Documents of the Bible

18 Pages·2009·1.23 MB·English

Documents of the Bible

Some helpful definitions

The Tanakh (also Tenakh or Tenak) is the Bible used in
The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated from
Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew
the Hebrew, probably in the second century. The New
acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the
Testament of the Peshitta, which originally excluded
Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah
certain disputed books, had become the standard by the
("Teaching," also known as the Five Books of Moses),
early 5th century, replacing two early Syriac versions of
Nevi'im("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") -
the gospels.
hence TaNaKh. The elements of the Tanakh are
incorporated in various forms in Christian Bibles, in A Codex (Latin for block of wood, book; plural codices)
which, with some variations, it is called the "Old is a book in the format used for modern books, with
Testament." According to the Talmud, much of the separate pages bound together and given a cover. It
contents of the Tanakh were compiled by the "Men of was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll. The
the Great Assembly" by 450 BCE, and have since term is now used only for manuscripts (hand-written),
remained unchanged. produced from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages.
Novum Testamentum Graece is the Latin name of A New Testament papyrus is a copy of a portion of
the Greek language version of the New Testament. The the New Testament made on papyrus. To date, over one
first printed edition was produced by Erasmus. Today hundred and twenty such papyri are known. In general,
the designation Novum Testamentum Graece normally they are considered the earliest and best witnesses to
refers to the Nestle-Aland editions, named after the the original text of the New Testament.
scholars who led the critical editing work. The text,
A New Testament uncial is a copy of a portion of the
edited by the Institut für neutestamentliche
New Testament in Greek or Latin capital (or majuscule)
Textforschung (Institute for New Testament Textual
letters, written on parchment or vellum. The style of
Research) is currently in its 27th edition, abbreviated
writing called Biblical Uncial orBiblical Majuscule.
NA27. NA27 is used as the basis of most contemporary
New Testament translations, as well as being the A New Testament minuscule is a copy of a portion of
standard for academic work in New Testament studies. the New Testament written in a small, cursive Greek
script (developed from Uncial). Most of the minuscules
Textus Receptus (Latin: "received text") is the name
are still written on parchment. Paper was used since the
subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek
12th century.
texts of the New Testament which constituted the
translation base for the original German Luther Bible, for A Lectionary is a book or listing that contains a
the translation of the New Testament into English by collection of scripture readings appointed for Christian or
William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most Judaic worship on a given day or occasion.
other Reformation-era New Testament translations
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from
throughout Western and Central Europe.
the pithof the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus,[1] a
The Septuagint or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta.
version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages
Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin,
between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria. It
sheepskin or goatskin. Its most common use is as the
is the oldest of several ancient translations of the
pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from
Hebrew Bible into Greek, lingua franca of the eastern
leather in that parchment is not tanned, but stretched,
Mediterranean from the time of Alexander the Great
scraped, and dried under tension, creating a stiff white,
(356-323 BC). The word septuaginta means "seventy" in
yellowish or translucent animal skin. The finer qualities
Latin and derives from a tradition that seventy (or
of parchment are called vellum. It is very reactive with
seventy-two) Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch
changes in relative humidity and is not waterproof.
(Torah) from Hebrew into Greek for Ptolemy II
Philadelphus, 285–246 BC.
The Peshitta (Syriac: simple, common) is the standard
version of the Christian Bible in theSyriac language.
A basic timeline

