Searching for the Original Bible: *Who Wrote It and Why? *Is It Reliable? *Has the Text Changed Over Time?

299 Pages·2007·7.629 MB·English

by  Randall Price PH.D.

Searching for
THE
Original
oible
Randall Price
W
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE. OREGON
I
I
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,
1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)
All emphasis in Scripture quotations has been added by the author.
Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota
Cover photo © Karen Benzian I Isrealimages /Alamy
ERRATA
The section entitled "What About ‘Errors’ in the Manuscripts?" on
pages 115 to 116 contains original statistical information produced by
Daniel B. Wallace and is taken from his chapter “Can We Trust the New
Testament?: The Quality and Quantity of Textual Variants" as contained in
J. Ed Komoszewski, D. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing
Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell
You (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2006), pp. 59-61.
SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINAL BIBLE
Copyright © 2007 by World of the Bible Ministries
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishcrs.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Price, Randall.
Searching for the original Bible / Randall Price
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7369-1054-5 (pbk.)
ISBN-10:0-7369-1054-9 (pbk.)
1. Bible—Inspiration. 2. Bible—Evidences, authority, etc. I. Title.
BS480.P754 2007
220.1—dc22 2007014163
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording,
or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the
publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15/VP-KB/ 12 11 10 987654321
■
L
In memory of my mother
Maurine Grace Atkins Price
A woman of the Word
who taught me to be
a man of the Word
Dedicated to
Marsha Ginzel Stuckly
A faithful friend
who knows the greatest gift
is the giving of God’s Word
Acknowledgments
As with each of my books, I owe the successful completion of this one to many who
have graciously given of their time, resources, and permission. My gratitude is extended
to the many evangelical scholars who have helped me understand and respond to the
recent critical challenges to the biblical text. Particular thanks are given to Dr. Daniel
B. Wallace (Dallas Seminary, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New
Testament Manuscripts) for his kind attention to my questions concerning historical
and textual questions; and to Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (Gordon-Conwell Seminary) for
taking time to discuss with me some of the difficult issues related to the text of the Old
Testament. I am also grateful to Richard Averbeck (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)
for sharing with me some of his ongoing research concerning the early development of
the Hebrew text. Special thanks is given to Ken Stanford, Operations Manager of World
of the Bible Ministries, for research assistance, and for his and Mrs. Lori Davis’s help
with the charts and tables.
I especially wish to thank my friend and former professor Dr. Charles C. Ryrie, one of
the foremost authorities on the Bible and especially the extant biblical manuscripts and
versions, for writing the foreword. I also am grateful for the kind endorsements of Dr.
Kenneth Barker and Dr. H. Wayne House, and those of Dr. Wallace and Dr. Kaiser. All of
these have been my teachers through their own valuable writings.
Finding sufficient seclusion to complete a manuscript is always a necessity for me, and
I wish to thank Rev. Tommy and Sue Jenkins for the use of their home during some of
the writing process. Leon and Linda Hewlett also graciously offered their hospitality and
provided use of their “casita,” which enabled me to meet my deadline. Thank you both so
much for your kindness and encouragement! I am grateful to the following friends for
their photographic assistance or use of photos from their archives: Paul Streber (Qumran),
Rick Schuler (Jerusalem), and Alexander Schick (Bibelausstellung Sylt, Germany).
Appreciation is also given to the following institutions for permission to photograph or
use photographs from their collections: Bible Society (Jerusalem), Cairo Museum, Coptic
Museum (Cairo), British Museum/British Library (London), Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur
M. Sackler Gallery (Washington, DC), Shrine of the Book (Jerusalem). I am also grateful
to Bob Hawkins Jr. for his working with me when circumstances required the extension of
our original publication schedule, to Paul Gossard for his editorial oversight of this project,
and to the production staff of Harvest House Publishers for their skill at their craft.
Finally, the dedication of time and attention necessary for each book 1 write only increases my
love for my wife Beverlee and my now grown children and their spouses (Eric and Elisabeth Ream,
Pavel and Eleisha Tabares, Erin Price, Jon Price, and Emilee Price), who have shared with me in
different ways in the authorial process. Their own devotion to the Bible as the Word of God and
diligence in following its precepts have been a constant joy in my life and a witness to the reality of
its divine origin. May whatever use the Lord makes of its publication give a sense of reward to each
who have in some way helped bring it to life.
Contents
List of Photographs 9
List of Charts 10
Foreword by Dr. Charles Ryrie 11
Why Believe the Bible? 13
Part One:
Searching for Evidence of the Original Bible
1. Why Does It Matter? 19
2. What Do We Mean by the “Original Bible”? 31
3. What Happened to the Original Bible? .. .. 45
