Deck 2: Do We Have the Original New Testament

Question 1

Write a letter to a family member and explain to him or her the criteria used to determine the original text of the New Testament. How do these criteria help in this determination? What shortcomings do they have?

Answer 1

Students should discuss the six criteria for establishing the original text.
a. The Number of Witnesses. This criterion looks at how many extant manuscripts have the same reading. This criterion used alone can be misleading because a number of manuscripts may stem from one later source while a reading that occurs fewer times may represent an earlier reading.
b. The Age of the Witnesses. This criterion suggests that the oldest manuscripts are more reliable because they have been, as a rule, subjected to fewer changes.
c. The Quality of the Witnesses. A manuscript that contains a number of errors is less reliable than a manuscript that contains few errors.
d. The Geographical Spread of the Witnesses. A reading that occurs in only one area may be a regional reading; a reading that is found throughout the empire is probably closer to the original.
e. The Difficulty of the Reading. Scribes are more likely to have smoothed out a reading than to have made it more difficult.
f. Conformity with the Author's Own Language, Style, and Theology. A reading that does not fit with an author's overall theology is likely to reflect a scribal change.

Question 2

How are the books of our modern Bibles related to the original manuscripts? Explain how a book of the Bible was transmitted after the original document was written and what scholars and translators of the Bible have to consider when preparing a modern version.

Answer 2

Students should observe that modern Bibles are translations of much later copies of Biblical manuscripts. After an original manuscript was penned by the author or his scribe, the book was copied and recopied by hand over many years, with scribes making numerous unintentional and intentional changes to the wording at each level of transmission. Modern scholars apply the criteria of textual criticism to attempt to reconstruct the earliest possible readings, from which modern translations are made.

Question 3

Some manuscripts of Mark report that when a leper asked Jesus for healing, "Jesus became angry," while others read, "Jesus was filled with compassion." Which of these do you think represents the more original passage? Why?

Answer 3

The second reading ("Jesus was filled with compassion") may reflect a proto-orthodox scribe's concern about portraying Jesus as "angry," implying that Jesus was hot-tempered and lacking compassion, while it is unlikely a scribe would change "compassion" to "anger."

Question 4

Verse divisions didn't exist in the Bible until the 1500s.

Question 5

There are more differences between the manuscripts of the New Testament than there are words in the New Testament.

Question 6

We do not have the original copy of any New Testament book.

Question 7

Most of the differences between New Testament manuscripts were the result of intentional changes by scribes.

Question 8

Earlier scribes who copied the New Testament were more precise than later ones.

Question 9

Our earliest reasonably complete copy of the Gospel of John dates to around:

A) 50 C.E.
B) 90 C.E.
C) 200 C.E.
D) 300 C.E.

Question 10

We currently possess about how many fragments and copies of New Testament texts?

A) Sixty thousand
B) One hundred
C) Six hundred
D) Six thousand

Question 11

Which of the following represents an intentional scribal error?

A) Changing the text to fit doctrine
B) Misspelling words
C) Repeating words, verses, or pages
D) Skipping words, verses, or pages

Question 12

Our earliest surviving New Testament manuscript, P⁵², is

A) A reliable witness of the original text of Paul's letters
B) Datable to the 1^st century C.E.
C) The size of a credit card
D) Evidence of adoptionist Christian theology

Question 13

Which of the following is not a criterion used by scholars to determine the original text of the New Testament?

A) Geographical spread
B) Age of manuscripts
C) Difficulty of reading
D) Orthodox reading

Question 14

Which of the following is least helpful in establishing the original text of the New Testament?

A) Geographical spread
B) Number of manuscripts
C) Age of manuscripts
D) Difficulty of reading

Question 15

The story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:59-8:11) is:

A) An original part of the Gospel of John
B) An original part of the Gospel of Mark that was later inserted into the Gospel of John by the author of John
C) Not an original part of any Gospel
D) A pagan parable

Question 16

In the story of Jesus in the last minutes before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:43-44), the account of his "sweating blood" while contemplating his imminent suffering is most likely:

A) An original part of the Gospel of Luke
B) An original part of the Gospel of Mark that was later inserted into the Gospel of Luke by the author of Luke
C) Not an original part of any Gospel
D) An insertion from a letter of Paul.