~443 Completion of all the books of the original Hebrew manuscripts which make up the 39 books of the Old
B.C. Testament
~285 The Septuagint Pentateuch was written. It is the oldest written Greek version of the Pentateuch.
B.C.
~70 Completion of the Greek manuscripts which make up the 27 books of the New Testament
A.D.
400 Jerome converts the Greek and Hebrew texts into the Latin Vulgate, which is used by Roman Catholic
A.D. church. It became the definitive and officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible of the Roman Catholic
Church. In the 13th century it came to be called versio vulgata, which means "common translation". There
are 76 books in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate Bible: 46 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New
Testament, and three in the Apocrypha.
1008 Best known (Codex Leningradensis) Masoretic text of complete Old Testament is copied by the Ben
Asher family. This test will be used by all future versions of the Bible. Despite how old these texts were,
they were still written from one to two thousand years after the original autographs of the Old Testament.
1611 King James Version (known in England as The Authorized Version) is published. King James I (formerly King
James VI of Scotland) authorized a new Bible to be created from the Bishop's Bible, The Great Bible,
Tyndale's Bible, Coverdale's Bible and Geneva Bible. 50 scholars began in 1607 using the Hebrew
Masoretic Text (900 AD) and the Greek Textus Receptus by Erasmus.
1630 Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th century completed Greek New Testament manuscript was brought to England.
1830s Constanin von Tischendorf finds Codex Sinaiticus Greek text in monastery. Codex Sinaiticus is one of the
most important hand-written ancient copies of the Greek Bible. It was written in the 4th century, in uncial
letters. It came to the attention of scholars in the 19th century at the Greek Monastery of Mount Sinai, with
further material discovered in the 20th century, and most of it is today in the British Library. Originally it
contained the whole of both Testaments. The Greek Old Testament survived almost complete, along with a
complete New Testament, plus the Epistle of Barnabas, and portions of The Shepherd of Hermas.
1850s Codex Vaticanus of Greek text dated 325 AD was found in The Vatican's library, where it had been since
1481, but not made available until now. It is written in Greek, on vellum, with uncial letters. It is one of the
best manuscripts of Greek Bible. Codex Sinaiticus is its only one competitor. Until the discovery by
Tischendorf of the Codex Sinaiticus, it was without a rival in the world.
Early Discovery of thousands of papyri in Egypt showed that most documents written between 200-300 AD were
1900s written in Koine (common) Greek vs. the poetic form of Greek used by poets. This was the language of the
people. This prompted scholars to translate from the Elizabethan English to the current language of the
people.
1947 Discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls gives 1000 yr older translations of major part of Old Testament. These
were written between 250 BC and 70 AD. The scrolls are very similar to the Masoretic text, which
confirms that the Masoretes took great care in its development. Other discoveries throughout the 20th
century improve knowledge about the New Testament.
They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus.
These manuscripts generally date between 150 BC to 70 AD. The scrolls are most commonly identified with
the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes. The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups:
"Biblical" manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified
scrolls; "Apocryphal" or "Pseudepigraphical" manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period
like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the
Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and "Sectarian" manuscripts
(previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within
greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War Scroll, Pesher ("Commentary") on Habakkuk, and the Rule
of the Blessing, which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls.
Influence
Accuracy of the New Testament
In "The Text Of The New Testament", Kurt Aland and Earlier translations of the Bible, including
Barbara Aland compare the total number of variant- the Authorized King James Version, tended to rely on
free verses, and the number of variants per page the Byzantine text-type, also known as the Majority
among the seven major editions of the Greek NT Text. A number of translations began to use critical
(Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, von Soden, Vogels, Merk, Greek editions, beginning with the translation of
