Bible Studies · Biblical Manuscripts
Biblical Manuscripts: An Overview
No autograph of any biblical book survives. The Hebrew and Greek texts read today have been established by comparing manuscripts copied over many centuries. This page surveys the transmission as a whole; detailed descriptions of the individual witnesses are provided in Old Testament Manuscripts and New Testament Manuscripts.
What Is a Manuscript?
The Autographs Are Lost; the Manuscripts Carry the Text
A manuscript is a document copied by hand before the spread of printing. No autograph of any book of the Old or New Testament is extant. The original text is therefore reconstructed by comparing the surviving manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations; this discipline is called textual criticism.
The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever.Isaiah 40:8 · Yeshua Literal Version
Materials and Forms
On What, and in What Form, Manuscripts Were Written
The material, format, and script of a manuscript provide the primary evidence for determining its date and character.
Chronology of Transmission
How the Text Was Handed Down
The principal witnesses to the Old and New Testaments are arranged chronologically below. Most dates are estimates based on script and archaeological context, and scholarly opinion varies.
- Late 7th–early 6th c. BC (approx.)
The Ketef Hinnom Silver Scrolls
Two small silver scrolls excavated in 1979 from a tomb in the Hinnom Valley, Jerusalem. They bear wording corresponding to the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26 and are regarded as the oldest known artifacts containing text that corresponds to the biblical text. Their dating is disputed.
- 3rd–1st c. BC
The Septuagint (LXX)
Beginning with the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek in Alexandria. Its Hebrew parent text (Vorlage) differs from the Masoretic Text in places, making it a key witness for Old Testament textual criticism.
- 3rd c. BC–1st c. AD
The Dead Sea Scrolls · The Nash Papyrus
Manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves near Qumran. They include copies or fragments of nearly every book of the Old Testament except Esther; the complete Isaiah scroll 1QIsaᵃ (Cave 1, c. 2nd c. BC) is the best known. Before these discoveries, the Nash Papyrus (c. 2nd–1st c. BC), containing the Decalogue and the Shema, was the oldest known witness to the Hebrew biblical text.
- 1st–2nd c. AD
Composition of the New Testament · Convergence on the Proto-Masoretic Text
The books of the New Testament were written in Greek and circulated and copied as individual documents. In the same period the Old Testament converged on the proto-Masoretic consonantal text; manuscripts from Wadi Murabba'at and Masada agree almost entirely with the medieval Masoretic Text.
- 2nd–3rd c.
Early New Testament Papyri · Early Versions
Witnesses from this period include 𝔓52, a fragment of John 18 (dated to the first half or middle of the 2nd c., though disputed); 𝔓46 of the Pauline Epistles; 𝔓66 of John; and 𝔓75 of Luke and John (all dated around 200). The early versions—Old Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and others—also began to take shape in this period.
- 4th–5th c.
Majuscule Parchment Codices · The Vulgate
Codex Vaticanus (B 03) and Codex Sinaiticus (א 01), which contain both the Septuagint and the New Testament, were copied in the fourth century, and Codex Alexandrinus (A 02) in the fifth. The Latin Vulgate, undertaken by Jerome in 382 at the commission of Pope Damasus, was completed around 405.
- 6th–10th c.
The Masoretes · New Testament Minuscules
The Masoretes of Tiberias supplied the consonantal text with vowel points, accents (te'amim), and Masoretic notes. The Cairo Codex of the Prophets (895 according to its colophon, though the date is disputed) and the Aleppo Codex (c. 930), in the tradition of the Ben Asher family, belong to this period. The several hundred thousand fragments from the genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, made known to scholarship in the late nineteenth century, also include many biblical manuscripts of this era. For the New Testament, minuscule manuscripts predominate from about the ninth century, most of them bearing the Byzantine text.
- 1008/1009
The Leningrad Codex (B19ᴬ)
The oldest extant complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. Copied in Cairo, it is held by the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg (shelfmark Firkovich B 19 A). The major Hebrew critical editions of today, and the Old Testament base text of the Yeshua Literal Version, rest on this manuscript.
- From the mid-15th c.
From Manuscript to Print
With the spread of movable-type printing, the biblical text began to be transmitted in printed editions. That development is summarized under “Printed and Critical Editions” below.
Principles of Textual Criticism
Criteria for Evaluating Variant Readings
Where manuscripts differ—that is, where variant readings exist—scholars weigh external evidence (the manuscripts themselves) together with internal evidence (the copying process and the author’s style). The following criteria have been widely used in classical textual criticism.
Scholars differ on how these criteria should be applied. Reasoned eclecticism weighs external and internal evidence together (the Nestle–Aland and UBS text); thoroughgoing eclecticism decides primarily on internal evidence; Byzantine priority (the Robinson–Pierpont text) and the Majority Text position give weight to the process of transmission and the testimony of the majority of manuscripts; and other scholars defend the Textus Receptus. This page does not adjudicate among these positions.