Question 17

What is the style of writing called that leaves out punctuation, capitalization, paragraph divisions, sentence divisions, and spaces between words?

A) Scriptio ad absurdum
B) Scriptio continua
C) Grammatica elimination
D) Grammatica ad absurdum

Question 18

Give a Biblical example of parablepsis occasioned by homoeoteleuton.

A) "I do not ask that you keep them from the," an omission of the next line that ended in the same six words, then a continuation of the text with "evil one"
B) "lastnightatthedinnertableisawabundanceonthetable"
C) "Let this cup before me," with an insertion ("pass") between "cup" and "me"
D) The addition of the last twelve verses of Mark

Question 19

When did scribes begin to make

A) The first century
B) The nineteenth century
C) The seventeenth century
D) The fourth century

Question 20

Who was the University of Paris lecturer who introduced the major divisions into the Latin Bible in the thirteenth century?

A) Robert Stephanus
B) Thucydides
C) Steven Langton
D) Valentinus

Question 21

Who created the verse divisions that we have today?

A) Robert Stephanus
B) Thucydides
C) Steven Langton
D) Valentinus

Question 22

Which of the following is a criterion for establishing the original text of a writing?

A) Establishing whether it was written by a proto-orthodox Christian or a heretic
B) The age of the manuscripts
C) Determining whether the original text was a forgery.
D) Conformity with orthodox doctrines.

Question 23

Criteria for establishing the original text of a writing do not include:

A) Conformity with the norms of the culture in which it was written
B) The distribution of the manuscripts
C) The difficulty of the reading
D) Conformity with the author's own language, style, and theology

Question 24

New Testament manuscripts do not:

A) Contain many mistakes
B) Have many centuries separating the events written about and the events themselves
C) Have any inaccuracies
D) Contain exact word-for-word copies of the texts that were originally produced by ancient Christian authors

Question 25

Which event is found in some copies of the Gospel of Luke but not in others?

A) Mary's song
B) Jesus' ascension
C) Peter's denial of Jesus
D) Judas' kiss

Question 26

Which saying of Jesus is found in some copies of the Gospel of Luke but not in others?

A) "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."
B) "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
C) "You will be called Peter."
D) "I had to be in my Father's house."

Question 27

Which doctrine is not explicitly found in the earliest manuscripts of the Bible but was inserted into it by some later scribes?

A) Salvation by works
B) Jesus' divinity
C) The virgin birth
D) The Trinity

Question 28

What is the name of the academic discipline devoted to the study of ancient manuscripts to determine the most likely earliest readings?

A) Historical criticism
B) Redaction criticism
C) Literary criticism
D) Textual criticism

Question 29

What is the approximate date of our earliest complete copy of the Gospel of Luke?

A) 125 C.E.
B) 175 C.E.
C) 250 C.E.
D) 350 C.E.

Question 30

Which of the following represents the most common difference among Biblical manuscripts?

A) Doctrinal changes
B) Harmonizations
C) Differences in spelling
D) Parablepsis occasioned by homoeoteleuton

Question 31

Which of the following might account for an accidental omission in a manuscript?

A) Gnostic Christian doctrine
B) Parablepsis occasioned by homoeoteleuton
C) Amanuensis
D) Lectio dificilior

Question 32

Which of the following indicates a reading is most likely earlier than other options?

A) It is a more difficult reading.
B) It occurs in the most manuscripts.
C) It is found in more recent manuscripts.
D) It is doctrinally orthodox.

Question 33

The earliest copyists of the New Testament were:

A) Trained scribes
B) Monks
C) Priests
D) Untrained but literate