Bover and Nestle-Aland) concluding 62.9%, or the Revised Version in England in 1881-1885 (using
4999/7947, agreement.[9] They concluded, "Thus in Westcott and Hort's Greek Text). A comparison of
nearly two-thirds of the New Testament text, the twenty translations with 15,000 variant readings shows
seven editions of the Greek New Testament which we the following percentages of agreement with the
have reviewed are in complete accord, with no Nestle-Aland 27th edition (NA27):
differences other than in orthographical details (e.g.,
the spelling of names, etc.). Verses in which any one
Agreement
of the seven editions differs by a single word are not Abbrev. Name
with NA27
counted. This result is quite amazing, demonstrating a
NAS New American Standard 84%
far greater agreement among the Greek texts of the
New Testament during the past century than textual ASV American Standard Version 84%
scholars would have suspected […].
New American Standard
NAU 83%
Total Variant- Variants 1995 Update
Book Number Free Percentage per
NAB New American Bible 83%
Of Verses Verses- page
Matthew 1071 642 59.9 % 6.8 ESV English Standard Version 83%
Mark 678 306 45.1 % 10.3 Holman Christian Standard
HCS 82%
Luke 1151 658 57.2 % 6.9 Bible
John 869 450 51.8 % 8.5 New Revised Standard
NRS 82%
Acts 1006 677 67.3 % 4.2 Version
Romans 433 327 75.5 % 2.9 NET New English Translation 80%
1 Corinth. 437 331 75.7 % 3.5
RSV Revised Standard Version 80%
2 Corinth. 206 200 78.1 % 2.8
NIV New International Version 74%
Galatians 149 114 76.5 % 3.3
Ephesians 155 118 76.1 % 2.9 NJB New Jerusalem Bible 73%
Philippians 104 73 70.2 % 2.5 REB Revised English Bible 71%
Colossians 95 69 72.6 % 3.4
JNT Jewish New Testament 70%
1 Thess 89 61 68.5 % 4.1
GNB Good News Bible 69%
2 Thess 47 34 72.3 % 3.1
1 Timothy 113 92 81.4 % 2.9 NLT New Living Translation 68%
2 Timothy 83 66 79.5 % 2.8 Douay-Rheims American
DRA 61%
Titus 46 33 71.7 % 2.3 edition
Philemon 20 19 76.0 % 5.1 TLB The Living Bible 55%
Hebrews 303 234 77.2 % 2.9
MRD Murdock Peshitta translation 51%
James 108 66 61.6 % 5.6
NKJ New King James Bible 49%
1 Peter 105 70 66.6 % 5.7
2 Peter 61 32 52.5 % 6.5 KJV King James Version 47%
1 John 105 76 72.4 % 2.8
2 John 13 8 61.5 % 4.5
3 John 15 11 73.3 % 3.2
Jude 20 18 72.0 % 4.2
Revelation 405 214 52.8 % 5.1
Total 7947 4999 62.9 %
Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) manuscripts
The Aleppo Codex (c. 920 CE) and Leningrad Codex (c. 1008 CE) are the oldest complete Hebrew manuscripts of
the Tanakh. The 1947 find at Qumran of the Dead Sea scrolls pushed the manuscript history of the Tanakh back a
millennium from the two earliest complete codices (see Tanakh at Qumran). Before this discovery, the earliest extant
manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.
Out of the roughly 800 manuscripts found at Qumran, 220 are from the Tanakh. Every book of the Tanakh is
represented except for the Book of Esther; however, most are fragmentary. Notably, there are two scrolls of the Book
of Isaiah, one complete and one around 75% complete. These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE to 70 CE.
The Aleppo Codex is the most complete extant version of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the 10th
century CE. It is considered the most authoritative document in the masorah ("transmission"), the tradition by which
the Hebrew Scriptures have been preserved from generation to generation. Surviving examples of response literature
show that the Aleppo Codex was consulted by far-flung Jewish scholars throughout the Middle Ages, and modern
studies have shown it to be the most accurate representation of Masoretic principles in any extant manuscript,
containing very few errors among the millions of orthographic details that make up the Masoretic text. Thus, the
Aleppo Codex is seen as the most authoritative source document for both the original biblical text and its vocalization.
The Leningrad Codex (or Codex Leningradensis) is one of the oldest manuscripts of the complete Hebrew Bible
produced according to the Tiberian mesorah; it is dated 1008 according to its colophon. The Aleppo Codex, against
which the Leningrad Codex was corrected, was the first such manuscript and is several decades older, but parts of it
have been missing since 1947, making the Leningrad Codex the oldest complete codex of the Tiberian mesorah that
has survived intact to this day. In modern times, the Leningrad Codex is most important as the Hebrew text
reproduced in Biblia Hebraica (1937) and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977). It also serves scholars as a primary
source for the recovery of details in the missing parts of the Aleppo Codex.
Extant Tanakh manuscripts
Manuscript Examples Language Date
Hebrew, Paleo Hebrewand
Dead Sea Scrolls Tanakh at Qumran c. 150 BCE - 70 CE
Greek (Septuagint)

Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus,
Septuagint Alexandrinus, and other earlier Greek 4th century CE
papyri

Peshitta Syriac early 5th century CE

Vulgate Latin early 5th century CE

Aleppo Codex, Leningrad
Masoretic Hebrew 10th century CE
Codex and other incomplete mss

Oldest extant mss c.11th
century CE, oldest mss
Samaritan Pentateuch Samaritan alphabet
available to scholars 16th
century CE

Targum Aramaic 11th century CE
The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh). It defines not just the books of the Jewish
canon, but also the precise letter-text of the biblical books in Judaism, as well as their vocalization and accentuation.
The MT is also widely used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles, and in recent
decades also for Catholic Bibles. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the
ninth century AD, and the Aleppo Codex (once the oldest complete copy of the Masoretic Text, but now missing its
Torah section) dates from the tenth century.
Manuscript construction
An important issue with manuscripts is preservation. Distribution of Greek manuscripts by century [10]
The earliest New Testament manuscripts were
written on papyrus, a plant that grew abundantly in New Testament
Lectionaries
the Egyptian Nile Delta. This tradition continued on Manuscripts
to as late as the 8th century. Papyrus becomes Century Papyri Uncials Minuscules Uncials Minuscules
brittle and deteriorates with age. The dry climate of
2nd 2 - - - -
Egypt allowed for some papyrus manuscripts to be
partially preserved, but, with the exception of P77, c. 200 4 - - - -
no New Testament papyrus manuscript is complete,
2nd/3rd 1 1 - - -
with many consisting only of a single fragmented
page. 3rd 28 2 - - -
However, beginning in the 4th century, parchment 3rd/4th 8 2 - - -
(also called vellum) began to be the common
4th 14 14 - 1 -
medium used for New Testament manuscripts. It
wasn't until the 12th century that paper, which was 4th/5th 8 8 - - -
invented in 1st century China, began to gain
5th 2 36 - 1 -
popularity in biblical manuscripts.
5th/6th 4 10 - - -
Script and other features
6th 7 51 - 3 -
The handwriting found in New Testament
manuscripts varies. One way of classifying 6th/7th 5 5 - 1 -
handwriting is by formality: book-hand vs. cursive.
7th 8 28 - 4 -
More formal, literary Greek works were often written
in a distinctive style of even, capital letters called 7th/8th 3 4 - - -
book-hand. Less formal writing consisted of cursive
8th 2 29 - 22 -
letters which could be written quickly. Another way
of dividing handwriting is between uncial (or 8th/9th - 4 - 5 -
majuscule) and minuscule. The uncial letters were a
9th - 53 13 113 5
consistent height between the baseline and the cap
9th/10th - 1 4 - 1
height, while the minuscule letters had ascenders
and descenders that moved past the baseline and 10th - 17 124 108 38
cap height. Generally speaking, the majuscules are
10th/11th - 3 8 3 4
earlier than the minuscules, with a dividing line
roughly in the 11th century. 11th - 1 429 15 227
The earliest manuscripts had hardly, if any, 11th/12th - - 33 - 13
punctuation or breathing marks. The manuscripts
12th - - 555 6 486
also lacked word spacing, so words, sentences, and
paragraphs would be a continuous string of letters 12th/13th - - 26 - 17
(scriptio continua), often with line breaks in the
13th - - 547 4 394
middle of words. Bookmaking was an expensive
endeavor, and one way to reduce the number of 13th/14th - - 28 - 17
pages used was to save space. Another method
14th - - 511 - 308
employed was to abbreviate frequent words, such as
the nomina sacra. Yet another method involved the 14th/15th - - 8 - 2
palimpsest, a manuscript which recycled an older
15th - - 241 - 171
manuscript. Scholars using careful examination can
sometimes determine what was originally written on 15th/16th - - 4 - 2
the material of a document before it was erased to 16th - - 136 - 194
make way for a new text (for example Codex

