Romans Series Overview, Part 2 - Which Manuscript(s) Should We Use?

Getting Started

Before we dive in, we must know where to dive in, if you understand my meaning. In this part of the Overview, we will cover explicitly simple laws of languages, the methodology by which we will be studying the Greek, which transcript we are reading from, and the version we will be considering in English as a result.

My general plan is to read all of Paul’s letters carefully, from Romans to Philemon, in the original Greek. I want to comment on some of the language or beauty in the text, compare it with a few verses, and move on. This project, in summary, is simple enough. The more complicated question, I think, is to ask which translation we should be reading from.

In asking this question, we immediately stumble upon a major, controversial stumbling block. Do we read the King James Version, simply because it is the one we grew up with, or one of the most easily accessible? Are we to read the revised New King James, or the New International, or New American Standard? Shoot, should we be reading any translation that starts with “new”???

Unfortunately, we run into a few critical issues with all of these versions. First, most English translations are called majority texts. The meaning of “majority text” varies, but I’ve found that there are two meanings to it: either the text aligns thousands of different Greek manuscripts and aligns them into one “majority reading” of multiple different transcripts (without regard to time or the original writer’s exact word usage,) or the text aligns thousands of different Biblical manuscripts in general (from Swahili to Swedish to Latin to French, etc.)

The idea is that “more” = “reliable.” If many texts say “this,” then it must be true. Yet we have learned, from our experiences, that majority does not rule. The latter definition in the previous paragraph, then, is easily silly, for you cannot mix multiple different languages with many separate and unique identifying features, and compress them into a new language which carries its own identifying features. To briefly demonstrate how fallacious this is, I have taken the sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs,” translated it into Swahili, then into Swedish, then into Latin, then into French, and finally, back into English – telephone, with linguistic barriers. Let’s see how this sentence gets twisted, yeah?

Original: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.”

After translational hell: “A light brown fox pounces on the lazy dogs.”

What???

Seriously, what?? There is a major departure from the original thought. The fox is no longer quick, but light – giving two completely different thoughts. Moreover, the fox’s action is entirely different! He is no longer jumping over, but pouncing on!

I feel that such simple evidence is so obvious that you should begin questioning all English Bibles immediately. Why should you accept something from someone if they are lying to you, inadvertently or otherwise – especially when that “something” is one of the most important texts ever written?

Unfortunately, combining multiple Greek manuscripts without regards as to how old they are is not much better than the previous example, for even within the same language, the game of “telephone” is still a rather difficult one – especially over the course of hundreds of years. There opens a gateway to escaping the original thought of the original writers. Almost all of the New Testament writers heavily stress how critical it is that we do not change or modify the word of God, and that it is perfect as it is. So much as an extra word or two could completely decimate the thought of the writer and transform it into something less.

Sounds Like a Problem. What Do We Do?

Whenever we are considering the English text, we must accept the simple fact that being that we are, unfortunately, subject to each individual’s interpretation of the text. You will undoubtedly come to find throughout the course of this study that I loathe “multiple interpretations,” and much rather prefer God’s declarations. When I hear someone say, “That’s just my opinion,” in order to turn a verse into something it’s not, they might as well say, “I hate what I just read, and need to conform it to my worldview.” Or, in other words, “I think I could have written it better, and my version would say something more accurate than what is actually written. God, or the writer of the letter, must have made a mistake! Yet I know better.”

This is called “pride.”

Of course, even if you don’t like all of the information presented throughout this study, it takes a truly stubborn man to sit there and say, “That doesn’t at all mean what it directly says.” This method of gaslighting is prevalent in most churches today, unfortunately, and I will be spending a wealth of time unraveling as many of these falsehoods as I possibly can. Funnily enough, a study of Romans is the perfect format for such studies!

