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What is the Greek New Testament?
        THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT
        It is quite in keeping with the character of Christianity, which is free, active, bold, and progressive, that the little book upon which it rests for its initial history, its theology, and, to a certain extent, for its polity, should exhibit such diverse elements at work upon it, and likewise that the book itself should exist in so many more or less variant texts. Superstition, which secured the Jew a verbatim copy, as far as possible, of his sacred Scriptures, did not operate to anything like the same extent in the case of the Christians. They esteemed it a great privilege to have the Gospels and Epistles, but as copies multiply in the Church we find the thoughts of the inspired writer are better preserved than his exact words. At all events, the "various readings" increased. A very fruitful source of variation was the habit of writing at dictation, for a word incorrectly heard would be of course incorrectly written. Then, too, the use of "ligatures," or combinations of letters, to save time, the arbitrary signs employed, and the marks of correction or doubt gradually worked into the text from the margin, each and all contributed to destroy the correctness of the copy. Superfluous words, filling out one sentence by piecing to it a part of another (e. g. Rom 8:1 compared with Rom 8:4 shows conclusively that the latter clause of ver. 1 is repeated by inadvertence from ver. 4), marginal glosses which at last crept into the text, -- these are some of the unintentional faults of all copies. But these variations evince the lively interest which all classes took in the book, and therefore are an indirect proof of its divinity. They multiply the means for ascertaining the original reading and supersede the necessity of conjecture, to which we must often resort in the case of the ancient classics. So far from being alarmed at this state of things, we see in it the hand of God, who does not want his Church to be bound to the letter, but to be free in the Spirit, and to exercise all its powers of research upon his holy word. In the case of the N. T. the number of manuscripts is very large, considering the labor and expense of transcribing. They are divided into two classes: The uncials, which are written throughout in capitals, and with no division of words or of sentences, and with very few and simple marks of punctuation. The writing is in columns of uniform width, from one to four on a page, the letters filling out the page irrespective of the completion of a word. The material was parchment in book-form. The uncials go down to the tenth century. The most important uncial manuscripts are the Sinaitic of the fourth century (discovered by Prof. Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, 1859, and published in fac-simile, 1862), the Vatican of the same age (in the Vatican Library at Rome), and the somewhat later Alexandrian (in the British Museum, London). The second kind of manuscripts, the cursives, are so called because written in running-hand. The uncial form was, however, retained for some time after this in church copies. From about the eleventh century paper made from cotton or linen superseded parchment. The style of penmanship and other peculiarities in writing enable "diplomatists," as such experts are called, to tell the century to which any given manuscript belongs. The later manuscripts are of little or no critical account since the discovery of the older or uncial manuscripts. The N. T. in Greek was first printed as part of the Complutensian Polyglot, which Cardinal Ximenes patronized, at Alcala, the modern name for the Spanish town Complutum, in 1514, but the Polyglot was not published till 1522. The editors, probably in their ignorance, pretended to have relied for the text upon very ancient manuscripts received from Rome; but as a matter of fact, the manuscripts were comparatively recent and very inaccurate. The first Greek Testament published was that of Erasmus, which appeared in 1516. The so-called "Textus Receptus," or received text, is derived from the second edition of Elzevir, published at Leyden, 1633. It is in the main a copy of Beza's (1565-1589). The typographical beauty of the Elzevir edition and its handy shape, and not its critical merit, determined its acceptance. In England the text of Stephens (1550), which is substantially the same with the text of Elzevir, has often been reprinted and taken as the basis of critical editions from Mills down to Tregelles, although Bentley suggested a new basis from the oldest sources. The text of the N. T. has been brought into its present satisfactory condition after long-continued and patient study, and every Bible student should thank God for the scholars he has raised up to do this work. All honor to the immortal names of Griesbach (1754-1812), Lachmann (1793-1851), Tischendorf (1815-1874), Tregelles (1813-1875), Westcott, and Hort, for to them are we indebted for the oldest and purest text of the Greek Testament which can be attained at the present day, and which makes a revision of our English version at once desirable and safe.
        

        Also See:
        The Bible
        The Text of the Bible
        The Hebrew Bible
        The Greek New Testament
        The Original Language of the Bible
        The Original Language of the Old Testament
        The Original Language of the New Testament
        

 




Bibliography Information
Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'greek new testament' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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