Ephraemi Rescriptus and the Sinaitic Palimpsest).
Dating the New Testament manuscripts
Earliest extant manuscripts
The earliest manuscript of a New Testament text is a business card sized fragment from the Gospel of John, Rylands
Library Papyrus P52, which dates to the first half of the 2nd century. The first complete copies of single New
Testament books appear around 200, and the earliest complete copy of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus
dates to the 4th century.[26] The following table lists the earliest extant manuscript witnesses for the books of the
New Testament.
The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St
John's fragment, measures only 3.5 by 2.5 inches at its widest.
Manuscript
Book Condition The front contains lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in
Date
Greek, and the back (verso) contains lines from verses 37–38.
Matthew c. 200 Fragments
Gospel of John 18:31-33 (recto)
Mark c. 250 Large Fragments
ΕΙΠΟΝ ΑΥΤΩ ΟΙ
Luke c. 200 Fragment
ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ ΗΜΙΝ ΟΥΚ
John c. 125-160 Fragment ΕΞΕΣΤΙΝ
early 3rd ΑΠΟΚΤΕΙΝΑΙ OYΔΕΝΑ ΙΝΑ Ο
Acts Fragment
cent.[27] ΛΟΓΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΙΗΣΟΥ
ΠΛΗΡΩΘΗ ΟΝ ΕΙΠΕΝ
Romans c. 175-225 Fragments
ΣΕΜΑΙΝΩΝ ΠΟΙΩ ΘΑΝΑΤΩ
1 Corinthians c. 175-225 Fragments ΗΜΕΛΛΕΝ ΑΠΟΘΝΕΣΚΕΙΝ
2 Corinthians c. 175-225 Fragments ΕΙΣΗΛΘΕΝ ΟΥΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ
ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩΡΙΟΝ Ο
Galatians c. 175-225 Fragments
ΠΙΛΑΤΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΦΩΝΗΣΕΝ
Ephesians c. 175-225 Fragments ΤΟΝ ΙΗΣΟΥΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΙΠΕΝ
ΑΥΤΩ ΣΥ ΕΙ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ
Philippians c. 175-225 Fragments
ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩN
Colossians c. 175-225 Fragments
1 Gospel of John 18:37-38 (verso)
c. 175-225 Fragments
Thessalonians
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΕΙΜΙ ΕΓΩ ΕΙΣ
2 ΤΟΥΤΟ ΓΕΓΕΝΝΗΜΑΙ ΚΑΙ (ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ) ΕΛΗΛΥΘΑ ΕΙΣ ΤΟΝ
3rd/4th cent. Fragment
Thessalonians ΚΟΣΜΟΝ ΙΝΑ ΜΑΡΤΥΡΗΣΩ ΤΗ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ ΠΑΣ Ο ΩΝ
1 Timothy c. 350 Complete ΕΚ ΤΗΣ ΑΛΗΘΕIΑΣ
ΑΚΟΥΕΙ ΜΟΥ ΤΗΣ
2 Timothy c. 350 Complete
ΦΩΝΗΣ
Titus c. 200 Fragment ΛΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΩ Ο ΠΙΛΑΤΟΣ
Philemon 3rd cent. Fragment ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥΤΟ ΕΙΠΩΝ
Hebrews c. 175-225 Fragments
ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΞΗΛΘΕΝ
James 3rd cent. Fragment ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΥΣ
1 Peter 3rd/4th cent. Fragments ΚΑΙ ΛΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΟΙΣ
ΕΓΩ ΟΥΔΕΜΙΑΝ
2 Peter 3rd/4th cent. Fragments
ΕΥΡΙΣΚΩ ΕΝ ΑΥΤΩ
1 John 3rd cent. Fragment ΑΙΤΙΑΝ
2 John 3rd/4th cent. Fragment
3 John c. 350 Complete
Jude 3rd/4th cent. Fragments
Revelation c. 275 Fragment
The Bible comprises 24 books for Jews, 66 for Protestants, 73 for Catholics, and 78 for most OrthodoxChristians.
These books vary in length from a single page of modern type to dozens of pages. All but the shortest are divided
into chapters, generally a page or two in length.
Each is further divided into verses of a few short lines or sentences. Pasuk (plural pesukim) is the Hebrew term for
verse.
The Jewish divisions of the Hebrew text differ at various points from those used by Christians. For instance, in Jewish
tradition, the ascriptions to many Psalms are regarded as independent verses, making 116 more verses, whereas the
established Christian practice is to count and number each Psalm ascription together with the first verse following it.
Some chapter divisions also occur in different places, e.g. 1 Chronicles 5:27-41 in Hebrew Bibles is numbered as 1
Chron 6:1-15 in Christian translations.
Chapters
The original manuscripts did not contain the chapter and verse divisions in the numbered form familiar to modern
readers. Some portions of the original texts were logically divided into parts following the Hebrew alphabet; for
instance, the earliest known copies of the book of Isaiah use Hebrew letters for paragraph divisions. (This was
different from the acrostic structure of certain texts following the Hebrew alphabet, such as Psalm 119 and the book of
Lamentations.) There are other divisions from various sources which are different from what we use today.
The Old Testament began to be put into sections before the Babylonian Captivity (586 BC) with the five books of
Moses being put into a 154-section reading program to be used in a three-year cycle. Later (before 536 BC) the Law
was put into 54 sections and 669 sub-divisions for reading.
By the time of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the New Testament had been divided into paragraphs, although the
divisions were different from the modern Bible.
An important canon of the New Testament was proclaimed by Pope Damasus I in the Roman synod of 374. Pope
Damasus also induced Jerome, a priest from Antioch, to undertake his famous translation of the entire Bible, both Old
