by Charles Hedrick and James E. Akiyama
In August 1989, Victor Krawczuk of Concordia University posted a question to soc.religion.christian that many believers and scholars have grappled with: how did the Bible, as we know it today, come to exist? What were the mechanics — human, historical, textual — behind its compilation? The question touched on one of the richest and most contested areas of religious scholarship.
The moderator of soc.religion.christian at the time was a scholar of New Testament studies at Rutgers. His editorial reply — appended to the original question — offered a lucid three-part framework: textual criticism (recovering the earliest manuscripts), literary criticism (understanding how books were composed and from what sources), and canonical criticism (how certain books came to be authoritative). Few online venues in 1989 featured this level of scholarly accessibility.
James E. Akiyama of Tektronix followed with a substantive technical response, challenging the claim that textual criticism enjoys the greatest consensus. His post laid out the Westcott-Hort controversy — the debate between older-manuscript priority and Majority Text theory — and extended the discussion to the Hebrew Old Testament, raising questions about the Masoretic text, the Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate that remain live scholarly questions today.
Together these posts form a rare Usenet gem: a miniature primer on biblical scholarship written by practitioners who understood the field from the inside.
Part I: Three Methods of Biblical Criticism
by the soc.religion.christian moderator
The question of how the Bible came to be can be discussed on at least three different levels, which are normally referred to as textual criticism, literary (or "higher") criticism, and canonical criticism.
Textual criticism deals with how the text was transmitted, and particularly with recovering the original text based on the variety of documents now available to us. We now have many manuscripts of varying age and type, as well as ancient translations. Modern translations combine all of these in a judicious fashion to arrive at the most probable text.
Literary criticism deals with understanding how the books were put together, particularly with whether they used earlier sources, with an understanding of the specific historical circumstances that led to their composition, and with analysis of the literary styles and methods used by the author. All of these aspects can be important for understanding the meaning properly. This is probably the most controversial of the areas. There is little data outside the texts themselves, so much of this work is speculation.
Canonical criticism deals with the question of how these particular books were chosen to be in the Bible. There were a number of other books that could have been included, and some of the books that are in our Bible were not considered canonical by various groups. For the OT, we know very little about the early process. There are some discussions in rabbinical times about which books "make the hands unclean," a concept related to our concept of canonical. For the NT, we have snapshots at various times, showing who considered which books canonical, with some discussions of why. But we certainly don't have a complete picture of how the decisions were made. The issue of canon — what it is and how it came to be — is also a controversial one.
Now, how to find out about these subjects. One problem is that there are various points of view. There is greatest consensus in the area of textual criticism. In the other areas, there are splits along roughly "liberal" and "conservative" lines. Liberals believe information contained in the Bible went through a number of stages, from verbal to written sources, to the final documents. In each of these stages changes were made due to differing perspectives and the needs of their communities. Also, it is assumed that the Biblical writers followed normal ancient practice, and made up speeches for Jesus to say. Probably not out of whole cloth. But for example the Sermon on the Mount may be the result of an editor combining things that Jesus had said at various times, and words that are generally consistent with what Jesus said but which he didn't say in exactly that form. It is pointed out that the ancients didn't have tape recorders, and their idea of accuracy was less literal than ours now. Conservatives emphasize the ancient ability to pass on large bodies of information from one generation to the next with little or no change, as well as the great reverence for the spoken word within the Jewish tradition. Although they too understand that there is a pre-history to the texts that we have, they believe that the information was passed on accurately. They are less enthusiastic about speculations involving sources and literary dependency, pointing out that there is very little evidence for many of these. In order to get a complete picture, you really should read some things from each perspective.
I am in the best position to make recommendations from a "moderate liberal" perspective. I suggest that you start first by looking at one of the one-volume commentaries. They generally have supplementary articles at the end on all of these topics. The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary (not the Interpreter's Bible, which is something else) has several hundred pages of background articles, covering all of these areas, as well as historical background. A good place to start would be to read through those articles. I have also heard of a new one-volume commentary produced in cooperation with the Society for Biblical Literature, Harper's Bible Commentary. It would contain more recent information, but from the chapter titles I'm not sure whether it covers all the same subjects. Intervarsity Press publishes a one-volume commentary which is roughly the "moderate conservative" equivalent. The articles contain bibliographies, which are a place to go for more information.
There is another class of books which would be a good second step. These are generally called "Introduction," either to the NT or OT. They are generally written for one-semester college courses in NT and OT. They normally start by giving historical background, and then talk about what is known about various books or classes of books: how they came to be and how they are interpreted. If you have a serious interest in the Bible, I recommend reading one of these introductions — or better, enrolling for an OT and NT course in a local university. My list of introductions is now somewhat dated. I have recommended Kee, Young, and Froehlich, "Understanding the NT." However there may be better recent books. You should probably go to the nearest university bookstore and see what they are using. (Be careful what the theological orientation is of the institution, however. I would feel safe with a State institution or a church school run by a major denomination.) Introductions are normally strongest on historical background and literary criticism. They may say something about textual criticism. For more information, Bruce Metzger's book "The Text of the New Testament" is now considered definitive for the NT. On canonical criticism, there are a number of recent books. I recommend a book by Barr, which I have somehow managed to mislay. It should have the word "canon" in its title. There is also a good summary of what is known about the development of the canon in Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity. In general if you don't have some background in church history, you will probably want to read something like that before pursuing specialized historical issues such as the history of the canon.