4. Witnesses to the Original Old Testament .. 55
5. Witnesses to the Original New Testament . 77
Part Two:
Searching for the Reliability of the Original Bible
6. Can We Trust the Text of the Old Testament?. 87
7. Can We Trust the Text of the New Testament? 109
Part Three:
Searching for the Truth About the Original Bible
8. Are Books Missing from Our Bible? 129
9. Who Decided What Books Went into the Bible? .... 141
10. Has the Truth About Jesus in the
Original Gospels Been Lost? 159
11. What the New Gospels Say About the Christian Faith 177
12. Do We Have Now What They Had Then? 195
Part Four:
Searching for the Restoration of the Original Bible
13. Can the Original Bible Be Recovered?..................... 211
14. What Should We Believe About the Original Bible? 239
Notes ................................................. 263
Acknowledgments for Photographs 279
Recommended Reading ................. 281
Person Index ..................................... 285
Subject Index ................................... 287
List of Photographs
Replica of stone tablet containing the Ten Commandments 37
Author in genizah of the Jewish synagogue at Masada 50
Page of Aleppo Codex 58
Page of Codex Leningradensis 60
Nash Papyrus 61
Author in Dead Sea Scroll Cave 4 at Qumran 62
Dead Sea Scroll Cave 1 at Qumran................................................................. 64
Biblical Dead Sea Scroll (Psalm scroll) from cave 11 65
Septuagint, Codex Vaticanus 68
Septuagint, Codex Sinaiticus 69
Page of Codex Alexandrinus 70
Samaritan priests with Samaritan Pentateuch at Mt. Gerizim, Shechem ... 71
Syriac Peshitta 75
Reproduction of earliest portion of Gospel of John (from Rylands Papyri).. 78
Portion of Gospel of John (from Bodmer Papyri) 78
Earliest copy of Jude and 1 and 2 Peter (from Bodmer Papyri) 79
Codex Vaticanus: close-up of John 1:1-14..................................................... 80
Codex Sinaiticus 80
Konstantin von Tischendorf 81
Greek Orthodox monks with codex at St. Catherine’s Monastery
at Mt. Sinai 81
Silver amulet inscribed with the oldest text of the Hebrew Bible 92
Tools of the scribe............................................................................................ 96
Name of God (YHWH) in paleo-Hebrew script in Hebrew Dead Sea Scroll
biblical manuscript 98
Constantine, first Christian Emperor of Rome 155
Papyrus codices containing Gnostic documents from Nag Hammadi 160
Gospel of Thomas from Nag Hammadi 178
Four Gospels (Codex Washingtonensis) 212
Temple Mount (Jerusalem, Israel), possible site of hidden manuscripts ... 214
Remains of a Byzantine church, Pella (now in Jordan), possible site
of hidden manuscripts 215
For photograph credits and source information, see “Acknowledgments for Photographs’’
at the end of this book.
List of Charts
Witnesses to the Text of the Hebrew Bible....................................... 56
Biblical Manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls................................... 63
Textual Alignment of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Masoretic Text 66
Sources for the Critical Text of the Hebrew Bible........................... 76
Sources for the Critical Text of the New Testament........................ 84
Local Text Family Theory................................................................. 98
Timeline for the Development of the Hebrew Text.......................... 103
External Evidence for the New Testament Text................................ 112
Dates of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts.......................... 113
Manuscript Evidence for Ancient Writings...................................... 114
Books of the Apocrypha I Books of the Pseudepigrapha /
Sectarian Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls.................1..3..4.......
Books Included by Judaism and Christianity.................................. 149
Gnostics and Gnosticism................................................................... 167
Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church................................... 188
Rules for the Scribe........................................................................... 199
Jewish and Christian Divisions of the Bible..................................... 205
Scribal Tendencies that Produced Textual Variants.......................... 217
Textual Criticism Timeline............................................................... 222
Process of New Testament Textual Transmission........................... 228
The Principles (Canons) of Internal Criticism............................... 230
Foreword
by Dr. Charles Ryrie
New School. Higher criticism. Textual criticism. The Jesus Seminar. The
Judas Gospel. Gnosticism. Postmodernism. The Apocrypha. Inerrancy. What
do they mean? Should we be concerned about them? How do they affect
our attitude toward and our understanding of the Bible?
In this important book, Dr. Price deals with these matters for a variety
of readers. Those who affirm inerrancy, those who are less certain of it or
even what it means, those who outright deny it, those who do not know
or ignore the wealth of evidence for the preservation and transmission of
the biblical text, and those who are indifferent or uniformed about these
issues—all of them need to read this excellent work.
Thorough research, informative sidebars, charts, photographs, and clear
writing all combine to make this book a significant, up-to-date defense of
the inerrancy and reliability of our Bible. How anyone could read this book
without having more confidence in the accuracy and dependability of the
biblical text we have today would be a mystery to me.
—Charles Caldwell Ryrie
July 2007
11
I
!.
1