and New Testaments, from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, the official language of the time. This translation is known as
the Vulgate. The Church continued to finance the very expensive process of copying and providing copies of the Bible
to local churches and communities from that point up to and beyond the invention of the printing press, which greatly
reduced the cost of producing copies of the Scriptures.
Churchmen Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro determined different schemas for
systematic division of the Bible between 1227 and 1248. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern
chapter divisions are based.[1][2]
Verses
It is presently unknown how early the Hebrew verse divisions were incorporated into the books that comprise
the Biblical canon. However, it is beyond dispute that for at least a thousand years the Tanakhhas contained an
extensive system of multiple levels of section, paragraph, and phrasal divisions that were indicated
in Masoretic vocalization and cantillation markings. One of the most frequent of these was a special type of
punctuation, the sof passuq, symbol for a full stop or sentence break, resembling the colon mark (:) of English and
Latin orthography. With the advent of the printing press and the translation of theBible into English, Old Testament
versifications were made that correspond predominantly with the existing Hebrew full stops, with a few isolated
exceptions. A product of meticulous labour and unwearying attention, the Old Testament verse divisions stand today
in essentially the same places as they have been passed down since antiquity. Most attribute these to Rabbi Isaac
Nathan around 1440.[2]
The first person to divide New Testament chapters into verses was Italian Dominican biblical scholar Santi
Pagnini (1470–1541), a system that was never widely adopted.[3] Robert Estienne created an alternate numbering in
his 1551 edition of the Greek New Testament. The first English New Testament to use the verse divisions was a 1557
translation by William Whittingham (c. 1524-1579). The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was
the Geneva Bible published shortly afterwards in 1560. These verse divisions soon gained acceptance as a standard
way to notate verses, and have since been used in nearly all English Bibles.
Statistics
The following apply to the King James Version of Bible in its modern Protestant form, i.e. including the New Testament
but none of thedeuterocanonical books.
Chapters
(cid:131) There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 chapters in the New Testament. This gives a total of
1,189 chapters (on average, 18 per book).
(cid:131) Psalm 117 is the middle chapter of the Bible, being the 595th Chapter.[4]
(cid:131) Psalm 117 is also the shortest chapter of the Bible.
(cid:131) Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible.
Verses
(cid:131) There are 23,145 verses in the Old Testament and 7,957 verses in the New Testament. This gives a total of
31,102 verses,[5] which is an average of a little more than 26 verses per chapter.
(cid:131) Contrary to popular belief, Psalm 118 does not contain the middle verse of the Bible. The King James
Version has an even number of verses (31,102), with the two middle verses being Psalm 103:1-2.[6]
(cid:131) 1 Chronicles 1:25 ("Eber, Peleg, Reu") is the shortest verse in the Old Testament.
(cid:131) 1 Thessalonians 5:16 ("παντοτε χαιρετε", "Rejoice always") is the shortest verse in the original Greek of the
New Testament.[7]
(cid:131) Isaiah 10:8 ("Dicet enim") is the shortest verse in the Latin Vulgate.[8]
(cid:131) John 11:35 ("Jesus wept") is the shortest verse in most English translations. Some translations — including
the New International Version, New Living Translation, New Life Version, Holman Christian Standard Bible and
New International Reader's Version — render Job 3:2 as "He said". However, this is a translators'
condensation of the Hebrew which literally translated is "And Job answered and said."
(cid:131) Esther 8:9 is the longest verse in the Masoretic Text. The discovery of several manuscripts at Qumran (in
the Dead Sea Scrolls) has reopened what is considered the most original text of 1 Samuel 11; if one believes
that those manuscripts better preserve the text, several verses in 1 Samuel 11 surpass Esther 8:9 in length.
The Old Testament
Textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible compares manuscript versions of the following sources (dates refer to the oldest
extant manuscripts in each family):
Manuscript Examples Language Date
Hebrew, Paleo Hebrew and
Dead Sea Scrolls Tanakh at Qumran c. 150 BCE - 70 CE
Greek(Septuagint)
Codex Vaticanus, Codex
Septuagint Greek 4th century CE
Sinaiticus and other earlier papyri
Peshitta Syriac early 5th century CE
Vulgate Latin early 5th century CE
Aleppo Codex, Leningrad Codex and
Masoretic Hebrew 10th century CE
other incomplete mss
Oldest extant mss c.11th
century CE, oldest mss
Samaritan Pentateuch Samaritan alphabet
available to scholars 16th
century CE
Targum Aramaic 11th century CE

