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Scholars Find Greek New Testament Manuscripts
by Jeremy Reynalds

March 27, 2008

Dallas-Based Center Uses Digital Photography to Preserve Documents

DALLAS -- Normally, two or three New Testament manuscripts handwritten in the original Greek are discovered each year.

According to a news release obtained by ANS, last summer the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) found a treasure trove of them during a trip to Albania.

The center focuses on the high-resolution digital preservation of these early copies of the New Testament.

Scholars tried for decades to access the National Archive in Tirana with little success, partly because Albania is a former police state. Until now, only two manuscripts of the 13 there known to Western scholars had been photographed, and that was many years ago with microfilm.

CSNTM Director Dr. Daniel B. Wallace recently received permission to send a team of four men to Albania to photograph the manuscripts with state-of-the-art digital equipments. By the end of their first day in Tirana in July, they realized there were far more than 13 manuscripts. more.

"When the news came back across the Atlantic, I was stunned," Wallace said in a news release.

The catalog at the National Archive listed 47 New Testament manuscripts, and at least 17 were unknown to Western scholars. Evidence suggests that some of the other manuscripts had been presumed lost elsewhere in Albania, but a final assessment has yet to be made.

The oldest manuscript in the collection is Codex Beratinus, written in the sixth century. It contains only the Gospels of Matthew and Mark today. The codex is the ancestor of the modern book form, replacing the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times. Early Christians popularized the codex, adopting it for their scriptures and other writings.

According to CSNTM, among the other finds were four manuscripts, dating from the 11th century on, that provided more information on a familiar Biblical controversy.

The story of the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53-8:11 is included in most Bibles today, but many scholars doubt its authenticity. These four manuscripts either have the story at the end of John or lack it altogether, suggesting it is something of an add-on.

Wallace said that no foundational Bible teaching of the Bible -- such as the virgin birth and the deity of Christ -- has been compromised by such study, but that some of the particulars have been brought into question.

CSNTM said that when studying these manuscripts, the age is important, but so is the pedigree -- which previous manuscript it was copied from. Experts like Wallace, also a Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, try to trace the antecedents of a Biblical manuscript much like an expert in genealogy would reconstruct a family tree.

It's a challenging task.

"It is like working on a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing," Wallace said in the news release. "But with the discovery of new manuscripts, more of the pieces make sense. And the result is we are getting closer to reconstructing the original wording of the New Testament in the few places where there still is question."

In its five years of existence, CSNTM has photographed manuscripts in places that include Istanbul, Turkey; Patmos, Greece; and Muenster, Germany at the Institute for New Testament Textual Research.

The Institute is the clearinghouse for original manuscripts. When a "new" manuscript comes to light, it is assigned a unique number -- certifying the "discovery." To date, some 5,700 manuscripts containing about 1.3 million pages have been catalogued.

Photographing these manuscripts is hard work. Wallace said that the average Greek New Testament manuscript has about 550 pages. Optimally, a team can shoot 1,200 to 1,800 pages a day, depending on the size and condition of the manuscripts.

The bill is high, CSNTM said in the news release. It costs between $6 and $7 a page when all the expenses are figured in. Wallace would like to photograph all 1.3 million pages of manuscripts known to scholars.

"We've photographed several thousand pages, but it's just a drop in the bucket of what needs to be done," he said in the news release. "These manuscripts are deteriorating, and older photographs done on microfilm, a much poorer quality than what we can do today, are deteriorating as well."

He added, "Plus, some manuscripts are lost or stolen, and others are damaged by fire, worms or water. So there is a sense of urgency about this. We have to get these photographed while we have the opportunity."

For more information on the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, visit www.csntm.org.

While I find this discovery very interesting I also find it disturbing. This information is just that more that the scoffers can use to substantiate their claim that the Bible is a corrupted text and not worthy of being called God's word. This is especially evident in the articles comments on the book of John and the mention of more books never before seen. Will those other books do credit to God and His word or will they do as others have and attempt to denigrate it further?

Hello Pastor Roger,

Brother, I understand your concerns completely. However, I'm hoping and praying that these discoveries accomplish the opposite of your concerns. It will probably be years before we find out the real significance of these manuscripts. Maybe they are fakes and not from Bible writers at all, or maybe other writers of the time wrote them and they end up supporting the Holy Bible. We have many treasures from non-Bible writers that do heavily support the facts of the Bible. There are too many examples to cite, but there are also many examples of fakes that were written to discredit the Holy Bible. We might already be HOME with the LORD before the verdict is in on these manuscripts. I'll just hope and pray that they end up giving ALL GLORY TO GOD.

Love In Christ,
Tom