hebrews follow immediately after II Thessalonians.
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The Codex Vaticanus also dates back to the early to middle 4th century. It contains the Hebrew Scriptures, and most of the Greek Scriptures.
It only contains the Book of Hebrews as far as 9:14, and it does not contain Revelation. It was written by 2 scribes and altered by 2 different correctors, first shortly after it was written, and again in the 10th or 11th century. Matthew 16:2 f. is omitted, Mark ends at 16:8, Luke 22:43 f., John 5:4 and the Pericope de adultera are omitted. The doxology of Romans comes after 16:23. Hebrews follow immediately after II Thessalonians. The manuscript was known by scholars to exist in 1475 when it was listed in a catalogue of manuscripts in the Vatican Library, and the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) portion of the manuscript was published in 1587 under the papacy of Pope Sixtus V. However, its New Testament contents were kept a guarded secret.
This portion was not seen by scholars until 1815 when Napoleon captured Rome and brought the manuscript back to Paris, where it was studied for a short time. If not for this, it is certain that its contents would still be locked up secure in the Vatican Library today. The Catholic Church considers the manuscript dangerous because it shows so clearly how corrupt their Vulgate is and has become; for this reason it literally took a war before it was seen by scholars.
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The Codex Bezae dates back to the 5th century. It contains Four Gospels and Acts in Greek and Latin. The Greek text is on the left and the Latin on the right-hand. It seems that the codex formerly contained the Catholic Epistles, for the ending of III John is preserved before the beginning of the Acts.
It appears to have been written by one scribe, and alterations have been made by nine correctors, ranging in date from the end of the sixth century to about the eleventh or twelfth and later. Matthew 16:2 f. is present and not marked as doubtful or spurious.
The longer ending of Mark is given.
Luke 22:43 f. and Pericope de adultera are present and not marked as spurious or doubtful.
John 5:4 is omitted.
The ending of Acts is lost. It is typical of the Western texts, and shows its Catholic influence in the fact that it is a diaglot of Latin and Greek, that is, it parallels the Greek and Latin facing each other on the pages. It is interesting to note that frequently the Latin and Greek are in total disagreement.
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The Codex Alexandrinus dates back to the 5th century. It contains the Hebrew Scriptures, the entire Greek scriptures, and 1st and 2nd Clement.
This was the work of 5 scribes, and does not appear to have been altered by correctors.
Matthew 1:1-25:6 is lost.
The longer ending of Mark is given.
Luke 22:43 f. is omitted. John 5:4 is present and not marked as doubtful or spurious.
There is a lacuna at John 7:53-8:11.
The doxology of Romans is found after 14:23 and also after 16:23, 16:24 being omitted.
Hebrews follow immediately after II Thessalonians.
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These are the oldest and most complete manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Unfortunately they are not in agreement with each other, and for the most part have been altered to such a degree that there is no way of knowing exactly what was originally written in them. If the actual Greek manuscripts can’t be trusted as accurate, how can any of the modern English translations made from them be trusted?
The main reason that Constantine ordered the Council of Nicea was because Christians were driving him nuts. The Roman Empire was vastly large containing thousands of cities. The various local Christian Congregations of the time were headed by people the Catholic Church calls bishops, although that particular term did not exist until later.
In 325 C.E. there were approximately 1800 of these “bishops” located throughout the Roman Empire. Each one of them had their own individual ideas about the nature of Christianity, and because of this, neighboring congregations were in constant conflict with one another.
This was not an isolated incident, it was occurring throughout the entire Empire.
The main reason behind all of the conflicting ideas was because as Christianity spread throughout the various pagan gentile nations, these people each added a little bit of their own particular pagan beliefs into the Christianity they were being taught.
Therefore by Constantine’s time, you had 1800 Christian communities with 1800 versions of Christianity. Constantine called all 1800 of these “bishops” to appear before him in Nicea to come to a settlement over these disputes. Only about 600 of them actually showed up.
They bickered back and forth for three days and still came to no agreement. After listening to them go at it for 3 days, Constantine took various topics that were discussed which he felt could be tolerated by the general population of the Empire, and had his scribes write up a document. He basically told all of them – This is Christianity, this is what all Christians will accept and practice. He ordered all of them to sign it or else they would be deposed and banished.
The decision he came up with was what eventually led to Trinitarian belief, and the divinity of Jesus. However 10 years later, after discovering documents, which were eventually destroyed by the “church”, dating back to late apostolic times, and the earliest Christian congregations, he reversed his decision to non-Trinitarian, and ordered all of the “bishops” to subscribe to this.
Unfortunately, he died 2 years later, and it flip-flopped back and forth for several decades, until the more pagan Trinitarian belief system finally won out as the officially accepted form of Christianity. At this moment in time, I won’t even deal with the several centuries of modifications to the doctrine. However, I will mention that there were manuscripts at Constantine’s disposal that were convincing enough to make him reverse his 325 C.E. decision.
Shortly after Constantine’s death the “bishops” appointed groups of “correctors” whose job was to rewrite the original documents to agree with their belief system and subsequently destroy all of the originals. Out of all 5,487 known Greek manuscripts, there are over 300,000 conflicts and only 62.9% of their combined content is in agreement across the board. There are over 100 verses in the GT that are proven forgeries, and who knows how many there are that have yet to be proven as such. If the GT is supposed to be the inspired word of God, why would it need to be “corrected” by men? The simple answer is to make it fit the flavor of the month.
So before someone decides to single out any particular GT verse and accept it at face value, one should ask himself: Is this verse even supposed to be here? Is it fact or forgery? The world may never know.
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