The New Testament
The New Testament has been preserved in more than 5,300 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300
manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Ethiopic and Armenian. New Testament textual
critics have sorted the witnesses into three major groups, called text-types. The most common division today is:
Text type Date Characteristics Bible version
This family constitutes a group of early and well-regarded texts,
including Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Most of this
tradition appear to come from around Alexandria, Egypt. It
The Alexandrian contains readings that are often terse, shorter, somewhat NIV, NAB, TNIV,
text-type 2nd-4th rough, less harmonised, and generally more difficult. The family NASB, RSV, ESV,
(also called century CE was once thought to be a very carefully edited third century EBR, NWT, LB, ASV
Minority Text) recension but now is believed to be merely the result of a ,NC, GNB
carefully controlled and supervised process of copying and
transmission. It underlies most modern translations of the New
Testament.
This is also very early and comes from a wide geographical area
stretching from North Africa to Italy from Gaul to Syria. It is
The Western text- 3rd-9th found in Greek manuscripts and in the Latin translations used
Vetus Latina
type century CE by the Western church. It is much less controlled than the
Alexandrian family and its witnesses are seen to be more prone
to paraphrase and other corruptions.
This is a group of around 80% of all manuscripts, the majority
of which are comparatively very late in the tradition. It had KJV, NKJV,
The Byzantine text- become dominant at Constantinople from the 5th century on Tyndale,
type 5th-16th and was used throughout the Byzantine church. It contains the Coverdale, Geneva,
(also called century CE most harmonistic readings, paraphrasing and significant Bishops' Bible,
Majority Text) additions, most of which are believed to be secondary readings. Douay-Rheims, JB,
It underlies the Textus Receptus used for most Reformation-era NJB, OSB
translations of the New Testament.
Minority Text versus Majority Text
The New Testament portion of the English translation known as the King James Version was based on theTextus
Receptus, a Greek text prepared by Erasmus based on a few late medieval Greek manuscripts of the Byzantine text-
type. However, following Westcott and Hort, most modern New Testament textual critics have concluded that the
Byzantine text-type was formalised at a later date than the Alexandrian and Western text-types. Among the other
types, the Alexandrian text-type (Minority Text) is viewed as more pure than the Western and Byzantine text-types,
and so one of the central tenets of current New Testament textual criticism is that one should follow the readings of
the Alexandrian texts unless those of the other types are clearly superior. Most modern New Testament translations
now use an Eclectic Greek text that is closest to the Alexandrian text-type. The United Bible Societies's Greek New
Testament (UBS4) and Nestle Aland (NA 27) are accepted by most of the academic community as the best attempt at
reconstructing the original texts of the Greek NT.
A minority position represented by The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text edition by Zane C.
Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad argues that the Byzantine text-type (Majority Text) represents an earlier text-type than
the surviving Alexandrian texts. The argument states that the far greater number of surviving later Byzantine
manuscripts implies an equivalent preponderance of Byzantine texts amongst lost earlier manuscripts; and hence that
a critical reconstruction of the predominant text of the Byzantine tradition would have a superior claim to being closest
to the autographs.
Luke 11:2 in Codex Sinaiticus

A page from Codex Vaticanus shows a medieval
scribe (the marginal note between columns one
and two) criticizing a predecessor for changing
the text: "Fool and knave, leave the old reading,
don't change it!"
From the Aleppo Codex, Deuteronomy.

John 1:1-7 Codex Alexandrinus
Codex Ebnerianus, Minuscule 105, (12th), John 1:5b-10