The only way to truly combat man’s pride is to stop accepting man’s interpretations. I’m telling you this now, so that later you don’t sit there going, “Oh man, this dude’s just full of it!” Any Christian pastor may end up saying this anyway, but most rational people can grasp that the method that I am about to break down to you is full of consistent, careful planning that almost entirely removes all desire to “theorize” on what the text is saying!

So! What is this method? What bulletproof, sound translation can we consider that will confirm for us what God truly meant when He spoke?

Well, the answer is easy: don’t look at man’s translations at all.

Yeah, just… look at the Greek.

It’s not hard! You can conduct a rudimentary Google search for the original manuscripts, in their original Greek format, and find all of the information that I will provide within a few minutes. With information this easily accessible, it would be a travesty to brush past it in favor of fire and brimstone preaching, from men who have spent their lives grasping someone’s thoughts about the text, as opposed to what the text itself actually states.

…You’re Kidding, Right?

No, I’m not. God has spoken. The beauty of considering the original language of inspiration is that the Greek is not “a version” – it is God’s word, and His alone. It does not need correction. We do not need to walk by perception in order to grasp Scripture, in the slightest – when properly translated, and ordered properly, the Bible is not a confusing “mish-mash” of nothingness – as you may have grasped during my breakdown of the now-established fact that there are two separate evangels recorded in Scripture. Thus, hating the words we will read in Greek is not a matter of comprehension, but of belief. There are some who will read each word I say who disagree entirely. But it is not solely because they ‘just don’t get it,’ but that they hate it. Many hate the declarations Paul makes, for to accept it, they would have to pull away from their precious “pride.”

When we study the Greek, we will not be relying on the authority of any individual man or Greek scholar, but on the concordant usage of the word in the inspired text. That is – a harmonious usage of the word. We will not “change” the meaning of a specific word when it is convenient for us (and I will be citing examples of this throughout the study.)

But how will we do this? Well, we must follow the laws of language, or, more accurately, the laws of the common Greek used 2,000 years ago. When we scrutinize something in English, we readily pay strict attention to the case of a word, its prefix, its suffix, its tense, and which part of speech it is (noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, or interjection.) A functional understanding of each of these topics are vital to following this study. No, don’t worry; it’s not going to be complicated, and I will be providing important topics throughout the entirety of this series which will help any student in any other part of the word of God, as well. Throughout our venture, I will be peeling back the same laws of language for the student of Scripture who honestly seeks to learn the original Greek transcripts by which our English texts are inspired.

But how will we study the Greek language without affirmations from Greek scholars? Well, our method of study seeks uniformity, first and foremost. The Greek is unique, in that every Greek word is not written repetitiously, but the spelling continually altered to note the different inflection of each word, as in the “prefixes,” “suffixes,” or additional elements inserted to essentially build a word. When translated into English, the literal rendering of these elements help us greatly in grasping God’s use and force of an individual term, making a “transliteration” of the Greek text a valuable resource.

…You’re Kidding, Right?

No! God’s really not fooling you. Consider the following example, using the Greek word propator. This word propator has two elements, reading “BEFORE-FATHER.” From these elements, as well as every single use of the word propator in the New Testament (which, in this case, is only Romans 4:1 in reference to Abraham,) and knowing that there is already a word for “father” (being pator,) we can safely assert that God uses propator to mean “forefather” in English.

Another example would be the word akakon in Greek. The Greek elements of this word are “UN-EVIL.” That, as well as every use of akakon in the NT (being Romans 16:18 and Hebrews 7:26,) we can safely conclude that God is saying “innocent.”

With this method of study, our theories and pre-suppositions must be up-ended. We see a God Who knows which word He is using, Who is acutely aware of the exact elements of a language which He Himself created to impart His word. Thus, we cannot pretend that the two words we just considered are “only theoretical,” or “only accurate in a sense,” in regards to The Bible, for we considered each use, and gave the Greek word an exact English equivalent. There’s no reason to ever have to question ourselves on propator or akakon in the Bible now, right? We can, of course, gain more insight into the depth of each use of of our examples, at some later date, but we cannot ignore the fact that we, the honest truth seekers of the world, have had the words propator and akakon in the holy Scriptures firmly established for us by the Creator of all.