Part II: The Greek New Testament Debate
by James E. Akiyama
"There is greatest consensus in the area of textual criticism."
I'm not really sure about this. Today, there exist two types of Greek New Testaments. The first, and by far the most common, are two based on the Westcott and Hort theory. These two are the Nestle-Aland text (published by the German Bible Society) and the United Bible Society Greek New Testament (I should add that my church supports the Westcott and Hort theory). The Nestle-Aland Greek text (26th edition) and UBS text (3rd edition, corrected) are nearly identical.
A second group exists, however, that believes in the Majority text. Note that the Majority text more closely follows the Textus Receptus (published by Oxford in 1825) which was the text used to translate the King James Version. The Majority text is now out in 2nd edition by Nelson Press, edited by Hodges.
The major thrust of the argument has to do with whether the New Testament should be based on the relatively few, oldest Greek texts we have (namely, the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Sinaiticus) or the reading from the majority of Greek manuscripts found. A long time ago (around the time of King James), we used the majority text. Then later, two people (Westcott and Hort) published a paper proposing that the text should really be based on the most ancient version we have; that the other, newer versions, probably represent changes or "revisions" to the manuscript. The publication also included a "new" rendition of the Greek New Testament based on the above three with an emphasis on the Codex Vaticanus. This theory was (and is today) very widely accepted.
People who support the Majority text argue that the "oldest" manuscripts are all from Egypt. Preservation there is due to the unique climate of Egypt. They argue that the differences in reading are due to differences which are unique to Egypt; not a period of time.
I should also note that some of these differences are quite substantial (e.g., the ending of Mark).
For the New Testament I would encourage interested readers to read the works of Westcott and Hort, and the preface to the Nestle-Aland and UBS editions. For the counter arguments, you can read the preface to Hodges' Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Copyright 1985, second edition). One thing you will want to note is that most commentaries and modern translations are based on the Westcott and Hort theory.
As far as the Hebrew Old Testament goes, some newer research is questioning the exactness of our Masoretic text (published as the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, by the German Bible Society in cooperation with the United Bible Societies). There is now mounting evidence that the Septuaginta and Latin Vulgate were translated from a much older Hebrew manuscript and that many of the differences between the Masoretic text and Septuaginta (and Vulgate) may need rethinking. Again, some of these differences are significant. There has been a large amount of effort, known as the Goettingen project in Cambridge, to create a critical apparatus of the Septuagint (following the principles of Westcott and Hort, mainly relying on the Codex Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, and Sinaiticus). Over the past few years there has been a renewed interest in the Septuagint as a whole — partly because it was the most probable translation during the time of Christ, as is evident in that much of the New Testament's quotations from the Old Testament follow the Septuagint, not the Masoretic text. I think the reason the Latin Vulgate is not also being considered has more to do with Christian politics (the Vulgate's heavy use in the Catholic church). My own belief (probably not supported by my church) is that the Vulgate needs to also be considered here. The Vulgate has always been considered "historically" important to the Protestants, but usually not widely used (again, I believe, due to its heavy use and endorsement by the Catholic churches). It is another, independent source for trying to determine the most probable reading.
A lot of the reason why the Masoretic text has remained unquestioned is because there exist very few "second" copies of the text. Thus, in the past, there was little to compare our current Hebrew text to. The only time the Septuagint and Vulgate were consulted was when our Masoretic text was incomplete (e.g., Genesis 4:8). Now, many are starting to wonder whether we should be consulting the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate renditions when considering passages in Hebrew. Note that the Greek Orthodox churches use the Septuagint rather than our Masoretic Hebrew.
Also note that the pointing (vowels) and accents in our Masoretic text was not done until about 200–300 BC (prior to that, vowels had not yet been invented, at least in Hebrew). The pointing was done by the scribes because Hebrew was beginning to die out as a language. There are questions on the accuracy of the pointing done by the scribes of that time. In Exodus, for example, there are known inconsistencies, such as a single consonant containing both a Dagesh (which is used to indicate consonantal doubling) and the Raphe (which is used to indicate the consonant is not doubled). This seems to indicate that the pointing done by the scribes, or at least our copies of that work, is not inerrant.
Now I'm not suggesting that our current versions are unreliable. In spite of the age, our rendition of the Bible is probably much more assured than the writings of Shakespeare and other old texts. Still, much work needs to be done.
Colophon
Part I was written by the moderator of soc.religion.christian, a New Testament scholar at Rutgers University, as an editorial response to a question from Victor Krawczuk of Concordia University, Montreal. Original Message-ID: [email protected]
Part II was written by James E. Akiyama, an engineer at Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon, as a response to Part I. Akiyama was clearly engaged with the technical literature of biblical scholarship and wrote from within a practicing faith community. Original Message-ID: [email protected]
Both posts were published to soc.religion.christian in August 1989, one of the first moderated religious discussion groups on Usenet. The dialogue between these two voices — the academic moderator and the technically-minded lay scholar — captures something characteristic of early online religious discourse: earnest, expert, and generous.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