Old and New Testaments
Two Traditions of Different Character
The Old Testament was transmitted under strict control around a small number of standard manuscripts; the New Testament was transmitted from an early date in many manuscripts across a wide area. The methods of textual criticism differ accordingly.
| Aspect | Old Testament | New Testament |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Hebrew (portions of Daniel, Ezra, and elsewhere in Aramaic) | Koine Greek |
| Character of transmission | Several textual forms coexisted in the Qumran period, but by about the 1st–2nd c. AD the text converged on the proto-Masoretic consonantal text and was thereafter copied under strict scribal norms. | Copied and disseminated actively in many regions from an early date; a large proportion of variants arose in the first few centuries. |
| Earliest witnesses | Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls · Dead Sea Scrolls (3rd c. BC–1st c. AD) | Papyri of the 2nd–3rd centuries |
| Standard manuscripts | Masoretic manuscripts of the Ben Asher tradition, such as the Leningrad and Aleppo Codices | No single standard manuscript; the text is reconstructed by comparing many manuscripts. |
| Extent of evidence | Some 200 biblical manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls (including fragments); numerous medieval Masoretic manuscripts | Approximately 5,800 Greek manuscripts; more than 10,000 Latin manuscripts (estimates vary) |
| Principal ancient witnesses | Septuagint · Samaritan Pentateuch · Targumim · Peshitta · Vulgate | Old Latin · Syriac (Old Syriac, Peshitta) · Coptic · Vulgate · patristic citations |
| Distinctive tools | The Masorah · Ketiv and Qere (the written and the read form) | Gregory–Aland catalogue · text-types · Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) |
| Standard critical editions | BHS · BHQ · Hebrew University Bible (HUB) | Nestle–Aland 28th ed. · UBS 5th ed. · Robinson–Pierpont · ECM |
Well-known Old Testament variants include Deuteronomy 32:8 (Masoretic Text בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל “sons of Israel”; 4QDeutʲ and the Septuagint attest readings of the “sons of God” type), Isaiah 53:11 (1QIsaᵃ and the Septuagint include “light,” אוֹר), and Psalm 22:17 (Masoretic Text כָּאֲרִי “like a lion”; Septuagint ὤρυξαν “they dug”; 22:16 in conventional English numbering). These are treated in detail in Old Testament Manuscripts.
New Testament Text-Types
Four Names for Families of Manuscripts
Since the nineteenth century, New Testament textual criticism has grouped manuscripts into text-types according to shared readings. The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) now used in preparing the ECM analyzes relationships between individual manuscripts rather than text-types, and the validity of the text-type classification itself remains under discussion.
Printed and Critical Editions
From Manuscript Text to Critical Edition
After the advent of printing, the biblical text was standardized through a small number of printed editions. From the nineteenth century onward, critical editions were compiled from systematic collation of newly discovered manuscripts; a critical edition presents the text together with an apparatus recording the manuscript variants.
Old Testament critical editions generally print a single manuscript (a diplomatic text) and present variants in the apparatus, whereas New Testament critical editions usually present a text reconstructed from many manuscripts (an eclectic text).
Old Testament
| Date | Edition | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1488 | Soncino Hebrew Bible | The first printed edition of the complete Hebrew Bible |
| 1524–1525 | Second Rabbinic Bible (published by Bomberg, edited by Jacob ben Hayyim) | The standard text of the Hebrew Bible until the early twentieth century |
| From 1906 | Biblia Hebraica (BH, ed. R. Kittel) | First and second editions follow the ben Hayyim text; from the third edition (BHK, 1929–1937) the Leningrad Codex is the base text |
| 1967/1977 | Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) | Leningrad Codex · the standard scholarly critical edition |
| From 1995 | Hebrew University Bible (HUB) | Critical edition based on the Aleppo Codex · published in fascicles |
| From 2004 | Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) | Leningrad Codex · successor to BHS · publication in fascicles ongoing |
| Electronic text | Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) | An electronic text of the Leningrad Codex prepared by the J. Alan Groves Center at Westminster Theological Seminary |
| Electronic text | Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB) | An open resource adding morphological data to a WLC-based text |
New Testament
| Date | Edition | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Printed 1514 | New Testament of the Complutensian Polyglot | The first printed Greek New Testament (circulated in the early 1520s) |
| 1516 | Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum omne | The first published Greek New Testament · based on a few late minuscules; the last six verses of Revelation were back-translated from Latin |
| 1550–1551 | Stephanus, 3rd and 4th editions | Manuscript variants noted in the 3rd edition · the modern verse divisions introduced in the 4th (1551) |
| 1633 | Elzevir, 2nd edition | The name “Textus Receptus” derives from the wording of its preface |
| 1881 | Westcott–Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek | Critical edition giving priority to Codex Vaticanus (B 03) and Codex Sinaiticus (א 01) |
| From 1898 | Nestle(–Aland), Novum Testamentum Graece | Current 28th edition (NA28, 2012) · text substantially identical to the UBS 5th edition (2014) |
| 1982 | Hodges–Farstad, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text | A text following the readings of the majority of manuscripts |
| From 1991 | Robinson–Pierpont, Byzantine Textform | A reconstruction of the Byzantine textform (revised 2005) · public domain |
| From 1997 | Editio Critica Maior (ECM, Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Münster) | Large-scale critical edition reflecting the full manuscript tradition · applies the CBGM · in progress |
| 2010 · 2017 | SBLGNT · Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) | Independently edited modern critical texts |
Base Texts of the Yeshua Literal Version
The Original-Language Texts Underlying the Translation
The Yeshua Literal Version (YLV) is translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek, using the following two texts as its base.
The sources and licenses of the base texts and word numbering are set out in Text Sources and Copyright; the principles of translation are explained in Why Literal.
Manuscripts in Detail
Old Testament and New Testament Manuscripts
The sigla, dates, present locations, contents, and text-historical significance of the individual manuscripts are presented on two separate pages.