It is wonderful to note that our Father would use a language that can be broken down to its base elements like this for maximum guidance and clarity, of which no teacher could rival. It’s truly this simple.

Fine. I’ll Tentatively Go With It. But I Have A Few Concerns…

I hear you. Which Greek manuscript is being carefully translated like this, and how do we know it’s the oldest?

Thank you for asking!

Of course, the manuscript we want to translate should be the originals. Unfortunately, they are lost to time, so we want to find the oldest, as they are the closest to the original. In order to grasp this, we can perform some immediate proofs to assist us in finding the oldest manuscript to consider:

1)    The letters. First century Greek did not use lower case letters, but capital letters only. If the version we find considers a Greek manuscript in the lower case, then we cannot use it because it fails to translate the oldest manuscript we can find.

2)    The iota subscript. Okay, okay, I get it. “What the hell is an iota subscript?” Well, in modern Greek, many writers put a tiny version of the Greek letter “iota” under specific vowels. There is much evidence to the fact that this “iota” does not exist in koine Greek at the time the Greek Scriptures were penned (not to mention that there are many older manuscripts which do not contain this subscript,) so we can disregard any manuscript which includes this subscript.

3)    The spacing. Yes, because if things weren’t already dense enough, spacing is not present in the original manuscripts. Instead of words flowing normally, wehavewordssniffingeachothersasseslikethis. Yes, it makes everything much more annoying to read, so for clarifications’ sake, I will be spacing the words throughout my study, sifting through each thought piece by piece, but keep in mind that this is not the case in the manuscript we are studying.

4)    The punctuation. Yup, that’s right, folks, no punctuation in the original manuscripts. Go figure!

When we disregard manuscripts which fail to meet the listed standards, and seek the oldest manuscripts available, we find that three suitable manuscripts for our purposes:

-       Codex Sinaiticus

-       Codex Vaticanus

-       Codex Alexandrinus

I will give a brief (but detailed) description of these three codices in a moment, but first I would like to clarify that these three manuscripts are not in perfect agreement with each other. These are copies, not originals. That may sound disappointing at the outset, but here’s the thing. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus are the two oldest manuscripts. Alexandrinus is the youngest of the three, and exists to settle a matter when the two disagree. This is a divine principle established by God in the text (Deut. 19:15, John 8:16-17, 2 Cor. 13:1,) so it should come as no surprise that three ancient texts have reached our modern day.

While I will be relying on Alexandrinus for the purpose of settling a conflict between its older siblings, I will very likely not lean on Alexandrinus as the foundation for something unless firmly demonstrable. Moreover, I will not make any attempt to prefer Sinaiticus over Vaticanus, or vice versa. To make the broad declaration that one of these three manuscripts deserves highest preference would not suit our desire to be informed.

How do we know which text says what? Obviously, we can study three different fac-similes of these texts, but it would be… inefficient, wouldn’t you say? Is there a tool that can provide us with a quick, easy method to study all three of these texts?

…Yes. And good riddance, because I’m lazy.

The “Concordant Greek Text” is a thorough compilation of these three manuscripts. It combines the three texts (and considers a few other things, as we’ll note in a moment,) and has its own line to note when anything differs. The text further has a transliteration beneath each Greek word, oft-times noting the Greek elements as opposed to translating them in accord with the laws of English.

(Note: For PC users who may not want to use the linked pdf to the Concordant Greek Text, I recommend the free Scripture4All Greek/Hebrew interlinear Bible software instead, which provides the same interlinear for this Concordant Greek Text, while additionally noting the individual inflections for each use, and even contains a short guide on studying the Greek!)

