Page 52 - Bible Doctrine Survey I- Student Textbook

Does this mean that the copy of the Bible we have today is laced with errors and discrepancies? NO!
Here is why:

98.33 % of all the manuscripts agree 100%. That means that the copyists were careful not to change the
text throughout the ages of time. Also, there are really only 400 variants that affected the sense of the
passage, and only 50 of these have doctrinal significance. We have over 5,300 copies ancient
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manuscripts, some back to the 2 Century. By comparing the various manuscripts, we can pretty
much see when a variant was introduced and why.
Illustration: If we had 10 people in the room make a copy of our church constitution by hand, then
compared them all, we would find differences, but we won’t find the same differences in all 10 copies.
We can use the majority to check the difference.

As we study the thousands of manuscripts and the differences between them, they fall into families of
manuscripts or text types. The manuscripts are catalogued by their age, the region they were copied,
the style of printing, the paper on which they were printed, and the manuscripts to which they are
related. While the lines between manuscripts are sometimes blurred, four text-types are evident and
named for their region of origination. They are:

The Alexandrian text-type (most papyri) most manuscripts from 2 – 9 century
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The Western text-type (later Greek and Latin)

The Byzantine text-type (later uncial and minuscule manuscripts) – 9 thru 16th
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The Caesarean text-type (disputed ??)

Of these four text-types, two are prominent: Alexandrian – named for Alexandria, Egypt, where the
majority of these texts originated, and Byzantine – copied in Constantinople, Turkey (Byzantine
Empire)

The Alexandrian is called the “concise text” and represents most of the oldest manuscripts. They are
shorter versions.

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The Byzantine is called the “fuller text” and represents most of the manuscripts after the 9 Century.
The are longer, having more words.

Throughout the ages, men have been called by God to translate the Bible into the common language of
the people in a region. The Bible has been translated into thousands of languages. Men like Martin
Luther, John Calvin, John Hus, John Wycliff, and others paid the price to make a copy of God’s word
available to every human being.

Before Christ came to earth, the Old Testament was translated into Greek by 70 (actually 72) men. It
was called the Septuagint (250 BC – 150 BC) and was translated in Alexandria, Egypt. Perhaps Christ
actually read from this translation.

By the fifth century, the world was under the domination of the Roman Catholic Church. Jerome, a
church officer, translated the Bible to Latin, however, in doing so, inserted some major doctrinal errors,

36 https://christianpublishinghouse.co/2017/03/31/what-are-textual-variants-and-how-many-are-there/

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