“SEARCH thoroughly in the [Scriptures] and do not rely on my opinion.” Those were the words from the eighth century C.E. by a leading Karaite. Just who were the Karaites? What can we possibly learn from the example they had set?
Category: OT Textual Criticism Articles
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF HOW WE GOT THE BIBLE
We have to face the reality that while the original 39 OT manuscripts and 27 NT manuscripts were inspired by God [Lit. “God-breathed”] (1 Tim. 3:16), as the authors were moved along by the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:21), this was not the case with the copyists thereafter. Yes, hundreds of thousands of scribal errors crept into our manuscripts. Yet, there is solid evidence that the Bible,
The Crown of All Hebrew Manuscripts: The Aleppo Codex
BEFORE the discovery of the cache of Hebrew scrolls in the Dead Sea caves in 1947, aside from a few fragments, our Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts were from the late 9th to the 11th century C.E. That is but a mere thousand years ago when the original thirty-nine Hebrew Old Testament Bible books date from 2,500 to 3,500 years ago. Does this mean that prior to 1947, textual scholars and translators were uncertain about the Hebrew Bible that lies behind our English Old Testament? No, there was the most important Hebrew manuscript, which is called the Keter, the “Crown,” that originally contained all the Hebrew Scriptures, or the “Old Testament.”
Why would the Holy Spirit miraculously inspire 66 fully inerrant texts, and then allow human imperfection into the copies?
Some Bible critics seem, to begin with, the belief that if the originals were inspired by God and fully inerrant, the subsequent copies must continue to be inerrant in order for the inerrancy of the originals to have value. They seem to be asking, “If only the originals were inspired, and the copies were not inspired, and we do not have the originals, how are we to be certain of any passage in Scripture?” In other words, God would never allow the inspired, inerrant Word to suffer copying errors. Why would he perform the miracle of inspiring the message to be fully inerrant and not continue with the miracle of inspiring the copyists throughout the centuries to keep it inerrant?
THE BIBLE’S STORY OF SURVIVAL
THE DANGEROUS CONDITIONS: Papyrus was a material prepared in ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient
WHAT IS OLD TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND WHY DO WE NEED IT?
We begin by offering you what textual criticism is. It is the study of all the manuscript evidence and internal evidence (e.g., style of the