This makes it easy for us, at a glance, to see if any of the passages disagree with each other. A.E. Knoch, the compiler of the Concordant Greek Text, writes:

“For all practical purposes the text is very pure – perhaps one in thousand letters is open to serious question – which cannot be said with equal truth of any other ancient writing which has come down to us. On all the great truths of Holy Writ there is ample evidence to assure certainty and confidence. The loss in translation has been hundred-fold more than in the transmission of the text.”

Using this method, we are gracious able to study fact, not interpretation. We can find answers, not theories. Using this method, we need not worry about what man thinks of the text, but just… read the text itself, free of any religious baggage.

Now, for the sake of contrast, I will be presenting some of the major differences between what a properly-translated-letter-from-Paul says, as opposed to what the preacher on the pulpit says. That said, we will primarily be enjoying the text as-is. I do not have some deeply-rooted connection to some avenue of Christendom (you can “label” me if you’d like, but I am primarily concerned with what the text says, in its context, so throwing me into some philosophical category won’t do either you or me any good.) Whether that aligns me with some broad perspective or not means nothing to me, as any claim I’m making will either:

a)    be expressly stated as my taken-with-a-grain-of-salt opinion (for example, articles #32 to #37,) or

b)    be backed up by these ancient manuscripts, properly translated.

Wow. Okay, Tell Me More.

With that, let me tell you a tad bit about these manuscripts.

Codex Sinaiticus is the most “complete” manuscript we have. Sinaiticus carries the entire New Testament, missing only the final few verses of the book of Mark. It was found in 1844 at a monastery on Mt. Sinai, where some old monks were using ancient (invaluable) manuscripts as fuel for fires. Constantin Tischendorf, an old linguist with a knack for translating and a desire to find the oldest Biblical texts, grabbed these manuscripts over the course of two trips, returning with Codex Sinaiticus and a copy of the Greek Old Testament (called “The Septuagint”) in 1859.

Concerning this Sinaiticus manuscript specifically, there were editors who noted differences between the Sinaiticus text and older readings that they held at that time. On this, Knoch writes in the Intro to the Concordant Greek Text (p. 21) –

“The readings of Sinaiticus are of two classes. First there are the corrections made at the time the manuscript was written or soon afterwards. These are sometimes called the ‘A’ or ‘B’ readings. They are shown in the Concordant Version as s*. The second class of corrections are editorial in nature and were made some centuries later. They are sometimes called the ‘C’ readings. The Concordant superlinear gives them as s², s³, s⁴, and s⁵. Very few alterations were made much later and are known as ‘F’ readings s⁶.”

This is a lot of different considerations to be making, but the only editor that Knoch truly takes into consideration is the s² editor, as this editor sought to conform the text to the oldest available evidence that he had at that time. Knoch explains a bit more about him, but I don’t think it’s necessary to recite all of the information he provides (you can read the rest of the Concordant Greek Text Introduction, if you’re interested.) Whenever a major “edit” is included in the Concordant version, brought about by the Sinaiticus editor, we will take it into consideration.

Codex Vaticanus, in contrast, is missing all of Paul’s personal epistles (the last four, in most Bibles) the last fourth of Hebrews, and Revelation. In order to make up for the lack of Revelation, Knoch and co. utilized another codex, called “Codex Basilianus,” or “Vaticanus 2066,” which isn’t critical information for us now, but will be if we ever study Revelation.

Vaticanus is considered the oldest manuscript. In 1889-1890 a copy of this manuscript was made known to everyone, having been (and still) kept in the Vatican Library in Rome. This manuscript is greatly valuable in that the Sinaiticus editor (possibly unintentionally) aligns most of his edits with the Vaticanus manuscript!

Codex Alexandrinus is the second-largest manuscript, missing most of Matthew, a tad bit of John, and the middle chunk of 2 Corinthians. Codex Alexandrinus is the most popular “ancient” manuscript in that it has always been copied and shared since its insemination, and has been the starting place for many of the newer manuscripts.

These are the three sources in considerations. These are the Scriptures, and any version that does not translate our decisive manuscripts are not needed for the purposes of truth.

(to be continued)

- GerudoKing