We’ve been working our way through the various sources for our Greek New Testament.  We’ve looked at the papyri and the uncials, but there is so much more to consider.  In fact, the New Testament papyri and uncials combined make up less than 2% of our manuscripts.  Today, we’ll consider the other 98% of manuscripts including minuscules, lectionaries, quotations in the church fathers, and ancient translations.

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Today we are moving into our second group of New Testament manuscripts–the uncials.  However, before describing them, we’ll need to focus on how Christian scribes went about their work.  As it turns out the situation is quite different than the Jewish scribes who preserved the Hebrew Bible.  Then we’ll follow the exciting career of Bible hunter Constantine Tischendorf as he brought to light two huge discoveries.  Lastly, we’ll take a brief survey of the five most famous uncial New Testament manuscripts: Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus,  Vaticanus, Ephraemi Rescriptus, and Bezae.

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Today we are shifting gears from the Old Testament to the New Testament, from Hebrew manuscripts to Greek ones.  We’ll begin with the earliest evidence for the Greek New Testament, the papyri.  Made from the papyrus plant, approximately 130 of these manuscripts survive today in museums around the world.  In this lecture you’ll learn the important role collectors like Chester Beatty and Martin Bodmer played as well as the earth-shattering discovery made by archeologists Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt at Oxyrhynchus Egypt.

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Today we are going to take a brief break from manuscripts and dip our toes into the pool of Bible translations.  Specifically, we’ll take a look at six of the most prominent Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible, including:

For each of these versions we’ll get a brief sense of the translation style from the preface and then we’ll compare four texts from each: Genesis 1.1-3; Psalm 23.1-2; Isaiah 9.6; and Micah 7.20.

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For our Hebrew Bibles we have three main groups of manuscripts to compare: the Masoretic Text group, the Samaritan Pentateuch group, and the Septuagint group.  Each of these groups contain many manuscripts with the Masoretic Text group containing the most.  In this episode of How We Got the Bible, we’re going to look at the history of how textual scholars have and continue to pour over all of this information and determine the best reading when they encounter differences in the texts.

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In How We Got the Bible, we’re continuing on in our quest to understand the sources for the Hebrew Bible.  We’ve already covered the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but we have one last important Hebrew source to look at before surveying several significant ancient translations.  As it turns out the Samaritans have their own Hebrew version of the Torah, commonly called the Samaritan Pentateuch.  In this episode you’ll learn about the Samaritan Pentateuch and why scholars take it more seriously today than they did in previous centuries.  We’ll also consider very important ancient translations of the Tanakh, in Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, and Latin.

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Last time we looked at the Hebrew manuscripts known as the Masoretic Texts from the middle ages.  Today, we’ll focus on the earliest Hebrew manuscripts ever found, including those at the Cairo Genizah, the Ein-Gedi Scroll, the Nash Papyrus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Ketef Hinnom Silver Scroll.  This is going to be very helpful for future lectures when we cover the process of figuring out which readings are best when manuscripts differ from one another.

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Today we are beginning a major new class on how we get our English Bibles. I’m so excited about sharing with you so much about what I’ve learned in doing the research for this project. We’re going to have a great time together. My goal here is to cover the transmission of manuscripts and translation process so you understand where Bibles come from. In fact, I was thinking of calling this class, “Where Bibles Come From,” but when I searched for that phrase the search engine in its infinite wisdom had auto corrected it to “Where do babies come from,” which needless to say wasn’t the target audience for this material.

Today marks part one of this class, How We Got the Bible, and our focus will be on the manuscripts that underlie the Masoretic Text. You’ll learn about the Aleppo Codex: probably the most accurate Masoretic Text on the planet. We’ll cover the Leningrad Codex which to this day dominates textual studies since it is the oldest complete Hebrew Bible. We’ll look at a handful of other important manuscripts in an effort to begin understanding where our Bibles come from.

Introduction to How We Got the Bible

1: The Masoretic Text

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This is the fifth and final part of our parenting class.  Today you’ll learn about striking the balance between oversight and independence.  Although many parents today think their children are at risk of kidnapping and other terrible crimes, our society is actually much safer than it has been in decades.  The tendency to protect our children at all times has resulted in a culture of “safteyism” that leads to ill-preparedness when children grow up and move out of the house.  On the opposite side chronic neglect or toxic stressors result in adults who are likewise unable to cope with and overcome the complexities of adult life.

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In this episode we’ll take a close look at David to see what evergreen lessons we can learn about parenting our own children today.  In the end, we want to do our best to prepare our children for the road ahead so that they can be their best for God and others.

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In part 4 of our parenting class, Ruth Finnegan tackles the issue of screen time for children.  Although technology itself is neutral, much of what our children spend their time doing with screens is self-destructive and worldly.  As parents our responsibility is to bring God and his scriptures into the family and curtail exposure to worldly entertainment.  Doing so may help prevent adolescent anxiety and depression.

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